Marketing Strategy, Planning and Execution

Marketing Strategy, Planning and Execution Marketing Strategy, Planning, and Execution Summary of Current Marketing Issues and Strategies For Monsanto, their history is one marked by a continual tension between their Research & Development (R&D) expertise on the one hand and the ethical challenges and problems their products create on the other. Their marketing problems are very complex, multidimensional in scope and will take significant effort and expense to solve.

In addition to the inherent ethical conflicts of their products, Monsanto has repeatedly violated the trust of consumers for decades. The current issues around the ethicacy of their products, even with the differentiation of Old Monsanto vs. New Monsanto and the ability to generate $8.6B in revenues from biotechnology, still leaves the company with significant marketing challenges.

These challenges are being addressed through marketing strategies that seek to quantify the good the company is doing with such controversial products as genetically modified seeds, grains and foods and the aggressive marketing of Posilac, the Bovine Growth Hormone. Lobbying successfully for Posilac to be approved by the FDA was a huge win for the company yet one that again put them squarely in the middle of an ethicacy debate with activists.

Roundup, the best-selling weed deterrent and ingredient in many of their best-selling modified seeds use for feeding livestock, is also facing opposition as well. After facing so many challenges in these core business areas, Monsanto has finally reverted to a very metrics-driven series of value propositions that seek to make it very clear they are making the world a better place through their many advances in R&D investments.

They are basically trying to earn the trust back of the global public by showing that despite their control of 60% of the market for genetically modified seeds, they can still increase crop yields from 70 bushels and acre to 150 bushel an acre today. Their goal is to deliver 300 bushels per acre yield by 2030. In addition to all of these marketing strategies, Monsanto also has a series of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives in place to produce more yield of crops, conserve more resources, and improve the lives of farmers.

Their Project Malawi program is a case in point. All of these strategies however will continue to be incremental to the broader, and infinitely more complex problem of regaining the trust of the public globally. Problem Statement Monsanto continues to incrementally improve their level of authenticity and transparency with global consumers, yet trust will remain elusive for decades until their customers' success levels outweigh the social and ethical controversies the company has shown to be adept at creating for itself.

Three Strategic Alternatives There are three strategic alternatives for the company to consider pursuing: 1. Completely re-order R&D to concentrate only on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and metrics of performance that align to 3rd world nations' need for affordable, healthy food. This would give the company exceptional levels of credibility that they have lacked in the past. 2. Re-define the CSR initiatives to also include monitoring of their impact on the environment. They need to be truly green if they claim to be.

Make sustainability best practices a core part of the company and measure it with advanced Total Quality Management techniques. 3. Create a series of customer success stories of how their food saved the lives of entire villages and how they are working to re-order the economics of food distribution in 3rd world nations. Strategic Recommendation Starting with the value chain of the company, Monsanto needs to create a more unified strategy of delivering measurable value to food production and quality, without.