Marketing Strategies Implemented by C-Design
The marketing strategies are implemented by C-Design for overcoming the crisis situation where the company faced stiff competition by other companies in the printing industry. With the advancement of technologies, the company undertook a 4-phase growth strategic plan considering the growth strategies related to the market development. This would help in developing new products for the existing markets and the new products included the designs for the websites, micro sites, social media platforms, games and even for the digital campaigns managed for marketing the products and services of companies (Snell, Morris & Bohlander, 2015).
C-Design developed a marketing plan considering its various strengths and weaknesses and he implemented the brand repositioning strategy for creating own visual identity and provide updates to the previous marketing components involved in the management of websites (Stone & Stone, 2013). The IT systems were upgraded with the latest components required to enhance the designing process and this created scopes for the development of new design products in the existing markets including the corporate sector, Government and Arts.
The HR strategy was implemented by outsourcing the human resources’ skills and capabilities and even aligns the strategies with the corporate goals and objectives to foster corporate growth and development of new design products along with better brand repositioning. The effectiveness of processes of recruitment ad selection will improved and this can assist the company in overcoming the issues and challenges faced, furthermore remain competitive in the business marketplace (Bryson, 2018).
The product differentiation strategy is also effective for C-Design to make the products unique and attractive considering its qualities and features with the products and services offered by other companies. The successful product differentiation strategy should create convenience for C-Design to attain competitive advantage and the customers would also view the products and services delivered as superior and quite unique when compared with the other products available in the market (Bailey et al., 2018).
- Define managements (Top, middle, Bottom management)
- Type of employment (Full time, part-time, casual etc.)
There are different types of employment such as full time, part time and casual. The full time employment means individuals working for the company during certain working hours while the part timers include the people who pursue education and want to carry out work at the same time to gain financial support. The casual employment means working casually for making a living though not working as full timers (Huxham & Vangen, 2013). The part timers, as it is seen from the case study, can be the marketing consultant while the full time employees are senior designer, project manager, leaders, etc.
Organizational Hierarchy of C-Design
PESTLE analysis
The environmental factors are analyzed with the use of PESTLE framework to establish strategies for C-Design and improve the decision making process too.
Political
The Government in Australia has maintained political stability and allowed the company to enter the new and existing markets through management of foreign trade policies, tax policies, labor laws, environmental rules, regulations and trade restrictions (Jackson, Schuler & Jiang, 2014). C-Design needs to anticipate the legislations, laws and rules to manage the marketing procedures and policies, furthermore ensure successful functioning.
Economic
The rate of interest, rates of exchange inflation and disposable income of the consumers have resulted in greater demands of designing services. With the presence of competitors, C-Design needs to follow the Government laws, taxation policies and manage successful B2C business.
Social
The ageing population, growth in population and shared beliefs and values among the people have created interest among the people and influenced their buying behaviors (Baumgartner, 2014). This contributes to the development of skills for C-Design to understand the customers well and target them accordingly.
Technological
The fast paced technology usage nowadays gas created new scopes and opportunities for people to market the designing services properly. C-Design has used new designing packages integrated with the corporate objectives, which has helped in providing the best quality design solutions and use websites and intranets with much convenience for gaining competitive advantage too (Brewster, 2017). The new products are aimed at the existing markets such as micro sites, websites, social media, games, etc.
Legal
The Government legislations, laws and rules are implemented for maintaining proper health and safety, protect the consumers’ rights and laws and maintain proper product labeling too. With the management of legal procedures, the business can function properly and generate higher revenue through maintenance of ethical standards too (Verbano & Venturini, 2013).
Environmental
The Environmental factors are to be considered for managing business ethically and sustainably and at the same time, reduce the carbon footprints and harmful gases emissions during the process of production. With the rising demands of products in the market, C-Design has used sustainable approaches to design the services and created customer satisfaction too (Purce, 2014).
