Marketing Strategies for SportUNE - Case Study Example

Running Head: Strategic Marketing Plan Strategic Marketing Plan Name Institution Date Strategic Marketing Plan 1. Discuss the relevance of a pioneer or a follower strategy by highlighting suitable strategic market programs for the SportUNE. When making the decision to enter the new market, SportUNE can use the pioneer or the follower strategy. Pioneers have the advantage of holding the market share for a long time due to resource and business skills (Kaličanin, 2008). The reason as to why SportUNE will enjoy a high market share is that, the first customers in a business are found to be risk averse. As long as the product or service of providing satisfactory, then the customers would not want to take the risk of switching to a new and different product (Panszi, 2011). It is important to note that, by being a pioneer in the provision of sporting facilities, SportUNE will become the prototype for the product or service category, in this case sporting facility. It is easy for customers to learn the characteristics of pioneers. These enable them to belief and have a great confidence in the choice of pioneers. This will give SportUNE an advantage of positioning itself in the market. Additionally, being early in the market SportUNE will enjoy a higher return on investment. The company will enjoy market leadership by establishing a presence within the new market, building brand equity as well as creating an excellent network of distribution (Mullins & Walker, 2010). They will have a better coverage of the market whereby customers will be used to their facilities. Their excellent service to customers will participate a lot in building their brand loyalty (Panszi, 2011). By gaining control over the key distribution channels, SportUNE will lock customers to continue enjoying their facilities. As a pioneer, SportUNE can use various defense strategies to remain competitive in the market. They can do so by increasing the barriers for entrants who want to venture the market later, being more innovative than their competitors and building a responsive market and an organization which is flexible. A continuous product launch strategy will help them as pioneers to create an entry barrier for other competitors in the market. If SportUNE chooses to use the follower strategy in entering the new market, it is important to learn consumer behavior and what can be improved of the existing products. As a follower, the institution will have the advantage of offering a more superiors customer service than the pioneer, use an improved technology that provides a cost advantage with a better service, use an innovative strategy for distributing and pricing its products (Kaličanin, 2008). Therefore, when entering the market as a follower, SportUNE needs to differentiate itself within the minds of customers. This can be done by changing their product or promotions strategies, discovering creative methods of increasing product and service trial. For example, SportUNE can demonstrate how the products or services will be of more benefit to customers than that of the pioneers. To achieve a wide market share as followers, SportUNE can segment the market and focus on a particular target by providing an appropriate value and placing itself as a variety enhancer rather than a replacement or substitute of the pioneers. The use of aggressive pricing strategies, aggressive advertising, creative service building and innovative marketing strategies will enable SportUNE capture a wider market share. Where the pioneers have priced their products low, it is a barrier for the follower to enter such a market. However, SportUNE can enter such a market by providing facilities package, better customer service, innovative advertising, and creative marketing. Also, micro segmenting the customer base is a good method of entering the new market as a follower (Walker, Mullins & Boyd, 2009). Here, SportUNE will target customers that are highly valued, are able and willing to pay for the facilities at a higher price than the incurred cost in acquiring the segment. To be successful in the market, SportUNE must support new innovations that are well positioned together with appropriate prices and aggressive advertisements. The strategic marketing programs that SportUNE can use include; the mass and wide market penetration, niche market penetration as well as skimming and early withdrawal. The mass and wide market penetration is the most appropriate marketing program that SportUNE can use. The company has enough resources to capture and maintain a wide market share with many segments. Through this program, the company will focus on maximizing the number of customers who have adopted the new facilities or products of the company fast (Walker, 2013). This will be achieved through building an aggressive awareness of the product as well as motivating customers to purchase and use those products. By demonstrating the usage of the facilities, SportUNE will enable customers to try, like, developing loyalty for the products and making repeated purchases (Mullins & Walker, 2010). 