Marketing And Management Of Milton: Producing Electric Tiffin

Situation Analysis

Milton was established in 1972 and its housewares products bring convenience to life. Milton is one of the leading manufacturers of housewares products and supplies worldwide. The company has a network of more than 55,000 retailers and innovates better and efficient product for the customers. Milton has the mission of providing high-quality innovative products. It even offers significant earning opportunity. It is the goal of the company to encourage confidence requisite to enrich the lives of people and families around the world. Milton is even dedicated to accelerating profitable revenue growth for the assistance of all the stakeholders. The innovations are the core competency of the company.

The SWOT analysis is a vivacious strategic planning tool which can be used by Milton to do a situational analysis of the company.

Strength

Milton is one of the leading corporations in the industry and the strengths contributing behind it are given below:

Splendid performance in new markets: Milton has gained proficiency in entering new markets and making a success. The development helps the company to protect market share and expertise at entering the new markets. The extension has even assisted the company in generating a new revenue stream and diversifying the economic cycle risk in the market where it works.

High level of customer satisfaction: Milton has been successful in achieving a higher level of customer satisfaction with the help of customer relationship management department. It is even good at brands equity among the impending customers (Clarke and Ford 2015, 373-373).

Consistent suppliers: Milton has a robust base of the consistent supplier of raw material which empowers the company to overcome supply chain bottlenecks.

Day’s inventory is higher than the competitors: It makes Milton increase more capital to invest in the channel. It impacts the long-term growth of the company (Chen et al. 2014, 319-329).

Investment in the research and development: Milton is spending above average on the research and development still it has not been able to strive with the leading companies in terms of invention.

Gaps in the product range: There is a gap in the product range sold by Milton. This lack of choice offers a competitor a foothold in the new market (Abram et al. 2018, 83-86).

New trends: The latest developments in the consumer behavior open a new market for Milton. It offers a great opportunity for the company to construct new revenue streams and enlarge new product classifications.

SWOT Analysis

Differentiated pricing strategy: The new technology offers the company to practice differentiated pricing strategy in the new market. It is helpful to the company in maintaining loyal customers by offering great service and pull new customers. It is possible through the value-oriented propositions (Cattani and Zur Shapira 2017, 13-38).

Customers from the online channel: The company has capitalized huge money into the online platform over the past few years. Such investment has released a new sales channel for Milton. It is expected that the company can leverage this prospect by knowing the customer better and attending their needs in an appropriate way.

Seasonal nature: The demand for the highly lucrative products is cyclical in nature. Any implausible incident in the peak season can affect the productivity of the company.

More power to the local distributors: More strength to the local distributors presents a threat in some of the markets (Bull et al. 2016, 99-111). The competition pays a higher margin to the local distributors.

Varying consumer behavior: The varying behavior of the consumers from the online channel can cause risk to the prevailing physical infrastructure driven by the supply chain model (Dangelico and Daniele Vocalelli 2017, 1263-1273).

Currency fluctuation: Milton operates in various countries so it is open to the currency fluctuations specifically the volatile political climate in various markets across the globe.

The competitive matrix can be used to define new opportunities and competition for growth. It helps to find opportunities to innovate products and services compared to the competitors. The matrix critically compares a company against the competitors. It is an analytical tool which can help Milton to establish its competitive advantage.

Factor	Milton	Tupperware	Tayama	SKG
Low price	4	5	4	3
Superior quality	5	4	4	3
On-board controls	Yes	No	No	Yes
Installation	Yes	No	No	Yes
Customizable products	5	3	4	3
Unique features	5	3	4	4
Rapid delivery	4.5	3	3	3

On the basis of demographics, the company will have more customers from the range of 15-54 years which consists of 9,398,848 males and 9,549,808 females. Their income is accumulated at $70, 336 and it is constantly increasing. More than half of the Canadians aged 25-64 have either college or university qualifications. The country has the highest percentage of college and university graduates.

The country needs more investment for less import tendencies. It creates prospect for Milton to establish a business in Canada. The weak Canadian dollar push costs up for the companies which would deter investment. The country had economic growth of 3.1% in 2017 which is quite solid. The expansion in all the sectors contributes to the economy. The Canadian government contributes to the economic growth which is possible by the business expansion (Bielefeldt 2018, 121-138).

Microenvironment

Canada is the second large country worldwide. The population growth has been also fairly consistent in the last four decades which is helpful for Milton to expand its market. The living standard here is also one of the highest in the world and the consumers are self-assured about the sustainability (Beracha and Seiler 2014, 237-255. The consumers always demand high-quality products and services along with the after sale customer support.  The trend of online shopping is also growing as young customers generally like to shop online.

The technology has an important role to play in the Canadian economy. Both public and private investments in Canada’s technology industry are growing speedily. Add on political, economic and social stability has made country appealing for the entrepreneurship. Milton has various growth prospects in the country which offers a lot of opportunities to the company. For the business expansion in Canada, the corporation is the most popular method which can be used by Milton.

