Business Development Strategy With A Contemporary Marketing Concept

Literature Review

This report is performed on business development strategy with an emphasis on contemporary marketing concept and its application to business. To effectively apply the marketing concept, the report considers the organization Hewlett Packard which is an American multinational Information technology organization delivering hardware and software services to several SMEs and large corporations in the global market. The major context of the project is the development of marketing concept and its application to organization’s present state of business. As put forward by Baker and Saren (2016), marketing concept is intensively associated with a business philosophy, which has the potential to achieve organizational goals which are made up of determining the needs and wants of target market and producing a desired satisfaction exceptionally. Marketing strategy is derived from the marketing concept, and marketing strategy may consist of choosing a particular segment of the market and then designing the proper mix of the products, price, promotions and other elements. However, as the market is dynamic in nature, the needs and wants are changing rapidly, which is now challenging for the marketers. Due to this dynamic nature of the market, businesses find it difficult to rely on any particular strategy; this happens because the market needs and demands are associated with other changing variables such as political grounds, economy, etc. So, HP is running its operation in a global market and with no exception, the business is dealing with such changing market environment in terms of needs and wants.

The major purpose of the report is to analyse the contemporary marketing issues and develop suitable suggestions which can be applied to businesses running today. This report is highly significant for the Hewlett Packard, as HP’s current marketing strategies are not effective enough to deal with the recent dynamic marketing challenges; thereby, the analysis of marketing concept developed in the report helps HP to establish its marketing strategy for handling the dynamic market environment.

The report is conducted with five different sections starting from the introductory section which introduces the context of the report – development of marketing concept and its application to businesses. Similarly, the next section contains a detailed literature on the context of the report, which has been performed considering eight different peer-reviewed journals on contemporary marketing. Research methodology provided in the report states that data has been gathered from secondary data sources such as books and journals. The section containing data findings present the collected data for the analysis which is provided with graphs and tables. 

In the wake of digital disruption, technology businesses tend to face growing pressure to enhance time to market and ensure their offerings are best in standard. Businesses in accordance with the needs, design their marketing approaches and strategies and this is best observed in the case of Cisco System –a networking and hardware business (Cisco 2018). According to Ebitu,  Mbum and Okon (2012), Cisco, in its early stage of operation understood that the market is dynamic and the businesses are dependent on global trends. Thus, to incorporate the global trends and develop a growth strategy, Cisco’s paid attention to identification of market transition, which drives the business to a great extent. Cisco particularly, focussed on acquisition which helps them to capture the market transitions. Erevelles, Fukawa and Swayne (2016) performed a study on Cisco and found that Cisco’s segmented acquisition into three different categories namely market acceleration, market expansion as well as new market entry. In this context, Golsefid (2010,) provided the fact that the target companies could bring different types of assists to Cisco, with the inclusion of great skills and technology, mature products and solutions or business models. Cisco, in this context, particularly seeks acquisition with the potential to reach billion dollars market. In this context, Gherghina (2015) commented that integration is required to successful acquisition. Thus, overall business development effort put by Cisco may include involvement of the early diligence phase through the mainstream business by making investment for dedicated integration resources across the business at the corporate as well as functional range. Likewise, another electronic giant Samsung’s segmentation, targeting as well as positioning includes a series of activities that are performed in a sequence (samsung.com 2018). The following images show how Samsung segments its market for the growth and expansion.

Data Findings

Figure 1: Samsung’s Market Segmentation

(Source: samsung.com 2018)

Figure 2: Samsung’s Market Segmentation

(Source: samsung.com 2018)

Likewise, Samsung uses a unique positioning strategy, as Samsung pays attention to many segments at the same time by providing many packages of products and services. Here, Abubakar (2014) argued that Samsung is known to be imitative in nature as it follows its major competitors Apple when it comes to making a design of the product, functionalities and marketing strategy.

According to Müller and Hamm (2014), segmentation or STP model consists of three significant steps that helps business to analyse the offerings and how business communicates its benefits as well as values to specific groups. The following steps are found in a study performed by Cross, Belich and Rudelius (2015).

Market segmentation: According to the author above article, there are several ways to segment the target market but following are the core areas:

Demographic: This area of segmentation may include the attributes such as age, marital status, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, occupation and education. Müller and Hamm (2014) suggest that not all these attributes should be equally used in segmentation; this means as per the needs, the attribute can be used. For example, before launching Maggie Noodles, Nestle segments its market considering age and gender (Nestleprofessionalme.com 2018). The ingredients used in Maggie Noodles such as wheat soy, sugar, antioxidant, caramel III, are highly necessary for kids. Therefore, the product was launched targeting the school kids.

