Abstract
The purpose of this research paper is to give an analysis of the internal situation at Credit Master that makes it possible to launch the new product called fast credit. This is a service offered by the company that enables customers and lenders to view credit information over the internet. It protects customers against fraudsters who have increased in the UK.
Credit Master have been using this product for quite some time but it had not followed the marketing procedures involved in launching new products into the market. This paper gives the procedure to be followed when launching new products so that it gets to the targeted customers. This is done by designing a launching plan which has to be included in the budget because it consumes a significant amount of money.
After fast credit has been launched, the company has to modify its marketing strategies or adopt new ones in order to monitor and control the new product. This ensures that its new product (fast credit) get to the right customers and guarantees the company success in the rapidly changing global market. These strategies are effective promotion and marketing mix.
Introduction
Starting up a new product is taking a risk; however if the decision is well thought there are numerous benefits that come with investing in business venture. Before one is set to start a new venture there are short and long terms parameters that he should consider to ensure that there will be continuity in the product. The future is unpredictable and so even the smallest details about something should be interpolated before starting up.
It will be appreciated that a company with properly shaped psychological contracts embraces a system that allows employees to air their views to the higher leadership. Conducting an internal analysis helps a company to understand its marketing position and the opportunities than can be utilized to enhance its performance.
This paper gives a brief background of Credit Master Company, looks at the procedure followed in designing a launch plan and gives the SWOT analysis as well as some of the marketing strategies that should be adopted to ensure continuity of the new product.
Background
Credit Master is a global agency company that provides financial, marketing, and statistical information to customers and businesses. Its core business operation is to partner with other companies such as banks and credit card companies in the provision of financial information.
As we all know, lending money is a risky business but the information provided by Credit Master helps financial institution in making informed decisions. The work of this firm is to enable lending institutions such as banks to share information related to their customer’s credit accounts. The lender uses this information in making decision on whether or not a customer is eligible for a loan.
This is done by looking at the amount of credit held by a customer and how it is being managed. Credit Master charges a fee to the lenders every time its record is searched.
However, the customer has to give his consent before his credit report information is searched and for such information to be stored by Credit Master. Customers too have a right to view their credit information but they can only do so after paying a legal charge of £2.
Credit Master Market covers student loans, personal loans, hire purchase agreements, mortgages, credit cards, among others. For a long time, the firm’s customers have being relying on the post in applying and receiving their credit information. However, recently, the company has been using a new product called credit fast which has enabled it to target new markets.
Customers can now apply and receive their statutory report online after passing the authentication process. With credit fast, customers are able to understand the perception held by prospective lenders regarding their credit information and are therefore in a position to determine whether their request will be granted. This new products also protects members against identity fraud which has become a problem in UK.
Literature Review
Product launch plan
After product development and having done a thorough scrutiny of the target market, the next step is to develop a product launch plan. This plan will concentrate on the necessary phases that will help boost production, build up marketing strategies, come up programs for sales people training, and grounding of how to set up or sustain the product.
A well prepared product launch plan results in faster and more effective marketing and coordination of activities (Lodato, 2008: 10). Having a product launch plan is very crucial for the success of every business. The following procedure has to be followed in launching new products.
Understanding the Target Market and market segmentation
Under review of the product launch process; there are certain things that should be put into consideration such as identification of needed activities, system requirement, and organizational responsibilities.
A clear understanding of the target market is necessary in any product launch plan. This is because products launched on markets where most of the audience are not interested results in terrible failures. One has to have a thorough understanding of his audience.
Understanding of the target market is known as market segmentation. The target market should be broken down into small segments to make advertising easy. One of the benefits of market segmentation is that. Companies are able to target specific populations that would have not been reached if mass marketing was adopted.
With this kind of marketing, companies are able to have a closer contact with their potential customers and they are able to understand their tastes, interests, and their economic positions which helps them in determining patterns of consumption and the marketing strategies to be adopted.
With market segmentation, the process of marketing becomes simple because marketers are able to concentrate their marketing strategies on specific groups of people with similar characteristics. They are also able to monitor the process of products in the specific markets with the expectation of better results.
Process Improvement
After reviewing the product launch process, the next step is to develop a process improvement. This involves making improvement on the marketing strategies, organization responsibilities, and design of the product.
In order to achieve an effective improvement process, the best way to go about this is to market and pre-sell the product (as Credit Masters has already done) in the targeted markets before the actual date of launching. Different methods of advertising may be used to drive the message home.
