Executive Summary
Preliminarily, it is inherent to state that, prior to making a marketing plan for an organization; it is extremely important that we begin by assessing the current nature of operations, their nature of profitability and the challenges being faced. It is only by having knowledge of such that we will be able to construct a circumspect plan able to deal with past, present and future prospects of the organization.
In the bid to make a fitting plan, there are several marketing dynamics at Bates Furniture that need to be assessed. Such factors include productivity, profits, growth, turnover, stability and cohesion. These measures of effectiveness may vary depending on the company, its mission, environmental context, nature of work, type of product or service and customer demands. It is based on the above viewpoints, among many other issues that this Marketing plan for Bates Furniture Inc. is proposed.
Company Description
As per the case study by Kerin and Peterson, BatesManor Furniture, Inc. is a medium-to-high priced manufacturer of wood furniture for bedrooms, living rooms and dining rooms. Having been established in the early 1900s by Charlton Bates’ grandfather, the company has, over time, curved a name for itself as one of the most successful furniture companies in the US with quality products, customer-friendly services, price-friendly products and services, and a good marketing niche in the world of furniture sales.
In 2007, BatesManor Furniture, Inc. (from henceforth known as Bates Furniture) recorded sales of $75 million with an enviable pre-tax profit of enviable profit of $3.7 million. In spite of witnessing good profit margins, the company still faces stiff competition from many other companies.
In addition, the company intends to introduce new products and services based on their merger with Lea-Meadows, Inc. This, therefore, calls the need for progress and establishment of a marketing plan that will be able to see them through in their plans next year. It is with this in mind that the plan below is formulated.
In doing so, principal focus is going to be on analyzing goals, aims, objectives of the marketing plan, strategic actions of the plan, situational analysis, risk analysis, feasibility study of the plan, budgetary estimate, stakeholder analysis and potential benefits among many other macroeconomic facets.
It is only by viably assessing these salient facets that the marketing plan will be able to lay down a concrete foundation on which future implementations can be made by Bates Furniture and organizations affiliated to it like Lea-Meadows, Inc.
Strategic Focus and Plan
Vision and Mission
Bates furniture has the vision of being an influential force in the world of furniture—especially with regards to selling its furniture through high-quality department stores, and independent furniture sellers that need uniquely designed products to their esteemed clients. In doing this; the company prospects to transform from its current size to a larger furniture house that can serve thousands of people in different regions all at the same time with ease.
Additionally, the company envisions opening more branches while cooperating with other like-minded companies and individuals so as to tap into the richly flowing market potentiality offered by this multicultural society. Consequently, it is inherently crucial that any form of business equally accommodates all these classes of people (Anshutz).
Mission
Essentially, Bates Furniture’s main mission is to achieve a multifaceted success. Essentially, this calls for delivery of quality products and service to its highly esteemed customers. Moreover, the management is also charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the staffs are, deservedly, treated. Of course this policy, just like respect, is a two-way traffic.
Consequently, the staffs in the company are compelled to ensure that the management, as well as each customer, is individually treated with utmost professionalism and respect. By observing these salient statutes, the company’s mission not only ensures that the primary role of financial success is achieved; but it also makes certain that everyone associated to the company has a sense of purpose towards the well-being of the company and to one another.
Goals, Aims and Objectives
- To establish the importance or value of marketing the company in a better way.
- To assess the risks that may be faced while marketing the company.
- To source additional resources that can be used to further the marketing plans while also creating a budget for the same.
- To delineate problems being faced in the organization (with regards to its marketing endeavors and grope for ways of forging ahead while intermittently outsmarting these problems/challenges.
Strategies and Action Plan to Achieve the Objectives and Avoid Risks
In order to ensure more financial profits, we plan to introduce more quality products together with other relevant services which will, eventually, total into better profits. As for the aspect of getting more clients and accommodating them; we plan to do robust advertisements while branching out more outlets in future.
