STRATEGIC MARKETING MANAGEMENT PRIMARK

Introduction

A market exists whenever and where ever people with resources and willingness to buy have unsatisfied needs and wants.  A company that can fill the void and satisfy the needs and wants of the people will be successful and draw a profit.  A competitive market is created when other entrepreneurs establish companies that meet the same needs of the people which.  This competition forces each company to establish a marketing process to enhance their reputation and relationship with their customers.  In a global economy, successful business must transcend local and national areas and appeal to a global audience while also establishing profitable supply relationships to ensure low production costs.  To be successful in this endeavor companies must apply the marketing principles of analysis, planning, implementation and control at a strategic level. Senior managers conduct strategic marketing management to set cooperate policy and establish long-range goals. 

Strategic marketing

Strategic marketing management entails the process of formulation, implementation and estimation of marketing strategy by an organization. Indeed a marketing strategy aimed at differentiating the business in a positive way with respect to its competition through satisfying customer needs. And the strategic marketing management involves understanding and applying marketing from the perspective through creating customers. In performing this process a number of steps are taken iteratively (Kerin et al, 2007).The internal and external analysis together in the SWOT analysis based on the strategic points needs to be addressed clearly. Simply strategic marketing management is about realizing marketing form the strategic perspective of creating customers. Based on the strategic points, at the level of marketing and at the level of the instruments (the 4 ps: price, place, product and promotion) are created. The basic principles of Primark include respecting human rights and setting a guideline for appropriate conditions of employment  in its suppliers, employees and vice versa. The basic principle of strategic marketing is to strategically satisfy the needs and demands of existing and potential customers.

Role of strategic marketing in Primark

Strategic marketing focuses on how to develop competitive advantage through the drivers of shareholder value. Delivering value to your business requires insight into your changing marketplace and decisions regarding how to match your organization’s distinctive capabilities with promising value opportunities. Being able to do this is the key for many marketers to increase their influence in the organization. (By Fundamentals of Strategic Marketing)

Without a strategic marketing plan, organizations can waste resources, miss opportunities or, in a worst case, waste resources, miss opportunities or, in a worst case scenario threaten their own survival. Stepwise action makes Primark a productive sector. It is an exciting growing brand that provides consumers with value for money in fashion items. The company has an effective supply chain that combines manufacturing of different countries like Bangladesh, India m china and Turkey and some parts of Europe. Like other business Primark’s main objective is to be a profitable and sustainable but in doing that it is always trying to satisfy customers keep themselves responsible to the customers. The strategic marketing of Primark has enabled them to capture confidence of customers in the brand that helps reducing the risk of business (Hawes & Crittendon, 1984).

In an organization which is as large and strong as Primark, a competitive devised strategic marketing is highly required. As this manufacturing company outsource it projects, it has many responsibilities to execute without any dilemma in between. As the workforce of Primark is exclusively huge, the employees are to be managed and trained accordingly. There are guidelines set which are to be observed by the employees and other stakeholders. It is the basis of continued success in highly competitive markets. Sustainability is one of the features of Primark all due to the strategic marketing strategy is has dissolved in its business practices. The company does add cost in some scenarios only to fulfill its promises and commitments made to its customers. As a result brand loyalty bond gets stronger and they are able to expand more and create more demand of their garments in the market (Hawes & Crittendon, 1984).

Process involved in strategic marketing regarding Primark:

Malcolm McDonald gave ten stages of Marketing Planning Process, which has been widely accepted model in the business environment. MPP is more realistic and takes into account the organization’s existing competitive position, its capabilities and the competitive environment it faces. The Marketing planning process contains the following stages:

The enlisted step of Malcolm McDonald is one of the processes that are implemented in the conductivity of business transactions by Primark clothing retail company.

The mission statement of Primark is to provide luxurious clothes to every citizen of the country in an affordable price. The mission statement is the overall goal of the company that directs their decisions evolvement around it. Employees and other associates need some smaller goals which can be worked on for short time span. The following are the objectives of Primark Company (Macmillan & Tampoe, 2000).

Strategic implementation requires a firm to establish annual objectives, devise policies, motivate employees, and allocate resources so that the formulated strategies can be executed effectively. Strategic implementation includes developing a strategy-supportive culture, creating an effective organizational structure, redirecting marketing efforts, preparing budgets, developing and utilizing information systems and linking employee compensation to organizational performance.
Historically, the principal benefit of strategic management has been to help organization formulate better strategies through the uses of a more systematic, logical and rational approach to strategic choice (Macmillan & Tampoe, 2000). One of the potential benefits of strategic management is it make sure that the organization only follows one direction or path and that is towards the achievement of its business mission, objectives and success. (Marketing - Thinking Made Easy)
The marketing objectives of Primark can be summarized into following short terms of goals:

1.      They target specific kinds of audience and potential buyers for their clothing material. They devise marketing strategies which are applicable and directed to specific audience only; aims right at the correct direction.

2.      The output of the productivity should be measurable in terms of quantity and quality. The amount is important because it will measure the profit the company has made and the other intangible benefits and will determine how much the company has boosted after applying such techniques.

