Introduction
Marketing simulation was conducted on a variety of products for a range of six quarters. The simulation analysis paper thus provides an overview of the decisions made based on the simulation results from each quarter. Its objective is to eventually determine how effective the marketing decisions have been depending on the results obtained after another quarter.
Quarter 1 and 2 Analysis
During the first quarter, no score card results were shown since only role planning was conducted during the quarter. Because of this, the second quarter results formed the foundation of key decision making and adjustments to the marketing simulation practice. Financial performance is influenced by performance in the other aspects in that profitability depends on the number of sales made. Sales can only be made where the customers perceive need for the products and where the products provided by a company are capable of creating an impact through impressive advertisement and high quality of products. The manner in which the customers perceive the products and the advertisement qualities determines their purchasing habits. It is thus crucial for any company to raise the perceptions of customers about its brands as well as the quality of its adverts to help in growth of customer purchasing trends.
In order to improve in the areas in which the company showed poor performance, it was necessary to evaluate the primary brand qualities as well as the company strategies. It was realized that the company had no marketing team at call. At the same time, the advertisement strategies used should also have been used to strengthen the brand name. The key decisions made in this regard included expanding the marketing function to include seven people instead of having no one as before. The advertisement designs would also be changed to communicate as much as possible about the brand without to crowd the adverts. It was believed that changing the ad components would influence the marketing effectiveness positively through improved ad judgment. Similarly, modification of the primary product would also result in greater perception as the product would satisfy more of the customer needs. Initially, the sales force had no people but with the decision to employ more sales personnel, the team would have seven people for the 4 primary products in the Shenfeng brand category. This gives approximately three people for every two products person per product per market. In terms of ads, the local media and the world media were used in the marketing of the company products. The total number of ads placed for the 4 products in the Shenfeng brand was 10, giving an average of 2 and a half adverts per product per market. It was also realized that a single target market would not be sufficient for distribution of the company products hence a decision was made to start another sales office in Paris- EMEA to add to the existing Chicago – NORAM office. This would enhance the distribution of products and hence improve sales potential. These decisions shaped the score card results for the second quarter immensely and helped the company to progress into the next quarters satisfactorily.
The results obtained for quarter two helped to make various decisions for the following quarters. In the second quarter, the company realized a loss which led to a poor financial performance of -2.73%. The marketing effectiveness was also below par at 50 instead of the recommended 80. Only the market performance was high enough at 60. The results in these three aspects affected the total performance negatively, resulting in a value of 38.710. These results indicate high need for major decisions to be made in the company with respect to financial management and marketing management. The implication is that the decisions previously made, were ineffective for improving the company’s brand strength significantly. On the other hand, the poor reports received in various aspects could also be indicative of the company’s position in growth and potential improvement in future.
Quarter 3 Simulation Analysis
In the third quarter, the decisions made were influenced by the results received for the second quarter. In this case, it was determined that the company still needed to improve in the areas of advertisement and sales. In particular, it was decided that the company needed to enhance the sales capacity through introduction of a new office and employment of additional sales personnel. The advertisement practices would also be enhanced through modification of advert components and increased frequency of advertisement. To enhance brand recognition, it was determined that brand strength relied on the perceived level of satisfaction that the brand could accord to the customers. It was thus decided that the number of brands to be placed in the market would be increased. These decisions were aimed at improving both financial performance and marketing effectiveness and subsequently enhancing the overall performance of the brands marketed in the local and world markets. With improved marketing effectiveness and financial performance, it was expected that market performance would also increase.
