Assume that you are the new Marketing Manager of a Al Ain water company that operates in UAE. providing a key product or service that has been customized, adapted, or localized specifically to suit the MENA/UAE market; or which is specifically produced locally in the UAE for the Arab market only. You have been asked to familiarise yourself with the corporate objectives of the organisation, and to contribute towards the marketing strategies for achieving those corporate objectives for a specific product of the company. The focus of this assignment is on the steps preceding the formulation of the marketing strategies in a Marketing Plan – namely Situational Analyses and Marketing Audit for Al AIN WATER Company.
Company: Al Ain water in U.A.E
Task 1:
Analyse the context and environments in which your organisation operates. Quantify and explain the implications of the trends identified. The environment refers to the macro-environmental forces impacting on the industry, namely, political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors/dimensions (PESTEL analysis). Contexts normally associated with macro-environment analysis include a company looking at industry trends; a business looking at product trends driven by consumer preference; evaluation of a brand’s market position relative to competition; a geographically defined business such as the subsidiary of an overseas company; a company needing to identify opportunities for entering a foreign market; and a business seeking to identify opportunities and threats in acquiring another company. To quantify the trends identified, use impact-weights for each PESTEL dimension by rating its marketing impact on the company’s operations. Rating/weighing increases the usefulness of the information, as it attaches importance to its overall impact on the company’s marketing operations. Use a positive-negative scale to rate your estimated assessment of each factor in order to better explain its impact. Rate each macro-environmental factor with impact-weights of -4 to +4, with the maximum possible sum of the 6 factors’ ratings being 24 (i.e., 4 x 6). Derive a final index for the overall impact of PESTEL on your company by dividing the sum of the 6 ratings with 24. The decision rule is that the overall macro-environment in which a company operates is favourable if its composite PESTEL index is greater than 0.45 (i.e., > 0.45).
Task 2:
Provide a brief overview of the organisation in terms of what it markets; analyze its mission statement; and how its history has shaped the organisation’s development of core competencies. Review the organization’s performance in the last few years from both financial and marketing perspectives. Then, identify and evaluate the organization’s present marketing goals and objectives.
Task 3:
Using the Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility, examine the social responsibility and marketing ethics issues that are relevant for the company and the chosen product. How effectively has the company addressed the issues? What could they be doing better?
Task 4:
Define the core target profile the organization’s key target market for the specific product you chose. What are their needs and benefits sought? Identify the major competitors and their characteristics in terms of size, growth, market share, profitability and marketing capabilities. What factors have contributed to their success or decline? What are their major strengths and weaknesses? What is the organisation’s competitive strategy within the market? Are they a market leader, follower, or niche? Discuss the implications of their position.
Task 5:
Identify the critical success factors within the market. What things must be done exceptionally well in order to succeed in the industry? What factors could cause organizations in the industry to underperform? What is the organisation’s position with respect to the critical success factors? Conduct a SWOT analysis and explain the key points. Then, assess whether the organisation has the strengths to capitalize on the opportunities. Are there threats which the organisation needs to address? Does the organisation need to turn any weaknesses into strengths? How realistic are the organisation’s marketing objectives, given the anticipated environment, including the actions of competitors and the organisation’s core competencies? Evaluate the organisation’s existing value proposition. What relevant marketing issues face the organisation?
Task 6:
How does the company want the specific chosen product and its associated brand to be perceived by its target market when compared to its major competitors? How does the target market actually perceive the selected company’s product and its associated brand with respect to competition? How strong, favourable, and unique are the brand associations? Present and explain both a positioning map and a perceptual map to show the position where the company wants the product to be perceived, and also where the product actually stands in the market compared to competition. Include a positioning statement.
Lecturer’s Expectations on Research to Address the Assignment Questions:
Complete this assignment using material from the textbooks, journal articles, lectures, case studies, your experience in organisation(s)/markets, and other sources such as newspapers, magazines, and websites. You may conduct informal observation or discussions with friends and relatives who know about the company and product chosen. However, no formal primary data collection research is necessary for this class work. You must acknowledge all sources of any information and ideas which are not your own as in-work citations and in a list of references at the end of your report. Please place tables, charts, graphs, pictures, histograms, and matrices in the appendix section.
