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An assignment on SHR037-6 Marketing Management, to develop a Marketing Plan for better customer satisfaction

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SHR037-6 Marketing Management

Executive Summary

The given report is based on the market analysis of one of the leading supermarket in Oman namely "SPAR". SPAR Oman has adopted the concept of neighbourhood retail stores, neighbourhood supermarkets and local market located in residential areas in Oman. It aims at providing distinctive and unique products to attract the customers from Oman.SPAR aims at opening nearly 25 outlets in Sultanate of Oman, to make it accessible to each people.The three basic marketing mix strategies includes; pricing, product, place, and promotion. For evaluation and control of these strategies, it has also adopted certain KPIs in its strategic management process. These KPIs metrics includes Return on Investment,Customer Retention, Back order rate, and Satisfaction metrics. 

Introduction and objectives

SPAR Oman is one of the world’s largest and leading supermarket chains, which is owned and functioned by retailers and wholesalers working in partnership. The SPAR brand aims at providing best quality of fresh food and value for money experience in shopping for our customers. KhimjiRamdas, US$1 billion worth Distribution Company got the licence for SPAR in Oman in the year 2014. SPAR Oman has planned to open its 21 retail outlets by the year 2018. The store provides sufficient parking space, superior customer service and fast check out. The store keeps products by keeping the local requirement as top-of-mind, which made it as the most trusted brand of Oman in 2017. The success story of Spar Oman is merely due to customer’s acceptance which comes from excellent customer service, fresh food and value for money (Antony, Khanapuri, & Jain, 2018). 

Current market and company situational analysis

The porter’s five force model is focused on the steps to be taken by SPAR Oman to incorporate sustainable competitive advantage in the retail business. SPAR Oman has adopted learning and experiences from its stores of countries and developed new opportunities. 

• Threat of new entrants- New entrants helps in bringing innovation, and put pressure on the brand by lowering the pricing strategy and providing new offerings to their customers. All these challenges has to be manged effectively to protect the competitive edge. This can be overcome by introducing new products and offers regularly and spending more on research and development, providing customer’s a reason to buy from SPAR (Belwal, &Belwal, 2017). 

• Bargaining power of suppliers- Suppliers hold the dominant position by extracting higher price from company through their negotiating power which eventually lowers the profitability of SPAR.  So, to avoid such situation SPAR Oman should build an friendly supply chain network with numerous suppliers. Moreover, it should also develop dedicated suppliers whole sole business is dependent on SPAR. 

• Bargaining power of Buyers- Buyers are often seen as demanding as they want to buy the best in minimum price. This is a future risk for the profitability for the company in long run. So, to tackle this problem SPAR can introduce innovative products as customers often seek discounts on existing products. 

• Threat of Substitute products- It occurs when a new store provide meets the requirement of the existing customer in better way, then there is chance of reduction in profitability for SPAR. In order to become customer’s priority, SPAR should become service oriented instead of just becoming product oriented (Burlison, &Oe, 2018). 

• Rivalry of the existing competitors- SPAR operates in a competitive market, which has the capability to bring down price and as well as overall profitability. This situation can be avoided by creating a sustainable differentiation, and instead of competing SPAR can collaborate with the competitors to increase business size. 

The SWOT analysis of SPAR Oman is discussed as below:

• Strength- 

1. Over the years, the company has managed to create a strong brand portfolio which is helpful in expanding towards new product categories.

2. It has strong dealership community with the distributors and dealers, where they promote the SPAR product and train the sales team to explain all the benefit of product (Krarti, &Dubey, 2017).

3. It has a dedicated department for customer relationship management which is highly efficient in in maintaining customer satisfaction.

• Weaknesses

1. Till now SPAR Oman is unable to tackle the challenges faced by new entrants within the same industry.

2. It is less efficient in adjusting the firm with the varying work culture of different small companies while integrating with them. 

3. It makes low investment in Research and Development department as compared to other growing industries within the market.

• Opportunities

1. With the help of technology SPAR will be able to implement differentiated pricing strategy or value oriented offers for its loyal customers.

2. In Oman, SPAR has received immense support from the customers for its new products like ‘naturals’, which encourages it to market more innovative products.

3. With the Oman government agreement, both Khimji and SPAR jointly can more stores in the nations. 

• Threat

1. Since SPAR markets mostly fruits and vegetables which has a risk of low profitability in some seasons, as production of the highly demanded and profitable product is seasonal.

2. Shortage of skilled and experienced labours in Oman is also a threat fror the company (Losito, Visciano, Genualdo, 2017). 

