MARKETING MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT

TERM 2

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My company’s background:
Headquartered in Glendale, California (CA), LogiCoy was founded in the year 2009 by ex-Sun
Microsystem Employees. It is a product cum service-based company which has one of it’s
offices located in the Indian city—Bengaluru.
Since it is a startup, the employees are less in numbers (say around 30) and this contributes to us
all being familiar with each other and having a close bond like a family. We have our own
Whatsapp group, birthday and employment anniversary celebrations and our own way of letting
our hair down by partying and having annual office outings which is mostly outside our city.
Many people might think, that since it is a startup there would be less dedication and discipline
towards our work but that is not true. Our theme anthem is to have fun and work hard and we
have our own theme song as well. This motivates and drives us to deliver exceptional products
and provide timely solutions with our services to our clients on time.
We at LogiCoy lay great emphasis on OpenSource Technologies like MySQL, OpenESB,
OpenEHR etc and build customized products using the open source technologies. We are active
contributors to the OpenESB communities as well and cater to cliental needs across the globe.
It would not be wrong to understand that LogiCoy is more of a service-based company and less
of a product-based company, but nonetheless it offers both goods and services to clients based on
their requirement by using opensource tools.
I had started out with LogiCoy as a software developer when it was just a 5-year-old company. I
took the risk and I am happy to say it was worth it as the company is growing not in just terms of
size and money but also in terms of as a brand and I am happy to be associated with it.

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Answers to Questions are below:
1. Are all the marketing elements used by the brand, integrated and sending a consistent
image and message to the target market? Justify

A1. Marketing is an organizational function which creates value, communicates and delivers
that value in exchange of getting value in return from the end user. Value is nothing but a
combination of quality, services and price of a product (goods and services). If a firm offers good
values, it builds a healthy and beneficial relationship with the end users or clients which in turn is
beneficial for the firm as well.

While practicing marketing, there are several concepts / philosophies adopted to counter various
challenges faced by different types of firms. For a successful business ,it is very important to
have inter-departmental communications regularly so that every employee working on the same
product is on the same page which leads to co-ordination and less communication gap giving rise
to a better valued product .In order to achieve this, Holistic Marketing Concept is adopted which
treats all different parts of a business as a whole unit rather breaking them down into different
sections..

Holistic Marketing comprises of further 4 concepts viz:

A. Internal Marketing –Inter departmental marketing is known as Internal Marketing.

When a firm hires an employee, they expect the employee to dedicate their loyalty,
confidence and integrity to their firm. If an employee is not passionate about their
work ,does not share the firm’s common goal and vision or lacks confidence in the
products that the firm deals with, then it becomes very difficult for the firm to sell that
particular product. If the employees themselves do not value the product created, then it
would be foolish for the firm to expect brand loyalty and product demand. Such products
would fail to attract the correct group of customers. Hence it is very important for the
firm to build healthy relationships with their employees and understand their individual
goals and convince them that the company’s goal and vision is not so different from their
own. If you cannot sell the product to your employees you cannot sell it to customers.
B. Relationship Marketing---As the name suggests, relationship marketing is the kind of
marketing concept used for building stronger, healthier and beneficial relationships
mainly with---Customers, Employees, Marketing Partners and the Financial Community.
Relationships are made strong when firms understand the type of resources, goals and
demand each and every segment has to offer and in turn utilize the same to reap mutually
beneficial results. By building relationships, firms develop a strong Marketing Network.
A strong marketing network leads to better partnerships and ventures which results is
high profits and not to mention better quality products.
C. Performance Marketing---This type of marketing is a combination of financial
accountability (accountability of revenue generated) and social and ethical responsibility
of a firm. As days pass by, most firms are becoming quite transparent of the profits they
have earned and via various platforms of the media, we also get to know the value of the

