Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Planning
Kotler on Marketing - “It is more important to do what is strategically right than what is immediately
profitable.”
In Topic 4, students will look at How Strategic Planning is carried out at the Corporate and Divisional
level, How is Planning carried out at the Business Unit Level, What are the major steps in the Marketing
Process, How is Planning carried out at the Product Level and What does a Marketing Plan include?
The aim of Strategic Planning is to shape the company’s businesses, products, services, and messages so that
they achieve targeted profits and growth.
Strategic Planning
1. Corporate Level
2. Divisional Level
3. Business Unit Level
4. Product Level
Corporate Mission
When Define its Mission, a Company should look at the following questions;
1. What is our business?
2. Who is the customer?
3. What is the value to the customer?
4. What will our business be?
5. What should our business be?
Mission Statement
A clear thoughtful mission statement provides employees with a shared sense of purpose, direction and
opportunity. The Mission Statement should guide geographically dispersed employees to work independently
and yet collectively towards realizing the organization’s goals. Mission Statements are at best when they are
guided by a vision that provides a direction for the company for the next 10 or 20.
A good Mission Statement should; 1) Have a limited number of Goals 2) Stresses the major policies and 3)
Values that the company wants to honour. Defines the major competitive scopes within which the company will
operate.
Examples of Mission Statements:
PNG Sustainable Development Program Ltd “Promoting development that meets the needs of the present
generation and establishes the foundation for continuing progress for future generations of Papua New
Guineans.”
eBay - “We help people trade practically anything on earth. We will continue to enhance the online trading
experiences of all collectors, dealers, small businesses, unique item seekers, bargain hunters, opportunity sellers
and browsers.”
The other business portfolio evaluation model that organizations use to plan for the Strategic Business Units is
the:
General Electric Model
Under the General Electric Model each business is rated in terms of two major dimensions,
Market Attractiveness
Business Strength
Companies are successful to the extent that they enter attractive markets & possess the required business
strength to succeed in those markets.
Business unit strategic planning process consists of eight steps;
1. Business Mission - Define its specific mission within the broader company mission.
2. SWOT Analysis - Overall evaluation of Company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
3. Goal formulation - After SWOT analysis, company proceed to develop specific goals for the planning period.
4. Strategic formulation - Plan on how to achieve your goal – marketing, technology and sourcing strategies.
5. Program formulation - Plan programs and cost estimation.
6. Implementation Programs - Style, Skills, Staff and Shared value.
7. Gathering Feedback - Tracking of results and monitoring new developments.
8. Exercise Control.
Cultural Factors
Culture is the fundamental determinant of a person’s want and behaviour. Each culture consists of
smaller subcultures that provide most specific identification and socialization for their members. Examples of
subcultures: Nationalities, Religion, racial groups and geographical region. (Beliefs, Languages, custom,
dressing etc.)
Subcultures –When subcultures grow large and affluent enough, companies often design specialized marketing
programs to serve them.
Such programs designed to serve large sub cultures are known as diversity marketing a practice which was
pioneered during the 1980’s by large companies such as Coca-Cola, Sears Roebuck and others. Diversity
marketing grew out of careful marketing research, which revealed that different ethnic and demographic niches
did not always respond favourably to mass-market advertising.
Social Classes: Virtually all human societies exhibit social stratification. Stratification sometimes takes the
form of caste system where the members of different castes are reared for certain roles and cannot change their
caste membership. Most frequently, such caste system takes the form of social classes. Social classes reflect
not only income, but other indications such as occupation, education, and areas of residence.
Social Classes show distinct product and brand preferences in many areas, including clothing, home furnishing,
leisure activities, and automobiles. There are also language differences so advertising and dialogue must ring
true to the targeted social class
Social Factors
Consumer behaviour is influenced by such social factors as reference groups, family, and social roles and
statuses. Reference Groups – consist of all the groups that have a direct (face to face) or indirect influence on a
person’s attitude or behaviour. Examples: Membership groups (direct influence), Primary groups (family,
friends etc.), Secondary groups (religious, professional).
Family – The family is the most important consumer-buying organization in society and family constitute the
most influential primary reference group. From parents, a person acquires an orientation toward religion,
politics, and economics, a sense of personal ambition, self-worth and love. Personal characteristic also
influences a buyer’s decision. (Age, lifestyle, occupation and economic circumstances).
Social Roles & Statues – A person standing in a community, e.g. family, clubs, organization. The person’s
position in each group can be defined in terms of roles and statues. Roles consist of activities that the person is
expected to perform and each role carries a status. Example: A Supreme Court judge has more status then a
sales manager.
Personal Factors
Age and Stages in the Life Cycle: Personal characteristic also influences a buyer’s decision;
Stages In Family life Cycle:
Bachelor Stage – Young, single, not living at home.
Occupation and Economic Circumstance – People buy different goods and services over a lifetime. A blue
collar worker will buy work clothes, work shoes and lunch box. A company president will buy expensive suits,
air travel and club membership. Product choice is greatly affected by economic circumstances (spendable
income, savings and assets).
Lifestyle - People from the same subculture, social class, and occupation may lead quite different lifestyles.
Person’s pattern of living in the world as expressed in activities, interests, and opinions. Marketers search for
relationships between their products and lifestyle groups.
Psychographics – Is the science of using psychology and demographics to better understand consumers. Each
person has personality characteristics that influence his or her buying behavior. By personality, we mean a set
of distinguishing human psychological traits that lead to a relatively consistent and enduring response to
environment stimuli.
Self confidence
Dominance
Adaptability
Psychological factors
A person buying choices are influenced by four major psychological factors;
Motivation – A need becomes a motive when it is aroused to a sufficient level of intensity. A motive is a need
that is sufficiently pressing to drive the person to act.
Perception – Perception is the process by which an individual selects, organizes, and interprets information
inputs to create a meaningful picture of the world.
Learning – Most human behaviour is learned. Learning involves changes in an individual behaviour arising
from experiences.
Belief & Attitudes – Through doing and learning, people acquire beliefs and attitudes. These in turn influence
buying behavior.
Abraham Maslow sought to explain why people are driven by particular needs at particular times. Why does
one person spend considerable time and energy on personal safety and another on pursuing the high opinion of
others? Maslow’s answer is that human needs are arranged in a hierarchy, from the most pressing needs, esteem
needs, and self-actualization needs.
Marketers must also understand the buying roles of consumers. Example; identifying buyers for many products,
Women buying cosmetics and a carpenter buying nails/timber etc.).
Buying Behaviour
1. Complex Buying Behaviour - (Beliefs & Attitudes about the products e.g. Toyota brand MV).
2. Dissonance-Reducing Buyer Behaviour - (Shop around & check quality & price).
3. Habitual Buying Behaviour – (Out of habit they go for a certain brand of product.
4. Variety-Seeking Buying Behaviour – (Consumer do a lot of brand switching).
Q: Should it built a simple low-priced product aimed at the more price-conscious market?
The company needs to study carefully the position taken by its major competitors in the same target market.
4 Ps 4Cs
Place Convenience
Promotion Communication