Open the “integrated” file to answer customer questions from the txt notes. also, the products are in the photo.

Fall 2019 Updated 4.3.19

Integrated Core Comprehensive Strategic Plan Outline
Spring 2020

MKT 304, MGT 303, FIN 302

The strategic plan outline involves concepts from the co-requisite courses Integrated Marketing Management
course (MKT 304), Integrated Financial Analysis (FIN 302) and Integrated Supply Chain Management (MGT
303). Each of the teams will be required to submit a final report to each of the three faculty members. Each of
the teams will also make a presentation of the chosen growth strategy during the last week of class.

1. Executive Summary (It should contain an overview of the project, focusing on the growth strategy,
what are you going to do to ensure the success of the project proposed, and expected outcomes)

2. Situation Analysis (Focus on the current status quo):

a. Company
i. Who is our company? What are we known for? What makes us different from

competitors? (strategic/competitive advantage)
ii. Corporate goals (mission)

iii. SWOT analysis (include perspectives from all three subjects)
iv. Describe some of your company’s capabilities and processes.

b. Customers

i. Who are they? (demographics, psychographics, buying behavior)
ii. Any recent or expected changes in behavior, attitudes, composition of the customer

base?
iii. What are they purchasing from your company? (product/service)
iv. Why are they buying company’s products? What do customers “value” in the products

(or services) your company has to offer?
v. Describe order qualifying and order winning characteristics of your company’s

product(s).

c. Context (Relevant to our company and growth strategy)
i. Competitive (market structure) – who are the principal competitors?

ii. Economic
iii. Technological
iv. Societal
v. Legal/Regulatory

d. Competitors (3 or 4, as relevant to the company AND the growth strategy)

i. Brief description (what are they known for)
ii. SWOT analysis

iii. Competitive advantage
iv. Financial Ratio Analysis of Company (vs. competitors over 3 years. Min of 2

competitors)

e. Collaborators (Key relationships: Who are they? Why are they relevant?)

3. Growth strategy
a. Detailed description of the growth strategy (Specifically, what are you going to do?) plus

rational decision model assessment of alternative growth strategies.

b. Goals/objectives (What do you intend to accomplish?)

Fall 2019 Updated 4.3.19

c. Segmentation
i. What are the variables used for segmentation

ii. What are the various customer segments based on the above variables (describe)
d. Targeting:

i. Which specific segment or segments are you going to target?
e. Positioning

i. What is your positioning in the eyes of the consumer? Compared to competitors?
f. Differentiation

i. How does your offering create value in the eyes of the consumer?
ii. What are the points of differentiation (for example, product features/design; service

quality/speed; channel coverage).

4. Strategy execution
a. Product

i. Goals (including quality characteristics and performance measures)
ii. Detailed description of the product/product line/service

iii. Detailed description of process(es) used to make product (include process map,
constraint identification, and lean applications)

iv. Describe outsourced components used in your company’s product
v. Describe the life cycle stage of your company’s product

vi. Complementary services/warranties
b. Place (Distribution)

i. Goals
ii. Level of distribution intensity

iii. Detailed description of the channels used
iv. Detailed description of supply chain system (including current and/or proposed

facilities, suppliers, transportation modes, etc)

c. Promotion
i. Goals

ii. Detailed description of the promotional blend (advertising, personal selling, public
relations, sales promotions, digital marketing)

d. Price
i. Goals

ii. Value proposition and customer price sensitivity
iii. Pricing strategy (short term/long term)
iv. Breakeven analysis (e.g., facility location decision)