Canada law protects the specific rights of the employees. There are also minimum standards which Milton is required to abide. The discrimination on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, age and other grounds is strictly prohibited in the country.

The STP comprises three steps which can help Milton in analyzing its offerings and the way it communicates benefits and values to the specific groups. This model is useful as it helps in identifying most valuable customers and in the development of the products and services which are ideally suitable.

The segmentation is done to divide customers into groups of people having common characteristics and necessities. It can allow Milton to tailor approach in order to meet the needs of each group in a cost-effective manner (Gambetti and Schultz 2015, 1-4). It offers a huge advantage over competitors. The approaches used to segment target market are:

Demographic: It includes the personal attributes such as age, gender, education, and occupation Milton focuses on the demographic factors in segmenting factor by gender. Milton focuses mainly on the women but it also produces tiffin which can be equally used by the males. It includes all age groups as electric tiffins are required by everyone as it needed by the professionals and to the households as well. The households prefer to use electric tiffins during outside trips (Diamantopoulos et al. 2014, 39-61). There is less scope for the occupation or marital status as having electric tiffin is more like a necessity.  

Competition

Psychographic: The psychographic factor identified is a lifestyle. Milton is aimed at people having a good habit lifestyle. For instance, people who are more concerned about the condition of the earth will prefer to buy Milton for achieving practice of reducing, reuse and recycle.

Behavioural: More important is given to understand consumer behavior so that their need can be served by Milton in an effective manner. It comprises the quality and the tiffin size required by the customers.

The targeting is the best segment. The targeting is a process of separating market into the segments and then focus on the marketing efforts on one or few key segments. It can determine the success of Milton in the Canadian market. The target marketing is useful in making the pricing, promotion, and distribution of the products more readily and more cost-effective (Ervural et al. 2018, 15-38). The focus of the marketing activities is offered by the target marketing.

Milton uses a differentiated marketing strategy and it can be used by any gender. Although most sales are driven by women. By offering product variations to the segments, Milton can earn good profits and can attain a strong position in each market segment.

Milton tends to maintain its position as the leading global seller by offering qualitative and innovative products. The company often excite confidence of its association, sales force, customers and inventors. Milton is constantly trying to change the life of people by empowering its customers to reach their full potential. It is the objective of Milton to attain a maximum number of the customers. It is specific, measurable and achievable over a definite period of time (Iamratanakul 2018, 1-16). It is specific to increase the number of customers and these are measurable in the numbers. The company aims to attain 50% of market share in the next two years which is quite relevant. The perpetual maps on the basis of quality, price and prestige, performance are given below:

The differentiation strategy is used by Milton to develop unique products that customers find better than the competitors. It includes the development of products like electric tiffin which are unique for the customers in terms of the features, design, brand image, quality or customer service. Such products are highly valuable to customers. The bases of the differentiation are innovative products, pricing, and organization. Such innovative products fulfill customer’s requirements whereas supply and demand decide the price of the product. The differentiation is based on the organization where Milton can earn success through brand name, goodwill and customer loyalty (Venter and Sally Dibb 2015, 62-83).

Economy

The strategy can be implemented by providing utility to the customers such as offering products which match the needs and preferences. Milton can even innovate tiffin and increase product performance. The company can set the price of the tiffin based on its features and purchasing power of the customers. It can even create a brand image by ensuring better quality, services along with customer satisfaction. In order to implement a successful differentiation strategy, Milton can price its product higher than its competitors and can attain customer loyalty. It is because generally customers are accustomed to the unique features (Eschen et al. 2015, 228-237). The differentiation comprises product performance, ease of use, useful life, superior service and more.

The electric lunch box of Milton is an impeccable example of the invention and comfort. It heats and stores food and also preserves its nourishment. The tiffin is made of stainless steel which is appropriate for the working professionals. It is made from the robust and high-temperature resilient materials. The qualities parameters are kept in mind by the company to deliver defect free range. The electric tiffin offered by the Milton heats and stores food warm. The product includes features like rugged design, easy to clean and consumes less power (Lee 2015, 73-102). The electric tiffin complements the existing product mix by offering satisfaction to the customers.

Source: Marketing Insider, 2015

The sales of Milton are zero during the product development. Whereas, the company’s investment costs constantly increases.

The sales of the company start growing slowly in the introduction stage. The returns are still missing because hefty expenses of the product introduction overweigh sales. The growth stage comprises the stage of the rapid market acceptance along with the increasing profits (Van Velsen 2017, 129-150). The sales of the company slowdown in the maturity stage and the product have achieved acceptance till now by the customers. After the maturity stage, the sales fall off and profits drop.