Geographic: Geographic segmentation may include the attributes like nation, region, state, city and neighbourhood. These attributes are highly important because the business must have to comply with the trends of a region or nation (Cross, Belich and Rudelius 2015). This author has also provided an example that Nestle is not supposed to sell Maggie in an interior region where people are accustomed to regional foods (Nestleprofessionalme.com 2018). So, in that case, the business needs to identify the areas where the demands of such readymade food is high. 

Psychographic: The psychographic segmentation includes risk aversion, values and lifestyle. To implement segmentation, the brand needs to identify the usual life-style of buyers. For example, if a brand focuses on the urban areas, where people are advanced in terms of culture, trends and technology, the business needs to introduce an innovative product, which people can relate to their regular lifestyle (Molina et al. 2015).

Behavioural: Behavioural characteristics are related to the fact of how people use the product, how loyal they remain or the benefits they tend to look for (Dey, Lahiri and Zhang 2014). The authors suggest that before adding additional benefits or the business could identify the needs or benefits that customers are looking for; thereafter, the product should be developed.

Product positioning:  Lei and Moon (2015) performed a study and mentioned that when it comes to positioning, the major goal of the business is to identify how the business wishes to position its product to target the most significant segment. However, Dey, Lahiri and Zhang (2014) stated that positioning practice can be further extended for making an appropriate implementation, including a marketing mix approach. Nonetheless, Shakhshir (2014) argued that before applying marketing mix to business, it is necessary for business to consider why the target customers should purchase the product instead of choosing the competitors. In this context, Molina et al. (2015) also commented that an organization can do this by identifying its unique selling proposition as well as drawing a positioning map to comprehend how each segment perceives the product or service. Thereafter, the brand needs to identify the needs and wants of each segment or the issue that product resolves for these people. On the other side, Golsefid (2010) mentioned that when identifying the needs and wants, the business could create a value proposition which explains how the offering meets the requirement effectively than any other competitor in the same sector or market. For instance, The Adventure Travel Agency markets itself as the attractive “eco-vacation service for the newly or young married couples (Vellas 2016).

Case Study of Cisco

The brand hosts a competition on Instagram as well as on Pinterest to reach its desired market as these are the major channel such customers highly favour. Hence, the company can ask the customers to send in interesting images of past eco-vacations and the most effective one wins all inclusive trip. Likewise, the campaign goes viral and thousands of people tend to upload their photos which helps to Adventure Travel Company.

This research report includes a case study method which aims to analyse specific problems related to marketing concept- marketing segmentation faced by the organization Hewlett Packard. The method includes one single industry- Hardware and Information Technology sector. To perform the analysis, hardware and information technology industry has been considered. Only secondary analysis has been performed; thereby, the secondary data has been collected from books, peer-reviewed journals, and websites of some particular organizations that have been included in the review. According to Lewis (2015) case studies are of those studies that are widely popular in the business field, as this method aims to judge some specific issues within the boundaries of particular areas or a case situation of an organization. Cronin (2014) also mentioned that on the basis of its design, case study method in research is usually categorized as descriptive, exploratory and explanatory. In the present report, descriptive case study method will be used because descriptive case study method focuses on analysing a set of interpersonal evens after when a specific amount of time has passed.

According to De Massis and Kotlar (2014), the descriptive case study sets to explain the natural phenomenon which takes places within the data in question ; for example, what different strategies are utilized by a reader and how the reader use them.  According to the author, major advantage of case study may include data collection as well as analysis within the context of the phenomenon and the capability to acquire the complexities of real life events; thereby, the phenomenon can be studies intensively.  For the current study, descriptive case study method has been used because the research is performed within a single phenomenon which is the adoption of marketing concept in business today. While, explanatory case study method has been rejected because this sort of method mainly revolves around the phenomenon within the context of real-life situation or event which is not broad, but specific. The current study revolves around a broad phenomenon under which different sub-factor can exist. For example, the major emphasis of the study is market segmentation under which marketing mix or unique selling point is a sub-factor of marketing approach which is further applied to the case of HP. Here, no real life event such as “investigation on global financial crisis” has not been performed.

