I. Companywide Strategic Planning: Defining Marketing's Role - finding the fit between what you've got (your capabilities and resources) and what's out there (changing marketing opportunities), given what you want to achieve (the organization's goals). This occurs at the Corporate level and then at the Business level which includes the business unit, product, and market levels

Exercise Business Unit What is a "Business Unit"? Give an example from a company you know something about, either through work or through studying it in another course. Post your answer in the Moodle Discussion Group.

Defining a Market-Oriented Mission

One of the most important things in business is knowing what your business is, what customer needs it meets. Constructing a Mission Statement will help you understand this. The Mission Statement tells the world what your company is all about, and defining that Mission is one of the most important things you will do. 

The five questions posed below come from Peter Drucker, one of Management's top scholars and a prolific writer who when he died in 2005 at the age of 95, was still writing. Drucker maintained there are five questions you must answer before constructing a mission statement; they show up often in the business literature in different order and with different terms, but essentially he's saying that you have to know who your customer is and how your business is going to meet their needs. This is a laboratory exercise - you will need to get out to a coffee shop to complete it. 

Exercise: Lab Coffee Peter Drucker's Five Questions - Read through the Coffee Exercise below, then go to a coffee shop near you, order something and sit for a while and watch the coffee drinkers. Try to get a sense of what is important to them, why they come there. If you are comfortable doing it, talk to some of them, but you don't have to; you can learn a lot just by watching. Post your answer in the Moodle Discussion Group.

1. What is our business? To figure out what your mission is and how you will best meet your customer's needs, you first need to know what business you're in: who you are, what you do well, what is important to you. What are you doing there every day? What service are you providing? Why are you in business?  What are you trying/hoping to do? What business is the coffee shop in?  2. Who is our customer? In some ways your most important question, but you can't know your customer without knowing something of who you are first. Who IS the customer in this coffee shop?  3. What is of value to our customer? What is important to customers in this coffee shop? What do they expect to get for their money?  4. What will our business be? This is a look into the future. What do you predict will happen in the environment in which you operate that will affect what your business is? What do you think this particular coffee shop will be in five years?    ? 5. What should our business be?   At the heart of strategic planning is what you want to do in the future. You may not want to change, and you don't necessarily have to. Remember that not everything has to grow exponentially and heed David Suzuki's advice that growth must be sustainable. You may just want to keep doing what you are doing now and if what you're doing now is good, that may be the right thing to do. If the economy keeps up and they don't lose their lease and they keep bringing in enough customers to replace those that leave, the answer to this question for the coffee shop should be pretty much what you answered in Number 3.   But put yourself in the place of the owner of a small coffee shop. You may want to grow into a bigger coffee shop or a coffee shop with more or different customers. You may want instead to be the proprietor of a fancy downtown restaurant with a cocktail hour instead of a coffee pot. Once you know what you want to do, you will need to develop growth strategies. The crucial point here is that if what you predict you will be is the same as what you want to be, your strategic planning will focus on keeping pace with change in order to maintain your business as it is. But if your answers to Questions 4 and 5 differ radically, you are going to have to do some heavy-duty strategic planning. You start all this with a mission statement.

A Mission Statement must be Specific Realistic Motivating Centred on the Customer Good Fit With Marketing Environment Based on Distinctive Competencies

Beatrice Foods used to produce mostly food, but some time ago they bought Samsonite Luggage. I saw one of their trucks on the road recently with the mission statement emblazoned across the side of the truck: We Deliver Good Taste

Exercise Beatrice Foods In what ways does this mission statement succeed, or not succeed, in meeting the 5 criteria above? What does this mission statement mean to a company that produces both ice cream and luggage?  Post your answer in the Moodle Discussion Group.

Check the Web for one of your favourite companies; they most likely will have a mission statement. 

Exercise Web Mission Statement Check the Web for a company that produces a product you particularly like and use. What does it say about their mission?  Post your answer in the Moodle Discussion Group.

Setting Company Objectives and Goals

The basic process of strategic planning is to turn the mission statement into meaningful objectives and goals that management can strive to achieve. See below for examples of how to write proper objectives.

Designing the Business Portfolio
Analyzing the Current Business Portfolio

The Boston Consulting Group Matrix A practical example, using the terms from your text and some imaginary breakfast cereals. Suppose you are a cereal manufacturer and you make four products (or Strategic Business Units - SBU's) for four different markets. Some cereal markets are still growing rapidly, for example heart-healthy cereal, while some are slowing down, as is the market for children's sugary cereal. In some markets you sell a large percentage of the cereal sold, for example in both the heart healthy and children's sugar cereal markets, but in one market you sell very little, less than 0.05% of the market. Here is how they fit into the Boston Consulting Group Matrix.

For each SBU, you have essentially four choices of what to do with it:

Exercise Cash Cows Think of a specific real-life example of a product that is a cash cow, under the these definitions. Post your answer in the Moodle Discussion Group.

Developing Strategies for Growth and Downsizing
The Product-Market Expansion Grid

As the owner of a small bicycle shop in the downtown core selling only bicycles, you have decided you want to grow. You can grow in four major different ways: 

	Present Products	New Products
Present Markets	Market Penetration	Product Development
New Markets	Market Development	Diversification

Exercise Bicycle Shop Using this example of a goods marketer, construct a similar set of growth scenarios for an Internet marketer selling vacation travel packages. Post your answer in the Moodle Discussion Group.