2. Explain the relevance of the growth-market strategies for market leaders and share-growth strategies for followers for SportUNE's business. The use of growth marketing strategies for SportUNE will ensure the company is competitive enough in the market. As a pioneer, managers in SportUNE must understand that there exist challenges that may make it difficult for the company to continue leading in the market. Therefore, it is important to ensure that the company retains the largest market share for its sales volume to continue increasing at an equivalent rate as that of the overall market. When marketing, SportUNE as a market leader must target to retain their current customers, stimulate customers to choose their services over their competitors who may enter in the market in the future. This will ensure that, it continues leading in the market with the largest market share. They should ensure that their services are at a high demand from customers to help in speeding up the growth of the entire market. To achieve the above objectives, SportUNE can combine the following growth strategies to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage in the market; using a fortress or position defence strategy is important to continue strengthening their current position in the market. This will involve fixing the company’s weaknesses that may pave way for competitors by fulfilling its value promise. The prices must always remain consistent with customers’ view of the brand as well as maintain a lasting relationship with their customers (Khan, 2012). This will enable the customers satisfied and remain loyal to the company by performing repeated purchasing. The use of flanker strategy by SportUNE will involve developing a second brand that works to compete directly with the competitor. It is evident that, flanks are a major weak point for market leaders that competitors attack. Therefore, having a secondary brand, will work to alleviate such as threat for SportUNE where the competitor can capture a market that has not yet been established. Using a confrontation strategy, SportUNE will identify the competitor’s weaknesses in advance and launch a counter attack before the challenge occurs. This involves having a good intelligence as the market leader to read your competitors while identifying their strengths and weaknesses, then devising ways of attacking their weak areas (Cassy, 2012). When there is no room for growing further in the current market, a market expansion will play a big role in ensuring that SportUNE grows continuously in the market. After exhausting the current market, the company may find that there is no market for its products and therefore, it is difficult to increase its sales and profits. By developing new brands, line extensions and alternative products with the use of similar technology will ensure that all market segments are catered for. Selling its current products in a new market will also help in expanding its market (Nagel, 2014). When the business is finding difficulties in competing in highly fragmented areas and unable to defend itself in some segments, contraction or strategic withdrawal is the best growth strategy to adopt. This is a growth strategy that SportUNE can adopt to ensure that it concentrates its efforts and resources in managing the most productive areas of the business. Strategic withdrawal involves a company abandoning segments that are not productive for the business and focus of the areas that are result to the greatest advantage or have the highest potential for growth in the future for the company (Cassy, 2012). Managers in SportUNE must there identify and withdraw from the most vulnerable segments of the business and then redirect its resources to the segments that are highly depended by the business. To compete effectively in the market, followers can use share growth strategies to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage in the market. The use of share growth strategies by SportUNE will enable the company as a follower to achieve a market penetration in segments that market leaders have overlooked. For example, a competitor may want to enter into the market for the purpose of building a small business which is profitable by specializing in small segment of the larger market that has been overlooked by pioneers. By using these strategies, followers are aimed at displacing the market leaders and become a powerful competitor in the entire market (Khan, 2012). A share growth strategy such as frontal attack may be used by SportUNE to increase its market share on the untapped segments by competitors. This strategy will be of importance to the company since most of the customers in the market do not have brand loyalties. Also, the competitor’s product does not benefit a lot from the effects of positive network. SportUNE has greater resources and competencies through innovative products that surpass that of the competitors. Therefore, this strategy will help the company achieve its market share growth in untapped segments (Khan, 2012). The sporting industry can be broken to different markets and this is a big opportunity for SportUNE to venture and have a share in the market. The company can attack the competitors using flanking and encirclement strategies since the market leader holds a strong position in the primary segment. By breaking the industry into different markets, SportUNE will be able to identify areas of the other segments that the market leaders do not satisfy. This is an opportunity to share the market in segments that are unsatisfied, by providing a brand that fully meets the demands of customers in the specific segment (Cassy, 2012). By encircling, SportUNE will develop different line of products or facilities that suit the untapped segment. Supporting evidence is another share growth strategy that is relevant to SportUNE in the sense that improving the quality of its services or facilities to its customers will ensure that it has a greater market share. Adding more new facilities, line extensions as well as modifying the existing facilities will enable the company to have a greater market share (Asia-Pacific Marketing Federation, 2014). 