QUESTION 2

The following are the advantages and difficulties of adopting the marketing strategies based on
the case study
Advantages
 Increased sales
The chances of sales increasing are high because they will enter a new market of which they had
conducted research prior to entry. They will offer mini lifts that are demanded by the market and
this will lead to increased sales by the company and the new market being those overseas.
 Maintenance of market share and leadership position
When the company adopts this approach, the company will be able to maintain its current
position in the UK and be able to gain market share in the European countries. Currently, Cato
ltd has high market share and leadership only in the UK and if competitors can enter the UK
market, there will be no guarantee that they will be able to sustain their position. The adoption of
the marketing approach will help them to only offer the best of the products as per to consumer’s
demand.
 Gaining of Competitive Advantage
Cato limited has competitive advantage in the UK being the business-to-business markets. the
adoption of the marketing approach will help the company to compete at an international level as
well as in the new market being the business to consumer market. Their current approach to
marketing will not be able to assist the company to gain a competitive edge as the other company
in the EU are more competitive than those in the EU as they are able to understand the market
needs in terms of product customization.
 Customer satisfaction and loyalty
When a company is able to use the marketing approach, it means that the company is able to
understand the needs of the various targeted market segments and be able to offer what is
demanded by the market. from Cato limited, this will enable customer satisfaction as the
products that the company will provide will be those that the consumers demanded. This will be
enabled through product customization as the product will be produced as to per customer
specification. This will also help to build customer loyalty as the customer will prefer your
products to those of competitors due to the product quality.
 Increased efficiency and effectiveness
When Cato ltd has the full knowledge about what their market segments demand, they will be
able to come up with the most effective and efficient ways of how to produce the product at a
low cost but at the same time ensuring that the product is of high quality. This can be through
value engineering where they will produce the product at a lower cost but and including those
features that are most necessary to the consumer.
  Maintenance of reputation and goodwill
Goodwill is vital for the existence of any company and Cato ltd can maintain their reputation and
goodwill through the quality products that they will be able to produce through the use of
marketing orientation. The reputation can also attract new customers as the existing customers
will be able to influence others to make purchases to their company.
However, the marketing orientation can also bring in its own difficulties as will be explained
below
 It is expensive
The introduction of the marketing orientation will require Cato ltd to appoint a marketing
director and a marketing team of which requires the use of cash. The expenses will also come in
due to the fact that the company will need to put in a lot of finances into market research,
advertisement and promotion so as to make their new customers aware of their product and be
able to finally make the purchase. The expenses can also come in due to the training that will be
required on the existing sales people on how to effectively approach customers.
 Difficulty to establish
Cato wants to open new market in the European nations of which most of the companies in the
industry have already gained a substantial percentage of the market share. This will make it very
hard for the company to get established and gain such a large number of market share for the
company to exist in those countries. This is also due to the fact that those firms already use the
marketing approach and for Cato ltd to finally catch up to the level of competing will be very
difficult.
 Resistance by employees to adopt the philosophy
The salespeople and other employees are already used to the use of product orientation where
they emphasized on the products flexibility and technical superiority. The change from this
approach to the use of marketing approach may not be welcomed by all the employees in the
company. This in the end can lead to decreases productivity by the employees.
QUESTION 3
A
3.a. If Cato Lifts wants to sell to non-commercial buyers, it such to consider all the 4 Ps in the
marketing mix such as product, price, place and promotion.
For the product, they need to make sure that there is a high degree of customization of their
product to allow customers to choose the products according to their tastes and home design.
They can also use postponement theory whereby standardized unfinished lifts can be made and
then transformed into the desired product according to the customers ' orders. Since they already
have a good reputation and market share in the UK industry, they can use a strong company
brand in order to effectively market their products
The price for the products should be the same as competitors. Competitors already have a market
share from marketing to noncommercial buyers. These companies are already well known
amongst the customers; therefore, Cato Lifts needs a pricing strategy which is attractive to the
customers in the new markets. If their prices are higher than competitors, it may be hard for them
to survive. Likewise, if their prices are lower than the competitors', customers may associate the
lower prices will low quality. Lower prices are only a competitive advantage in commodity
goods where the quality of the products is not really a customer ' success factor. They need to
make sure that the competitors ' prices are in line with theirs and they can just focus on their
unique resources and core competencies for example, highly qualified engineers and a well-
established brand image in order to have a competitive advantage.
For place, they should use direct distribution. This will involve producing in their UK based
plant and then sending to outlets in every UK potential market. This direct channel will involve
the manufacturer, Cato Lifts Ltd and then distributors who will send to their own shops in
different markets. The channel width will be long in the shops section to enable many customers
to get to know the product. This will enable the non-commercial buyers to get to know the
products easily. Using their own shops will also enable after sales service such as maintenance
and repair.
In promotion, they need to use advertising to increase the awareness of the products to as many
customers as possible. They should use social media example is Facebook which increases the
chance of reaching a broad range of customers. They can also advertise using newspapers and
TVs to increase awareness. Personal selling should also be used whereby the sales team can
interact with prospects and existing customers and promote their brands through cold calling,
face to face interactions, among others to initiate sales. Public relations should also be used
whereby they can raise awareness by using Television.

