Primark Is Very Famous Retail Clothing Store Chain Marketing Essay

Primark Is Very Famous Retail Clothing Store Chain Marketing Essay I will highlight the basic components of strategic marketing and discuss how strategic planning process is vital and how much its important for making an effective marketing strategy. This assignment has been divided in to three learning outcomes. First learning outcome is about how marketing plan supports the strategic objectives of the organization. This learning outcome includes marketing planning process, how SWOT could be an effective tool and difference between marketing strategies and marketing planning. Second learning outcome is about the construction of marketing plans. This includes analysis of marketing mix how to produce marketing plan. Third and the last learning outcome are about how to promote the marketing plan in support of strategic objectives. Primark Primark is very famous retail clothing store chain, providing clothes to customer at reasonable and affordable prices. Primark is actually an Irish retailer of clothing with the numbers of stores in United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain. Primark has more than 170 stores in which 125 stores are located in all over United Kingdom, 35 stores in Ireland and round about 10 stores in Spain. The first Primark store was established in year 1969 in capital city of Ireland in Dublin by Arther Ryan with the collaboration with Micaela Mitchell. After achieving the first success, they open more stores in different business centres with in local and regional areas, which alternatively generate more profits. (Source: www.primark.co.uk) Now I would like to discuss the first learning outcome of my assignment that how marketing plan supports strategic objectives. I will first define both of them then focus on the vision and mission statements of Primark. The Marketing Concept The marketing concept emerged in the mid-1950s. Instead of a product-cantered, make-and-sell philosophy, business shifted to a customer-cantered, sense-and-respond philosophy. Instead of hunting, marketing is gardening. The job is not to find the right customers for your products, but the right products for your customers. The marketing is actually a tool to hold the key to achieve organizational mission and goals. In this way company become more effective than its competitors in the market for creating, delivering goods to the customers. (Source: MBA Career Program) Theodore Levitt of Harvard drew a contrast between selling and marketing concepts: Selling is the concept which only focuses on the needs of the seller; marketing is on the need of the buyer. Selling is actually a phenomena with sellers need to convert its product into cash; marketing is an idea of satisfying the need of the customer by mean of the product and the whole cluster of things associated with creating, delivering and finally consuming it. (Source: International Marketing Strategy, fifth edition) What is strategy and why it is important: A strategy is actually a plan of action which is designed to achieve the particular goals. Its consists of competitive moves and approaches used by the managers to run the company Management is concern with the following action plans their main aim is to Grow the business Please attract the customers Compete in the market successfully Conduct different operations Achieve targets of organizational performance Strategy involves in three questions and the answers of these three are on the basis of an organizations strategic planning these questions are Whats the present situation of the organization? Where does the organization need to go from here? How will the organization get there? The organizations answer to how it will get there is its strategy. Strategy and Competitive Advantage: Now days to survive in the market its very important to have competitive advantage over your competitors and rivals. Strategic planning helps us to get the competitive advantage so that organization can increase their market shares and earn more profits. A different and distinctive strategy thats helps and makes the company apart from their rivals and gives a company competitive advantage is a companys most reliable way to get the profit above average profits. Competing with competitive advantage is more beneficial than competing with no advantages Competing without competitive advantage result in low profitability. Vision of Primark: The mission of the management and the staff of Primark have been to supply quality and affordable product to the customers with a focus on new promotion. Mission Statement The Mission statement of Primark Company is to provide good and quality product to the customer relativity low as compare to the other retailers working in the market and with this stay competitive and should have a competitive edge with other clothing retailers in order to promote the culture of value for money. SMART Analysis: If we apply SMART analysis is accordance with the mission statement of Primark we can analyse the following Specific: Specific means that mission statement of Primark is specific in nature in terms of its objective. Measurable: The mission statement to some extent doesnt provide any time frame. Achievable: The targets of the organization are quite achievable. Realistic: Primark stores have adopted a realistic approach. Timely: to achieve the organizational goals Primark has no set any time framework. Importance of Marketing Planning at Business Product Level: The success of any business and any product which is launched in the market is depends on its Marketing Planning. For this reason I will focus on the importance of marketing planning for the business as well as the product. Let me discuss what is Product. Products: A product is something which is tangible in nature that can be touch or have a physical existence i.e. shape, size, colour dimensions etc, but this is a misleading concept in term of product definition because product can be intangible in nature as well like financial services provided by banks, services provided by the insurance companies to the customers etc. (International Marketing Analysis Strategy P-275) Now I would like to discuss the marketing planning process and analyse how this process is important for business and the products. Marketing Planning Process: Market plan is a document that has the details regarding the product or the actions which company takes. (Kotler et al. (2010). The different