¶ … Marketing Principles and Practices to Organizational Goals
Section 2 Creating two coherent marketing mix proposals for two marketing opportunities
Section 3 Examine Strategies for Implementing Marketing Plans
The intent of this analysis is to accomplish three major goals through analysis of marketing concepts and principles, illustrating them through actual examples taken from a variety of industries. The first section is focused on assessing and analyzing the contribution of marketing principles and practices to organizational goals. Included in this analysis is an overview of the core concepts and frameworks including SWOT, PESTLE, stakeholder, segmentation, and buyer behavior concepts. Section 2 defines two coherent marketing mix proposals for two marketing mix opportunities. Marketing mix and positioning are defined within this section in the context of the proposals. Section 3 defines the strategies used for implementing marketing plans.
Assessing and Analyzing the Contribution of Marketing Principles and Practices to Organizational Goals
For the fundamental concepts, principles and practices of marketing to be effective from a strategic standpoint in transforming an organization, they must extend beyond theoretical frameworks to deliver actual results. The idea of being customer-centered as an organization needs to begin with an organizations' leaders changing their mindset away from designing processes, procedures and systems to measure internal efficiency and measure customer satisfaction instead. The hard reality is that changing any of these areas of an organization is very hard to do, as resistance to change is rampant and many fear change. The use of the following frameworks including an assessment of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT); assessment of political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental factors (PESTLE) analysis; stakeholder analysis, segmentation and buyer behavior are all critical for assessing and analyzing the contribution of marketing principles and practices to organizational goals.
All of these frameworks serve to put the customer at the center of an organization's strategies and the focus on their strategic plans and goals. Customer satisfaction comes first and the quantification of satisfaction including the development and execution of goals and objectives aimed at creating exceptional customer experiences pervade companies that use these frameworks. As Andy Grove, founder and CEO of Intel has often said, what gets measured, gets better. This is certainly the case with the use of PESTLE, SWOT and stakeholder analyses that serve to re-orient an enterprise to put their customers at the center of their strategies.
When the customers' expectations are put first and an organization assesses its value from this standpoint, transformation is much easier to accomplish and internal change much faster to be accepted (Boyd, Chandy, Cunha, 2010). When a company gets centered on customers, their entire vision of who they are changes, and transformation becomes much easier to accomplish over the long-term because the customers' needs come first. One of the primary reasons why so many organizations lose their way is that they lose sight and perspective on who the customer is. Without that galvanizing focus, organizations tend to become Balkanized, focused on the key performance indicators (KPIs), metrics and ratios that only matter within a given department. With customer focus and a strong marketing orientation, organizations have found the impetus to create a greater level of collaboration and shared ownership over a common vision to excelling for a customer and winning them over. All of these strategies share a common trait of relying on both demographic and psychographic segmentation of their customer bases (Barry, Weinstein, 2009), in addition to a continuous commitment to studying customer and buyer behavior. Segmentation through psychographic research has helped many services-based businesses to anticipate and respond to customer's needs more effectively.
One global provider of hospitality services who relies extensively on psychographic segmentation analysis and consumer behavior studies is Marriott International. Marriott relies on continual measures of customer satisfaction and customer feedback to define their services mix and strategies. Marriott International for example relies on SERVQUAL-based measures of performance to evaluate each of their properties on a monthly basis on five different dimensions of customer satisfaction and customer experience management (Sengupta, Krapfel, Pusateri, 1997). Insights from this analysis have provided the global hotel chain with insights into how they can better manage customer expectations through the use of more effective communications and services strategies over time (So, King, 2010). This has led to higher levels of customer loyalty and profitability over the long-term. Marketing was the catalyst for this shift from being entirely focused on costs to being centered on customers' expectations and needs first which led to higher...
Concentrating on the level of customer satisfaction being achieved first, and then looking at how to trim costs to stay profitable gave Marriott International insights into how to sustain and grow loyalty even while costs were being reduced. This strategy was successful because it put customer experience in the center of operations-based strategies, leading to the hotel chain to concentrate more on customer concerns and their implications on operations and less on purely costs or internal measures of performance. With a marketing-based operations strategy, Marriott International was able to grow profitability and gain greater loyalty with customers (Sengupta, Krapfel, Pusateri, 1997).
Section 2 Creating two coherent marketing mix proposals for two marketing opportunities
The intent of this section is to define two coherent marketing mix proposals for two marketing opportunities. Included in each of these proposals are marketing mix and positioning considerations specific to each business's value.
Marketing's transition away from being entirely committed to a product- or benefits-based message to supporting shared values and aspirations of consumers is changing how marketing strategies are defined, implemented, and measured over time. Understanding unmet needs at both the functional and psychological level, in conjunction with the need to provide more effective tracking and measurement of results, is also quickly changing marketing as well. The intent of this section of the essay is to define two marketing mix proposals for products that will excel at meeting the needs of customer groups while providing an organization with profitable growth.
The first proposal is for build-to-order tablet PCs that can be designed to the customers' unique requirements, both from aesthetic and functional standpoint. The current trends in netbooks is to sell them as loss leaders for telecommunication services providers, specifically with the goal of driving up usage rates (Sullivan, Miller, 2010). The proposal for the build-to-order netbook centers on personalization and providing users with the opportunity to unique identify who they are and what their tastes are. The use of social media is revolutionizing how people communicate across all demographic and socioeconomic strata (Bernoff, Li, 2008).
The positioning of this proposed device is to upwardly mobile professionals who travel 30% or more on their jobs. It is aimed at the mid- to upper management levels of organizations, segmenting by title and by level of responsibility. The fact that many managing directors must be continually on call for their business units is a clear benefit of this device. In addition, the positioning of the proposed device is also going to capitalize on just how precious time is for these professionals and minutes really do count in getting their organizational and broader business goals accomplished.
A customizable or build-to-order netbook would provide students and working professionals with a device that would allow them to stay in touch with their friends and co-workers while staying connected to the Internet. The value proposition of the build-to-order netbook is based on convenience and privacy, as the 3G network offered with the device will provide 256-bit encryption for each Web browser session and security for e-commerce, e-mail, and social media applications. The positioning also includes support for customizing the exterior of the netbook to match individual preferences and tastes. With the 3G service bundled in, this netbook would be differentiated from those used as loss leaders offered by telecommunications companies. Providing the customer with the option of customizing their netbook to their individual preferences will also support and strengthen the unique value proposition and market position in the market. Using two-tier distribution channels the netbook could potentially sell up to 1,000 units a month through high tech distributors, dealers and online.
The marketing mix for this device will be focused heavily on the product itself, as it is innovative and can successfully differentiate itself based on its unique value. Pricing will be defined through value-based methods using multidimensional scaling studies and also through the use of research on pricing thresholds. It is anticipated this product will be highly inelastic, meaning a higher price will be easily substantiated. Distribution or place will be defined as class two-tier distribution. Promotion will concentrate on the unique and innovative nature of the product, focus on the convenience and the time savings of using it to stay connected to your business even while on the road.
The second proposal is for creating a series of programs for senior financial executives who are interested in keeping their skills current while also traveling abroad. The hybrid format of the program would concentrate on in-class instruction at Stanford University, INSEAD, London School of Economics and Harvard University and two weeks traveling through the financial centers…
