Your plan to arrange the product distribution to provide customer convenience

. Any business owner knows that one of the most important ways to success is properly marketing your product or service to your customers. And in order to do that you need to know who your target market is. Once you've chosen your target market, you need to decide the best ways to advertise and distribute your product or service to your customers. But how can you choose? There are so many options-mail, TV offers, kiosks in the mall, grocery store coupons, etc. What you need to realize is that your method of distribution directly ties into your target market

Once we have identified our target market, now we need to determine how to reach them. We will use above four methods to distribute the new product. It is not an easy and simple work. I think this is the most important work.   

I think above method is very profitable for us. If many consumers like to buy products directly from us, we can reduce the product price. So we opened our retail shops many European countries. Such as United Kingdom, Germany, France, etc

 If someone wishes to delivery service, we will delivery that phone without delivery cost. 

Describe how you develop your new product to sustain competitive advantage (con.)

The differentiation and cost leadership strategies seek competitive advantage in a broad range of market or industry segments. By contrast, the differentiation focus and cost focus strategies are adopted in a narrow market or industry.

Referance

http://tutor2u.net/business/strategy/competitive_advantage.htm

Nokia is the best selling mobile phones brand over the world. So I think we haven’t fear about our new product. That mobile phone has new features. Such as 3.75G technology, 10 Mega Pixel camera. These features are new for mobile phone industry. So I think we haven’t competition in the market.  

This mobile phone has water resistive high quality display and much more things. But its price is normal, when we considered other mobile phones in the market. So I think consumers always like to buy that product.

Also we give 4 years warranty for the phone and life time warranty for phone software. This is big advantage for the customers. We have a well organized plan for promotion activities of that phone. And all these reason can cause for the people to choose the mobile phone.   

Describe how you develop your new product to sustain competitive advantage

Competitive Strategy

Ø  COMPETITIVE STRATEGY consists of moves to

·         Attract customers

·         Withstand competitive pressures

·         Strengthen firm’s market position

Ø  OBJECTIVES

·         Earn a COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

·         Cultivate clientele of LOYAL CUSTOMERS

·         Knock the socks off rivals, ethically & honorably

Ø  COMPETITIVE STRATEGY, narrower in scope than business strategy, focuses on management’s plan to compete successfully

Competitive Advantage - Definition

A competitive advantage is an advantage over competitors gained by offering consumers greater value, either by means of lower prices or by providing greater benefits and service that justifies higher prices.

Following on work analyzing the competitive forces in an industry, Michael Porter suggested four "generic" business strategies that could be adopted in order to gain competitive advantage. The four strategies relate to the extent to which the scope of businesses' activities are narrow versus broad and the extent to which a business seeks to differentiate its products.

Explain how you expect to change your marketing activities according to buyer behavior

An important part of the marketing process is to understand why a customer or buyer makes a purchase. Without such an understanding, businesses find it hard to respond to the customer’s needs and wants. Marketing theory traditionally splits analysis of buyer or customer behavior into two broad groups for analysis – Consumer Buyers and Industrial Buyers

Consumer buyers are those who purchase items for their personal consumption

Industrial buyers are those who purchase items on behalf of their business or organization

For a marketing manager, the challenge is to understand how customers might respond to the different elements of the marketing mix that are presented to them. If management can understand these customer responses better than the competition, then it is a potentially significant source of competitive advantage.

As the best company in the world we always consider buyer behavior and change our activities according to that. I think we always process our plans according to buyers. So here, I made some questions related our product.

Ø  Who buys?

Ø  How do they buy?

Ø  When do they buy?

Ø   Where do they buy?

Ø  Why do they buy?

We analyzed that factors related to our products and we get realistic solutions.

Ø  Customer can buy this Nokia phone in installment at authorized showrooms of Nokia.

Ø  Customers who pay full payment in cash will be getting a cash discount.

Ø  Customers who pay full payment in cash will be getting gifts. Such as headsets, Bluetooth dongles, speakers and much more

Ø  4 years warranty for the phone and life time warranty for soft ware of the phone.

 Customers who buy 2 or more will get 30% discount for second phone.

What are the factors which influence you to the selected organization targeting strategy (strategies) of your product - Target Marketing

Target Marketing involves breaking a market into segments and then concentrating your marketing efforts on one or a few key segments.

Target marketing can be the key to a small business’s success.

The beauty of target marketing is that it makes the promotion, pricing and distribution of your products and/or services easier and more cost-effective. Target marketing provides a focus to all of your marketing activities.

Referance

http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/marketing/g/targetmarketing.html

In Sri Lanka we can clearly understand, Nokia is the best selling mobile phone brand. So we are the leader in mobile phones industry in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankans have a very strong relationship with Nokia brand. Launching our new mobile phone In Sri Lanka will be success.  Because there are many positive factors for us. Also there are negative factors. So we strongly believe that is challenge for us.