3.      All of their strategic marketing process are realistic; hence, can be applied in reality without much dilemma.

4.      All of the strategic marketing guidelines are time bounded. Meaning, they have to be implemented and ready to be available at service for the customer before it’s too late. As the competitors of Primark are in constant hurry to beat the company, the highly recommendable to work instability and execute the devise strategies on the time it has been panned.

5.      The data used in the analysis of deciding strategic marketing planning processes should be accurate and authentic. Any single mistake could turn into a disaster and heavy loss for Primark. Not only it will be a monetary loss, but also the goodwill of the clothing garment retailer would highly be affected.

Although Primark has many options to chose from (to select and implement a business marketing strategy) as it has many stakeholders to be accountable to and handle many aspects of marketing such as the pricing of the products in season and during off season, how to utilize media and other mediums for advertisement effectively, globally have the reputation of Primark recognized and other major areas of concern.

Evaluate links b/t strategic marketing and cooperate strategy at Primark and its link with ABF

A company is diversified when it is in two or more lines of business. Strategy-making in a diversified company is a bigger picture exercise than crafting a strategy for a single line-of-business. A diversified company needs a multi-industry, multi-business strategy. A strategic action plan must be developed for several different businesses competing in diverse industry environments. (Strategies for Managing a Group.

Setting corporate stagey objective means setting those measures of actions and methods which will help the company to achieve its overall mission in a certain timeframe. Corporate strategies are the most basic planning tools underlying all planning and strategic activities (Hamel & Prahalad, 1994). Through sharing its value ABF Primark establishes strong relationships with its stakeholders that have led them to have an encouraging feedback on the latest annual report about the audit conducted on ethical trade (Hamel & Prahalad, 1994)

The corporate mission of the Primark as follows:

Ø  sourcing products efficiently

Ø  making clothes with simpler designs

Ø   using local fabrics and trims

Ø  focusing on the most popular sizes

Ø  buying in volume

Ø  not spending heavily on advertising.

In order to facilitate such corporate strategy with strategic marketing plans, Primark has devised such marketing schemes that are:

1.      Low in budget and effective

As it doesn’t want to spend high amount of budget for advertising its products, minimal money will be spend in this department.

2.       Bulk purchasing

Buying product in large quantity will be cost effective as the cost of producing one garment will be low. Also, the supplier will be happy to work with Primark in future and maintain a strong relationship bond of work with them.

3.      Need of the customer

The Primark will only advertise and make those products which are demanded by the customer. It is essential because then only their sales volume will increase and the profit margin scale will boom up. It is one of those companies who encourage the participation of it s employees at management level and takes their considerations before reaching to any final decisions.

 2. Tools used to develop a strategic marketing strategy at Primark

SWOT Analysis

The Success of SWOT analysis is mainly based on how the firm fits it strategy with respect to its environment. The SWOT analysis of Primark attempts to interpret the information they have with respects to its environment that affects the ability of the business to meet its strategic goals (Leigh, n.d). The external analysis of Primark includes the opportunities and threats encountered by the organization and the internal analysis covers strength, weakness.

Strengths

ü  By volume Primark is now the second largest clothing retailer 

ü  The fashion scheme of Primark is solely based on the people less than 35 years

ü  It offers its products at a highly competitive price sometimes may not be possible enough to attract customers.

ü  More  space channel at main locations

ü  Using cost leadership strategy in UK market

Opportunities

ü  Day by day the demand for latest design with low price are increasing

ü  Huge marketing opportunities around the globe

ü  Use cheap and  skilled labor for the supplying of product

ü  It can open a store in Asia

Weakness

Ø  One of the main thing for which Primark is criticized is of using child labor

Ø  Only retail shops are confined  in only developed countries

Ø  Lack of focusing on minimal advertisements and low sales budget

Threats

v  Complex and volatile business environment

v  Customers needs and wants are changing

v  Increase of Competition

v  Increasing labor and raw materials

PEST analysis

The PEST analysis stands for political, social, economical and technological analysis that provides a framework for external environment factors influencing the organization’s strategies.

Political

v  The Liberal democratic party and the coalition of conservative party under the leadership of David Cameron came into power in 2010

v  In order to stay market eliminating recession several steps has undertaken by the government that included massive job cuts in public sectors and cuts in funds to different parts of economy.

v  European Union as a par is trying to discuss about free trade agreement with India.

v  Several policies like increase in tuition fees o f students and proposals to cut down the immigration of students from non Europe countries will impact the consumption pattern of young customers segment.

v  Now days economies of both India and China are in good position and had less affected with the recession.

Economy

v  It is said that UK suffered its most terrible recession in 2009 in over 60 years.

v  It is estimated that expenditure of consumer is decrease by 4.4 percent in 2009.

v  Increasing the prices of fuel and food are compressing the disposable income of people.

v  The unemployment especially of youth employment of age from 18 to 24 years old has risen about 17.2 percent is 2009 compared to 12.5 percent in the same period of 2008.

v  Exporters gained a competitive edge as a result of devaluation of UK sterling in 2008-2009. In time July 2008 and January the pound loss 32 percent of its value against theUS dollar and 19 percent of its own value against the Euro.

v  Regarding the export o f goods  the economy  of UK is least dependent amongst others in Europe indicating that they are less vulnerable to the risk of shocks from decreasing international demands.

