Unit 2 Marketing Essentials Assignment Sample - EE Limited

Introduction:

The Marketing Essentials Assignment Sample - EE Limited discusses about the marketing concepts of EE limited. The unit initiates with the discussion of marketing mix of the two companies. Further, it focuses on development of the marketing plan of EE limited. The marketing plan is about drafting the decisions of all the elements of marketing that can help the company to achieve its marketing objectives. The marketing plan of the company has been discussed and some of the recommendations have also been given that can help the company to improve its functions.

Task 2:

LO 2. Compare ways in which organisations use elements of the marketing mix (7Ps) to achieve overall business objectives.

Marketing: Marketing is the operational function of the organisation that deals with activities that are practiced in order to make the people aware about the products and services. A market is the place that provides platform to the sellers and the buyers. In order to increase the sales, sellers need to use different advertising and marketing strategies to create awareness about the product’s existence in the market. (do Paço, 2011)

Marketing Mix: Marketing mix is one of the basic and the very important part of marketing plan. It includes all the elements that are important for an organisation from manufacturing to sale of the product. It can be considered as the set of marketing tools that blends together to generate a marketing response in the market. Every organisation uses this tool to make its marketing plan. Primarily it consists of 4P’s, but now it is extended to 7P’s of marketing.

Shift from 4P’s to 7P’s: Many decisions have to be made in order to generate a marketing plan of the product. Marketing mix is the tool that allows the marketers to analyze the factors associated with the product in order to make the decisions so required. Earlier the marketing mix concept involves product, price, place and promotion as its main components. It was observed that not only the product, place, price and promotion made the marketing mix but there are more elements that are associated with the product in order to make the marketing plan. Now, 3P’s are added to the elements. These are people, process and physical evidence. (Malhotra, 2007)

4 P’s of marketing:

• Product: Product can simple be explains as the goods, services or the combination of both offered by the company to the target market. Product can be intangible or tangible in nature. The nature of product classifies it into 3 categories. These categories are core product, actual product and the last one is augmented product.
• Price: Price is described as the amount that has been exchanged in terms of buying the product from the seller. In general terms, price can be calculated by adding the cost of the product with the profit margin of the organisation as well as the intermediaries that are involved in delivering the product to the end consumer. (Mann and Jha, 2015)
• Place: Place involves all the activities involved in making the product available to the target customers. It includes distribution channels, intermediaries etc. It also includes the location where the product is available.
• Promotion: Advertising and Promotion involves all the activities that deal with advertising of the product. Different promotional tools have been used by the different organisaton in order to create awareness about the product in the market.

Extended 3 P’s:

• People: All human factors that are involved directly in indirectly in the whole process from manufacturing of products to its sale are considered in this element. It is the most important tool of marketing mix as all processes from inception to the end can be possible only with the assistance of the relevant people.
• Process: Process can be termed as all the activities and the practices that are involved in making the product available to the market. This tool mainly concentrates on flow of these activities in order to get best results.
• Physical evidence: Physical evidence is the material part associated with the product. It is the evidence of the presence and existence of the product in the market. The associated material can be logos, signs, packaging of the product that makes the customers rely on them. (Milligan, 2012)