As put forward by Lewis (2015), data collection is a technique of gathering information from all relevant information from all useful resources to find response to the research problems. Data collection methods are usually divided into two different categories such as secondary technique of data collection and primary technique of data collection. However, in the present study, secondary data collection method as the research does not include or use internal data of the organization.  As put forward by Cronin (2014), secondary data may include data that has already been gathered by others –conventionally in the form of documents, statistical information. In the present study, the secondary data has been collected from industry reports, annual reports of Hewlett Packard, newsletter of organizations, books and peer reviewed journals. Moreover, to analyse the data, SWOT and PESTLE frameworks have been applied as the data analysis tool when presenting and aligning data findings with the literature.

Case Study of Samsung

This chapter presents the data which have been collected from the industrial report, annual reports and newsletter of Hewlett Packard. Hewlett Packard Company has developed the latest designs of computer hardware and it is becoming the giant in Information Technology. This section presents the data in the form of cases about how HP shapes its marketing strategies to respond to the dynamic market environment.

The data findings presented below strategic data analysis tools help to examine the internal and external factors that have strong impact on HP’s defining their strategic as well as competitive position.

Case 1: HP’s external market environment pertaining to market segmentation and positioning

HP knew that market trends are dynamics and decades after people certainly would look for more innovative products. In addition, the traditional printer products were supposed to reach saturation. Thus, in response to dynamic changes of the market, HP got into the deal of acquisition with the electronic giant Samsung. The deal was finalized with the value of $1.05 billion. The acquisition has expanded HP’s product portfolio with the product $55billion A3 copier. The product offers multi-functional printers that are user-friendly and provide the same high performance (Hp.com 2018). As the part of the deal, HP gains access to more than 6500 print patents from Samsung along with the workforce of 1300 researcher and engineers. On the other side, as the part of the deal Samsung makes $100 million to $300 million equity investment in HP through the open market (Hp.com 2018).

The following PESTLE analysis shows how HP sustains its portfolio growth dealing with the external forces.

Political: When it comes to responding to the political framework of the market HP pays attention to governmental riles and controls to keep with the environmental as well as CSR codes (hp.com 2018). This helps the brand to comply with the decency, quality as well as the environmental concerns.

Economic: The revenue from hardware business and small and medium size firms enable HP to deal with fluctuation of economy in the global environment.

Social Factor: Hewlett Packard acquires the regional United State consumer base, which is effectively captured but it appears that business has very little to be done with respect to attracting coming young generation of Information Technology. Thus, the attention should be paid on the development of models of hardware for printing and Personal Computer (Cross, Belich and Rudelius 2015). This may appear to be a challenge to the competitors like Intel.

Technology: It is identified that HP followed “Cyber” almost ten years which is particularly recent compared to seven decades older appearance (Hp.com 2018). In addition, HP has experienced the major breakthrough when corporate software and corporate system designs were clubbed together in 1998 and when Liverman took the responsibility of operating the new “Enterprise Computing Solution Organization”. This was done by making an investment of $150 billion with the workforce of 44000 (Hp.com 2018)

Environmental: As put forward by Cross, Belich and Rudelius (2015), considering the fact of brand image in the market, HP is never away from complying with the regulations made by the federal state, regional and global regulations concerning the environment. HP made several initiatives complying with the laws for solving discharge for pollutants into the air and water.

Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning Model

Legal: “Patent Reform Legislation”- as one of the significant patent holders in the United State and Hewlett Packard remains on the average of four parents each day (Müller and Hamm 2014). HP’s business is a persistent target of frivolous patent lawsuit and such lawsuits insists HP to provide resources from innovation and product development leading to reduced economic benefits from the invention.

The above findings helps to observe that HP is very specific and responsive towards the needs of the external market. It particularly complies with political framework such as performing CSR responsibility. Such initiatives helps HP to develop a positive image in the mind of customers which would further helps to attract its target customers of the segmented market. Social factor helps to observe the fact HP emphasizes on modifying its technology products by keeping up with the latest version of models. So, when applying marketing mix to implement the segmentation, the element- product always has something new to offer. In the literature, it was found that “work on coordination between the business resources and consumer needs ensure more successful business and increasing profits for business ethics which eventually remains as the objectives” (Ashley and Tuten 2015, p.19). So, HP knew that technology sector is going to observe a rapid growth and which is why HP merged its corporate software, support divisions and corporate systems divisions. This amalgamation strengthened HP’s workforce which was required to meet the external technology needs. Furthermore, such large workforce is supposed to reflect on its quality of products and quality product is weapon of HP when segmenting the market.  PESTLE analysis also provides fact about how HP merged its operational divisions to increase internal strength for the purpose of shaping marketing concepts with the needs in the external environment; nonetheless, this fact was also found in the literature, as to incorporate the global trends and form a growth strategy, Cisco emphasized on acquisition, which helps to increase their internal strength and acquire the market transition. This segmented acquisition is based into three different categories- market segmentation, market penetration and market. Likewise, HP should also need to categorize its merger of operational division for effectively segment the market.