For your analysis, be sure to identify as much strength& weaknesses of C-Design to generate opportunities and minimize threats:
Internal environment analysis |
Strengths A positive brand image Due to its delivery of good quality and interactive designing solutions Varied sets of skills, knowledge and abilities of the workers Use of advanced technologies to keep up pace with the competitive business environment (Shields et al., 2015). |
Weaknesses Lack of brand awareness Lesser market share compared to the other business competitors |
External environment analysis |
Opportunities The laws, rules and regulations have helped in maintaining the environmental factors and keep the environment safe. The formation of partnership with other companies will also assist in developing growth opportunities that can help in increase the customer base and generate higher revenue as well. |
Threats The competitors have posed major threats by offering shareholders the scope to view designs from annual reports, stakeholder documents and reports (Ryan, 2016). The growth options are low because of the presence of competitors . |
The strategic planning of C-Design involves proper workforce planning, training and development for the employees, processes of recruitment and integrating the various components of marketing with the corporate goals and objectives.
Environmental Analysis to Establish Strategies for C-Design
The short term goals of HR are filling the vacant positions with employee who possess relevant skills and knowledge about the electronic designing processes with the use of advanced technologies and computer systems. Maintaining administration related work and provide managing information system or MIS weekly and offering the right wages to workers at the right time are the major short term goals (Hallbäck & Gabrielsson, 2013).
The long term goals include ensuring quality manpower, adhere to the performance management system, manage the corporate social responsibilities and working with Government officials and industry professionals and maintaining a healthy workforce. Maintaining a positive work culture and incorporating the technologies in the HR functions have also facilitated the employer branding, adopt new technological changes and maintaining high morale level of the employees too.
The cost-benefit analysis is used by C-Design to determine the strengths and weaknesses of making investments and ensure checking the benefits obtained and costs associated with it. The cost benefit analysis has allowed the company to evaluate the options best suitable for gaining certain benefits and at the same time, make savings of costs (Koh et al., 2013). The CBA can allow for identifying whether the decisions made are feasible or not considering the costs and it is helpful for comparing the projects such as determining the total costs incurred and assuming the expected benefits in the future.
The consultant has currently decided to recruit a new digital producer who can create designs for the new products and at the same time, enhance the skills and competencies to serve the customers with new designing solutions within the existing markets. Rather than taking help from the recruitment agencies, the online sourcing will be much beneficial for managing the recruitment process.
Job title: Digital producer
Reporting to: PEOPLE consultant, Deborah Page
Salary: $80,000 TO $85,000
Hours: For full time employees, the working hours are 8.30 to 9 hours, while he part time workers work as half day.
Location: The location is in Sydney, Australia.
Digital producer’s role is to provide proper guidelines or the designing of services and even train the employees of the organizations to contribute to the development new and interactive designs for the services delivered. The digital design producer has the managerial authority level to support the staffs and make them understand about their roles and responsibilities too.
? manage the task complexities and maintain frequency of tasks to ensure successful business functioning and increased efficiency
SWOT Analysis
? allocating the tasks to the staffs and make them understand about their roles and responsibilities through proper training
? collaborating with various project teams to manage the design and development of various digital campaigns
? manage the creative work of the design team and develop products to fulfill the needs and requirements of the clients.
Job Specification
Essential |
Desirable |
Journalism, communications, designing graphics and marketing |
Knowledge about graphic and website designing, marketing skills |
Video editing skills, web designing |
e.g. Advanced marketing course |
print publishing and search engine optimization skills |
Printing the designs |
Marketing skills |
Marketing aspects to influence consumer behavior |
Essential |
Desirable |
Digital content and skills for distribution of products in a reputed company |
Content management skills |
Two years experience in the field of search engine optimization |
SEO skills |
One year experience in social media campaigns management |
Social media campaign management involving the design services |
Certificate in digital content and publication |
Providing digital content to improve designing solutions |
Essential |
Desirable |
Good communication skills |
Fostering communication to manage work roles and responsibilities properly |
Leadership skills |
Guide the team members towards the right direction and acting as a role model |
Innovation and creativity skills |
Brining some new designs |
Digital content publishing skills |
Creating content |
With |
Purpose |
1. Digital assistant |
