Strategic planning of marketing projects

DEFINITION OF THE PROJECT

Many companies operate without formal plans. In startups, managers are sometimes busy with no time to plan. In small companies, many managers think that only large corporations need formal plans. In mature companies, many managers claim that they have achieved good results without formal planning. These managers may be reluctant to spend the time it takes to prepare a written plan, or they may argue that the market changes so rapidly that plans are useless.

Formal planning encourages management to think systematically to the future, forces it to refine its objectives and policies, allows it to better coordinate the work of the company, and provides clearer performance standards for control. The argument that planning is less useful in a rapidly changing environment is absurd; in fact, the opposite is true: good planning helps your business anticipate and respond to changes in the environment quickly, as well as better prepare for sudden events.

Companies often prepare annual plans, long-term plans, and strategic plans. Annual and long-term plans address the company's current business and how to keep it going. In contrast, the strategic plan involves adapting the company to take advantage of the opportunities offered by its constantly changing environment. We define strategic planning as the process of creating and maintaining strategic coherence between the goals and capabilities of the organization and its changing marketing opportunities.

Strategic planning sets the stage for the rest of planning in the company, and involves defining a clear mission for the company, setting supporting objectives, designing a strong business portfolio, and coordinating functional strategies. At the corporate level, the company first defines its overall purpose and mission. The mission is then converted into detailed support goals that guide the entire company. The head office then decides which portfolio of businesses and products is best for the company and how much support to give to each. In turn, each business and product unit must create detailed departmental marketing and other plans that support the enterprise-wide plan. Thus, marketing planning occurs at the business unit, product and market levels,and supports the strategic planning of the company with more detailed plans for specific marketing opportunities.

Steps of strategic planning:

Define the mission of the company Set the objectives and goals of the company Design the business portfolio Planning, marketing and other functional strategies

DEFINITION OF THE COMPANY'S MISSION

An organization exists to achieve something. Initially, the organization has a clear purpose or mission, but over time the mission may lose clarity as the organization grows, adds new products and markets, or faces new conditions in the environment. When management feels the organization is adrift, it must renew its search for purpose. So it's time to ask: What business are we in? Who is the client? What do customers value? What should our business be? These seemingly simple questions are among the most difficult the business will ever have to answer. Successful companies continually ask these questions and answer them carefully and completely.

Many organizations produce formal mission statements that answer these questions. The mission statement is an expression of the purpose of the organization - what it wants to achieve in the larger environment. A clear mission statement acts as an “invisible hand” that guides the organization's staff.

Traditionally, companies have defined their business in terms of products (“we make furniture”) or in technological terms (“we are a chemical processing company”). However, mission statements must be market-oriented. Products and technologies sooner or later lose relevance, but the basic needs of the market could last forever. A market-oriented mission statement defines the business in terms of meeting the basic needs of customers. For example, AT&T is in the communications business, not the phone business.

Management should avoid making its mission too narrow or too broad. A pen manufacturer that claims to be in the communication equipment business is expressing its mission in too broad terms. The missions must be realistic. The mission of a company must also be specific. Many mission statements are written for public relations purposes and lack specific and practical guidelines. The statement “we want to become the leading company in this industry by making the highest quality products with the best service and the lowest prices” sounds good, but it is full of generalities and contradictions.Celestial Seasonings' mission statement is very specific “Our mission is to grow and dominate the US specialty tea market by exceeding consumer expectations with: 100% natural hot and iced teas, with the best taste and artfully packaged. Celestial philosophy, creating the most treasured tea drinking experience… "

The missions must be congruent with the market environment. The organization must base its mission on its distinctive competencies. And lastly, mission statements must be motivating. The mission of a company should not be expressed in terms of achieving more sales or profits; profits are only a reward for having done a profitable activity. The employees of a company need to feel that their work is important and that it makes a contribution to people's lives.

A recent study revealed that "visionary companies" set a goal beyond making money. For example, the goal of the Walt Disney Company is "to make people happy." However, even if "profits" are not part of these companies' mission statements, they are an inevitable result. The study showed that 18 visionary companies outperformed the stock market by more than six to one than other companies in the period 1936-1990.

SETTING THE COMPANY'S OBJECTIVES AND GOALS

The mission of the company has to become detailed supporting objectives for each management level. Every manager must have goals and an obligation to achieve them. The company defines its mission as helping to feed the world's growing population while protecting the environment. This mission leads to a hierarchy of objectives, which include business objectives and marketing objectives. However, research is expensive and requires more profits that can be invested in research programs, so improving profits turns into sales or reducing costs. Sales can be increased by improving the company's participation in local markets, entering new foreign markets, or by doing both.These goals then become the current marketing objectives of the company.

You need to develop marketing strategies that support these marketing goals. To increase your share in a local market. Then each of these strategies must be defined in greater detail. In this way, the mission of the company is translated into a set of objectives for the current period. The objectives should be as specific as possible. The goal of "increasing market share" is not as useful as that of "increasing our market share by 15% by the end of the second year."