methods used by the management of the organizations in which they defines in details there current and future strategies, objectives and aims is called planning process. By this they can access the current and future trends of the markets and this evaluates the current and potential capabilities of the organization and an attempt to forecast the future in order to achieve its objectives. The international planning process allows the organizations to answer the below mentioned questions. What is the present state of the company now? Where does the company want to go? How will the company get there? An efficient marketing planning process consists of the following steps. Determining the objectives of the organization. Assessing and evaluating organizational resources. Evaluating the opportunities risks. An efficient Marketing strategy. Evaluating and implementing marketing plans. (Source Doole Lowe 2004) Explanation: As it is already mentioned in the stages of the marketing planning process, first step is to determine the organization goals and set the objectives of marketing plan. This is the stage where the organization decides that what need to do and how we gong to achieve that. Keeping in mind the objectives, organizational resources are assessed which include the financial condition of the organization, its people, technology used and production capability. SWOT Analysis: SWOT Analysis is considered to be the very useful tool now days. It is actually a strategic planning method or approach to evaluate the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats of an organization. It involves in the project and business ventures as well. SWOT analysis consists of following Strengths: The characteristics of the organization or business thats gives an advantage to the company over its competitors or rivals. Weaknesses: The characteristics of the firm that have disadvantage to its competitors or rivals. Opportunities:  The opportunities are the external chances that make greater sales and can earn more profits. Threats:  Threats are also the external elements in the environment that cause trouble for the business. An  overall  plan  is based  on  the first  3  steps  of the SWOT analysis that will help the the  marketing  plan  a  major success  in the future. As I already mentioned marketing strategy gives us the answers for the following questions What is the present state of the company now? Where does the company want to go? How will the company get there? With the help of SWOT analysis we can analyse the company strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats. At the same time we can use the tool of PEST analysis that helps us analyse the political, economic, social and technological analysis. It helps us describe the work of marketing plan of the company. Porters five forces model gives us the knowledge of the number of forces that affects the marketing strategy of an organization. Last phase is to apply and implement the marketing plan; on the basis of the analysis the organization chooses its targeted market by using market segmentation methodology. And in the end the combination of effective and right marketing mix can give an edge over its competitors and rivals. During the stage of the planning process, organizations give more importance to their External Environmental Forces that can or will affect the marketing process. PEST analysis plays a very important and vital role at this stage and this gives the organizations a thorough analysis of the products. Difference between Marketing Planning Strategy: Strategy of an organization actually defines the overall aims, objectives mission of the company. Every business/ organization has set their goals and objectives in order to gain the market share and earn more profits as compare to their competitors. As I already mentioned that strategy of the company provides the answers of the following questions; As mentioned earlier that strategy of the company provides answers for the following three key questions; What is the present state of the company now? Where does the company want to go? How will the company get there? On the basis of these 3 important questions, an organization or a business sets its targets and makes a proper plan of action to achieve their goals. Marketing Planning: The process of promoting the product or services of the company on the basis of over all strategy of the organization is called marketing planning. Marketing planning involves Situational Analysis, Internal External Analysis of the organization and on the basis of the above factors choosing a right kind of marketing mix to increase the market share and maximize the profit and getting company competitive advantage over the competitors and rivals in the market. Construction of a Marketing Plan: It is extremely important for the businesses to make a proper marketing plan when they promote their product. This should be done efficiently in order to gain competitive advantage over competitors in an effective manner so that the organization can make more profits. Now I would like to focus on the components of the marketing plan. In this phase I will highlight the importance of marketing mix which helps us while making a marketing planning. The efficient kind of marketing mix strategies always gives a company an advantage in the market place. Marketing Mix: Marketing mix is defined as a set of tools an organization may use to achieve its marketing goals. (Kotler, Managing Markets 2006, P-19) McCarthy divided marketing mix in to four groups, which are commonly knows as 4Ps Product Price Place Promotion An organization uses the all four factors of marketing mix to attracts and target their customers. A company can change its price and keep changes its promotion schemes in short run but it might take longer period for them to change their product or places. Most of the organizations working in the market use Price and Promotion as key factors to target the customer to earn profits. The above mentioned 4Ps helps and represents sellers view of the marketing tools in order to attract the buyers. (Kotler Managing Markets 2006, P-20) Some other authors include 7Ps as the complete version of marketing mix. The remaining three are as follows: People Processes Physical Evidence If we look on the marketing mix of the Primark then we can analyze the marketing strategy they adopted so that they attract numbers of customers. Marketing Mix of Primark: Primark is widely knows and popular