Digital producer collaborates with various project teams to manage the design and development of various digital campaigns |
2. Manager |
Proper supervision and teamwork are enabled |
3. Designing expert |
Provides opinions about the designing and development of products for the existing markets |
4. Marketing executive |
For marketing the services to targeted audiences and influence their buying behaviors (Sushil, 2013). |
Employee Signature__________________________________________Date________________
Manager Signature___________________________________________Date________________
Performance review period: <insert review period e.g. every three months>
Next review date__________________________
Resources |
Current (Identify if strength or weakness) |
Required to achieve goals (Forecasted) |
Workforce |
Strengths |
Diverse sets of skills of employees to form an effective workforce |
Skills & Knowledge |
Strengths |
Management of skills and knowledge for completing tasks within time and accurately (Greve, 2013). |
Technology/ Software |
Strengths |
The advanced technologies will create more scopes for the business to improve the design and develop of products and make those available in the existing markets |
Budget |
Weaknesses |
Due to limitation of budget |
Recruitment methods & procedures |
Strength |
Proper recruitment processes can bring in candidates who have great skills in website and graphics designing (Stone & Stone, 2013). |
Selection methods & procedures |
Weakness |
The selection methods sometimes created difficulty in selecting the right employees |
Training and development |
Strengths the management and implementation of strategic HR planning. |
The training and development programs could enhance their skills, knowledge and expertise to deal with critical tasks and ensure proper designing of services for meeting client’s demands (Bryson, 2018). |
Conclusion
Based on the gap analysis, it could be found that the selection and recruitment methods were weak and there were some budget limitations too, which were needed to be properly managed for managing HR properly. The strengths though had been advanced skills, competencies’ and use of advanced technologies to deal with uncertainties and ensure successful delivery of design services for meeting the clients’ expectations. The training and development were provided for enhancing their skills, knowledge and expertise, furthermore improve the business performance and gain competitive advantage too.
- It is recommended to adopt social media platforms for increasing the marketing opportunities
- Proper training for the staffs is recommended and make them knowledgeable about online designing along with knowledge about Adobe Creative, Quark Express, etc.
- The four phase growth strategy is also recommended for making new products available in the existing markets such as website designing, social media, games and management of digital campaigns too.
References
Bailey, C., Mankin, D., Kelliher, C., & Garavan, T. (2018). Strategic human resource management. Oxford University Press.
Baumgartner, R. J. (2014). Managing corporate sustainability and CSR: A conceptual framework combining values, strategies and instruments contributing to sustainable development. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 21(5), 258-271.
Brewster, C. (2017). The integration of human resource management and corporate strategy. In Policy and practice in European human resource management (pp. 22-35). Routledge.
Bryson, J. M. (2018). Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: A guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement. John Wiley & Sons.
Greve, H. R. (2013). Microfoundations of management: Behavioral strategies and levels of rationality in organizational action. Academy of Management Perspectives, 27(2), 103-119.
Hallbäck, J., & Gabrielsson, P. (2013). Entrepreneurial marketing strategies during the growth of international new ventures originating in small and open economies. International Business Review, 22(6), 1008-1020.
Huxham, C., & Vangen, S. (2013). Managing to collaborate: The theory and practice of collaborative advantage. Routledge.
Jackson, S. E., Schuler, R. S., & Jiang, K. (2014). An aspirational framework for strategic human resource management. The Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 1-56.
Koh, S. L., Genovese, A., Acquaye, A. A., Barratt, P., Rana, N., Kuylenstierna, J., & Gibbs, D. (2013). Decarbonising product supply chains: design and development of an integrated evidence-based decision support system–the supply chain environmental analysis tool (SCEnAT). International Journal of Production Research, 51(7), 2092-2109.
Purce, J. (2014). The impact of corporate strategy on human resource management. New Perspectives on Human Resource Management (Routledge Revivals), 67.
Ryan, D. (2016). Understanding digital marketing: marketing strategies for engaging the digital generation. Kogan Page Publishers.
Shields, J., Brown, M., Kaine, S., Dolle-Samuel, C., North-Samardzic, A., McLean, P., … & Plimmer, G. (2015). Managing employee performance & reward: Concepts, practices, strategies. Cambridge University Press.
Snell, S., Morris, S., & Bohlander, G. W. (2015). Managing human resources. Nelson Education.
Stone, R. J., & Stone, R. J. (2013). Managing human resources. John Wiley and Sons.
Sushil, S. (2013). Motivation and retention: HR strategies in achieving quality of work life. Global Journal of Management and Business Studies, 3(7), 763-768.
Verbano, C., & Venturini, K. (2013). Managing risks in SMEs: A literature review and research agenda. Journal of technology management & innovation, 8(3), 186-197.