The branding strategy can be used by Milton to differentiate its products. The unique attributes of the product of the company differentiate it and help in attaining the position. The Tiffin provided by the company is efficient in maintaining nutrition of the food and keeps it warm. The branding strategy of the company can be integrated with the help of communication through social media, telephone or how a company interacts with the customers (Morse et al. 2016, 194-235).

Socio-Cultural

Milton will provide services with its product offering. The after sale service helps in attaining customers to the company. The service mix of the company includes product, price, place, promotion, proper, process and physical evidence. The product offered by the Milton is electric tiffin. It is designed with care. The place in case of offering products is going to be Canada overall. The company needs to conduct a huge promotional campaign in order to gain a competitive advantage. Milton can make use of differentiated pricing strategy on the basis of the demand. The people are an important elements of the service mix of the company. The engineers design the whole functioning of the tiffin. The staff is trained and focused on customers’ satisfaction. The service process is the technique in which service is conveyed to the end customers. The company believes in the constant delivery of the products. The last element is physical evidence is used as a differentiator in the service marketing (Perera and Pushpanathan 2015, 13-29).

The new product development process is a process of taking a product from formation to market. It includes a series of stages that product goes through the beginning of idea and concept generation to the introduction of the product in the market. The company trials and takes time of two months to develop the market. The budget of $30,000 was maintained to develop the product. The product of Milton does not require market testing as it is the innovative product and is capable enough to maintain the nutrition of the food.

The channel of distribution is the path that a product takes from producer to consumer. Milton makes use of direct distribution channel in which it sells product nonstop to a consumer without any interference of the mediators. The direct channel of distribution includes face to face sales, mail order, online sales but does not include any distributor other than the new producer. The factors affecting direct channel choice are considered related to product and market. The considerations of the product are unit value, standardized product, perishability, and technical nature. The considerations related to the market are a number of buyers, type of buyers like general and industrial, buying habits, buying quantity and market size (Sarkar et al. 2016, 169-183). The company has set up its manufacturing units in more than 10 nations. The company can appoint a distributor in the host country and can grow and promote its business.

Technology

The recommended channel structure for the Milton is dual distribution. It is a wide variety of marketing arrangements in which a manufacturer can use more than one channel consecutively to reach the end user.

The marketing communication strategy is used by Milton to reach the target market through various types of communication. The integrated marketing communication includes the entire range of activities to market the products. It comprises mainly three things brand alignment, customer alignment, and budget alignment. Milton can build relationships with the household and professional ladies to promote the product (Theaker 2017, 17-27). The customer alignment focuses on the oldest rule of marketing which is ‘be where customers already are’. Milton is required to pick channels where customers are already engaged and active. For instance, the company can advertise on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook or on TV. The budget alignment is choosing a marketing channel which fits the budget. Milton has several campaigns on multiple channels concurrently like social media, advertising on TV, radio, print and more.

The push promotional strategy can be used by Milton comprises taking products directly to the customer by any means. This strategy ensures that customers are aware of the brand at the point of purchase. Direct selling is the example of push strategies in which sale is made to the customers directly in the showrooms or face to face. IMC includes different media to improve marketing campaigns. The fundamentals of the IMC are media, consistent messages, design constancy, fortification, reinforcement, and sales alignment. The IMC creates loyalty with the customers through various stages of the buying process. The IMC reduces the risk in the mind of buyers. It also saves money as it eradicates duplication in the areas (Wei et al. 2014, 49-70).

The objective of Milton’s policy is to create quality products at the probable minimum prices. The electric lunch boxes are termed as best rated and the value for money which a consumer gets makes them consider that products are cheap (Utaka 2015, 408-420). The company can make use of price skimming in which prices are set high to skim maximum revenues layer by layer from the segments who are willing to pay. The company lowers the price stepwise in order to skim maximum profit from each segment. The suggested list price is given below:

Milton’s tiffin model	Price	Discount availed
Milton hot meal 3 Insulated lunchbox	16$	10%
Milton electron electric lunch box	19$	8%
Milton Slimtron electric tiffin	13$	5%

The sources of the revenue of the company are direct sales and selling products online. The online sources are in trend nowadays.

Legal/Political

The break-even analysis and graph is given below:

The expected unit sales of the company are 75000. The fixed costs associated with the sales are $450, 000 and the price per unit is 50. The variable cost per unit is estimated at $25.  The breakeven point is estimated at 18,000 sale volume.

Conclusion 

From the above report, it can be concluded that Milton’ electric tiffin has gained enough popularity. The situational analysis of the company comprises internal and external environmental analysis. The company’s strength is capable enough to survive in the Canada market. The macro environmental analysis also provides enough opportunities in Canada. The macro environmental factors are in favor of the company. Segmentation, targeting and positioning model are capable enough to capture the market. The strategies such as differentiation, product, place, promotional and pricing are effective to set up its product in the Canada market.

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