The aim of this pre-selling is to help the product developers get some feedback from the audience of which they can be able to make the necessary adjustments before launching the product (Lodato, 2008: 15).
Integrate Organization
Once the process has been reviewed and necessary improvements done, the next step is to redesign the organization integration. This integration is done among the product launch team members who are responsible for its development.
Responsibilities are distributed among the team members and necessary changes made which then helps to facilitate the launch activities. Trainings are offered to the team members in order to equip them with the necessary skills required in this job.
After carrying out the necessary analysis for the product launch, the product launch team is left with the responsibility of designing the plan. The plan should include method of advertisement to be adopted, projected budget among others.
The plan should be cost effective and cost should be kept as low as possible. After successfully launching the product, the team should monitor closely its progress, get feedback from the users and decide when to raise or lower the charges (Ebbena & Johnson, 2006:851).
Branding
Global marketing strategies call for development of strategies that build upon the brand image and customers loyalty. This includes developing positioning strategies as compared to competitors worldwide. Branding and positioning strategies must fit the product and the company across multiple countries. Organizations are formed to achieve certain goals.
Credit master is built to grow shareholder value by delivering quality products at low costs. The product that achieves this is the credit fast. The brand image of this product is strong and can market for it self. One advantage of branding is that, the company is able to build a strong reputation and earn trust from its valued customers.
Branding can also be considered as a form of marketing that lasts for long even after the advertising campaign is over. With proper branding, credit master will be able to create a sharp focus on the sale of credit fast. It is able to develop marketing activities that will attract the intended customers. A strong brand helps in designing a good structure and development plan that ensures success of the business’s products.
Analysis
SWOT Analysis
Before the product is launched, there is need to carry out a SWOT analysis for the company in the target markets. Locally (in UK), the company has strength in that it is already established and has a good reputation. This makes it easy for the launching of the new product in the market. The financial sector is already developed and thus the company may face stiff competition from the rival industries against its product.
It may become even harder to convince clients about the effectiveness of fast credit because they are used to other products. Despite the threat of competition there is still an opportunity that UK being a developed country the company has opportunities for expansion and growth. The following table gives a summary of the company’s SWOT analysis
Marketing Strategies
Promotion as an Effective Marketing Communication
Promotion which is also known as channel of distributions is one of the four main elements of effective marketing. Every organization uses promotion as a way of making a product or service accessible for consumption by the consumer. Promotion can be through the media, such as use of TV, radio, magazines, newspaper, internet where one (the advertiser) pays a certain fee to the advertising agent.
A promotion plan is aimed at increasing sales, launching new products, positioning an organization, or creation of good corporate image. Promotion is a form of communication that helps a company to analyze its competitor environment in classifying and identifying its market position in terms of competition.
In the course of market promotion a company is able to establish its business performance in the market and discover new strategies that can work effectively (Yeshin, 1998:127). A company is able to know where it stands in the market. It can either be a market leader, market challenger or a small market holder.
If a company realizes that it is a market leader, it will employ strategies that assist in maintaining that position in the market.
For market challengers, they will employ more advanced marketing information strategies as they fight to lead the market or occupy some of the market share occupied by the smaller markets holders (Masterman & Wood, 2006: 58). And for the companies holding small market share, it will act as a challenge and they will try other strategies in order to increase their share in the market.
Marketing Mix
An effective marketing mix ensures that goods are available to the target customer, when they need them, at an affordable price. The first point is to collect adequate market data and analyze the same. The company uses business intelligence tools to collect a wide range of data essential for its operations (Slowman & Sutcliffe, 2004:4). The data is interpolated in terms of age, sex, region, education, income, and lifestyle.
This assists the company in knowing the products that it will develop if it has to remain competitive. Its research centers offer great assistance in ensuring that all is set in terms of data available for decision making. A customer is the backbone of a company; the main decision that a marketing manager should make is determining his company’s market segment.
One of the ways to enter in the target market is marketing mix (Earl, 1996:50). The 4Ps represent Price, product/service, promotion, and place. An effective marketing ensures that goods are available to the target customer, when they need them and they are affordable.
Price
- Competitive international pricing strategy (Hooley & Saunders, 1993:20)
- Price-wars- Price-ranges (Customers select services & the price range that suit them).
- Limit pricing strategies.
Promotion
- Cross-advertising advantage (vertical integration).
- Service promotion through corporate image (efficient products).
Products / services
- Diversified range products.
- Inter-linked products for customer use delivering the content that customer’s desire.
Place
- Open market operations.