 The main targeted audience for this product is youth generation. We think that product more useful university students and business men. They always want to connect internet for their needs. This 3.75G mobile phone consist high speed internet. So they can do their works quickly and easily.

Decide the segmentation for your product base on the environmental research done as above (con.)

Demographic

Some demographic segmentation of Nokia,

• Age
• Gender
• Family size
• Income
• Occupation
• Education

Many of these variables have standard categories for their values. For example, family lifecycle often is expressed as bachelor, married with no children (DINKS: Double Income, No Kids), full-nest, empty-nest, or solitary survivor. Some of these categories have several stages, for example, full-nest I, II, or III depending on the age of the children.

Psychographic

Psychographic segmentation groups customers according to their lifestyle. Activities, interests, and opinions (AIO) surveys are one tool for measuring lifestyle. Some psychographic of Nokia,

Ø  Activities

Ø  Interests

Ø  Opinions

Ø  Attitudes

Ø  Values 

Decide the segmentation for your product base on the environmental research done as above

Definition

To divide a market by a strategy directed at gaining a major portion of sales to a subgroup in a category, rather than a more limited share of purchases by all category users.

Referance

http://marketing.about.com/od/marketingglossary/g/mrktsegdef.htm

Market Segmentation of Nokia

Geographic

Geographic segmentation tries to divide markets into different geographical units. The following are some examples of geographic segmentation of Nokia,

Ø  Region: by continent, country, state, or even neighborhood

Ø  Size of metropolitan area: segmented according to size of population

Ø  Population density: often classified as urban, suburban, or rural

Ø  Climate: according to weather patterns common to certain geographic regions

Marketing Objectives of Nokia on the new product

Below I mentioned marketing objectives of Nokia on the new product

Market Development

Increase sales by 10% within one year: Using new innovative promotional activities to increase our target audience's awareness of our competitive advantages.

Market Growth

Increase market share by 50% in the next 2 years.

New Markets

Create a new retirees segment: Penetrate this rapidly growing, yet often overlooked market with a simple, user friendly phone.

Segment research: Create new markets based on phone user and design research.

Refine current products: Improve current products to reach new markets based on unmet consumer needs.

Marketing Objectives

Meeting marketing objectives should lead to sales. (If not, you need to set different marketing objectives.) They should:

Ø  be clear

Ø  be measurable, and

Ø  have a stated time frame for achievement.

Defined as: marketing ‘goals’ that the business must achieve in order to meet its wider business objectives

Main ones for most businesses tend to be:

Ø  Growth in market share

Ø  Clearer product differentiation

Ø  Long term brand value to customers

Ø  Creating and launching new products / services – ‘Innovation’

Objectives into marketing targets

Ø  Going from big picture into smaller pictures

Ø  Targets are ‘milestones’ on the road to achieving the objectives

Ø  Targets are usually short and medium term

Analysis of marketing objectives

Ø  To create an effective marketing strategy you need to have clear objectives – it will probably fail without them!

Ø  Objectives are different to strategy, so look up the definition of marketing strategy now so you are clear about this!

PESTEL audit or audit if five forces (con.)

Environmental factors

Environmental factors include the weather and climate change. Changes in temperature can impact on many industries including farming, tourism and insurance. With major climate changes occurring due to global warming and with greater environmental awareness this external factor is becoming a significant issue for firms to consider.

Ø  Ecological

Ø  environmental issues, environmental regulations

Ø  customer values, market values, stakeholder/ investor values

Ø  management style, staff attitudes, organizational culture, staff engagement

Environmental factors of Nokia

Nokia have managed to be quite environmentally friendly and have not done anything that the consuming public have taken huge offence to, they have been very careful about this and this is one of the reasons they are such a popular brand of mobile phones.

Legal factors

These are related to the legal environment in which firms operate. The introduction of age discrimination and disability discrimination legislation, an increase in the minimum wage and greater requirements for firms to recycle are examples of relatively recent laws that affect an organization’s actions.

Ø  current home market legislation, future legislation

Ø  European/international legislation

Ø  regulatory bodies and processes

Ø  environmental regulations, employment law, consumer protection

PESTEL audit or audit if five forces (con.)

Technological factors

Technological factors can lower barriers to entry, reduce minimum efficient production levels, and influence outsourcing decisions. Some technological factors include:

Ø  R&D activity

Ø  automation

Ø  technology incentives

Ø  rate of technological change

Technological factors of Nokia

In the communications market technology is perhaps the most important factor that companies like Nokia have to take into consideration. They have to keep up to date with all the newest technological advances (like camera and motion capture phones) if they are going to capture the biggest market share and stay ahead of their competitors (Sony and Siemens).

PESTEL audit or audit if five forces (con.)

