Ideology And Corporate Social Responsibility

Segmentation Strategy

Discuss About The Ideology And Corporate Social Responsibility.

The segmentation strategy exercised by the Walton Company in the Europe Market was Demographic Segmentation strategy. This strategy is a very popular form of dividing the market through different demographic variables. The consumers are divided into groups based on factors such as gender, income status, age and social stability. A range of customers was targeted categorized as income oriented and they were being offered tailored products with dynamic features and technological aspects in the domestic market. Whereas, internationally it mainly focused on the middle class income earners who were offered the products at both the regular cost and premiums cost. The robustly increasing purchasing power of the customers can be a factor due to which Walton can expand its market speedily and enhance the market sector along with the new challenges. The middle class earners were both price sensitive for which Walton shall adopt the cost leadership strategy where the competitive advantage can be achieved by having a lower cost of operation in the industry.

On the contrary the customers who were driven by the preferences, and advanced products, for them Walton can adopt the differentiation strategy. In Asian and African diaspora, Walton’s brands were primarily purchased on the basis of price competitiveness and technological advancements that were equal to rest of the global brands. In Bangladesh to reach the middle class earners as well as upper middle income market segments Walton shall follow the price competitive policy. Under this policy the products were offered at both competitive and premium prices. The hire-purchasing facility was also available for the customers who were not financially sound, where the customer can purchase a product on credit and later can sell at the prices having the discount factor. Utilizing the cheap labor Walton will be able to lower down its prices as compared to other global brands. Secondly Walton shall internalize its value chain system which led to generation of taxes and duty savings in different regions. To extend the market internationally, Walton cultivated an image of Export Company. Under this strategy the goods were produced in accordance and compliance with the International Standards which ultimately led to the differentiation in the domestic markets. In international markets, Walton can delegate its risk to the third parties. Depending upon the availability of channel and market strength and the customers the exports can be distributed differently. The channels could be of different medium.

Positioning Strategies Used by Walton Company

Walton is involved in dozen of line segments which are of different sixes, specialty and configurations, to meet consumer needs in each market. There are different positioning strategies each of which is lined up in the form of a table below.

There are certain types of branding and communication strategies that can be recommended for the Walton to create a goodwill and brand name in the target segment.  Walton had no financial strategy for promotion of products internationally but its basic plan to cover the entire Europe was from its base through well-equipped designs and websites. Therefore, a financial strategy shall be devised to ensure the availability of funds when a new line of product is introduced or a department is reorganized or the expansion of a business is required. The branding packaging and collateral designs shall be renovated and revamped to attract more customers. After revamping it shall also be communicate dot the customers in an effective manner so that they shall not get confused and possibly give the business ot other company. The “failing to plan is planning to fail” is ideal in case of Walton also. For the brand value the marketing objectives of the Walton should be SMART and descriptive. Individual mails can also be sent to the users of the products to reach them directly. The queries can be handled online via websites. For creating the consistent brand image following questions shall be answered on the regular basis to know about the performance of the company. Who is in the consumer target? Why should they believe us? Does the brand have an organizing Big Idea? What are we are selling? What do we want the advertising to do? All these questions will determine the right information and a clear picture as to why the brand value and communication strategies are important form the point of view of the business. The performance can be measured either monthly, quarterly, half yearly or annually.

 The promotional campaigns were held to reach most of the customers in large at once. The sponsored programs were conducted amongst which one was the Diplomatic Zone on R-TV in which diplomats were incited to raise their questions and experiences. This eventually led to building of relationship with clients, foreign institutions, and creating a trust factor among the customers for the product. More of such campaigns shall be conducted which will create a sense of belongingness with the customers directly. The Walton strengthened its internalization process to acquire brand image. Walton applied the hybrid theory which was a combination of cost as well as differentiation strategy. To create a unique brand value it shall choose the products first and then apply the strategy equally. This will provide a specific solution for individual line of products. These steps are necessary to maintain the brand image against the competitors. To increase the market share and to deliver the products in bulk, the policy of the brand image is required.

Branding and Communication Strategies

The procedure or set of procedures that makes a linkage between the makers, clients, and end clients through data to the advertiser can be called as Marketing Research. It identifies the market opportunities and problems and evaluates the marketing actions, monitors the performance against the competitors and improves the understanding of the processes. It is the orderly assembling, recording, and examination of subjective and quantitative information about issues related with promoting items and administrations. The objective of promoting research is to distinguish and survey how the components change. The tasks which are associated with the marketing research can be discussed in the detail below.