3. Discuss the possible strategic choices for the SportUNE's business offerings for maintaining competitive advantage in shakeout, mature and declining markets. As SportUNE continue growing, there will be a time of maturity where the business sales or profits are not increasing. Shakeout is the stage of a business transition from market growth to maturity. This poses a big challenge and the business must devise strategies that will enable it to remain competitive in the market. Therefore, the managers in SportUNE must focus on cost initiatives and promoting new uses for the old facilities by encouraging customers to use the facilities more often. In the declining stage, SportUNE should increase its market share by using pricing as well as promotion policies that are aggressive to drive out weak competitors. During shake out it is important for SportUNE to realize the need for recognizing the slow growth in competitive advantage and set strategies that will ensure the business remains competitive in the market. In the maturity stage, SportUNE need to develop and implement a business strategy that aims at sustaining its competitive advantage, satisfaction of customers as well as loyalty. The business should also create marketing programs that are geared towards pursuing opportunities for growth and profit in the market (Mullins & Walker, 2010). Since SportUNE is in the service industry, differentiating its services in terms of quality, performance, conformity to customer’s specifications, features, reliability, availability, and maintaining their brand name will play a big role in ensuring the business is competitive enough in the market. Appearance of the facilities must impress customers than that of the competitor, the sporting facilities provided by SportUNE must be reliable and perform the required services by customers and managers must always be available and willing to provide customer support promptly. To provide quality services to customers, SportUNE must adopt an assurance culture for employees to continue trusting their services. Customers must also be treated with empathy by caring and providing individual attention. This will improve the perceptions of the customers on the service quality provided by SportUNE. To remain competitive, in its maturity stage, SportUNE must adopt the strategy of increased penetration. This will involve enhancing its service provision to customers for the purpose of stimulating demand for its sporting facilities. By increasing penetration, SportUNE may decide to target non users of their facilities to start using them. This will increase the proportion of users of sporting facilities. They can also perform a research on markets where to introduce line extensions of their services in the market. SportUNE can also encourage the extended use of their products by increasing the time that customers can use the facilities. Providing a wider variety of sporting facilities will also encourage customers to continue using their services. They should invest in more resources for the purpose of developing and promoting new uses of their sporting facilities (Soltani, 2012). They can also expand their market by targeting the untapped markets. This is referred to as differentiated positioning which can be achieved through defining geographic areas local as well as foreign where sporting facilities have not yet been introduced. In the declining stage, SportUNE has various strategies that they can use to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage in the market. Managers at SportUNE must recognize the important of using the harvesting strategy. In this strategy, they should aim at maximizing the short term cash flow while maintaining increasing margins regardless of declining market share. The reason for using this strategy is that most of the competitors are not intense and their leading market share will help in achieving more loyal customers in substantial proportion (Mullins & Walker, 2010). SportUNE can also use the maintenance strategy by ensuring that their current market share is maintained irrespective of the declining margins. This is a survivor strategy which is profitable whereby the business increases its market share to allow the exit of weaker competitors. The reason for using this strategy is that, the business predicts that future markets may decline and the demand for its facilities will continue to exist (Sabol, Šander & Fučkan, 2013). The existence of few competitors and low exit barriers ensures the business to continue holding a big market share after the exit of weaker competitors. Using the Niche strategy, SportUNE will benefit by strengthening its share position in the market with segments that are more promising for profits. In this strategy, SportUNE should be aimed at strengthening one or more positions of segments that are promising in the future. In this strategy, SportUNE must be aware of a decaying market for unproductive segments and competitors exist in those segments and not in the targeted one. 4. Briefly discuss the relevance of various strategies to serve new economy markets in regards to SportUNE's business. A new economy for SportUNE refers to the capability of participating in the internet, digital economy, new marketing as well as business practices, increased buying power, variety of available sporting services, plenty of sporting information and capability of comparing information on its facilities. According to Schneider Electric (2013), the new economy imposes various opportunities as well as threats to businesses and SportUNE has not been left out. There may be chances of really simple syndication whereby offering the same sporting facilities to a large number of customers exposes the business to customers