Growing presence in cloud computing market: By collaborating with Intel Corporation and Yahoo, HP in 2008 developed a “global multi-hub”. This was done by making an open source experiment test for cloud computing research and education. After the accomplishment of this initiative, HP introduced “Cloud Assure” which is a new Saas developed to lead the business to effectively implement cloud-base services.

A performed a study on global demand and presence of IT performed by Chou and Shao (2014) makes the prediction of a decrease in global demand for several IT products provided by HP. The economic slowdown has affected several market segments negatively with the inclusion of Information Technology. So, HP has experienced such decrease both in US as well as in the global markets. On the other side, Shahiduzzaman and Alam (2014) mentioned that “Hyper-competitive market” also throws a significant challenge to HP. Even though HP overtook Dell, there are other businesses such as Toshiba, Lenovo Group and Aver.  These businesses compete with respect to price, quality, technology, reputation and distribution.

Conclusion

Prominent Brand Name Recognition: HP has introduced a branding initiative which is known as “One Voice” to better integrate its line of consumer electronics as well as computer hardware products (Hp.com 2018). In addition, major mergers and acquisition of HP include Compaq Computer Corporation, Mercury Interactive and Electronic Data System Corporation. Due to this initiative, HP is able to reach an agreement to obtain 3Com – a provider of computer network equipment for 2.7 billion (Hiratsuka 2016). In addition to this, it is also found that HP’s dominance of global printer market holds 40% market share based on which HP took a major step in reinforcing its position in Information Technology sector.

As put forward by Golsefid (2010), Weak Market Segmentation Integration is a major flaw in HP’s major marketing practice. The author has particularly mentioned that HP’s portfolio of offering lack significant software product or manage consulting services when compared to major competitors. For example, IBM and Accenture are developing management consulting divisions to deliver more comprehensive as well as integrated series of services.

The component of opportunity in the SWOT analysis tool indicates the fact that HP knew that as the technology is developing, the demands for cloud services are likely to grow in a rapid pace. Consequently, they extended their operational area adding cloud services. This was a smart move because HP is running its operation in a global market and with one particular or existing range of products, HP cannot segment and position the business in a global market. When shaping areas in market segmentation and identifying the target market, the business must have to identify which area or product will generate a highest demand and based on the identification, the target market or customer should be approached (Molina et al. 2015).

So, it can be mentioned that when the large competitors like Samsung follows the same approach of segmenting the market with a product that has highest demand, HP is not lagging behind with its attention on retail photo printing solution. The major significant threat found in the analysis is a slowdown in economy which has affected several market segments with the inclusion of Information Technology. In such a case, like Samsung, HP should have paid to attention to new product categories. Samsung knew that products in its electronic sector is going to reach saturation; thereby, it keeps on producing new electronic gadgets. So, when the Information Technology sector was supposed to observe a possible decline, it should have paid attention to new products in the existing categories instead of waiting for IT to regain its position. Another significant weakness found in the SWOT analysis is weak market segmentation. In the literature, it was found that when it comes to market segmentation, Samsung segments its market with a vast categories of products, so the variables or the attributes they choose in the segmentation match the needs of customers. However, product portfolio of HP lacks significant software product and its core services compared to its competitors.

The facts found above are quite similar to the findings found in the literature review. The existing studies help me to understand the fact that every industry has its own marketing practices to respond to the dynamic market environment. Therefore, segmentation strategies of HP may not be similar to a business of fast food industry. However, there is one significant factor I found is that Samsung’s segmentation strategies are centred around the new and upcoming trends of the market, which means, the products are designed to approach the target market is based on the upcoming trends. However, in the case of HP, the data findings indicate that even though segments its market by identifying the market needs but being a large technology firm, its product categories are limited. Thereby, the segmentation is done for a limited number of products. So, I believe that innovation and upcoming trends are two significant aspects that marketer or the business must need to consider. Segmenting the market with existing products or limited products in a large market is prone to failure.

