Empowered Communications Inc.

Marketing Plan

➔ Ishween Kaur - ISHD1803

➔ Amanjot Duggal - DUGAD1803

➔ Bhargav Tanti - TANBD1703

➔ Andy Chen - CHEAD1703

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Empowered Communications is Manitoba's first local Telus Dealer, opened in October of 2001.

It claims to be one-stop business solutions expert. Their focus is to resell Telus products by

providing their customers with the highest level of quality products and services.

They try to establish lasting relationships by exceeding customer expectations and gain their trust

as a solution provider through exceptional service and by providing a vast variety of Telus

products such as cell phones, home internet, home phone services and all kinds of accessories

required to support these products.

The proposed marketing strategy is using their profits for expanding their business by opening

new stores in busy locations since they have only one store in Winnipeg. In terms of on the floor

tactics, they should have some sales tools exclusively provided to them by Telus to increase sales

and also to provide them a competitive advantage from other phone carriers.

The proposed marketing mix is keeping a wide variety of accessories of different price range for

customers, offering competitive pricing and should introduce ‘student discount’ for increasing

sales, focusing on opening new stores since their current store location is not very busy and

offering all of the promotions that Telus offers. They should follow some steps initiated by the

manager of the store which are approved by higher authorities to ensure that the most efficient

way of doing a process is followed on the main sales ground. The higher authorities can then

monitor their employee performances by checking on their automatic system on their monitores

also if they have to follow up on some particular sales they can do that by checking invoices at

the end of the month when they calculate profits and sales target achievement.

BRIEF COMPANY DESCRIPTION

Empowered Communications is Manitoba's first local Telus Dealer, opened in October of 2001

located in Grant Park shopping centre. They are committed to empowering people with tools that

connect them to the world around them. By focussing on client's needs they have established a

reputation for providing excellent customer experiences.

With a strong Business Solutions Centre and experienced Business Solutions Specialists, they

equip companies with wireless solutions to increase productivity and connect all things that

matter to a business. From smartphones to Fleet Complete, Telus Business Connect to Internet

of Things, Empowered Communications claims to be one-stop business solutions expert.

EXISTING FOCUS

Their focus is to resell Telus products by providing their customers with the highest level of

quality products and services. They try to establish lasting relationships by exceeding customer

expectations and gain their trust as a solution provider through exceptional service. Their

business is conducted with the highest level of integrity. They also aim at providing all mobility

solutions for different customers at one platform at competitive pricing.

Their strategic imperatives are as follows:

❖ To provide integrated solutions that helps to differentiate Empowered

Communications from other Telus dealers and from other wireless competitors.

❖ To accelerate the implementation of their focus, their resources on core business.

❖ To invest in internal capabilities to build a high-performance culture and efficient

operations.
SITUATION ANALYSIS OF EXISTING SITUATION

Strength

● Over the years Telus has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. This brand

portfolio can be extremely useful if the dealer wants to expand to different locations.

● Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products as compared to other

competitors.

● Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Empowered

is investing huge resources in training and development of its employees resulting in a

workforce that is not only highly skilled but also motivated to achieve more.

● Dealing with corporate clients in major strength since only this dealer has the executive

access to offer corporate pricing as compared to other Telus stores.

Weakness

● Handling older generations and their issues because they do not really contribute towards

the profit but consume a lot of time.

● There are gaps in the product range sold by the company. This lack of choice can give a

new competitor a foothold in the market.

● The demand of the highly profitable products is seasonal in nature and any unlikely event

during the peak season may impact the profitability of the company in short to medium

term.

Opportunity
 ● A number of new niche markets have opened up that are growing. Empowered can open

their new stores in these markets and take advantage.

● Empowered can use social media platforms to promote its offers, interact with customers

and collect feedback from them.

● New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the dealer. It provides

a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams.

Threat

● Rising pay level and increasing prices can lead to serious pressure on profitability of the

dealer.

● Increasing number of players in the industry has put downward pressure on not only

profitability but also on overall sales.

● Changing consumer behavior from online channel could result in lower sales and profit.

● Changes in government tax policies also creates a lower level of profitability since

customers were forced to pay taxes upfront rather than getting $0 down options.

EXISTING MARKET- PRODUCT/SERVICE FOCUS

Based on their understanding of user and business needs they set about creating a product vision

with the goal of providing a vast variety of Telus products such as cell phones, home internet,

home phone services and all kinds of accessories required to support these products to their
clients. To maximize their sales and to maintain customer loyalty they provide on-sale and after-

sale customer service.

PROPOSED MARKETING PROGRAM STRATEGY AND TACTICS

On observing the business operations of Empowered, it seems like they fall behind their main

competitor 4L Communications as they have only one store which is located in Grand Park

whereas their competitor is having 3-4 stores in Winnipeg each focusing at different locations.