• Investigating market activity: The first task of the Walton Company is to investigate the market activities and other forces operating the market. An in depth analysis of the market will give a clear picture as to what policies shall be framed and which strategy to devise that will best fit with resources of the company.
• The second task is to analyse the published data and statistics available on the websites of the competitors to understand the operations of the industry and its workings. The accuracy of the data shall be checked and to ensure whether the statistics available are in accordance with the past years (Bailey & Burch, 2017). Gather information on buyers, contenders and commercial centre and combine data into significant things, reports and introductions is beneficial.
• Walton shall also focus on evaluating the past performance of a product or service’s sales to get an insight of what are the pros and cons of a product, which product needs urgent attention and which can be developed potentially (Wirtz  & Lovelock, 2017). Understanding the business destinations and configuration studies to find imminent clients’ inclinations is one of the most critical tasks to do. It is basically done to create a base for the company to understand the basic requirements, the channels associated with the product.
• After evaluation of performances and understanding the benchmarks it is important to assess the future trends. A proper planning is to be done to determine the Walton’s mission and vision (Anderson,  et al ,2018). The company shall assess its market share and growth rate with respect to its current level of performance and position.
• To acquire the genuine feedback about the services and products delivered to the customers a commissioning survey can be conducted which will be helpful in determining the loopholes if any. Where the room of improvement is available for the company can be assessed through these surveys (Bertaux & Thompson, 2017). Which areas are technically sound and potential, which product needs new packaging, what policies shall be devised to improve the existing coverage? All these questions can be answered through the proper feedback from the customers.
• Compile and dissect factual information utilizing current and conventional strategies to gather it. Interpret information, figure reports and make suggestions. Use online statistical surveys and databases. Perform legitimate and dependable statistical surveying SWOT examination. Provide aggressive examination on different organizations’ market contributions, recognize showcase patterns, valuing/plans of action, deals and strategies for activity Evaluate program approach and key information to guarantee that information on the discharges are exact and the edge of the discharge is right (Walton, 2017). Remain completely educated on showcase patterns, different gatherings looks into and actualize best practices are all the important tasks.

Market orientation is completely opposite to past marketing strategies  and product orientation where the core focus is on establishing sales value for existing goods. Instead of making the customers like the sevices or products of the company, with the help of the marketing orientation strategy the comapny should tailor the products accoridng to the demands of the customers.

One approach to classify the market research is through quantitative as well as qualitative nature. Both subjective and quantitative strategies shall be assumed over critical parts in item improvement. Quantitative research also provides certain information, for example, size of advertisement, socioeconomic cultural and client’s attraction which gives imperative data to businesses. (Dibb, 2017). Subjective research on the other hand gives importance to plan an item of the business. This approach includes information about client needs and requirements, conduct surveys and examples, and utilize case studies belonging to past. Each of these methodologies has qualities and shortcomings, and each can profit by our consolidating them with each other. Often figures and numerical data showcase the position of the Walton in terms of the market share (Brace, 2018). Often primary research quantitative data can be accessed through different surveys. However it shall be ensured that the information shall not be biased and a large pool of survey takers shall be available. The external factors also play an important role in determining the market share of the company. The company has its own strength and weaknesses which when compared with the approaches gives a true picture of the position of the company with respect to its competitors.  For example, mobile surveys are exclusively used to capture quantitative data. This is likely to filter out people who are not belonging to the panel, while the surveys which are conducted through calling from landline phones is likely to segregate out the nearly two-thirds of households that entirely or mostly using cell phones (Yeh, Jewell & Thomas, 2017).

Customer Relationship Management

Further, capturing the quantitative data is just only one side of the coin. To support it against the risk and reliable business intelligence, it shall be communicated to the members of the company. To use it as significant and dependable business insight, it must be composed, broke down and conveyed to leaders (e.g. administrators, board individuals, entrepreneurs, and so forth.). Most of the associations – and essentially all private companies – don’t have the assets, innovation or aptitude to do this in-house.

Quantitative research has the upside of looking over arbitrary examples and giving factual information that can be immediately evaluated, at that point connected to a general, more extensive gathering. Then again, unique quantitative research isn’t generally persuaded because of its higher cost. It can be troublesome or difficult to test past the underlying surface and issues. Therefore, both the approaches the qualitative as well quantitative is necessary to analyse the strength and weaknesses of the company.

Marketing research plan for improving the brand image is a comprehensive plan that outlines business efforts for the upcoming years. It describes business activities which are involve in marketing objectives within a set frame. It can be categorised in the following manner. Marketing Challenge: Challenges faced by the Walton company are as follows. Competitors working in the same line of the industry can be one of the factors. Secondly the insufficient funds, the motto to keep the quality of the products consistently high as compared to the competitors (Bruwer & Li, 2017). Next challenge can be shifts in trends and promotion policies, expectations of the customers, maintaining of the market share.

