Executive Summary
Company Review
SkyRoll was established in 2001 with a speciality in protecting clothes from packing and unpacking while travelling. The company’s mission was “to make better carry-on luggage, so your clothes arrive looking like you never packed them” (SkyRoll 1). As a result of their strategy, this product has been named as the best product of the year by business week magazine. Additionally, the company was recognised by Fox News as one of the “top 5 coolest pieces of luggage”, the USA and LA Times rated the company as among the best in the industry.
SkyRoll Garment Bag manufactures suitcases that are unique since you do not need to fold them and, as a result, the company had revolutionised travelling experience when they introduced the world’s first roll-up garment bag. Due to their uniqueness, we have a plan to introduce this product in the United Arab Emirates to change the market for better (Rice 17).
Situation analysis
Market summaries
The SkyRoll Garment Bag Company is an enterprise with a future plan. The company’s first plan is to enter into the market and compete wisely with the competitors that are already in existence and if possible to phase them out of the market. After this is done, the company will introduce other products to the market. Company’s main product is the garment bags followed by the suitcases then other products follow as illustrated in the pie chart below.
Market demographics
With market demographics, the distribution density and the major statistics of the market population will be highly considered. We will consider age, sex, education, geographic location, and marital status of the population among others will be factored in. They will be targeting most of the population of the United Arab Emirates. Nevertheless, their main target will be tourists, both local and international.
Market Needs
They believe that SkyRoll Garment Bags and Suitcases will be a great success in the United Arab Emirates for this reason high returns are expected. This is because the United Arabs Emirates is a place visited by many tourists, thus guaranteeing them the target market and consequently preempting success. Statistics has it that people from all over the world travel to the UAE. The company has plans to use this knowledge to their advantage and therefore aims at making the product a success. Tourists are their main target group, followed by the locals, and it is for this reason that they have to like and purchase the SkyRoll garment bags and suitcases.
Market Trends
The market has been known for the existence of many customers shopping for clothes and bags, and it is even open to other countries overseas. There is a ready market from continents like Africa. There has been an increasing number of tourists in the area, and the economy of the United Arab Emirates has since improved. The business sector has diversified with time, and there are many foreign companies existing in the UAE market. This gives a huge market for the product.
Market growth
The sale of bags and suitcases is a good product to venture into because it is used in day to day activities. The UAE economy is growing at a very high rate compared to most of the economies in the world, putting SkyRoll in a good position to improve its growth. With the growth in the UAE economy, then there is a ready market for the product. When there is an increasing demand, then the supply will also increase, and this will lead to high returns.
SWOT Analysis
The SWOT analysis will guide SkyRoll in the right direction in achieving or attaining the desired goals. This will be the guideline of their marketing plan and the way forward to competing wisely and outdoing our competitors.
Strengths
SkyRoll is already a big name in the business world, and this is an advantage since it was recognised by Fox news for being ‘the top 5 coolest pieces of luggage’ and was awarded by the USA Today and LA Times. The UAE market is already established due to its high prevalence of tourists. Tourists need bags and suitcases for their transportation and SkyRoll will be there to avail them to the target customers.
Weaknesses
The weakness of their product is that there are many existing competitors in the market. The United Arab Emirates market has been discovered by many companies, and therefore there are many bags being sold. We have to have a unique product to gain market.
Opportunities
SkyRoll has many opportunities in the United Arab Emirates market. They will have an opportunity to diversify to other products like designing clothing and even venturing in more commodities as they learn the market. The market is conducive to venture into other fields, and therefore the future of SkyRoll is bright.
Threats
They believe that their main threats are the upcoming companies and the already existing ones. They will bring competition and therefore, SkyRoll has to make sure that it establishes a long term relationship with its customers. They have to market their product to the market to get the target customers mainly through advertisement.
Competition
The UAE market has a lot of competition and SkyRoll has to work its way up. There are a lot of companies producing and selling bags, and that’s why SkyRoll has to be the best. The competition is very high from well-known companies to the upcoming companies, and every one of them is aiming at succeeding in the same industry.
Keys to success
Benchmarking will be a way forward to succeeding in the UAE market. According to Rice (18), the strategies used by the companies that succeeded in the market are the ones that will be duplicated and adding the few marketing strategies that weren’t applied by those companies. Publicising the company will be of great importance to our image and what we offer to the customers. Advertising will be their main marketing strategy and mostly through the media since it will reach a large audience.
