9. Corporate Planning

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9. Corporate Planning Marketing Analysis
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Strategic Planning Marketing

• Strategic planning done at the top management
  level
• Ideally, marketing manager should be involved in
  the process, starting with the corporate
  objectives
• So that he sets his own depts objectives in line
  with the corporate
• This being so as marketing is an important
  function (remember need for company to be
  marketing/customer oriented)

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Marketing Objectives

• These need to be tailored to marketing strengths,
  such as
• A familiar brand name
• A strong patent
• Positive relationship with intermediaries
• Well-developed promotion/pricing resources
• A thorough knowledge of the target market

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Basic Types of Competitive Situations

• Pure competition - ideal
• Oligopoly a few big players, e.g., oil
  companies
• Monopolistic competition where several
  companies offer marketing mixes perceived as
  different by customers
• Monopoly

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Competitor Analysis

• Evaluation of current/potential customers
• Competitive rivals (closest competitors) firms
  offering similar products/serving the same needs
  with a different product
• Roles of competitor analysis
• Help management understand our competitive
  advantages/disadvantages
• Generate understanding of competitors strategies
• Provide basis for developing our strategies
• Help forecast returns from future investments
• Questions to ask (p 590)

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Sources of Competitor Information

• Recorded Data easily available in published
  form, e.g., Annual reports, Brochures
• Observable Data actively sought and assembled
  from several sources (i.e., competitive pricing)
• Opportunistic data Much of this is anecdotal
  from suppliers, customers, past management
• (see p 595)

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Competitive Barriers/Competitive Advantage

• Refer to Porters 5 Force Model
• Barriers to Entry
• Competitive advantage being able to serve
  customer needs better than competition

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Evaluating Business Opportunities

• Marketing managers need to screen opportunities
  using set of product/market criteria
• These criteria based on company resources and
  objectives, as well as market trends
• Criteria should have quantitative and qualitative
  components
• Quantitative?
• Qualitative types of business the firm wants to
  be in, its own strengths, etc
• Portfolio Analysis BCG Matrix, McKinsey/GE
  Matrix

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Benchmarking

• Identifying Best Practice
• The Benchmarking Process
• Planning a Benchmarking Project
• Conducting a Benchmarking Project

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Identifying Best Practice
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Identifying Best Practice

• Continual improvement is core pursuit of quality
• Business cannot be complacent competing
  organizations will always find new better ways
  of providing service so business must
  continually improve
• One way organizational improvement based on
  comparative measurement - benchmarking

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Identifying Best Practice

• Xerox adopted documented this approach in 1979
• Xeroxs definition of competitive benchmarking
• the continuous process of measuring products,
  services and practices against the toughest
  competitors, or those companies recognized as
  industry leaders

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Identifying Best Practice

• Benchmarking a structured self-discovery tool
  that acts as a catalyst and enabler of change and
  allows organizations to learn from experience
• Benchmarking now widely recognized as critical to
  organizational improvement

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Identifying Best Practice

• Key benchmarking steps
• - understand your own processes practices
• - identify performance drivers for your business
• - identify industry leaders, competitors or
  best-in-class practices
• - learn from the best
• - adapt and adopt their best practices
• - gain competitive parity
• - seek competitive advantage

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Identifying Best Practice

• Benchmarking aims to understand metrics the
  practice
• Metrics measure of extent/degree or gap
• The Practice how performance difference is
  achieved
• Both are crucial

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Identifying Best Practice

• - Benchmarking requires Management commitment to
  take action if necessary
• - Also, requires carefully designed
  communications throughout the organization
• - Employee involvement at every step
• Benchmarking widely practiced now, but poorly
  implemented

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The Benchmarking Process
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The Benchmarking Process Xerox Benchmarking
Process Steps
1. Identify benchmarking subject 2. Identify comparative companies 3. Determine data collection methods collect data Planning
4. Determine current competitive gap 5. Project future performance Analysis
6. Communicate findings and gain acceptance 7. Establish functional goals Integration
8. Develop action plans 9. Implement plans monitor progress 10. Recalibrate benchmark Action
Leadership position attained Practices fully integrated Maturity
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The Benchmarking Process

• Benchmarking activity falls into one of the
  following categories
• - internal comparing with other internal depts
  of same company (e.g., complaints handling).
  Usually easiest to handle info available. But
  unlikely to lead to world class
• - competitor based comparison with competitor.
  Difficult to obtain info because of
  confidentiality, though some metrics in public
  domain
• - functional comparison with non-competitive
  organizations with same functional ability (e.g.,
  call handling, warehousing). Easy, as functional
  leaders easy to identify
• - generic comparison of business processes that
  cut across functions industries (e.g.,
  invoicing). Most innovative benchmarking
  breakthroughs in this type

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The Benchmarking Process

• Freely available data can be used, but may not
  give best benchmarking results
• The most useful data is usually jealously guarded
• Because of this, formal benchmarking agreements
  are used however, this may go against the
  benchmarking spirit of cooperation could use
  confidentiality/non-disclosure agreements instead

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Planning a Benchmarking Project
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Planning a Benchmarking Project

• Benchmarking almost always a team activity
• Typically, a steering committee formed with
  specialists form areas of most concern
• Members must be motivated to improve are in a
  position to implement changes they must be
  trained in the benchmarking methodology and other
  quality improvement tools (i.e., business process
  analysis flowcharting)

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Conducting a Benchmarking Project
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Conducting a Benchmarking Project

• Benchmarking info can be obtained thru
  telephone, personal interviews, questionaires or
  personal visits
• Any contact needs to be planned in advance
  purpose of contact clear and questions
  well-prepared
• Contact should be structured carried out in a
  professional manner (i.e., timing, conduct, etc)
• Results from benchmarking should address both
  metrics and practices

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Conducting a Benchmarking Project

• Analysis of benchmarking info frequently
  addresses quantitative data, but qualitative data
  (i.e., interview comments) generally provides
  greater opportunity for determining innovative
  approaches/ concepts
• Organizations can also learn from partners
  problems leading to unforeseen benefits
  benefits for the organization with best practice
  in the partnership
• Open and honest exchange of info can lead to a
  win-win situation