Comparison of marketing mix of EE and Apple

Marketing mix tools	EE	Apple
Product	The company is mainly into providing network services to the customers. The core product of the company is the voice transfer services. Second service provide by the company is of internet access through 3G and 4G plans. The tangible product of the company involves mobile phones and SIM cards to make use of the services that the company provides.	The firm serves its customers with wide variety of products. The kist of product includes iphones, ipad, Mac, iwatch, software etc. The company believes in innovation and come up with many updates of its products. As far as the iphone range of the product is considered, the phone is a high quality product and act as the status symbol for the customers. (Apple.com, 2016)
Price	The company uses penetration pricing strategy in order to penetrate in the market. However, EE was the first mover to 4G services so kept the prices high and uses premium pricing strategy to gain early profits. (EE, 2016)	The company uses premium pricing strategy. Apple needs to maintain its status symbol and thus have to charge premium prices from the customers. the pricing strategy also helps the company to target a small sector of middle and upper class and it also results in making higher profit margins for the company.
Place	Place involves the delivery methods used to make the product available. The company uses internet and catalogues to do direct marketing. Sales staff is used to deal with the intermediaries. The intermediaries that are used in the form of franchise, partners and agents.	Holistic approach of distribution has been used by the company to reach the market. The company opts for selective distribution strategies that includes Apple stores, online Apple stores, Authorized dealers, telecom companies etc.
Promotion	The major promotion tool adopted by the company is public relations. This tool helps the company in achieving its objective of increasing sales and winning trust of stakeholders. Direct marketing is also used by the sales and customers service representative to promote the new products in the market.	Four of the major strategies that have been used by the company are advertising, public relations, sales promotion and personal selling. Apple evnts, press releases etc are some of the techniques of making public relations by observing the response of the people.
People	The main objective of the company is to increase its sales and market coverage. The most important people that are associated to achieve the objectives are mangers, employees and intermediaries that support the company to reach masses.	In general, people involves all the members who are associared with the product. in case of Apple, the most important part of this element is the employee. The employees of the company are one of the most important reasons behind the innovations of the company.
Process	It is not only the product that fascinates the customers but the process that makes the product available is also very important.	The company believes that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Therefore, Apple is known for its simplified process and functions. The company owns many factories around the world and follows a systematic approach in all the processes.
Physical evidence	EE limited does not make use of the power of physical evidence to attract the customers. The physical evidence of the company involves the logo of the company.	The physical evidence of the company is the logo as well as the pleasant ambience of the stores. It gives a premium experience to the customers and helps in maintaining the brand image with sophistication.

 

Overview of marketing planning process: Every plan needs a systematic approach to be followed. Marketing plan is the critical state as reaching the customers with the right approach is very important. To prepare a market plan, marketers need to follow some of the steps in orderly basis to come up with the great marketing plan:

1. Analysis: Analysis is the first step that needs to be critically done by the marketers. This involves analysis of the business environment in terms of marketing as well as the present situation of the business in the industry. (Paley, 2005)
2. Planning: This is the second and the most important step. After analyzing the market as well as the internal situation, marketer needs to make blueprint that act as the guide to implement all the actions and processes in orderly basis. Planning involves drafting all the activities that needs to be done in the marketing plan. It involves the decisions like tools of marketing, pricing strategies, time of marketing, methods of marketing, budget etc.
3. Implementation: It is the stage that deals with bringing the plan into action. At this stage, all the marketing tools start processing or performing accordingly with the plan drafted. Implementation of the plan requires a continuous flow of activities one by one.
4. Control: This is also an important step to be followed, this step starts as and when the plan is executed. Control involves keeping a check on activities of marketing. Any deviation from the plan needs to be checked and corrective measures should be used to reduce the deviation gap from the original plan. (Richter, 2002)

Marketing strategies: Marketing strategies involves the strategies that need to be opted in order to execute the marketing plan. Marketing plan involves the strategies like pricing strategies, promotional strategies, distribution strategies etc. Pricing strategies determines the criteria that are followed in calculating the price of the product. Distribution strategies deals with the method used to distribute the products to the market. (Russell, 2010)

LO 3. Develop and evaluate a basic marketing plan.