Economic factors

Economic factors affect the purchasing power of potential customers and the firm's cost of capital. The following are examples of factors in the macroeconomy:

Ø  economic growth

Ø  interest rates

Ø  exchange rates

Ø  inflation rate

Social factors

Social factors include the demographic and cultural aspects of the external macro environment. These factors affect customer needs and the size of potential markets. Some social factors include:

Ø  health consciousness

Ø  population growth rate

Ø  age distribution

Ø  career attitudes

Ø  emphasis on safety

Social factors of Nokia

Nokia have never really had any of these affect the way in which they operate because they have never done anything that is really anti-environmental, the only problem is the fact that the mobile phones let of radiation and has been said to increase the risk of cancer in mobile phone users, but this has not been highly documented and hasn't affected how Nokia have conducted themselves.

PESTEL audit or audit if five forces

Ø  PESTLE is an analytical tool which considers external factors and helps you to think about their impacts 

Ø  Is a useful tool for understanding the “big picture” of the environment in which you are operating

Ø  By understanding your environment, you can take advantage of the opportunities and minimize the threats. 

Ø  This provides the context within which more detailed planning can take place to take full advantage of the opportunities that present themselves.

Political Factor

Political factors include government regulations and legal issues and define both formal and informal rules under which the firm must operate. Some examples include:

Ø  tax policy

Ø  employment laws

Ø  environmental regulations

Ø  trade restrictions and tariffs

Ø  political stability

Political factors of Nokia

Legal constraints (such as the G3 technology constraints that Nokia have to take into consideration) must be taken into account because many businesses aim to make a profit so they may be tempted to mislead their customers about prices, quality of products and the availability of their products. They may also try to cut expenditure by using lesser quality materials in their products (such as weaker materials for Nokia cases and batteries)

] Market Analysis (con.)

Threats

External factors, beyond an organization’s control, which could place the organization’s mission or operation at risk. The organization may benefit by having contingency plans to address them should they occur

Classify them by their “seriousness” and “probability of occurrence”

Ø  shifts in consumer tastes away from the firm's products

Ø  emergence of substitute products

Ø  new regulations

Ø  increased trade barriers

Threats of Nokia

Ø  Late in the game in 3G creates a risk to be displaced by leaders like Motorola, LG, NEC and others.

Ø  Asian OEMs who are entering the market very aggressively (TCL, NGO Bird)

Ø  ODMs (HTC and others) enabling carriers to leverage their customer power bypassing the handset vendor. Operators want to lessen their dependency on handset vendors and the dominance of Nokia. Orange, O2, and many other operators globally are selling their own brand of phones.

Market Analysis (con.)

Opportunities

External attractive factors that represent the reason for an organization to exist and develop. What opportunities exist in the environment which will propel the organization?

Identify them by their “time frames”

Ø  an unfulfilled customer need

Ø  arrival of new technologies

Ø  loosening of regulations

Ø  removal of international trade barriers

Opportunities of Nokia

Ø  Increase their presence in the CDMA market, which they are just entering, as well as 3G and Edge.

Ø  New growth markets where cell phone adoption still has room to go, including India and other countries.

Ø  Leverage its infrastructure business to get preference and a stronger position with carriers.

Market Analysis (con.)

Weakness

Factors that are within an organization’s control that detracts from its ability to attain the core goal. In which areas might the organization improve?

Ø  lack of patent protection

Ø  a weak brand name

Ø  high cost structure

Ø  lack of access to the best natural resources

Weakness of Nokia

Ø  The Engage is considered a flop

Ø  Being the market leader and its increase role in Symbian is giving Nokia a bad image, much like Microsoft in the PC industry.

Ø  Slow to adopt new ways of thinking: a good example is clamshell phones which are preferred by many customers. Nokia was reluctant to produce a clamshell until this year, when it launched its first model.

Market Analysis

SWOT

Ø  A widely used framework for organizing and using data and information gained from situation analysis

Ø  Encompasses both internal and external environments

Ø  One of the most effective tools in the analysis of environmental data and information

Ø  A SWOT analysis generates information that is helpful in matching an organization’s or a group’s goals, programs, and capacities to the social environment in which they operate

Ø  It is an instrument within strategic planning

Ø  When combined with a dialogue, it is a participatory process

Strengths

Positive tangible and intangible attributes, internal to an organization. They are within the organization’s control.

Ø  strong brand names

Ø  good reputation among customers

Ø  cost advantages from proprietary know-how

Ø  exclusive access to high grade natural resources

Ø  favorable access to distribution networks 

Strengths of Nokia

Ø  Is a dominant player in the smart phone market via its majority ownership of Symbian and its proprietary Series 60 user interface which are projected to represent majority of the 100M smart phones sold in the next 4 years.

Ø  33% market share still the largest cell phone vendor by far, with double the market share of nearest competitor

Ø  Size should enable Nokia to amortize R&D costs and to get cost advantages

Ø  Brand position: probably one of the top 20 brands in the world