5. Implementation and control

a. Timing and implementation activities
b. Sales Estimates (forecast) – for the life of the project
c. Scenario Analysis and discussion: base case, best case and worst case
d. Sensitivity Analysis and discussion: such as but not limited to – volume, revenue and cost per

unit and discount rate
e. Capital Budgeting Analysis: NPV & IRR
f. Comprehensive Financial Analysis: discuss the merits of your proposal and your team’s

recommendation for project acceptance/rejection

6. Conclusions (go or not, with justification)

Faculty USE:

segmentation involves dividing the market and that’s all of the actual and potential
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consumers out there. So it involves dividing that market up into smaller
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segments or smaller groups based on their commonalities.
0:15
So if there are all these people around we can divide them up into different groups
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of people and that’s what we’re referring to when we talk about segmentation.
0:26
Now why do we segment the market? It’s pretty straight forward. Different types of people, different groups
0:32
of customers. They want different things. They want different products and services.
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They wanna buy them in different ways. Sometimes people wanna shop online versus
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in person. So different types of customers wanna go shopping and want to experience different
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products and services. Now what is the best way to segment. There’s no best
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way. There’s no right way to segment all of the time. But often segmenting
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in by multiple variables can be useful approach. Now when I talk
1:04
about segmentation variables the key categories of variables
1:09
are demographic, psychographic and behavioral variables.
1:15
So these are our three main categories of variables that we
1:20
use to divide up the market. And again there’s no single best way to segment
1:25
the market. It really depends on your company, your product and your service. But
1:30
often times we see that we segment the market using a combination
1:36
of demographic, psychographic and or behavioral variables.
1:41
So I’ll talk a little bit more about demographic segmentation right now and this involves dividing
1:47
up the market based on the demographic variables. Those are the basic descriptive
1:52
variables about who people are and how the population is composed.
1:57
For example dividing people up by age is a means
2:04
of demographic segmentation. You can divide people into a group of millennials
2:09
versus a group of generation x and a group of baby boomers
2:14
and a group of older adults and that’s demographic segmentation. Specifically
2:20
dividing the market up by age groups. We can divide the market up by gender,
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by family size, by life cycle- that means the stage
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of life that people are in- Right, so right now all of you are in
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the stage of your life where you are a student. After this usually you’ll be a new
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professional and then maybe a lot of people will get married and a lot of people will
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have babies and lots of other things right. So we often see the people follow
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a life cycle, high school, college, jobs, family-
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and depending on what stage or cycle of your life you’re in you’ll have different consumption needs.
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We can divide the market up based on income with different groups of people in different
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income brackets. We can divide the market up based on different occupations, groups
3:14
of doctors, teachers, lawyers, nurses and so on and so forth.
3:20
We can divide people based on their level of education. We can divide people
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based on their ethnic and cultural background and we can divide people
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up based on geography. Where they live? Something as
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wide as what country they live in or something as specific as what neighborhood
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they live in a very specific city. All of these are ways to
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segment the market based on demographic factors,
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Next up we have psychographic segmentation. That’s our second main bucket or
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main category of variables that we can use to divide up the market.
4:03
And psychographic segmentation divides the market up based on psychological
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factors or personal characteristics. So for example,
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lifestyle. This is a personal quality right? You might have a really adventurous
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outdoorsy lifestyle right. And that’s one lifestyle right. And so you can divide
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people up based on different lifestyles that they’re in. Or based on different personality
4:29
factors. Maybe you can divide people up into really extroverted people and really introverted
4:35
people and so on and so forth. We can divide people up based on their
4:40
mental state, based on what they’re interested in, based on their attitudes
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towards companies or products or the country in
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general and we can divide people up based on their opinions. All
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of these are going to be ways that we can divide people up based on psychographic factors.
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Now we have behavioral segmentation. And this involves dividing the market
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up based on how a consumer uses the product. What a consumer knows
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of a product or how consumers respond to products. Basically
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behavioral segmentation is about dividing consumers up based on how they behave
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with respect to a product or service. Now to get into a little bit more detail
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about this we can think about occasions. There are certain occasions
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where you might consume a certain product or service and you don’t consume it on other
5:40
occasions, right. Halloween costumes at Halloween, for example. Now
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occasions can be a once in a lifetime occasion like you have consumption needs for
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a once in a lifetime wedding or it can be a once a year occasion
5:56
like Halloween or a birthday. Or it can be a daily occasion. Many
6:01
of you have coffee and cereal upon the occasion of waking up.
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We can divide people into different groups based on the occasions during which they might
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use a product or service. We can also divide people up based on the benefits
6:18
that they seek when they buy something. For example think about toothpaste.
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You can buy toothpaste with the benefit of whitening toothpaste.
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Makes your teeth whiter. That’s a benefit that some customers seek when they buy toothpaste.
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Others seek the benefit of cavity protection. Others seek the benefit
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of breath freshening. There are all sorts of different benefits that people seek
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out when they buy something and we can divide people up into groups based on the benefits
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they seek. User status refers to whether someone is a
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current user of a product or service a future user of a product or service
7:00
or maybe an ex user of a product or service right. So do they currently use something,
7:06
are they potentially going to use it in the future. Or did they use it previously and they don’t
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any more. That would be dividing the market up based on user status.
7:16
User rate refers to how much of something somebody uses. Are they a heavy
7:22
user of something, light user of something, or a medium user. If
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you go to Starbucks three or four times a day, you might be a heavy user of Starbucks.
7:32
If you go to Starbucks maybe once a year you’re probably more of a light user
7:37
of Starbucks and that’s dividing the market up based on user rates. Finally
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we have loyalty status you can divide people off based on how loyal they are
7:47
to your company or your brand. And all of these are ways to divide up
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the market based on their behaviors with respect to market offerings.
7:58
Alright so just to summarize what we’ve talked about. When we divide up the market,
8:04
that’s segmentation and that’s complete dividing everybody out there in different groups.
8:09
The main ways that we divide them up are based on demographic, psychographic,
8:14
and behavioral variables, which I’ve talked about in this video.