3. Latest technology introduced by the rivalries could prove as a threat for the business. 

Market Segmentation

Three are basically three group of target market viz., taste seeker, value for money and loyal customers. The loyal and taste seeker customer are the primary target market, whereas value for money customers are the secondary target market. On the other hand, demographically the market segmentation is done on the basis of age, gender, income, family size, and occupation. The primary target market includes both male and female customers within the age group of 18-45 years. The brand provides ready to eat food for younger people as well as healthier option for ageing group. It provides fresh food, prepacked goods and serves home delivery service. Finally, on the basis of psychographics the market can be segmented on the basis of social class, personality, habit and lifestyle (Tiwari, 2017). In order to attract all groups it has also started to make the packaging and goods more attractive along with maintaining its freshness.         

Marketing Plan Objectives

The marketing plan objectives of SPAR Oman needs to include the SMART rule-

• Specific- SPAR should develop more focused and well oriented goals and objective. The employees should be weekly and monthly goal to accomplish, so as to make them goal oriented. 

• Measurable- It should keep track of the goal achievement as it help to keep motivated and keep in track for competition. Employees should be made aware of the goal target through emails or goal white board to keep them updated. 

• Attainable- It should think big and aim for the becoming the world’s leading retail store through its outlandish goals, while keeping one of its foot strongly based on reality. This would help to know reality of the business industry and necessary steps to achieve goals.

• Relevant- SPAR Oman needs to check whether the proposed goals is relevant to the current market conditions and realities of business climate. For example, occurrence of recession or emergence of new competitors may make the goals irrelevant. 

• Time-Based- It should propose a goal by choosing a proper and sufficient time-frame for its accomplishment (Webber, Sausen, Basso, 2018).  

Marketing mix strategy recommendations

There are four areas to be considered which are considered in the marketing mix strategy-

• Price- Pricing is the first aspect of marketing mix strategy as it is the most important part of organisational success. Oman people (either elderly or young) are more focused towards the quality of product, location of store instead of price of the product. 

• Place- Place also adds to the decisive behaviour of buyer, which is prominent in case of Oman. 

• Promotion- SPAR can use various promotional strategies such as sales promotion, online promotion (email, or Facebook), direct marketing, and providing various discounts and offerings on products. 

• Product- SPAR should take in consideration the consumer interest while selling its product. Oman people prefer for fresh, organic and natural food products, instead of ready to eat or preservative or frozen food (Baazeem, Mortimer, & Neale, 2016). However, SPAR Oman has already introduced the concept of ‘Natural’ which includes categories like vegan, gluten free, sugar free, vegetarian, and organic. It should create an online of survey of customers like and dislike, and accordingly introduce and eliminate products in stores.          

Evaluation and Control

The KPIs of SPAR Oman includes:

• Return on Investment (ROI)- This KPI is efficient in measuring the outcome from the marketing and promotional activities done. 

• Customer Retention- Since the SPAR group is exclusively dependent on the customer ad they play a vital role in business expansion. It can check the record of its loyal customers through the online data service to check the customer retention (Webber, Sausen, Basso, 2018). 

• Back order rate- This KPI is useful for the warehouse to improve their supply chain service. This helps in evaluating the supply rate and demand rate fulfilment in the stock. 

• Satisfaction metrics- The online reviews or ratings made by customers can be evaluated by SPAR to know the customer satisfaction rate and this is a useful asset for the customer service department.  

• Maintaining and spending the given budget wisely and accurately in different strategic plans is necessary for each organisation. According to the given information, SPAR Oman holds the retail sales of approximately € 27 million. The majority of budget of an organisation is spent in marketing or promotional activities (Krarti, &Dubey, 2017). However, the amount of budget investment varies depending upon the type of industry. According to a survey by CMO, SPAR being a retail industry should invest 3.8 present of its total sales which around €1 million. However, for place, pricing and product strategy SPAR can invest around € 5 million as a whole.     