Finally, to siphon the strength of our competitors, we plan to market ourselves (Bates and Lea-Meadow) jointly and separately. This will undoubtedly give our companies substantial leverage; on top of the fact that the overall good performance of our partnership will give us dominance and a more respected name in the International Market.
Marketing Analysis
Financial Analysis
Despite enjoying good financial success over the recent past; Bates Furniture still requires some hefty amount of investment to be injected so as to make it possible for the effectuation of its marketing plans. In order to satiate this need, the company has already gotten into a partnership with Lea-Meadows, Inc thus creating better prospects for the company in terms of more goods and services thus more profits.
This will greatly help in raising more funds for the extra costs needed for more marketing. On top of that, the good relationship between the management and other financially empowered people promises good tidings in terms of financial prospects for the company. However, Bates Furniture is not entirely banking on this as its ultimate source of funding. It is for this reason that other viable money-getting schemes are being sourced.
Human Resource (HR) analysis
As was glimpsed earlier, the company’s management already had instituted some plans for the merger with other market players like Lea-Meadows. Amongst these plans is the human resource department and how it will operate. The operations of the human resource department will, essentially, be in the same format like that of the current branch with a few positions and provisions being created for joint meetings with the partnering companies.
The similarity of operations in the HR department simply means continuity to the already existing HR precepts thus increasing efficiency (Delmendo; & Castledine). The only slight variation will be that, overall decisions will be made by the CEOs of Bates Furniture and Lea-Meadows
When it comes to the issue of employment regarding the new sales and marketing positions that are bound to come by based on the proliferated marketing ventures; there will be a 50-50 merger of Bates Furniture’s own sales force and Lead-Meadows’s reliance on sales agents. This decision is proposed based on the fact that both companies were finding it difficult to entirely drop on marketing method and adopt the other as it would make the group (whose method has been dropped) feel less important in the partnership.
Target Market
A keen assessment by market analysts indicates that Bates Furniture already has a substantial amount of clients just like Lea-Meadows. The partnership between these two companies will therefore be a welcomed idea by most clients who already know the nature of products and services offered by these two revered companies.
However, since Bates Furniture did not previously use the upholstery line (a key aspect of furniture offered by Lead-Meadows) in its product mix; the new marketing endeavors will have to duly incorporate this product in their advertisements. Similarly, the target market will also have to be made aware of the blend of Lead-Meadow’s sales agents marketing strategy and Bates Furniture’s own sales force. These will go a long way in reaching the targeted markets in a better way.
Since the upholstered furniture by Lea-Meadows normally target more-or-less the same market targeted by Bates Furniture, that is medium-to-high priced wood furniture clients; the partnership between these two companies will be much easier since there will not be too many changes required in the prospected marketing ventures.
More importantly, the designers from both companies will have to ensure that the furniture made in the coming year are modeled in a classy and trendy way that will, appeal to the aesthetic-loving modern-day shoppers. This is also based on the fact that the products will target classy—yet averagely financially empowered clients.
Stakeholder Analysis
Stakeholders play a very important role in any organization—and in Bates Furniture, it is no different. As a matter of fact, expansive consultations have been constantly made so as to know their take on this marketing plan. So far, they have been in full support. Nonetheless, more consultations are yet to be made since this marketing plan is still at its baby stages and thus does not entail so much input from them.
Sustainable Competitive Advantage Assessment (SWOT analysis)
An assessment of the sustainable competitive advantage of the plan based on the business principle of SWOT analysis is done below.
Strengths
The strengths of our prospected plan include the following. Firstly, Bates Furniture has been in the furniture business long enough to know the red and green lights of its operations. Our firsthand experience gives us much advantage over our competitors. Secondly, we have a professional strategists and planners who have successfully planned and successfully done other projects.