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 brand. This can be achieved by customer reviews/surveys/feedback of the product they
have utilized. On the other hand, end user wants businesses to become more responsible
and ethical and produce environment friendly products.
D. Integrated Marketing--- Integrated Marketing is the means through which profits are
obtained by customer satisfaction by synchronizing and synergizing the 4 components of
the Marketing Mix.
Since LogiCoy offers products and services, I would be explaining the marketing mix of
both product and services.
Product Marketing Mix consists of 4 marketing components namely:
1. Product---The goods and services delivered by LogiCoy. LogiCoy is both a
service-based company as well as a product-based company. When I say service-
based company, I would mean that LogiCoy develops the product OpenESB
which it then sells to various clients implementing this product. Alternatively, the
client asks LogiCoy to build products using OpenESB which then makes it a
service-based company. OpenESB is not the only service offered by LogiCoy.QA
services, services in the Healthcare domain are some of the other services offered
by LogiCoy.
2. Price---The amount paid in exchange for the services and products delivered.
LogiCoy offers competitive and low-cost solutions for all clients.
3. Place---The place from which products and services are distributed. It can mean
geographical location as well. Since LogiCoy is a relatively still a small firm with
few numbers of employees, we are currently working by renting one of the floors
from a 3 storeyed building in the heart of the residential OMBR Layout, in
Bengaluru.
4. Promotion—By promotion, it means building up the brand image, promoting it by
various advertisements to reach out to the correct audience in large numbers.
LogiCoy markets it’s brand at a relatively small scale through social media
platforms, gets clients from government contracts and clients from word to mouth
recommendation.
For service marketing mix, apart from the 4 Ps explained above there are 3 other Ps:
5. People: The common saying “Customer is our King” is important but it is also
important to pay attention to the employees of the organization. Regular training
on latest technologies, soft skills and customer services need to be done for the
growth of both the employees and the organization. LogiCoy is people oriented in
this and it conducts regular training for the employees.
6. Physical evidence---Environment value which is aesthetically pleasing to the
eyes. If a client visits the firm’s corporate office and does not find it up to
corporate professional standards, it is very likely that the firm might lose these
clients. For instance, if you are an IT firm small in size, starting out from a small
area, it is important for the working environment to be professional. Cubicles
should exist, clean desks, chairs, boards etc. are some of example of appropriate
furniture and fixtures found at the IT firm. Similarly, if a customer visits a Saloon,

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 it should be well maintained, neat and clean, the employees too must not be
shabbily dressed and be professional about their work.
Even though, LogiCoy is a small firm, we do have appropriate furniture and
fixtures in place.
7. Process---Delivering the product of high quality consistently.

In my opinion, there is no synchronicity and synergy in the various marketing concepts

implemented using Integrated Marketing

All the marketing elements are not utilized efficiently nor effectively by LogiCoy. It lacks in
Promotion, Product and Place.

Justification is as follows:

Product: LogiCoy sells the product OpenESB which is open source. OpenESB is parallel to
Oracle’s SOA but lags in competition. Although, OpenESB is an opensource product, clients
prefer to opt for Oracle SOA. The reason being:

Brand name. Oracle is a very reputed organization. LogiCoy might be running the race but is far
behind as compared to Oracle. SOA caters to huge clientele, has great customer support,
reporting of issues is done in a systematic manner and the product has very few glitches. It
delivers what is promised. OpenESB is comparison, does not cater to huge clientele, there are not
many developers in the world contributing to OpenESB and the product does have certain
shortcomings such as old version of Java being used. This is where LogiCoy lags.

Place: As mentioned before, LogiCoy employees work from a small office situated in
Bengaluru. In my opinion, an office should be in a more competitive environment to work better.

Promotion: LogiCoy is not a big brand. It does not actively promote it’s brand. The only
instances seen are through the website, company blogs and social media platforms like LinkedIN
and Facebook. But it just exists. By that I mean having an existence is not sufficient on social
media, there must be active posts, current news of development and all other activities associated
with the company which is not done.

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 Fig 1 taken from reference[1]

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2. Provide your recommendations for betterment of the same.

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Below are my recommendations:

Product: Need to use latest technology with respect to the development of products and
providing solutions and services too using the latest technology unless it is a specific requirement
by the client to use obsolete or old versions of any programming language. Even if the client
does ask for usage of old technology, LogiCoy must advise on use of latest tools and
repercussions of using old technology to the client.