Since they have the corporate and business strength and are doing good in their operations but in

terms of growth and prospects they need to take a bigger step. The proposed marketing strategy

is using their profits for expanding their business by opening new stores in busy locations. As a

result, there will be increasing profit share in the market.

In terms of on the floor tactics, they should have some sales tools exclusively provided to them

by Telus to increase sales and also to provide them a competitive advantage from other phone

carriers like Bell, Rogers, Fido, etc. They should train their staff in such a way that they use these

tools in the most efficient way. On interviewing the manager of the store, we came to know that

they have some discounts that they can offer on the employee’s discretion, so they present it in a

way that leads to the most profit to them.

PROPOSED MARKETING MIX

Product: Cell phones from Telus are the major products that Empowered offers but related

accessories to these cell phones are necessary to provide to customers with one stop to complete

their package and to save their time. Empowered communications carry some basic range of
accessories which are not enough for some customers to choose from. So, it should try to keep a

wide variety of accessories of different price range for customers. It will also prevent from losing

their sales to their rivals such as Amazon or Ebay.

Price: They hold an advantage in the fact that they offer three kinds of pricing - consumer,

business and corporate. They try to offer similar deals as of their competitors but sometimes they

lose customers because of not having the leverage to price match such as they offer very

expensive international and US plans as compared to their competitors. They should be improved

in order to see an increase in their profits and to not lose customers to competitors in the future.

They even do not offer any kind of “student discount” which could be a game changer for them

since University students are always interested in the latest devices and special discounts will

surely attract them which will boost up the sales.

Place: As discussed above, Empowered is located in a place or location which is not very busy

always. When customers have to buy something they usually search for the nearest Telus and go

to their nearest location which can be a disadvantage to Empowered. To overcome this they

should look forward to expand their stores in order to focus on busy locations in the near future

to increase their profitability.

Promotion: Empowered offers most of the promotions that Telus offers except one that we came

to know after interviewing their manager which is “Telus Mobility For Good Program”. Under

this program Telus offers disable kids with refurbished phones for free on very low rate plans.
Many customers are influenced by these kinds of promotional activities so Empowered should

also try to get in promoting such events and programs to attract more customers.

We came to know that they offer 20-20 to corporate clients which basically gives corporate

clients $20 off on first accessory and 20% off the second. They could also offer these kinds of

promotional discounts to students and other customers to attract more of them to the store.

PROPOSAL’S FINANCIAL PROJECTIONS

Empowered Communications Inc.

Sales Projections - 5 Year Forecast

Year Sales Profit

2016 18 1.8

2017 20.16 2.016

2018 21.97 2.197

2019 24.17 2.417

2020 27.07 2.707

Sales and profit figures in (00000)
Our Projections:

1) Empowered earned 12% profit in 2017 since they had another store in winnipeg instead

of Grant park which earned more revenue, but due to competition and other bigger

dealers in the market this location was lost to them.

2) Since Grant park is not the busiest location in 2018 their profit dropped to 9%.

3) Our recommendation is to open another store by renting it which will initially cost

$15,000 followed by $10,000 per month which includes rent, promotions and cost of

setup for the new store.

4) This new investment can either be diverted from profits or the owner can personally

invest in it. Initially, it may result in lower sales due to the fact it is not popular among

most of the people but gradually the profits will increase by 10% and 12% by the end of

year 2019 and 2020 respectively.

PROPOSAL’S IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

If a new process is needed to be implemented they should follow the following sequential steps

to get the best results without causing any mistakes and problems:

1) The manager (Godwin) should draft the process with all the details and then send it to

Mike Wiebe (the owner) for his approval.

2) Once approved the HR should make sure that the new process falls under the HR policies

and they should all collectively pass it.

3) The sales representatives are then informed about this and should be encouraged to

follow the process as directed, they should also be provided with some incentives to

promote that process.

PROPOSAL’S MONITORING AND EVALUATION PLAN

In their current system, sales and individual performances of employees are calculated by a

reports prepared by the assistant manager at the end of the month. New processes, sales and

profits should be monitored through their automatic system RQ for which they pay monthly.

Also if they have to monitor something particularly like a program or some kinds of customers,

they should do it by checking invoices on the system and not physically and then matching the

results to their expectations.

They should monitor monthly sales contests if any on RQ and then evaluating their performance

throughout the month. If they pay for a software monthly, they should completely rely on that for

most of the information rather than physically printing it and wasting paper when they can check

invoices through the system. This will reduce their stationary costs of paper and also reduce their
transportation costs of transporting the invoices to their Head Office. It will also add to the

environmental benefit of cutting less trees.

REFERENCES

❏ Godwin Rana, Retail Manager, Empowered Communications Inc. Winnipeg.

godwin.rana@getempowered.ca

❏ Empowered Communications Inc., Grant Park Shopping Centre, Winnipeg. Available:

http://www.getempowered.ca

❏ https://www.telus.com/en/about/company-overview