In particular, it was decided that the number of sales personnel would be increased from seven in the second quarter to 13. Seven would remain in the Chicago- NORAM office while the remaining six would be located in the Paris- EMEA office. Additionally, it was also decided to experiment with the opening of the Shanghai sales office to boost product distribution and to enhance the sales of the products. In terms of the number of brands, it was decided that a new brand, JoneyC would be initiated to add to the already existing JoneyD brand under Shenfeng. JoneyD was modified to enhance its qualities as this would result in better performance and better brand recognition by the customers. With a total of 13 sales persons, it can be argued that the marketing would include three people for every two products. The adverts placed would be 10 for all the eight products giving an average of 1.25 ads per product. The determination of the efficiency of this would be achieved through result score card evaluation. The adverts for the modified products were improved through addition of several features such as mention of the brand name, processor speeds, network connections and ease of use among others. This was to bring out the impression that the products could satisfy all the customer needs as opposed to the original products sold during quarter two. This would enhance marketing effectiveness and subsequently improve market performance.
Following the decisions made during this quarter, the results received from the score card showed a decline in comparison to the previous quarter. For instance, the financial performance reduced from -2.73 to -3.48; the market performance reduced from 66 to 19 while the marketing effectiveness declined from 52 to 49.5. From the first impression, these results may be perceived to indicate wrong decision making. However, it was believed that the declined performance was due to the introduction of new products, experimentation in new markets and initiation of advertisement in new market segments. With these results, it showed that there was need to make other decisions to take the product marketing into even stronger market positions. For instance, the poor financial performance indicated that there was need to find strategies not only for improving the product advertisement but for ensuring the products moved to the growth phase where marketing them would be profitable to the company. At the same time, it would also be necessary to determine the variation of customer needs and thus tune products to those particular needs. This would require more intensive marketing coupled with acquisition of new information for the expansion of the customer awareness capacities.
Quarter 4: Simulation Analysis
In the fourth quarter, the decisions made were based on the score card results obtained from the third quarter. One of the major decisions made for the fourth quarter was to market the product in additional market segments. This was to enhance the customer perception about the product brands. Apart from this the need to focus on the customer needs and thus increase demand for the company products led to the invention of new products as well as the modification of the existing products to better cater for the needs of all customers. The modified products possessed qualities that were better than those sold during the second and third quarters. The new product introduced also had better qualities than products from the previous quarters but not similar to those of the modified products. During product modification, it was decided that key product feature such as the base components, the software components and the case and hard drive components would be changed. The first modified product had no database software while the second modified product had no manufacturing software. The new product had software for all the categories in use.
Apart from this, the product marketing strategies were also modified to better expose the products to the market. The advert components were greatly changed. For instance, all product ads contained details of additional features such as book keeping apps, feature engineering and manufacturing apps among others. The objective of making these improvements was that the potential customers could understand the perceived benefits of purchasing the products and thus purchase from the company. This would help to improve market performance. The adverts for each of the products were also fine tuned to various professional needs as the products were portrayed to be applicable for professionals such as engineers, scientists, manufacturers and others. The advertisement was conducted in three key markets which included the Chicago, Paris and Shanghai sales offices. The highest priced product JoneyF, which had been modified, received the first advertising priority as this product had the potential of yielding the highest amounts of profits for the brand. The new product, JoneyE received the lowest priority in marketing. While carrying out the adverts, the increased advertisement also came with additional need for sales personnel. The newly operational Shanghai office also led to the need for more sales personnel.
A total of 24 sales personnel operated across the three sales offices in operations. This was after the decision to add 11 more people to the already existing sales force. The total number of products would be 24 since there were four products for each of the three brands. This gives an average of 1 sales person per product. It was also decided that the number of adverts run per brand in each of the three sales offices would vary depending on the budgetary allocation for advertisement in each office. JoneyF, which had the first marketing priority, was accorded the highest number of adverts per city with seven adverts in Chicago, 8 in Paris and only one in Shanghai while JoneyE had the lowest number of adverts run per city except in Shanghai. This was potentially because the new product launched mainly targeted the newly created Shanghai office due to the distinctive consumer needs in that market. From the decisions made in this quarter, it was expected that the products would perform better in the market in different aspects.