 

9. Contemporary Global Issues in Tourism  

Introduction 

The tourism industry is among those industries that have gone through numerous transformations at an extensive scale. As a result, it is beyond reasonable doubt that the transformations have led to increased influence to business operations of the tour and travel corporations (Cornelissen, 2017). Tourism is a sector that has significant relevance in relation to social and technological transformations. Therefore the three contemporary issue influencing tourism

Globally include Global tourism issue 1 

Advancement in technology

Research has shown that due to the rapid technological transformation particularly in the 21st century it has resulted in major changes in the tourism industry. Therefore, through technological upsurge, it has aided in a number of aspects among tourism companies hence a positive improvement in terms of service delivery and quality. A good example is the hospitality sector as well as the aviation industry. Accordingly, the advancement in technology has made things much easier such that these companies are now able to offer facilities like advanced booking reservation. Indeed, the advanced booking reservation commonly referred to as online booking has been made possible due to the high technological advancement levels (Rutty, Gössling, Scott, & Hall, 2015). On the same note, industries such as hospitality have been able to enhance the quality of their services by adding specific aspects that have enabled the placement of optimistic influence to their clients. Similarly, technological advancements have greatly been embraced in the tourism and travel industry with the development of the online platform which has significantly contributed to quality service delivery to customers. Accordingly, search engine and social media are another major global technological advancement in the tourism sector that has proved to be lucrative for exploring the world’s best tour destinations (Xiang, Magnini, & Fesenmaier, 2015). Therefore people are able to plan for vacations that they would like to tour at the comfort of their houses using smartphones since travel and tourism organisation have appreciated social applications as an attempt to market their services. In this sense the role played by social media technology is that it provides the virtual tour to tourists. Consequently, hotels and tour operators are making perfect use of the virtual technology. Indeed, the advancement in technology it has been a significant milestone in the tourism industry as it has greatly resulted in positive transformation both to the side of businesses organisation as well as customers.             

Globally include Global tourism issue 2

Increased security concern 

Tourism is an industry that deals with the movement of individuals from one place or region to different destinations hence safety, as well as the security of lives and property of these individuals, is paramount. Consequently, it is the requirements of the tourism providers to ensure the security and safety of these people and their property. Security is a pivotal aspect when it comes to the tourism sector. According to Throsby, (2016) the scholar define security as the planning of safety against any type of threat to the community. Consequently, with the incline in the population of tourists which is happening at a high rate so is the rise in cases of insecurity. Security, as well as safety, are an essential aspect of offering quality in tourism, hence it should be an overriding goal of any tourism destination. Stefanica, & Butnaru, (2015) postulate that security and safety are matters of great importance to the image of any tourist destination as well as for the satisfaction of tourists. Accordingly, tourists will formulate an image in accordance with their safety. Therefore, for a tourist destination to remain successful it has to give priority to the security and safety of their customers. 

Recent studies have shown that life safety, as well as properties, have become a major prerequisite for the fascination of global tourists. As argued by Simpson, (2016) tourist’s behaviours and decision-making are primarily influenced by safety perceptions, crime risks, and security. Subsequently, as tourism expands, security also become a major concern as travellers will demand and expect safer measures in the transportations as well as accommodations while on visits in the foreign countries. In the recent past tourism has been found to be susceptible to crime and terrorist attacks internationally. At times this can be a purposely target by criminals and assailants or being in the wrong place at the right time. On the same note, tourism is greatly affected by international conflicts such as wars, terrorism or upsurge in the level of crime. As a result of such issues, it leads to countries issuing travel advisories against certain tourist destination countries due to being at odds or because of terrorist’s attacks which have in the recent past been on the rise (Conradson, 2017). For instance, as a result of the political instability in the Middle East particularly Syria which is associated with increased levels of terrorism, crime, as well as violence, have to a major extent tarnished Syria’s image as an international tourism destination. Thus, tourism primarily depends on increased security for it to thrive.              

Globally include Global tourism issue 3     

Increased environmental awareness

Environmental awareness has become a major subject matter especially because of global warming and climate change. Therefore, environmental awareness is an essential aspect that is driving transformation within the travel and tourism industry. Accordingly, environmental awareness is an aspect that has a significant milestone towards the prevention of nature against any type of destruction. For a similar purpose, the green tourism has been on the frontline in advocating for the protection as well as the safety of the surrounding (Hoogendoorn, & Fitchett, 2018). As a result, a majority of the tourism companies across the globe are advocating for environmental awareness so as to ensure that the tourism sector does not die due to the extinction of the flora and fauna which are major tourist attraction features. Therefore each party should be accountable by contributing to the protection and safety of environmental resources (Seaton, Yamamura, & Beeton, 2016). For instance, waste should be well damped despite the increase in the travel and tourism population. Certainly, efforts are being undertaken ensure that habitats that are at risk of extinction are safeguarded. All this can only be realised through extensive knowledge dissemination through environmental awareness.      

Conclusion

In conclusion, tourism is a highly susceptible sector. Nonetheless, for the tourism industry to flourish it greatly depend on the support of the latest technology, increased security as well as increased environmental awareness. Indeed these three aspects have a major impact and should, therefore, be taken with maximum consideration by the tourism service provider so as to thrive. 

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