Improvisation of the product is another angle which LogiCoy needs to explore.OpenESB does
not attract that much market as compared to Oracle SOA even though it is free. In order to do so,
any snag encountered while using the product must be rectified .This can be insured by
implementing Testers to thoroughly test OpenESB and make the product bug free so that the end
users have a smooth working glitch free experience using OpenESB.

Place: I do understand the lack of funds might be an issue for this shortcoming but it can still be
located in an area where there are small offices like St.Marks Road,Infantry road and many other
commercial areas offering low rent. Working in a residential area offers less growth and spirit of
competitiveness is also decreased. Having the office located in a residential area for visit of
potential clients may not catch their eye and it might be difficult to sell the goods and services
offered.

Technology Parks offer a more professional environment, not only for the clients but for the
employees as well. There is more sense of discipline along with the aesthetic value of the
environment and interaction of employees working for other firms.

LogiCoy does deliver their products and services across the globe so there are no geographical
restrictions encountered.

Promotion: Building a name or image of your brand has always been one of the most important
aspects of marketing your products. LogiCoy is a brand but a small one which has not been
developed appropriately. It needs to promote it’s brand in various ways:

1. Advertising—Sending emails to existing customers about the latest products of the

organization. Reaching out to the Marketing network and informing them with regular
updates.
2. Utilization of Social Media Platforms—In LogiCoy, LinkedIN is used just as a recruiting
platform. Instead apart from just recruiting people, use it to post videos, company photos,
posts which talk about which technology the company is utilizing, what are the future
plans, clips from training sessions of employees.
3. Improved Customer Service—LogiCoy is slowly improving in this aspect. It has hired
people for customer support exclusively. Initially, employees themselves were
developers, testers, and support executives. (I remember there was a time when I was an
all-rounder myself before the company started expanding.) Since it has just started, it will
take some time to provide 100% customer satisfaction.

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 A strong brand always attracts more loyalty not just from consumers but from employees as
well. An employee always feels happy and proud when associated with a strong brand.

A strong brand also helps in growth of customers and also most importantly increases the
worth and business value of a firm.

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3. Evaluate whether your company possesses the equity of a loyal customer base. Identify the
reasons for its high/low customer loyalty.

A3. Customer loyalty is an important aspect of an organization which should not be taken
lightly. Customer loyalty helps in building the brand name. When the term customer loyalty is
mentioned, it simply means the loyalty/commitment and trust the customer places in the
organization or a brand.

If a customer is satisfied with the services offered by the company, has a great experience and
the products offered by the brand has it’s value for money it leads to customers being satisfied.

The organization as a whole unit is responsible for creating customer satisfaction.

Customer Perceived Value--a customer value is not just a set of benefits but it is benefits minus
the cost an organization has to incur while evaluating options, incur costs while acquiring the
product, incur costs while consuming ,disbursing of the product. It is the net benefit minus the
cost which is called CPV.

Companies land up spending more amount searching for new clients as it involves leads to be
generated as compared to retaining the old clients.

High customer loyalty can be depicted when customers keep going back to the brand again and
again even if there might be chances of increasing the cost of the product or any other unforeseen
issues. High customer loyalty boosts revenue for firms which results in turn strengthening the
image of the brand. Amazon, Apple, Google are some examples of brands which exhibit high
customer loyalty. Even if the products are highly priced, (taking IPhones as an example form
Apple) people are inclined to buy products from these brands because of the brand as well as the
important fact that they offer products which exceed the expectations of the consumers.

An important point to note is that customer loyalty is built over a period of years of commitment
of the customer to the brand and the brand maintaining the same quality of the product being
delivered by LogiCoy.

Customer loyalty can be measured by churn rate and retention rate.Churn rate is the rate at which
customers leave the company and never come back while retention rate is the rate which
customers come back for the product repeatedly.