Our fundamental building blocks of marketing strategy include segmentation,
0:00
targeting, positioning, and differentiation.
0:06
Segmentation involves dividing the total market and that means all
0:12
of the actual or potential people who could be our customers in to
0:17
smaller segments or smaller groups. Right, so segmentation merely
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involves taking all of the people out there and dividing them into groups. Children,
0:27
teenagers, young adults, you know, and
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people right close to retiring. Right or segment the market by people
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who live in rural areas versus people who live in
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urban areas. So all we’re doing in segmentation is dividing
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all of the people in the market up into smaller groups. Now then targetting
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is our next step and that’s going to involve deciding which segments to enter
0:59
or which segments to serve. Alright, so if you divide the market up into
1:05
you know children, teenagers, and adults. And you decide alright well I only wanna
1:09
sell my product and services to teenagers. Right. That’s targeting.
1:15
Next we have differentiation and differentiation refers to how you as
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a marketer are going to make your product or service different in a good way.
1:26
Right. You want your product or service to stand out from the ones offered by your competitors.
1:31
Right. You wanna make sure that your offering, creates some sort of superior value
1:36
and that’s what we call differentiation. You make it different in a good way.
1:42
Lastly we have positioning, which involves positioning the market offering
1:47
in the minds of your target customers. Essentially this is all about,
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how do you want your customers to think about your product or your brand.
1:59
Do you want them to think about you as the super cool and trendy brand.
2:04
Or do you want your customers to think of you as the traditional, tried and true or
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conservative brand. So positioning is all about how customers
2:14
think about your product or service or brand. Now
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I wanna go into a little bit more detail on market segmentation right now because
2:25
in these fundamental building blocks of marketing strategy, our first step
2:30
is always market segmentation. So let’s go into this in a bit more detail.
2:35
We have four key consumer variables. Geographic
2:40
variables, demographic variables, psychographic variables and behavioral
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variables. And I have a little asterisks next to geographic because often
2:51
times textbooks will lump this into demographic variables and so sometimes
2:57
you don’t see it separated and sometimes you do. Now within
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these, you know, I mentioned earlier geographically you can segment the market
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into people who live in an urban, big city, versus people who live in a rural area.
3:12
Or you can segment the market in people who live in a particular state
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or a particular region or a particular country or even a particular
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continent. Alright, so geographically you can create very large segments.
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North America versus South America. Or you can create very small segments.
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Right, divide people based on geographically, where they live, right, which neighborhood they
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live in. Now in terms of demographic factors probably
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the main ways that you will segment the market with demographic factors are going to be based
3:49
on age and gender, right. So which age group you fall into
3:54
and what your gender identity is. Psychographic
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factors include those factors that relate to personality characteristics or lifestyle.
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Right so you can segment people based on what types of hobbies they like to engage
4:12
in or what types of activities they engage in or whether they
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are super extroverted versus introverted and things like that.
4:22
So anything related to lifestyle and personality that’s gonna fall
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under psycho-graphic. And lastly we can segment the market using
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behavioral variables and these refer to how people behave with respect
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to your market offering. Are they really loyal to your brand and
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your market offering or are they not loyal at all. You can segment people into loyal and not
4:48
loyal. Or you can segment people into heavy users, medium
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users or light users of your product or service. So
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anyway that you can divide people up based on how they behave with respect to your market
5:04
offering, that’s using behavioral segmentation.