Conclusion and Recommendation

The above presented findings clarifies the fact that  HP may not be able to derive a positive gain from its market segmentation approaches as it targets the appropriate market for its products but product offerings are very limited. The facts found in the existing studies related to market segmentation and positioning does not provide any recent trend of marketing. In addition, HP also faced significant market dilemma; this means when HP is growing its global presence in the cloud service, its business on printer are facing challenges from Japan’s EPSON. So, it can be mentioned that the overall global presence of HP is not in place. Therefore, the marketing managers of HP have taken many initiatives of increasing product portfolio but they did not keep a healthy balance between the products and markets in terms of emphasis. The following suggestions related to market segmentation may help HP to place its products and acquire the target market.

HP may implement the customer segmentation in its market strategy along with the product segmentation where it should target several market segment as well as design separate product’s or offering for them. HP should segment the market into the economically developed areas such as US, Asia, Asia-Japan and EMEA, where each region has different pricing and marketing strategies.

When it comes to selling technology products, the business must ensure there is no age, gender or race but earning, occupation and educations should play a great role in identifying the needs and wants of the consumers. Bogdanov and Breyer (2016) mentioned that Asian nations like India and Korea have observed a rapid growth in IT and hardware; therefore, HP should come with new and innovative technology product. Economy is Asian nations are rapidly healing; thereby, each household holds the capability of using latest technology such as Personal Computer. In addition, die to the advancement in Internet many family owned businesses are trying to use cloud services. HP should focus on those small and family owned business.

HP could pay attention to the relationship customers like the large corporation, government and educational sector (due to economic development, education sector in Asian nations are adopting technology for creating a better platform of education). It is estimated that such group of customers may provide a huge portion of profits and are thereby, can be supported by dedicated sales representatives or marketing managers. A significant share of HP’s business should stem from long-term corporate relationship accounts for which HP can develop tailored customer-specific web sites like “Premier Pages” with prearranged custom specification and budgets, which may provide aces to some product designs or the service information.

HP should also extend its attention to transactional customers who are usually price sensitive and seek low-cost, reliable, quality service added value products. The business must understand the fact that these are individual conquers who may likely to access, choose and purchase online as the way of fulfilling their product requirements. Therefore, to derive stable demand in such segment, HP should use latest technology products to target the purchasers to identify the regular purchase patterns.

Consequently, it can create impact on its product segmentation strategy and customized products offering that HP can launch. The following marketing mix determines how HP should position its products.

Product: HP should provide its customers a broad range of computer system, desktop computer notebook computers, storage products and other technology based solution. In addition, HP also needs to focus on the cloud service products because many small and family owned businesses are trying to incorporate cloud services. Thus, such specific category of products may help HP to fulfil the growing needs of target customers.

Positioning: When it comes to placing or distributing the items in the market, HP should use a vast channel of distributing; this means HP should not limit its distribution channel to traditional distributor or the middleman. It could apply an Omni-channel marketing strategy, where distribution of products should occur both online and offline. In such distribution practice, the brand can sell or distribute its products through a middle man or distributors and online is selling platform is another vast platform.

Price: As HP is suggested to focus on the large global market, HP should not put much emphasis on its traditional high pricing strategy. This is because economic structure of each market is the not the same; there is a fluctuation. So, HP keeps the bar of producing high-quality computer system at the lowest possible price to match with customer needs and expectation of value for money. In addition to this, HP can incorporate a cost leadership strategy; it can supply product at low price by minimizing all costs of producing parts and cost involved in retailing and distributing.

Promotion remains as the most significant aspect of marketing mix and hence, HP can use many different promotional methods to promote or market its products. The rapid developed of internet has made it possible for many business to promote the products and services. As HP is selling the technology-based products, it should focus on the platforms of internet technology such as the social media platforms. HP should utilize all popular social media platforms including YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

The research has been performed paying a major attention on market segmentation and its related aspects. The goal was to derive a positive and authentic outcome from the research,; thereby, real-world facts –HP’s operation has been considered. The research includes a secondary analysis of industrial reports, HP’s newsletter and annual reports. In order to perform a detailed review of existing studies, peer review journals articles and some case studies of few organizations have been used. However, the findings of the review indicate that technology-based businesses should always design a large offering of products and services. In the literature, it was found that Samsung, when segmenting its market offer a vast categories of electronic products and moreover, the offering should be based on the market needs and trends. The data has been analysed with two different data analysis tools such as PESTLE and SWOT. The findings indicate that even though HP targets the appropriate market but its offerings are limited compared to its competitors. Technology is one such sector that has always observed a stable and rapid growth. Therefore, the product offerings should be large. However, as the research is limited to secondary analysis only; however, a primary analysis would have helped to gain a more specific outcome regarding the current trends of markets.

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