The results based on the score cards indicated the accuracy of the expectations held during the decision making process. In comparison to the previous quarters, the fourth quarter indicated the first record of profitability for all the company brands. The results in terms of profitability were exceptional considering the leap in financial performance for that quarter. The financial performance improved from -3.48 to 34.2 while the market performance improved from 19 to 49 and the marketing effectiveness improved from 49.5 to 60.75. This was indicative of strong brand perception as shown by the score card. The highest brand judgments were 73 and 51 for the primary segment and the secondary market segment respectively. Although the performance indicates improvement in all the key aspects, it is important to note that this performance was not yet satisfactory given that the financial performance is still at 34% of the expected value while the marketing performance is less that the recommended value of 80. For the improvement observed to be even more sustainable and to reach the desirable levels. It was deemed necessary to advance the advertisement strategies as well as product design. Improving the advert would improve the perception that the customers have of it and subsequently increase the possibility of sales.
Quarter 5: Marketing Simulation Analysis
In the fifth quarter, the key decision made was to expand the marketing target segments and to introduce new products that would fit the needs of all the targeted segments. The new brands that were launched include JoneyH and JoneyK. These brands are characterized with more diverse product qualities. For instance, besides the software that were installed in the previous brands, JoneyH and JoneyK had additional values, specified to include monitor sizes, processing speeds, casing and additional software. These features made the products more applicable in a wide range of market applications and capable of addressing a variety of client needs. It was determined that such changes would enhance the brand judgment. The expansion of the target segments also meant that there would be wider potential market population hence potentially higher sales volumes which come with improved financial performance. Other aspects such as market performance and marketing effectiveness also needed to be improved in order to reach the recommended values for the company.
Although the decision was to enhance performance through the introduction of new product brands, advertisement was carried out for JoneyF too. This was because JoneyF is the company’s primary product and thus in the growth phase of product development. Most of the company revenue thus comes from the sale of products within this brand. The adverts for the new products were modified to explain the key exceptional features associated with the products including their internet connectivity, special price deals, effects on eyes due to the large screen and pictures of scientists, engineers and business travelers. The adverts create the impression of products that fit market demands more than other previously launched products but are also better priced than the previous products. At the same time, the product qualities also indicate variation in factors such as processor speeds. The decisions made were not limited to varying the product qualities but also came with modification of the advertisement strategies used for the promotion of the company brands and the products.
The key decisions made with respect to this included to focus on marketing the products through the four sales offices that had previously been opened. No new office was opened for the company products. In advertising, JoneyF was still accorded the highest priority while JoneyK had the lowest priority in advertisement. The adverts placed on local media as well as in other media totaled to 60 for 12 products across the three brands targeted by the advertisement. This gives an average of five ads per product. In comparison to the other quarters, this was significantly higher and bound to bring more profitability to the business. The new quarter also had the service of 34 sales personnel for the 12 products. This gives an average of more than 2 people per product. With these numbers, it was expected that the company would realize greater profitability.
The performance as observed during the fifth quarter improved in comparison to other quarters. For one, the financial performance rose to 36 from the 34 recorded in the previous quarter. The marketing effectiveness also improved significantly, reaching the desirable value of 80. Similarly, the market performance also improved to reach 57.95. Although both the financial performance and the market performance are yet to reach the desirable levels, the achieved improvements in these aspects are indicative of better future performance. It is therefore expected that continued satisfactory decision making will help JoneyM achieve the organizational objectives. From the score card results observed in the fifth quarter, it was determined that the company needed to improved financial performance as well as brand performance. To achieve these, it would be necessary for the company to put in place strategies such as modification of brand identity through the use of promotional strategies different from the local media. Such strategies could include practices such as issuance of incentives to customers and provision of free after sales services for one year. In this way, more customers would identify with the products and thus result in greater market performance. To perform financially, it would be necessary for the company to increase the sales volumes. Since marketing is already effective at the company, achieving this would mean taking advantage of market opportunities while focusing on the key products for particular market segments.
Works Cited
Marketing Simulation Data for Quarters 1- 5.