Executive summary: This report focuses on evaluation of the marketing environment of the company known as EE limited. It is a telecom company in UK that is considered as the market leader in the industry. To assess the external environment, PESTEL analysis and Porter’s five forces have been used. In order to analyze the internal environment of the company, value chain analysis, financial performance and product portfolio is analyzed. EE still faces some of the issues regarding poor communication between the departments and brand recognition. Various recommendations have been made I the report to overcome these obstacles. (Ryan and Jones, 2009)

Company overview: The telecom industry has a market value of £15.88 in 2013. It has been observed that the value of the industry is at the growing stage and the growth is estimated as 7% in 2018. The increase of the growth is due to increase in the number of mobile services in the country. As far as the company EE limited is concerned, the company is formed by the merger of two companies known as Orange and T-Mobile. The collaboration happened in the year of 2010. In the initial four years of the business, company has invested around £1.5bn and covers almost 98% of the UK telecom industry by 2014 end. It is one of the largest telecom service providers in UK and owns around 700 stores that engage in serving around 27 million customers in the country.

Marketing situation analysis:

• Internal analysis: Internal analysis of the company can be defined as examining the internal factors that affect the company’s functioning. These factors may involve financial analysis, value chain analysis, strength and weakness of the country. The internal analysis of the organization helps in making the improvement plans for the company by determining its faults as well as competitive advantage.

 

Financial performance:

The figure shows the financial performance of EE limited in year 2013 and 2012. It has been observed that the overall revenue of the company has decreased from £6.7 to £6.5. It has also been observed that the cash invested in the company has also increased from 2012 to 2013. This is because of launching of 3G and 4G services in the year.

Value chain analysis: Value chain analysis is the working tool for the organisation to examine the internal activities of the organisation. This tool is used to judge the relative value of the activities that have been conducted in the organisation. The practice is done in order to find out the area of improvement in the activities so that the company can add value to the final product by making the required improvement. As the major marketing aim of EE limited is to reach through the masses, it is important for the company to increase its selling approach. As discussed in the scenario, company is facing poor cross functional communication so the efforts should be made by the company to increase the communication between sales and marketing department.

The company focuses on opening retail stores that helps in selling more and more products by direct selling method.

Product portfolio analysis: EE 4G products are considered as the product with high relative growth and market share. Around 816,000 new customers have been acquired by the product in the quarter of 2013. This means the product is covering the high market share in the industry. O the other hand, the 3G products of the company is at stable growth situation but still providing huge revenue to the company without much of the investment. (EE, 2016)

• External environment analysis:

External environment of the company involves the factors that belongs to outside of the company but affect its internal functioning. The analysis of external factors can be done by PESTEL analysis as well as Porter’s Five Forces approach.

PESTEL analysis: Political factors: The regulatory authority for telecom industry in UK is of com. However, government still has some of the impact by making announcement regarding the investment. The government announced that there should be investment of £120 million for broadband improvement.

Economic factor: As far as the current economic situation of the country has been considered, it is found to be very favorable for the telecom companies as the country has recovered from the recession period of 2008 to 2010. The increase in household disposable income results in improvement of mobile consumption.

Social factors: Every product is purchased by different segments of buyers. These segments have different purchase behaviors according to their nature and beliefs. It has been observed that the segment of teen customers acquiring the mobile services has risen to 81% from 61% between 2011-2013. This group also uses some other ways of communication like social networking, text messages etc. the requirement of this target group is different from other segments.

Technological factors: Telecom industry is very much affected by the technological change and demands. Demand of high speed internet leads to launching of 4G services by EE limited is the biggest example.

Legal factors: Ofcom is the organisation that regulates the functioning of telecom industry. It provides the guidelines to form the policies. Ofcom suggests that consumers are free to terminate the contracts with the telecom service in the circumstances like price rise of the product.

Ecological environment: The telecom industry or the company like EE limited does not get affected much by the changing environmental factors.

Competitive analysis- Porter’s Five Forces

Threat of competition: Telecom industry in UK is competitive in nature. Most of the companies like Vodafone, EE, O2, Three, and Virgin etc face high competition risk because of the saturation in the market. EE is one of the companies that covers large market area (31%).

Threat of new entry: This industry is relatively attractive because of the high profit margin. However, entering the industry require huge investment that acts as the barrier to the entry of new companies in the market. (Docplayer.net, 2016)

Bargaining power of buyers: Due to saturation in the industry, customers have many choices to switch on the mobile networks. The switching cost in the industry is also low. This results in high bargaining power of the customers.