So after we divide the market up in the segments our next major task in marketing
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is targeting. And that’s when we decided out of all of these different groups that we’ve
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created or all these different ways that we’ve divided the market up which group or groups
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are you as a marker are going to try to serve. That’s targeting.
0:17
Now in targeting there are four main strategies. That’s
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what I’m going to talk about in this video. These are undifferentiated marketing,
0:28
also known as mass marketing. Differentiated marketing also known as segmented marketing.
0:34
Concentrated marketing also known as niche marketing and micro marketing
0:39
can be customized, local or individual marketing. So there’s a lot of
0:45
names going around here. But just remember undifferentiated and mass go together. Differentiated
0:50
and segmented go together. Concentrated and niche to go together. And micro marketing
0:55
goes with customized local and individual marketing. Let me tell you a little bit more about each
1:00
of these. I’m differentiated marketing is when you actually ignore segments.
1:05
You sort of just targeted anyone with your product or service. So you provide an offering
1:11
that would appeal to a lot of different people and you focus on common needs
1:16
across customers rather than on differences. You’ll try to get your message
1:22
out as widely as possible. Usually maybe on the radio
1:27
or on TV, you know, any mass communication that you
1:32
can. And as a marketer you’re going to be one of many marketers trying to serve
1:37
a common need that many people have. You just basically provide
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an offering that’s a one size fits all right. You’re not making
1:47
different strategies for different groups of people. You’re just providing something similar or exact
1:52
the same. Anyone interested. That’s undifferentiated or mass marketing.
1:58
Next up we have differentiated marketing or segmented marketing. And this is when you decided
2:05
to target one or more segments or actually definitely more than one
2:11
segment and you devise a slightly different strategy for each segment.
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So for example, maybe you segmented the market into to male
2:22
versus female and you create slightly different offerings and slightly different
2:27
strategies for these two consumer groups. Right. You come up with his
2:32
and hers offerings. That’s gonna be differentiated marketing.
2:38
Next up we have concentrated or niche marketing and that’s when you target one
2:44
or more very specific and usually very small segments.
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Right so, usually you’re selling sort of a specialty product. We’re selling
2:56
to a very narrow group of people. Right. A very small, very specific
3:01
group of people. Much more specific than just male versus female.
3:06
Maybe it’s something as specific as females interested in
3:11
at antique tea pots. That’s a very specific
3:16
market and as a marketer you’re one of the only people who specializes
3:22
or serves that particular consumer group. Lastly
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we have micro marketing and this is our most focused, most narrow approach
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to marketing. When you get your micro marketing, you’er tailoring products just
3:38
to suit specific individuals or specific locations. Maybe
3:43
you sell specific products and services in specific neighborhoods. For
3:48
example, the Meijer here in Mount Pleasant sells T-shirts with the CMU
3:53
logo on it. Probably other Meijer in the United States don’t sell CMU
3:59
apparel right? Because that’s not something that would appeal to the local neighborhood
4:04
everywhere in the United States. So micro marketing is when you’re detailing your offering
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to either an individual person, a really small location or neighborhood
4:15
or create really customized offerings in some other way.
4:20