combining it with other information and end up distributing it (Mullins & Walker, 2010). The business will be able to increase its returns through a network of sporting facilities. SportUNE will be able to personalize and customize its facilities efficiently depending on market offerings. The business will enjoy global reach all the time 24/7. Every company requires a new economy strategy and SportUNE is not an exception. The business can use the internet to achieve an advantage of first mover. Being a fast mover, SportUNE will be able to enjoy potential advantages that can be capitalized on. When making the decision of coming up with a new economy strategy, SportUNE must consider various considerations including; the need for new marketing applications for tools in the new economy, new economy applications for service promotion and building of the brand, to deliver digital sporting services and for customer support as well as service (Mullins & Walker, 2010). SportUNE must analyse its capability in terms of being able to digitize its sporting facilities, can digitization of sporting facilities be done fast?, what kind of valuable information will they provide to customers?, and do the business have the capability of reaching and building relationships with their target market?. After answering the above questions, SportUNE must identify the industry with which Dot com treatment will be given next. Through this, the business will be able to change with the prevailing as well as technological conditions. Generally, the key to success in a new economy for SportUNE will based on understanding clearly their business model, satisfying the real needs of customers, having an effective management team in place and ensuring that the business delivers value with which customers are ready to part with their money (Mullins & Walker, 2010). 5. Describe the appropriateness of designing organisational structures and marketing plans for the implementation of different competitive strategies for the SportUNE's business. It is important for SportUNE to design organizational structures and marketing plans appropriately because the successful implementation of any strategy depend on well designed organizations in terms of structure and marketing plan. Designing ensures that the business has the necessary functional competencies in place and is supported by substantial resources. The business is well organized to suit its relevant market, competitive as well as technical environment. Proper designing of organizational structures and plans ensure that the business puts in place mechanisms that are appropriate to coordinate business efforts as well as resolve conflicts that may arise within functional departments (Sisney, 2012). Since SportUNE is a service organization providing sporting facilities, it is important to ensure that the human resource development and personnel management are competent to achieve efficiency as well as low cost. The business can adopt either of the following organizational structures including; formalization, centralization and specialization. By adopting a formalization organizational structure, SportUNE will be aimed at basing business decisions as well as working relationships on formal rules and policies as well as procedures that are standard. By using a centralisation organizational structure, SportUNE will be aimed at locating business authority and control of decisions within the hierarchy of the organisation. The specialization organizational structure will enable SportUNE to divide responsibilities and activities in different positions of the organization. Appropriate design for a SportUNE business will emphasise on business process rather its functional areas. This ensures that external objectives are considered, grouping of people with various skills to undertake a particular job is done, work is performed simultaneously and the flow of information is directly to where it is needed. Proper organizational structure for SportUNE will practice the use of teams that are self managing, networks that are collaborative, adjusting the organization depending on firms’ growth and market change and designing the organization to fit in the global market. An appropriate market plan for SportUNE will consist of an executive summary, current situation and trends, performance review, key issues, objectives, marketing strategy, action plans, projected profit and loss statement, controls and contingency plans. This will ensure that all aspects of the business are included in the plan and budget for proper allocation of resources (Fontinelle, 2014). 6. Identify the critical role of marketing metrics and marketing audit in relevance to SportUNE's business and its offerings. Marketing metrics and marketing audit plays a critical role in SportUNE’s business. The reason is that marketing metrics that are properly designed explain the different performance measurements in different organizational level (Stuart, 2012). These processes include; performance standards setting, feedback specification, data gathering, evaluation and taking corrective measures. Marketing Metrics define who requires particular information. Therefore, SportUNE business can use marketing metrics to analyse information in terms of category, territory, product or service and customer. They can also use marketing metrics to define the time and people who require the information. Therefore, metrics should be aligned with business strategy to help in tracking the performance of the market from time to time. This will also enable the business in identifying contingencies that must be planned for (Marketing Accountability Standards Board, 2009). The