Bargaining power of the suppliers: Although EE is the market leader; company is facing competition from the rivals and thus need to collaborate with other companies for supporting the network. Huawei ICT is the company that supports the network of EE.

Threat of substitute: Telecom companies have medium risks from the substitutes. This is because advancement in the internet services supports other approaches to text and communicates with others. Skype and Viber are some of the applications that act as the substitutes for telecom network calling services. (EE, 2016)

• SWOT analysis:

 Strength:

• Market leader of the industry.
• Largest 4G customer base.
• High performance level in terms of speed.
• Security apps on mobile phones.

Weakness:

• Low brand recognition.
• Unavailability of 4G roaming services.
• High customer service complaints due to  low cross functional communication.

Opportunities:

• More involvement in marketing activities to improve the branding.
• Introduction of own brand's mobile phones.

Threats:

• Increase in usage of applications like Skype, whatsapp, and hike tec.
• Threat of competitors due to saturation f the industry.

(do Paço, 2011)

Market objectives: After analyzing the internal as well as the external environment of the company, it has been observed that company has to focus on making Smart goals and objectives. Following are some of the objectives that need to be focused upon:

• Increase in customers base
• Increase in number of satisfied customers
• Improving cross functional communication
• Increase I number of 4G users

Strategies: To increase the customer base of the company, it is required for the company to enlarge their reach. This can be possible by opening more and more stores in the country. It has been observed that company is facing the problem of poor cross functional communication. This restricts the linkage between the marketing strategies and the objectives of the company. After analyzing the situation, it has been observed that reduction in customer’s satisfaction is also the factor that affects the growth of the company. Thus, it is important to serve the customers from each possible way by retailers, dealer, internet etc. To increase the number of satisfied customer, organisation need to made investment in customers service department rather than acquiring new customers. To increase the customer base of 4G services, organisation needs to improve the place, price and promotional strategies. Penetration pricing is the strategy that needs to be used in order to acquire more market for 4G services. EE can achieve the target by increasing the number of retail stores at the areas that are easily approachable for the customers. Distribution through multiple channels can be strategy to improve customer base. Promotional strategies like advertising and personal selling would be the best strategies to achieve the objective. (Duedil.com, 2016)

Segmentation, targeting, positioning (STP): Segmentation: It is the process of dividing the market into different segments according to their common characteristics. Market can be segmented on different basis such as, demographic, behavioral, geographic etc. The most relevant approach for telecom industry is segmentation by behavior.

Targeting: After segmenting the market, EE has to focus on choosing few of the segments that can be targeted. Targeting is the process choosing a segment that is most profitable. In 2013, it has been revealed that EE trying to target the Vodafone target customers that are the young tech-savvy generation for launching 4G products. (Docplayer.net, 2016)

Positioning: Positioning is the technique of portraying an image in the minds of target customers with the differentiated traits from the competitors. EE tries to position itself as the premium brand. It has been analyzed that the company is charging high prices and serving low quality products to the customers. Company needs to make changes in their strategies ether by lowering the prices or by uplifting the quality of the products.

Marketing control: This is the basic requirement of the marketing plan. Controlling should be done by matching the objectives with the results. Drafted activities should be considered in order to check the processes so that corrective measures can be used if any deviation is found. (Malhotra, 2007)

Conclusion:

EE limited is the very new company in the telecom industry. However the company has acquired great market coverage by its efforts and branding strategies. After analyzing the internal and external business environment of the company, it has been observed that EE limited has great potential to compete in the industry and by adopting the recommended strategies company will definitely overcome the weaknesses it has. By launching 4G services, company has become the leader of the market in serving the customers. EE needs to made efforts on improving the communication and marketing strategies of the company. This helps the company to achieve all its goals and objectives.