as a clothes retailer which keep attracting the customer by their low price and good quality clothes. I will highlight the marketing approach Primark adopted to get the benefits as compare to their competitors. Product: Primark is a clothes retailer, it is producing good and quality product according to the need of the people for all range of ages. In this section I will discuss what products they are selling and what are the different features of their products from mens wear, ladies wear and childrens wear. Quality: Quality of the product of Primark is quiet reasonable as compare to their prices especially if we look on the other retailers in the high street market retailers. Designs: Primark keep introducing latest designs at their retails out lets. Primark targeted people of ages from 25 to 35. Primark keep providing latest designs in their retails outlets at reasonable prices. Brand Names: Primark has launched different types of brands in their retails outlets for their customers, which are quite popular. I am discussing few brands of Primark that has become a part and become a value for money business. Rebel Active CS Active Early Days (For babies) Young Dimensions Active Cedar wood State (For Gents) Atmosphere (Source: www.primark.co.uk) Packing Sizes: The product which Primark produces are good in quality and their packing is extremely good that people attract to their products. In these products ladies wear and gents dress shirts comes under good packing and in all sizes. Services, Warranties Returns: Primark is one of the company which is growing very rapidly and company core objective is to provide the best services to their customers. Each and every Primark store has a customer services department where trained customer representative staff help the customers to their concern are solve the problems of the customers on priority basis. At Primark the product that has been purchase by the customers can be exchanged or it can be even refunded within the prescribed 21 days time of the day of purchased date. Price: Primark as a retail company is focusing to provide good quality of products to the customer at the very reasonable prices. Primark is one of the retailers in the Europe where a customer has been targeted by the price of the products. Their marketing strategy most important aspect is value for money with the slogan Look good pay less Examples: Gents shirt prices starts from only  £2.00 Gents jeans pent can be purchased with in  £10.00 Gents formal suite can be purchased in  £40.00 Apart from all that above Primark keep on reducing the prices of the product from time to time and in this way company fulfilling their promise of Look Good Pay Less. Promotion: Like other retailers working in the region you cannot see many promotion schemes but Primark do make promotions schemes so that they can create more market share. But over all the promotion factor of Primark is bit low because they dont have online shopping facility for their customers. This online shopping has been neglected which shouldnt be neglected as this is a very important factor in now days. Like all the other companies in the region, Primark introduced Pennys Gift Card in all their stores in Ireland. This brings a lot of saving on shopping in the Primark outlets. Place: In marketing mix the 4th P is a very important as far as the clothes retailer concern. You will see Primark stores and outlets on all major and important high streets and shopping centres. Primark has also opened a shop at the famous Oxford Street in the Central London, this store at Oxford Street doing a very good business. The Primark store at Lakeside is also one of the busiest stores at Lakeside shopping centre. If we talk regarding the transportation point of view, all Primark stores and outlets are easy assessable to the general public through public transports as they are located at the very important and majors high streets and shopping centres, and this make Primark a value for money brand for the consumers in the recession period. People: This is also a very important factor of marketing mix and it is very significant as well. Marketing strategy should be made for the people who either are the end users of are the part of the organization for e.g. workers, management, consumers etc. this also defines the market segmentation and demographic segmentation. Processes: This process also plays a vital role because its gives an overview about the processes involved in the business. Like mechanism, procedure and flow of all the activities by which services are used. This also tells us the procedures that how product reach the end users. So its important that marketing process should be flexible to meet the needs of the businesses processes. Physical Evidence: The last 7P of marketing mix is physical evidence this mean that the marketing strategy should include effectively communicating their satisfaction to potential customers. Impact of Marketing Mix on the Management Decision Making: The importance of marketing mix is very important for every organizations business and marketing plans. Marketing mix is chosen after the very critical analysis of the forces that affects internal and external environment. In this way management can get the better idea about the strengths and weaknesses of the organizations. The potential business opportunities and threats are due to the presence of the different companies offering and doing the businesses by same sort of services and product. After the very careful and critical analysis of all the above factors the management of the companies make very good and fruitful decisions. An effective and correct Marketing Mix strategy will give the companies competitive edge over the competitors in this way they can produce more profits and maximise the market share of the company. Importance of Budgeting in Marketing Plan Financial forecasting is also very important and vital in over all running of the business unit. In case of marketing the funds availability is very important. On this basis the organization allocates resources and funds for an effective marketing plan so that they can produce more result in shape of success. Here the question arises that what should be the cost of the whole marketing campaign of the product or the business and how we can allocate the funds for that. Promotional budget normally determined by how much fund provided and how much percentage is available out of the revenue received from the sale of the brand.