This cartoon shows how common the concept of growth scenarios is:

II. Planning Marketing: Partnering to Build Customer Relationships

Partnering With Other Company DepartmentsPlanning Cross-Functional Strategies
This is where one of those three legs of the Marketing Concept comes into play. A company aims to meet the needs of the firm at a profit, but it must do so by ensuring that the whole organization functions as a team. All strategic planning must be done with this in mind. If only Marketing is working for the customer, if Marketing doesn't talk to Finance who is bickering with Accounting, while Human Resources keeps above it all by talking to no one, the needs of the customer don't get met. 

Exercise Value Chain What are some of the value-creating activities done by different parts of the company when bringing a product to market? Post your answer in the Moodle Discussion Group.

Partnering With Others in the Marketing System
The value delivery network is made up of

III. Marketing Strategy and the Marketing Mix

Customer-Centred Marketing Strategy

Exercise Connecting With Consumers Using a product you buy regularly, comment on how the company that makes or sells it makes an effort to communicate with YOU the purchaser. Post your answer in the Moodle Discussion Group.

Market Segmentation, Target Marketing, and Market Positioning 
(We will look at these in more depth in the Unit on Segmentation)

Exercise Positioning Think about a product you buy often. What is its "position" in the market? That is, what does it have that makes it different from its close competitors? What does it have that makes you choose to buy it? Post your answer in the Moodle Discussion Group.

Developing an Integrated Marketing Mix

Borden's 4 P's
Although the 4 P's concept is somewhat outdated (because we've added customer and competition and a number of other important issues), they still comprise much of the focus of Marketing.
You can click on each of the 4 P's below and go to the Learning Unit in which it is covered. 

The 4 C's
Another way to look at the 4 P's is as four C's

Exercise P's and C's Think of a favourite product you buy; in what way is that product a customer solution? What customer needs do you have that this product meets? Post your answer in the Moodle Discussion Group.

IV. Managing the Marketing Effort

Use all the tools you can get your hands on but don't forget your own judgment 

Marketing is both science

and art

Exercise Art of Marketing It's early in the course yet, but take a stab at clarifying what I mean when I say Marketing is an Art as much as a Science. What does this mean for a marketer?  Post your answer in the Moodle Discussion Group.

Marketing Planning - Deciding on marketing strategies to help the company achieve its objectives. The Marketing Plan that you will design as part of this course consists of a formal list of required parts. Read about it now as part of this Unit.

Marketing Department Organization - there is no one right way to organize for all companies. There will be a right organization for a particular company at a particular time while pursuing a particular goal. At different times, different companies may choose to organize their marketing in one of these ways

Functional specialists in charge of different marketing activities

Geographic arranged by regional proximity

Product Management grouped by individual products, product lines, or groups of similar products

Customer Equity Management focus is on customer profitability

Market or Customer Management In a company that sells one product to several markets, each area has a manager to ensure that this area's needs are met

Marketing Control

Set Goals (Objectives) - These two terms are often used interchangeably. These 3 broad categories of objectives or goals for almost any organization should remind you of 3 cornerstones of Marketing we looked at in the Introductory unit  Objectives Cornerstones of Marketing Concept Engage in Useful Function = ?  answer Organize for Business = ? Earn Enough to Survive = ? Objectives or Goals must be Measurable Reasonable Specific Time Limited Written Down With Criteria for Measuring Success Pringles Potato chips were not the success that was planned for them; they were successful yes, but the planned goal for them was to replace all nationally packaged chips, which they did not Examples of Objectives  Poorly Stated Well Stated We're going to spend more on advertising We will increase our market share from 16% to 18% by the end of fiscal 2002, by increasing our community sponsorship budget by 15% We want to get bigger Our objective is to open three new units by the end of fiscal 2002 in each of the 3 Atlantic provinces where we have no stores Exercise Objective State, in proper form for an objective, one of the main objectives you have in either your paid work or school work. Post your answer in the Moodle Discussion Group.

Measure Performance As objectively as you can, try to find out what is causing any discrepancies between what you expect from employees and from sales and what you are actually getting.

Evaluate Performance This is a diagnostic step, not just performance reviews for workers, and it may include examining and analyzing environmental changes new competitive threats unrealistic goals faulty assumptions

Take Corrective Action Use feedback from all sources to adjust the plan and improve overall performance The company's shared values and beliefs provide meaning and identity to employees and customers. Recruitment and training of motivated people with the right skills and abilities and attitudes  is part of Walmart's success. Sam says he doesn't care what your skills are because he can teach you skills but he can't teach you a friendly attitude Where something needs fixing, fix it quickly and fairly, with respect for your employees and your customers Reward systems will include not only compensation but other methods of telling employees they did a good job.  Don't forget the incredible power of praise and a simple:     Exercise: Lab Walmart Walmart is supposedly founded on the principle of good salespersonship. Visit a Walmart and talk to some of the sales people there. How do they feel about their job? How is their attitude?  Post your answer in the Moodle Discussion Group.