GENERAL STRUCTURE OF THE PROJECT

DESIGN OF THE BUSINESS PORTFOLIO

The main activity of strategic planning is portfolio analysis, by which management identifies and evaluates the various businesses that make up the company. The company will want to invest more resources in its most profitable lines and gradually reduce or discard the weaker ones.

The first management step is to identify the key businesses that make up the company. These could be called strategic business units. A Strategic Business Unit (SBU) is a unit of the company that has a separate mission and objectives and that can be planned independently of the other businesses of the company. An SBU can be a division of the company, a product line within a division, or even an individual product or brand.

The next step in the business portfolio analysis is for management to determine how attractive its various SBUs are and decide how much support each deserves. In some companies this is done informally. Management examines the company's entire business or product and uses its judgment to decide how much each SBU should contribute and receive. Others use formal portfolio planning methods.

The purpose of strategic planning is to find ways to use the strengths of the company to take advantage of the attractive opportunities that the environment offers. As such, almost all standard portfolio analysis methods evaluate SBUs on two important dimensions: how attractive the SBU's market or industry is, and how strong the SBU's position is in that market or industry. The best-known portfolio planning methods were developed by the Boston Consulting Group, a leading management consulting firm, and by General Electric.

CREATION OF GROWTH STRATEGIES

In addition to evaluating current businesses, the design of the business portfolio involves identifying the lines and products that the company should consider in the future. A useful tool for identifying growth opportunities is the product / market expansion matrix, which it does through market penetration, market development, product development, or diversification.

Market Penetration: A company's growth strategy that consists of increasing the sales of current products in current market segments, without modifying the product.

Market Development: A company's growth strategy that seeks to identify and develop new market segments for the company's current products.

Product development: the company's growth strategy that consists of offering new or modified products to current market segments.

Diversification: strategy to grow a company by starting or acquiring businesses that are outside the company's current products and markets.

PLANNING OF FUNCTIONAL STRATEGIES

The strategic plan of a company establishes the types of businesses in which the company will participate, and its objectives for each one. Then, within each business unit, more detailed planning should be done. The main functional departments of each unit (marketing, finance, accounting, purchasing, manufacturing, information systems, human resources and others) must collaborate to achieve strategic objectives.

The role of marketing in strategic planning

The overall strategy of the company and the marketing strategy overlap very markedly. Marketing examines consumer needs and the company's ability to meet them; These same factors guide the mission and overall objectives of the company.

Marketing plays a key role in strategic planning in several ways. First, marketing provides a guiding philosophy (the concept of marketing) that suggests that the company's strategy should revolve around meeting the needs of important consumer groups. Second, marketing provides information to strategic planners by helping them identify attractive market opportunities and assessing the company's potential to take advantage of them. Finally, within individual business units, marketing designs strategies to achieve the unit's objectives. Once these goals are set, the marketing task is to implement them profitably.

THE MARKETING PROCESS

The strategic plan defines the mission and general objectives of the company. Within each business unit, marketing plays a role in achieving overall strategic objectives.

The marketing process is the process of:

Analyze marketing opportunities; Select target markets; Develop the marketing mix; yManage the marketing work.

Target consumers are at the center. The company identifies the total market, divides it into smaller segments, selects the most promising segments, and focuses on serving and satisfying those segments. The company designs a marketing mix made up of factors under its control: product, price, place and promotion. To find the best marketing mix and put it into practice, the company performs marketing analysis, planning, implementation, and control. Through these activities, the company observes the marketing environment and adapts to it.

CREATION OF THE MARKETING MIX

Once the business has decided on its overall competitive marketing strategy, it is ready to begin planning the details of the marketing mix, one of the most important concepts in modern marketing. We define the marketing mix as the set of controllable tactical marketing tools that the company combines to produce the desired response in the target market. The marketing mix includes everything the business can do to influence demand for its product. Although there are many possibilities, these can be grouped into four groups of variables known as the “four pes”: product, price, place and promotion.

The product is the combination of goods and services that the company offers target altercation The price is the amount of money that customers must pay to obtain the product The market includes the activities of the company that make the product available to consumers Target Promotion encompasses activities that communicate the benefits of the product and convince target consumers to buy it.

An effective marketing program blends all the elements of the marketing mix into a coordinated program designed to meet the marketing objectives of the business while delivering value to consumers. The marketing mix is the company's tactical toolkit for establishing a firm foothold in target markets.

MARKETING WORK ADMINISTRATION

The company wants to design and implement the marketing mix that best achieves its goals in its target markets. The four functions of marketing management are: analysis, planning, implementation and control). First, the company creates overarching strategic plans, and then translates them into marketing and other plans for each division, product, and brand. Through implementation, the company turns plans into actions. Control consists of measuring and evaluating the results of the activities and taking corrective measures if necessary. Lastly, the marketing analysis provides information and evaluations necessary for all other marketing activities.