Critical Issues
The critical issues for their product are many. They should study the competitors and know what they think before they act. They should always be one step ahead of them in order to be successful and face them out of the market. SkyRoll will also consider customer behaviour and know their thoughts and feelings, thereby giving them what they want. The other critical issue is getting to learn and know the market trends s of the United Arabs Emirates. Therefore, they will have to make an effort to build a good and long-term relationship with the customers. SkyRoll will, therefore, train or get employees who have knowledge and skills on customer relations or customer service (Macinnis and Folkes 906).
Marketing Strategies
Mission
Our mission is ‘satisfaction of our clientele through the provision of better and high-quality SkyRoll bags and suitcases’.
Marketing Objectives
SkyRoll’s marketing objective will include:
- To be known internationally and SkyRoll brand to diversify into other different commodities and to publicise the company to every part of the world.
- To be outstanding, dedicated and sensitive to the needs of their employees and to customers we provide for.
- To be an outstanding company in terms of quality production and service satisfaction.
Financial Objectives
The financial objectives include:
- To be able to sell many products and gain high returns and the long-term objective is to maximise the profits.
- To be financially stable throughout the financial year
- To be the market leader in terms of turnover in sales and clientele satisfaction
Target Markets
The potential target markets are the tourists who visit the United Arab Emirates. The tourists always want to buy something to take back with them as a reminder of where they have been. The best and easy things to buy are the bags and suitcases in that it will also assist them in carrying the extras they bought when they visited the place. They will also need the bags to carry their items when they are touring around the place because most people do not like carrying extra items to their travel zone when they can still buy them. They will carry their credit cards, and SkyRoll will give them bags to carry what they fancy.
Positioning
There should be a realisation that the products cannot appeal to everyone in the market, and therefore we might not be able to satisfy all. SkyRoll will have to consider the positioning of benefits to the product. Brand awareness and product differentiation should be highly considered. Positioning will be done according to their specific use, against competing bags and user category and class.
Marketing Mix
This includes the product, price, place and promotion. The product is the bag and suitcase. The product has to be introduced in the market with knowledge of what the customers want. The product should be appealing to the customers, and thus the image of it should be able to attract the customers. This will involve its packaging since it is the first thing to be seen. The perception of the customers will greatly involve its sale. The products lifecycle is considered by the customer because they want to have a product that will have a long lifecycle (Delany 7).
The price is the amount we are going to ask the customers in exchange for our products. They never want anything expensive, so we will have to use pricing strategies to make them feel that it is not more than what they can afford. The strategies include pre-season pricing; price is no object, price lining and competitive advantage. We will mostly use competitive advantage and price lining. Competitive advantage is whereby they copy their competitors’ prices while the price lining is whereby we will place products with different prices according to what the customers prefer. They can have three bags with prices like $9.99, $4.99 and $ 14.99. This may be used to represent their quality. The one with a high price ($ 14.99) will be of more quality than the one will a lesser price ($ 4.99).
Marketing Research
In order to succeed in the UAE market, they will have to study the market carefully. This is done by observing the competitors or the already established companies and getting to know the facts of the markets through the statistics available. This will be done through the marketing model, having a marketing plan, doing market segmentation and finally focusing on the positioning (Delany 14).
Financials
Financing in the industry is the short-term to long-term funding of the company. The company should focus on its budget and get to know its financial statements very well. The expense should be less than the returns made and if it’s vice versa, then the company’s objectives and goals to maximise on its goal will only be a mere goal set and will risk being faced off or getting losses. The revenues should be increasing, and therefore the break-even analysis should be put into consideration.
Sales Forecast
In the above graph, the introduction of SkyRoll’s bags and suitcases are showing an increase in their sales in the market. This leads to the attainment of profits if it is maintained in the upward trend, then the SkyRoll’s objectives will be realised.
Contingency plan
The plan will take place when the product has been introduced in the market, and it is not selling to its expectations. When this happens, a contingency plan will be in need. This is normal in business because there are factors that will contribute to this loss. SkyRoll has a contingency plan since losing is not an option. They will have to go back to the drawing board and find out where the problem occurred and work on it by setting different goals and objectives and working towards attaining them. This is what makes us different and successful.
Works Cited
Delany, Ben. “The marketing mix”. BenDelaney.com. 2007. Web.
Macinnis, Deborah and Valerie Folkes. The disciplinary status of consumer behavior:a sociology of science perspective on key controversies. Journal of Consumer Research 36 (2010): 899-914.
Rice, Fredrick. “Marketing strategies for growing business”. US Business Administration.1999. Web.
Skyroll. Mission statement. 2010. Web.