The objectives of the research can be  The consistent competitors of the Walton needs to be analysed, what policies they are forming, what trends they are following will give an answer to the fact that where the Walton company is lacking (Hox, Moerbeek & van de Schoot, 2017). Analysing the competitors will give an insight of what issues the Walton wants to address. The objectives of the research are to gain and insight of the financial statements of the company, brand awareness, consumer behaviour, buying capacity of the individuals, product satisfaction and consumer feedback (Ottman, 2017). The next objective can be, to search for new marketing opportunities, facilitating the Walton to select suitable sales promotion methods, to get a rough estimation of the cost of marketing of goods and services (Camilleri, 2018). The objective is to find out the distribution channels which can transport the products at low cost.

The Walton company’s marketing research plan also involves the questions that need to be answered to get an idea of the vision and mission of the company (Eyer, 2017). What is the market share of the company? Who are the potential clients and customers? What are the preferences and needs of these clients? What are the core competences which shall be followed to be on the top of the list? What kind of policies and strategies shall be devised to maintain the goodwill and brand value? What kind of logistics and media channels is used to inform about the product to the customers?

A research methodology is a comprehensive plan for conducting the research. The research can be of two variety which is qualitative as well as quantitative (Gupta, Briscoe & Hambrick, 2017). Research methods include sample survey from the customers in a form of written questions or through online portals. Seminars where participants can present the research papers are also conducted. It also involves the participation of the customers (Wen & Song, 2017). Exploratory and descriptive information about the product can be gathered and questionnaires are also distributed (Gengler  & Mulvey, 2017). Experiments to investigate the cause and effect relationship can also be performed between the market factors and company’s strength and weaknesses.

Data collection techniques are utilised to collect the information. There are majorly two types of the techniques to collect the data. It can be either Qualitative which includes the Survey, Articles in the newspapers, magazines, interviews from the members and employees of the Walton company (Fischer  & Maggetti, 2017). The second can be of quantitative nature. This involves the gaining of knowledge through bar charts, pie graphs, and statistical data, past analysis, forecasts, and budgets (Wirtz,  2017).

References

Anderson, D. R., et al (2018). An Introduction to Management Science: Quantitative Approach. London: Cengage learning.

Bailey, J. S., & Burch, M. R. (2017). Research methods in applied behavior analysis. California: Routledge.

Bertaux, D., & Thompson, P. (2017). Pathways to social class: A qualitative approach to social mobility. California: Routledge.

Brace, I. (2018). Questionnaire design: How to plan, structure and write survey material for effective market research. London: Kogan Page Publishers.

Bruwer, J., & Li, E. (2017). Domain-specific market segmentation using a latent class mixture modelling approach and wine-related lifestyle (WRL) algorithm. European Journal of Marketing, 51(10), 1552-1576.

Camilleri, M. A. (2018). Market Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning. In Travel Marketing, Tourism Economics and the Airline Product (pp. 69-83). Germany: Springer.

Dibb, S. (2017). Changing Times for Social Marketing Segmentation. In Segmentation in Social Marketing (pp. 41-59). Germany: Springer.

Eyer, M. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 9,723,360. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Fischer, M., & Maggetti, M. (2017). Qualitative comparative analysis and the study of policy processes. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 19(4), 345-361.

Gengler, C. E., & Mulvey, M. S. (2017). Planning pre-launch positioning: Segmentation via willingness-to-pay and means-end brand differentiators. Journal of Brand Management, 24(3), 230-249.

Gupta, A., Briscoe, F., & Hambrick, D. C. (2017). Red, blue, and purple firms: Organizational political ideology and corporate social responsibility. Strategic Management Journal, 38(5), 1018-1040.

Hox, J. J., Moerbeek, M., & van de Schoot, R. (2017). Multilevel analysis: Techniques and applications. California: Routledge.

Ottman, J. (2017). The new rules of green marketing: Strategies, tools, and inspiration for sustainable branding. California: Routledge.

Walton, N. (2017). The Relevance of the Rational, Classical Approach to Strategy in the ICT Sector–The Strategy Process. In The Internet as a Technology-Based Ecosystem (pp. 1-22). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Wen, J., & Song, B. (2017). Corporate ethical branding on YouTube: CSR communication strategies and brand anthropomorphism. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 17(1), 28-40.

Wirtz, J. (2017). Pricing Services and Revenue Management. New york: World Scientific.

Wirtz, J., & Lovelock, C. (2017). Positioning Services in Competitive Markets. New York: World Scientific.

Yeh, M. A., Jewell, R. D., & Thomas, V. L. (2017). The Stigma of Mental Illness: Using Segmentation for Social Change. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 36(1), 97-116.

Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:

Turnitin Report

Formatting

Title Page

Citation

Outline

Place an Order