Marketing analysis

Management of the marketing function begins with a comprehensive analysis of the business situation. The company must analyze its markets and its marketing environment to find attractive opportunities and avoid external threats; You must study the strengths and weaknesses of the company, as well as its current and potential marketing actions, to determine what opportunities you can best take advantage of. Marketing analysis provides information to the other three marketing management functions.

Marketing planning

The plan begins with an executive summary, which quickly outlines the major assessments, goals, and recommendations. The main section of the plan presents a detailed analysis of the current marketing situation, as well as potential threats and opportunities. Then the main objectives of the brand are raised and the specific points of a marketing strategy to achieve them are outlined. A marketing strategy is the marketing logic with which the company hopes to achieve its marketing goals, and consists of specific strategies for target markets, positioning, the marketing mix, and levels of marketing spend.

Marketing implementation

Planning good strategies is just the beginning of the road to successful marketing. A brilliant marketing strategy is of little use if the company doesn't implement it properly. Marketing implementation is the process that converts marketing plans into actions to achieve strategic marketing objectives. Implementation involves activities day by day, month by month, that put the marketing plan to work effectively. While marketing planning, on the other hand, deals with what and why of marketing activities, implementation, on the other hand, has to do with who, where, when and how.

Organization of the marketing department

The company must build a marketing department that can implement marketing strategies and plans. If the business is very small, one person could do all the marketing work: research, sales, advertising, customer service, and other activities. As the company expands, a marketing department organization arises to plan and implement the activities. In large companies, this department contains many specialists.

Modern marketing departments can be organized in various ways. The most common form is the functional organization in which a specialist spearheads each of the different marketing activities. A company that sells nationwide or internationally often uses a geographic organization, which allows sellers to settle in a territory, get to know their customers, and work with minimal time and cost spent traveling.

Companies that have many very different products or brands often create a product management organization, with this approach a product manager creates and implements a complete marketing strategy and program for a specific product or brand. In the case of companies that sell a product line to many different types of markets with different needs and preferences, the best might be a market management organization, in which market managers are in charge of developing marketing strategies and plans. for your specific markets.

Marketing control

Since many surprises are common during the implementation of marketing plans, the department must practice constant marketing control. Marketing control involves evaluating the results of marketing strategies and plans and taking corrective action to ensure that objectives are achieved.

Operational control involves checking current performance against the annual plan and taking corrective action if necessary. Strategic control involves determining whether the company's basic strategies are consistent with its opportunities. An important tool for this strategic control is a marketing audit, which is an exhaustive, systematic, independent and periodic examination of the environment, objectives, strategies and activities of a company to determine problem areas and opportunities. The audit provides excellent information to develop an action plan that improves the marketing performance of the company. The findings could be surprising to management. Management then decides what corrective measures are reasonable and how and when to implement them.

QUESTIONNAIRE

1.- How do we define strategic planning?

We define strategic planning as the process of creating and maintaining strategic coherence between the organization's goals and capabilities and its changing marketing opportunities.

2.- Mention the steps of strategic planning

Define the mission of the company Set the objectives and goals of the company Design the business portfolio Planning, marketing and other functional strategies

3.- What is the mission statement?

The mission statement is an expression of the purpose of the organization - what it wants to achieve in the larger environment.

4.- What should the mission translate into?

The mission of the company has to become detailed supporting objectives for each management level. Every manager must have goals and an obligation to achieve them.

5.- What is the main activity of strategic planning?

The main activity of strategic planning is portfolio analysis, by which management identifies and evaluates the various businesses that make up the company.

6.- What is the product / market expansion matrix?

A useful tool for identifying growth opportunities is the product / market expansion matrix, which it does through market penetration, market development, product development, or diversification.

7.- Describe the marketing process

The marketing process is the process of:

5. Analyze marketing opportunities; 6. Select target markets; 7. Develop the marketing mix; and 8. Manage the marketing work.

8.- How do we define the marketing mix?

We define the marketing mix as the set of controllable tactical marketing tools that the company combines to produce the desired response in the target market.

9.- What are the four p's

The product is the combination of goods and services that the company offers target altercation.

The price is the amount of money that customers must pay to obtain the product.

The square includes the activities of the company that make the product available to the target consumers.

Promotion encompasses activities that communicate the benefits of the product and convince target consumers to buy it.

10.- Explain the marketing analysis

Management of the marketing function begins with a comprehensive analysis of the business situation. Marketing analysis provides information to the other three marketing management functions.

11.- What is achieved through marketing planning?

12.- What is marketing implementation?

Marketing implementation is the process that converts marketing plans into actions to achieve strategic marketing objectives.

13.- Mention the ways in which marketing departments can be organized