B
Marketing mix is the set of tactical marketing tools that the firm blends to produce the response
it wants in the target market. There are four marketing mix which are simply known as 4P's
namely: product, price, place and promotion. Cato lifts Ltd is a company that has dominated
local market in UK because of its technical superiority and other factors but it has no market
share outside UK so for them to sell to international buyers, they need combination of marketing
mix. Some of these are explained below.
Firstly, Cato lifts Ltd must focus on their product as one of the marketing mix tools in order for
them to sell to international buyers. On product the Maine thing to work on must be the quality
of the product. Being in international market where there are a lot of companies producing the
same product and they are also good at innovation; Cato must always ensure that their product is
for good quality in order for them to succeed. With the current sales team, they are already doing
good on customization on the local scene as we have been told that they appreciate the after sales
maintenance so they just need to bring that on the international market for them to gain
competitive advantage.
Secondly, Cato lifts Ltd must also adopt promotion in order for them to sell to international
buyers. Promotion refers to reaching the target audience with the right message at the right time
about the product that's is being produced by an organization. it aims at informing consumers
why they need to have your product over competitor's product. The main tools that must be used
for promotions are: advertising, sales promotion and personal selling. On personal selling it will
not an issue for Cato's sales team because they were already using it in UK market and it so what
is bringing majority of their sales so possibility of it working on international market is high.
Finally, price must also be considered by Cato in order for them to sell to international market. It
simply means the amount of money that t consumers have to pay in order for them to use the
product. Pricing strategies in a market where you are already dominating differs with that in a
market that is new. Cat must therefore use market penetration pricing which is an approach
pricing strategy where manufacturers set low prices for their products. The aim is to build market
share in the new market. If Cato is to sell on the international market, it must adopt this pricing
strategy not the one they adopted on the local market.
SECTION B
QUESTION 1
Reasons as to why the shape of the curve of the product life cycle is similar to that of the
adoption of innovations curve
 Both curves have a slow growth phase at the beginning due to the fact that this is the
introduction stage and not a lot of people are familiar with the product and both the rate
of adoption and sales is relatively small.
 When the product starts to gain acceptance in the market and grow, early adopters take
risks to buy the product as such both of the curves begin to rise due to the increase in
sales and number of people (early adopters) taking risks to buy the product.
 The maturity stage on the product life cycle is characterised by sales peak and profits
which caused by early and late majority who are more cautious sceptical of the product
and need more evidence to buy the product. This slows the growth of the curve in both
scenarios
 When the market finally becomes saturated and growth declines even further due to
competition and other reasons. The market becomes irrelevant that innovators, early
adopters and early majority exit the market in search of other products. Laggards who are
last to adopt innovative products become the majority customers in the market, as such
the product becomes unprofitable to the point that it ceases to exist.
QUESTION 2
EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT PRICING STRATEGIES ON PERSONAL SELLING
Different pricing strategy in an organization can have both positive and negative impact. The
following are the positive part of it.
Increased sales are one advantage of different pricing strategies on personal selling. This can be
done by lowering price to the customers who cannot afford to purchase the product at the higher
and increasing the price to the customers who can afford to buy the product at the higher price.
At the end you increase sales by reaching every individual. This is like segmenting the market
using the price. This is system is used by water board. In areas where people earn higher income
it charges them higher than those in lower income. That is why water boards has both higher and
lower income earners.
It also leads to higher profit margin. One main goal of sales department in an organization is to
fulfill the organization mission. Each organization that produces a product one of its aims is to
have higher product margin which comes through selling. So different pricing strategy. Different
pricing strategy on personal selling will help in increasing profit margin by including every
customer in its sales. In other ways we can say that it will accommodate every customer needs
thereby increasing sales which may lead to higher profits to the company.
In addition to that different pricing strategy on personal selling helps to gain a competitive
advantage. As it is accommodating different customer needs in terms of price. The strategy helps
in gaining the competitive advantage through pricing as the customers may bargain lower price
than that of your competitor. Customers also feel that they are part of price setting of your
product. At the end the organization gains competitive advantage over other organizations.
Different pricing strategy on personal selling also leads to flexible selling. Both parties the
customer and the seller are satisfied with the price that has been set on the product. The customer
feels happy with the price and the product, also the seller is happy with the price. This means that
it will not be had for customers to get the product and also to the seller it will be easy for him to
sale the product. The transaction to both customer and the seller will be easy and flexible.
Besides the above advantages, different pricing strategy on personal selling has some
disadvantages. Its like it has both two sides of the which is a head and a tail.
The first disadvantage is that this is unfair way of treating customers. Each customer is equal. He
or she is supposed to be treated same as other customers who are receiving the same product.
once the customers have discovered that you’re charging them differently, it may lead to loss of
trust which at the end the organization can lose customers. This can cost organization a lot as
sales can decrease even profits can go down.
It also leads to lack of transparency. Different pricing strategy on personal selling makes sales
person to charge different prices on different people which leads to lack of transparency.
Different range oof discounts may be given to customers. Sales person cannot reveal the real
discount he or she has offered to the customer. This is what we call lack of transparency. Since
there may not be exact price of the product. Each sales person can be conducting sales on his or
her benefit.
QUESTION 3
Selling is a crucial sub-element of marketing that plays an important role in achieving the overall
goals of a marketing strategy. Selling involves the process of getting potential customers to
purchase a product or service and is considered a sub-element of marketing as it is one of the
four main components of the promotion mix along with advertising, public relations and sales
force. The fact that sales is part of the advertising mix reinforces its role as a sub-element of
marketing, as it helps increase the effectiveness of other advertising elements and is an essential
tool for companies to achieve their marketing goals.