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 Fig 2. Taken from references [2]

LogiCoy started out as a startup and has commendably built up a customer base over a period of
years. Even though LogiCoy has a good clientele base, there are very few clients for which
LogiCoy has worked with repeatedly in the past so I would say, LogiCoy has low customer
loyalty. There are numerous reasons for this:

1. Less brand promotion-- Brand loyalty and customer loyalty, though separate are
important concepts for customer retention. Brand loyalty is how the customer perceives
the product and customer loyalty is depicted by the customers buying the product
repeatedly. LogiCoy does not advertise their goods and services appropriately. We do
have pages on Facebook,LinkedIN but it is no use as it is not being utilized to the full
extent for the purpose the social media platforms were created for.The only way of
getting projects if from Government tenders of the USA, else word of mouth of existing
clients.
2. No experience in marketing—LogiCoy is a small firm. Hence, the director is the
manager, as well as the HR as well as marketing strategist. You need specialists to take
your firm on high levels. You cannot have one person doing all the jobs especially where
marketing functions are concerned, and the person has no experience in handling clients.
3. SEO ranking are poor.LogiCoy ranks 4th position in SEO in terms of OpenESB`but for
other solution,their ranks are poor.If a client were to search for IT companies offering
healthcare solution in Bengaluru,LogiCoy does not even feature in the top 10.
4. Insufficient customer service provided---LogiCoy did not have a dedicated customer
support. The developers were asked to support the clients, develop and test the product
themselves. The developers were busy with providing solutions and had very little time
for providing clientele support. Hence the customer services offered were not so great.
This might have contributed in low customer loyalty and LogiCoy is slowly trying to
improve this by hiring client support executives.

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4. If you opine that the company suffers from low customer loyalty, provide your
recommendations to ensure unflinching loyalty.

A4. As stated on page 8, I do believe that LogiCoy has a low customer loyalty base.

As per me, below would be few recommendations for ensuring unflinching loyalty:

1. Getting feedback—It would be a great idea to get feedback/reviews from the clients
LogiCoy works for. This feedback will help LogiCoy on improving its quality and raise
standards of products and services provided. Also, it would be beneficial if we can get
our clients to connect with each other on the same platform. Customer to customer
connect will help clients relate with each other and share their experiences working with
LogiCoy. Of course, we can restrict it if the feedback is negative. Reviews are another
great idea and a reason for success for survey portals like Survey Monkey.
2. Improved customer service---As stated earlier, we were not great at providing after sales
services and LogiCoy has realized this short coming. To rectify it, we have started hiring
client support executives who exclusively deal with client grievances and help resolve the
same at short notices.
3. Regular emails---Regular emails should be sent out to old clients about the services
catered to, prices and discounts offered. Similarly, emails should be sent to potential new
clients. Offering limited free customer support for services offered is another great tactic
which we can incorporate.
4. Working on promoting the brand---With the internet everything is achievable. LogiCoy
needs to advertise extensively and use SEO for better rankings to reach out to the correct
audience. Have active posts on social media with latest updates about the
company.Visiting
5. Specialization of departments and hiring specialists to do the job. In a realistic world,
one-man army business cannot survive for a long period of time hence it is important to
hire specialists. LogiCoy has to start departmentalizing different organizational functions
such as HR, Marketing, Customer Support, Testers and Developers etc. to make the firm
more organized .Each department would focus of their specific jobs and help LogiCoy
attain a better footing in this competitive world.
6. Upgradation of technologies used----Working with opensource technology is great but
using the updated version is mandatory as well.
7. Investing in customer loyalty---Funds must be utilized to retain clients as a high customer
loyalty base helps in profiting the company by not just generating revenues but also in
building a brand.
8. Having flexible marketing strategies to target the correct group of audience. Marketing
strategies must ever change and cannot be constant because what factors attract one client
may not attract the other.

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References:

1. All About LogiCoy. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://logicoy.com/

2. Product-Service Hybrids – When Products and Services Become One. (2020). Retrieved from
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/product-service-hybrids-when-products-
and-services-become-one

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3. Commentator, E. (2013, December 19). Building customer loyalty. Retrieved from
https://www.smartinsights.com/email-marketing/email-communications-
strategy/building-customer-loyalty/

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