This project is, therefore, bound to be a success story just like the other projects they have performed. Thirdly and lastly, our brand name—together with that of our partners—is highly respected in US and the world at large thus laying a firm foundation for the marketing plan
Weaknesses
Some of the weaknesses, or rather the challenges, of our plan may include the following. To begin with, in spite of the market research projections prospecting a good reception for our plan, we are not entirely sure whether they will respond in the same positive way as we hope. The presence of many furniture businesses may provide a tougher competition than we anticipate. Finally, despite raising immense funds for the plan; we are still not utterly sure regarding getting the remaining funds.
Opportunities
The opportunities here include: the expansion of our customer bases. The expansion may also bring more profits which would then be used for opening even more branches thus actualizing the vision of us being a multinational company. Finally, the new marketing endeavors will offer employment opportunities to several people.
Threats/ Risks
The most basic threat of this plan is the incapability to raise funds which might thwart everything that many people have tirelessly toiled for. On top of that, the current rigid and bureaucratic regulations regarding marketing and advertisements may drag the implementation of our plans. The rather dynamic and unpredictable nature of our targeted clients may also greatly inhibit the company from achieving its full potentiality.
As a rejoinder for the various points that come up in the SWOT analysis, it is noteworthy to state that the management of Bates Furniture, and Lea-Meadow by extension, have several contingencies in place to mitigate the abovementioned weaknesses and threats while augment the strengths and opportunities. We can therefore boldly say that the plan is bound to offer sustainable competitive advantage.
Marketing Plan Budget
Much of what is entailed in the budget to be used in achieving the objectives of this project are yet to be representatively disclosed by the finance experts to the relevant parties. Nonetheless a rough estimate of $4 Million (for the entire year’s expenditure)–as is given below.
In essence, the slight reduction in cooperative allowance and trade allowance is based on the fact that sales and administration costs together with consumer allowances have to be increased based on the additional representative costs for the proposed new 50 accounts (including salary and sales and representative fees).
Also, you will notice that the proposed budget is higher than the previous one by $192, 500. This amount of money will be realized through the proposed new styles of living rooms which will, hopefully raise more funds. Also, their merger with Lea-Meadows will definitely help in the shouldering of some costs thus not exceeding the 5% sales limit by Bates Furniture.
Marketing/Advertisement/Promotional Tools to be used in the Marketing Plan
In today’s world, the use of technologies in conducting public relations campaigns is greatly pronounced and preferred by most audiences. It is for this reason that online promotional tools will be used. More specifically, social media campaigns (through social forums like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) will be conducted with messages specifically tailored to meet our aims and objectives.
Other than the use of social forums, promotional or advertisement materials will also be placed in selective newspapers and magazines in form of banners and short captivating messages to target people who love print media messages.
In addition, marketing messages will also be spread through popular radio and televisions networks in the targeted regions. Finally, the use of road shows and word of mouth advertisement campaigns will be relevantly used. By combining all these tools, a good blend of information spread is bound to happen to the targeted audiences.
Monitor and Evaluation
Just like any business venture, our marketing plan may result in success or failure. It is for this reason that this plan calls for everyone involved to ardently play his/her part. It is only by doing this that; we can have some assurance that our plans will be foolproof of the usual market hiccups and the never ending unforeseen economic challenges (Ward).
Remarkably, a few minor adjustments may be made depending on the assessment and approval of this project by the relevant authorities. Nonetheless, most of the points and projections stipulated here will remain constant.
Works Cited
Anshutz, Jon. How to Successfully Manage People. Hong Kong: Perfect bound paperback, 2006. Print.
Castledine, John. Ulrich model of HR. 2007. Web.
Delmendo, Arlene. The Successful Business Development Manager. 2009. Web.
Kerin, Roger A., and Peterson, Robert A. Strategic Marketing Problems: Cases and Comments. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2009. Print.
Porter, Michael. Competitive Advantage. New York: Free Press, 1985. Print.
Ward, Brian. Planning As Doing: Accelerating the Business Planning Process. 2003. Web.