Introduction
Macpac is a company that specialized in high-performance outdoor gear. Unique brand image and designs proposed to end consumers become the main factors of the company’s success. Creativity becomes the responsibility of R&D, which is staffed by specialists in visualizing and realizing marginal or major product changes. These projections predict customer and competitor reactions; attempt to gauge acceptance for new products; and highlight economic, social, demographic, technological, psychological, and political changes, all of which are difficult tasks to perform -nor can they be performed with the degree of precision available in other more concrete situations (Bearden et al 2004). Yet, information that provides a perspective for future operations is invaluable for corporate decision-making.
New Strategy
Mission statement – the aim of the new strategy is to attract more customers and improve internal company operations, culture and product quality.
Aims – Cost leadership flows from becoming the lowest cost competitor while differentiation entails creating real and/or perceived differences from other available offerings. Macpac should follow a focus strategy and direct their products/services toward a narrow range of market segments, presumably reaping the benefits of market specialization (Marketing and Business Planning 2009).
Proposed Actions
People – for Macpac, it is important to hire professionals in design and outdoor services with experience in this market. An extended design team could be formed in which individuals belonging to marketing research, vendor management, legal affairs, and so on are made part of a group such as a Product Council, whose role it is to generate ideas for product improvement and bring them to fruition. The team could also be informally constituted where the channels for networking are indicated but no further attempt is made to structure the team’s membership or responsibilities (Holder, 1996).
Customers – the essence of value unquestionably lies in providing products or services that fulfill customer needs. The long term success of a firm in the marketplace is predicated upon its ability to react to, anticipate, and even create needs.. Given the diversity of external demands (competitors’ actions, governmental regulations, and technological advances, in addition to pressing customer requirements) depending upon a single group, such as the self-contained R&D, could prove to be inadequate and dangerously myopic (Boone and Kurtz 2002).
Improved Design and quality – making quality and time-related performance an integral part of operations not only imbues the latter with a (hitherto absent) external vision, it also provides an effective way to bind value conceptualization to value construction. Macpac should introduce standardized services and must offer customers enough to replace personalized attention. Lower prices, a combination of prices and quality/cleanliness, and speed of service are some of the compensatory benefits customers are often willing to settle for. The overall cost is an inseparable part of all the value activities. The design affects the materials and process used (and vice versa) while the message of value conveyed to customers has to be tailored to the value constructed. Cost reduction efforts, therefore, should not focus exclusively on any one part of the value process. customer needs must be discovered and fulfilled. After all, that has been the entire refrain of our tune of value (Labarbera et al 1998).
Value Creation – value acceptance is also a process. It isn’t by accident that large numbers of employees, in some cases come to share similar attitudes, ideals and assumptions. While the accidental evolution of culture is a possibility, the firm’s strategy is undoubtedly a powerful influence in the molding of culture. Symbols are an important part of experiencing and participating in a culture Manufacturing and service quality improvements are an almost natural outcome of attaining the time reductions and balance shown above. To be sure, quality is not simply or solely a matter of putting parts together right or serving customers with speed, accuracy, and courtesy. Value construction should be seen to encompass not just cost and quantity, but also criteria essential to a value such as quality and response time (Hollensen, 2007).
Control – measuring the effectiveness with which value is transferred across activity boundaries, as well as to and from external entities like suppliers, can take many forms. The different bases of value have to be understood, shared, and cooperatively achieved by cross-functional groups or value teams which may diverge in goals, styles of work, skills, educational background, etc (Khalil and Harcar 1999).
Conclusion
The case of Macpac shows that business planning is closely related to problem-solving. Planning constitutes an intentional, unified approach to the solution of various marketing problems. Although the specification of a plan for solving a problem is the first step, execution must accompany planning to achieve results. Marketing planning is a dynamic activity. In estimating future moves of competitors and actions of customers, for example, the difficulties and intricacies of estimation are evident. Flexible and pliable plans that reflect unexpected and unanticipated reactions must be developed. Because it encompasses market and sales forecasts, company plans and programs, and, of course, budgets, marketing planning carries out the marketing concept by balancing the firm’s capability with expected opportunities.
References
Bearden, W. O., Ingram, Th. N., LaForge, L.W. (2004). Marketing, Prentice-Hall.
Boone, L.E., Kurtz, D.L. (2002) Management, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Develop a Marketing Plan. (2009). Web.
Hollensen, S. (2007). Global Marketing: A Decision-Oriented Approach. Financial Times/ Prentice Hall; 4 edition.
Holder, B. (1996). First, Build a Marketing Plan. ABA Banking Journal, 88 (1), 43.
Khalil, E.M., Harcar, T. (1999). Relationship Marketing and Data Quality Management. Advanced Management Journal, 64 (1), 54.
Labarbera, P.A., Weingard, P., Yorkston, E.A.(1998). Matching the Message to the Mind: Advertising Imagery and Consumer Processing Styles. Journal of Advertising Research, 38 (6), 29-33.
Marketing and Business Planning. (2009). Web.