- Effective distribution channels through advanced technology (Mintzberg, et al. 2003:43).
- Accessible locations.
Space Matrix
The space matrix is an instrument used to determine whether aggressive, defensive, competitive or conservative techniques are appropriate for the company.
In this case, SPACE matrix is used to determine the appropriate strategy that Credit Master should adopt for its growth and development of the new product (Anon. “Space matrix strategic management method” 2010). It helps the company to favorably compete with other companies within the industry. The following table shows the space matrix for Credit Master.
From the above analysis, it is clear that the company has to adopt an aggressive strategy in order to beat its competitors. An aggressive strategy in this case would be increased promotion of its products both in the local market and internationally. This owes to the fact that the company lags much behind its competitors.
By adopting the aggressive strategy, the company will be seeking to catch up and probably outweigh its major competitors. Furthermore, the strategy is very appropriate in terms of attracting more clients. With the large number of operators in the industry and the potential entrance of new players, aggressive strategy is most appropriate in grabbing customers and even establishing loyal clients (Anctil, 2008:40).
Advantages and disadvantages of using primary and secondary research
One advantage of using primary research is that, one gets the opportunity to meet with the correspondents and gets information directly from them. One gets up to date information that can be relied on in designing proper marketing strategies.
It also gives in-depth information as compared to secondary research. On the other hand, primary research is associated with some disadvantages. One of them is that, it is an expensive process that requires prior planning. The other disadvantage is that, it consumes a lot of time that would otherwise be used for other activities.
Secondary research is the use of recorded information to write a report. This type of research has numerous advantages. Some of them include; it is cheaper than primary research, it does not consume a lot of time, requires less effort, and can be done at any time from any location so long as there are materials to be referred.
The disadvantages of this kind of research include; it does not give up to date information, and at times it is difficult the find the exact information relating to the issue at hand.
Business expansion
When a business is planning to expand its operation, it can either use internal or external sources of information. Internal sources include using the strengths and the weakness that the business has in order to determine strong points that it can specialize in. It can also conduct an internal research from the employees and other stake holders, for instant shareholders on their view towards the company’s products.
This helps in determining the strategies to use when it decides to expand the business so as to attract a large number of customers. External information comes from customers, supplies, contractors, and the society at large. This kind of information can be collected by designing questionnaires that are filled by specific people chosen at random.
Recommendations
Since the Masters Credit Company is growing fast and at the same time facing challenges, it is important that certain recommendations be proposed. The recommendations should be adopted with the sole reason of advancing the company’s global operations. To achieve this, the following recommendations are important;
Restructure marketing techniques: the company is facing stiff international competition and is likely to lose out in case it remains with the same old marketing strategies; the company should consider drawing new market communication strategies that will reposition its products in the market. In addition, the company should re-brand its products through careful and skillful innovation in order to attract new customers.
To ensure that the operations of the company are successful, it is important that the company defines its operation principles of internal control. Moreover, the company should also establish ways of monitoring and evaluating the internal controls.
The company should establish proper criteria according to which the process of risk management will be taking place. The criteria should be in such a way that potential risks are identified early enough and appropriate actions taken promptly.
Financial strength is one of the most important core businesses of the company. To ensure that the company’s financial resource are well managed and utilized, it is recommended that the company gives a clear description on how the internal audit should function to avoid any form of Fraud or misappropriation of financial resource
It will also be important for the company to enhance the flow of information from the top level to bottom level. The flow of information on crucial and sensitive matters should be effective and efficient. This should utilize the most current communication technology.
The strengths and weaknesses of the company should be evaluated on a periodic basis in order to identify potential challenges that can affect the normal operations of the company. It is important to note that new challenges arise and can contribute to the company’s already existing weaknesses.
Again, the company is likely to gain more strength in areas which, if well utilized, can help enhance the competitive advantage of the company. A definite period should therefore be set to be used in monitoring and evaluating the internal weaknesses and strengths of the company.
Conclusion
By launching fast credit, Credit Master is assured of increased sales volume since a big number of potential customers will learn about the company’s products. This is done through the adoption of new strategies such as marketing mix and promotion. With good promotion a company or business is able to determine its market share.
With this, the company will be able to know which tactics to employ in order to increase the market share as well as ensure customer satisfaction. Negative feedback concerning the product will help the company to identify areas in which to work on in order to improve the quality of its products. All this is aimed at ensuring good returns for the company in form of profits.
Reference List
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Anon. 2010. Space Matrix Strategic Management Method. Web.
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