contingency planning process involves the identification of assumptions that are critical concerning the future, probability measurement of every assumption which is critical and being considered right, ordering of ranks of the assumptions that are critical, action plan monitoring, trigger setting for the activation of contingency plan and specification of options for responding alternatively. Marketing audit for SportUNE business is important to help in analysis its profitability, analyses business objectives in relation to business strategy as well as action plans for every service or product entering the market. Marketing audit will also help SportUNE business to analyse changes in the environment that can influence the business strategy as well as the action programs for the product or service market. There are various market audits that SportUNE business can use including; the marketing environment audit, objectives and strategy audit, organisation audit, marketing productivity audit, marketing function’s audit, company’s ethical audit and service manager audit. When conducting a marketing audit, it is important to measure the performance of the market on timely basis, measurement results should be evaluated by the business managers, and there must be control systems to ensure the planned results are delivered with the right information (Ramkumar, 2014). References Asia-Pacific Marketing Federation (2014). Competitive Strategy. Certified Professional Marketer. Marketing Institute of Singapore. Retrieved from www.apmf.org.sg/Lt5--CompetitiveStrategy.ppt. Cassy, I. (2012). Competitive Strategies in the Market Place. Retrieved from http://bestresearchprojects.blogspot.com/2012/04/competitive-strategies.html Fontinelle, A. (2014). Business Plan: Marketing and Sale. Retrieved from http://www.investopedia.com/university/business-plan/business-plan5.asp Kaličanin, D. (2008). A Question of Strategy: To Be a Pioneer or a Follower? University of Belgrade. Retrieved from http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0013-3264/2008/0013-32640877089K.pdf Khan, A. (2012). Marketing Strategies for Growth Market. Strategies for Success. Retrieved from http://ziaahmedkhan.hubpages.com/hub/Marketing-Strategies-for-Growth-Market Marketing Accountability Standards Board. (2009). Marketing Metric Audit Protocol (MMAP). The Marketing Accountability Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.themasb.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/mmap-stand-alone-july-09.pdf Mullins, J. & Walker, O. (2010). Marketing Management: A Strategic Decision Making Approach. Chapter 15. Strategies for New and Growing Markets. McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Retrieved from www.mktgsensei.com/MBA522/Chap015.ppt Mullin, J. & Walker, O. (2010). Marketing Management: A Strategic Decision Making Approach. Chapter 16. Strategies for Mature and Declining Market. McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Retrieved from www.mktgsensei.com/MBA522/Chap016.ppt Mullin, J. & Walker, O. (2010). Marketing Management: A Strategic Decision Making Approach. Chapter 14. Marketing Strategies for the New Economy. Retrieved from www.mktgsensei.com/MBA522/Chap014.ppt Nagel, J. (2014). 4 Strategies to Fast Forward Your Small Business Growth. Retrieved from http://www.synnovatia.com/business-coaching-blog/bid/127523/4-Strategies-to-Fast-Forward-Your-Small-Business-Growth Panszi, B. (2011). Marketing Strategy: A Decision-Focused Approach Chapter 9. Retrieved from http://www.cram.com/flashcards/marketing-strategy-a-decision-focused-approach-chapter-9-1996551 Ramkumar, S. (2014). A Complete Guide to Conducting Digital Marketing Audits. Retrieved from http://blog.clinchpad.com/post/81302571425/a-complete-guide-to-conducting-digital-marketing-audits Sabol, A., Šander, M. & Fučkan, D. (2013). The Concept of Industry Life Cycle and Development of Business Strategies. Management, Knowledge and Learning International Conference. Retrieved from http://www.toknowpress.net/ISBN/978-961-6914-02-4/papers/ML13-300.pdf Schneider Electric, (2013). Overview of the Group's Strategy, Markets and Businesses: Schneider Electric Strategy and Market Opportunities. Registration Document. Retrieved from http://www2.schneider-electric.com/documents/sustainable-development/sustainability-investors-analysts/schneider-electric-overview-of-core-business.pdf Sisney, L. (2012). The 5 Classic Mistakes in Organizational Structure: Or, How to Design Your Organization the Right Way. Retrieved from http://organizationalphysics.com/2012/01/09/the-5-classic-mistakes-in-organizational-structure-or-how-to-design-your-organization-the-right-way/ Soltani, S. (2012). Strategic Marketing Plan in Product Life Cycle: More Profitability in Stages of Product Life Cycling. Retrieved from http://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/47037/plc%20tez.pdf?sequence=1 Stuart, S. (2012). Audit Marketing. Marketing audit with marketing metrics to improve direct Marketing. Retrieved from http://www.stuartdm.com/Audit_Marketing/audit_marketing.html Suttle, R. (2014). Growth Strategies in Business. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/growth-strategies-business-4510.html Walker, J. (2013). Marketing Management: A Strategic Decision-Making Approach. New York : McGraw-Hill. ISBN0078028795 (pbk.) Retrieved from http://find.lib.uts.edu.au/;jsessionid=043CCB2B4A3355EE2E655C69DB58239B?R=OPAC_b2748710 Walker, O. Mullins, J. & Boyd, H. (2009). Marketing Strategies: A Decision Focused Approach. Chapter 8. Marketing Strategies for Market Entries. McGraw-Hill. Retrieved from www2.cob.ilstu.edu/.../Strategy%20Materials/.../Chapter%208%20New.Ppt. Read More