Social

v  UK contains people of various mixtures of cultures, races ethnics and religions and groups

v  Among the most popular countries for immigration UK is considered a suitable one. From the statistics it has been found that about 1.5 million people were added to the UK population between 1998 and 2008 and most of the people about two third are from Asia and Africa.

v  People’s attitudes are now changing and they like to prefer cheaper clothing as their income sources are decreasing.

v  Recession has caused decreasing the expenses of adults particularly the case is true for expenditures in clothing.

Technological

v  With the intensive use of increasing internet retailing methods are getting more popular and people are becoming more dependent on online shopping instead of shopping going to the outlet.

v  Marketing online for fashion is really dynamic and now a day’s companies are setting up online shops for eg, Tesco (clothingattesco.com), Asda (George).

v  There are various options available through which Payments can be made that may include: online banking, direct debit cards, credit cards, paypal etc.

v  In case of distant location the company focuses on the proper management and services of IT systems that are secured.

2.1 Access the value of models used in SMP, ID models used by Primark towards it’s marketing strategy

Strategic plan for strategic model provides a roadmap for success and the framework for clear communication of what is important and what is not. It is a key leadership instrument providing direction for implementation and operational and tactical planning to decide what the company should do.

Developing competency models is crucial to accelerate the growing need of an efficient and effective process of an organization. Strategic success model is a software aided process developed by Havis and Associates to describe the competencies that are very important for success in a given job. Out dated model needs to be replaced or revised and even a new model can be developed using the strategic model building process if it produces unsatisfactory results. Model building is started with a card-sort process that is facilitated with competency cards and sorting pads for participants (Kotler, 2007).

The business model of Primark depends mainly on the sourcing fashion items from low costs producing areas. Because of high dependency of business model of Primark on high sales volumes and lower retails margins that allows it to offer well fashioned items at a low price with minimal advertising.  As a result it enjoys a competitive position over the competitors. From the outset Primark focused mainly on removing waste and emphasis on the simplicity and avoiding the building of complexity.  Through maintaining good relationships with core logistic service providers and the supply chain they became successful in doing the business (Hawes & Crittendon, (1984).

2.2 Discuss links between strategic positioning and marketing tactics regarding Primark

According to the Porter’s (1980) competitive advantage are able to be generated based on the five forces in an industry as competition goes beyond the sense of pure price competition. The strategic positioning enabled the company to analyze all the factors of marketing that would be required to run a business in a profitable and ethical manner as Primark can’t afford to ruin its goodwill that has been create to their positive attitude with their associates (internally and externally). A well matched between the products positioning and the marketing programs helps Primark to be the leader amongst the low cost provider like McDonalds. Due to increasing the concentration amongst retailers and at the same time increasing the bargaining power of customers the whole industry is now an under pressure falling margin. There is a cost leadership strategy and focus on cheaper rate with minimal advertising that need to be improved.

2.3 Analyze the merits of relationship marketing in a given strategic marketing strategy; reflect the role of RM at Primark

In enhancing business performance relationship marketing plays a crucial role in competitive marketing strategy. The importance of effective customer relationships at Primark works as a key to customer value. In an organization which is as large and strong as Primark, a competitive devised strategic marketing is highly required. As this manufacturing company outsource it projects, it has many responsibilities to execute without any dilemma in between. As the workforce of Primark is exclusively huge, the employees are to be managed and trained accordingly. There are guidelines set which are to be observed by the employees and other stakeholders. It is the basis of continued success in highly competitive markets. Through maintaining a long terms relationship with its supporting shareholders Primark has built mutually profitable business relationships that shows assign of the continuous business improvement.  With maintaining  the relationship marketing customers believe that the goods they are purchasing not only fashionable and good value for money but also the are ethically produced by workers (Hawes & Crittendon,1984).

Conclusion

One of the basic principles of Primark is to ensure that it provides its customers with values foe money garments maintain the ethical manufacturing standard. In doing so some extra cost are involved but Primark believes that this will enable their business to operate in a sustainable and well managed way.  Sustainability is one of the features of Primark all due to the strategic marketing strategy that has dissolved in its business practices. By establishing the strong relationships with stakeholders consumers believe that their many is valued appropriately.

References

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Hawes, J.M. & Crittendon, W.F. (1984), A taxonomy of competitive retailing strategies, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 5, No. 2, p. 275-287.

Macmillan, H. & Tampoe, M. (2000), Strategic Management, Oxford University Press.

Pearson, G. (1999), Strategy in Action, Prentice Hall Financial Times.

Kerin, R, A., Mahajan, J., and Varadarajan, R, R. (2007), Contemporary

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Porter, M. (1980). Competitive Strategy. New York: Free Press.

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