One of the main reasons sales strengthens its role as a sub-element of marketing is that it helps
increase the effectiveness of other promotional elements. Advertising, for example, is an
essential part of the advertising mix, which consists of raising awareness of a product or service
through various channels such as television, radio or print media. While advertising can help
build brand awareness and generate interest in a product, getting customers to buy is often not
enough. This is where selling comes in as a complementary promotional element, as it involves
direct interaction with customers and allows businesses to respond to any concerns or objections
they may have about a product. By combining sales and promotion, businesses can deliver a
more compelling message and increase the effectiveness of their overall advertising strategy.

Besides increasing the effectiveness of other advertising elements, sales is also an essential tool
for companies to achieve their marketing goals. One of the main goals of marketing is to
generate revenue, and selling is a direct and effective way to achieve that goal. By using sales
techniques such as persuasive language, objection handling, and closing techniques, businesses
can increase sales and revenue. Selling also allows businesses to build customer relationships,
which is critical to long-term success. By creating a positive customer experience and delivering
value through their product or service, businesses can attract loyal customers who will continue
to buy from them in the future.

In addition, selling allows companies to collect valuable feedback from customers, which is
essential for improving their products or services. By interacting directly with customers,
companies can learn about their likes, needs, and concerns and use that information to develop
better products or services that meet their customers' needs. Selling also allows businesses to
collect data about their customers, such as: B. their buying habits, demographics and preferences,
which can be used to create more targeted marketing campaigns in the future.

Finally, the fact that sales are part of the advertising mix reinforces its role as a sub-element of
marketing, as it helps to increase the effectiveness of other advertising elements and is an
essential tool to achieve marketing objectives. Selling is a direct and effective way to generate
revenue, build customer relationships, collect valuable feedback and create a positive customer
experience.