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About UPS In today globalise fast paced economy; many companies do not have the internal resources necessary to hire the top talents needed to succeed in the marketplace. With the constant pressure to reduce costs and focus on core competencies, many companies are replying on outsource providers. Identifying, attracting and retaining top talents require a Partner with the resources and vision to proactively match the expertise available in the marketplace with the needs of your business. It takes a Partner dedicated to bring talent and opportunity together while maximising the impact of the recruitment investment.
Thus, United Personnel Service (UPS) was incorporated in the year 2005 by three partners. The main partner is Mr. Patrick Chia which holds 50% share and the other 2 partners hold 25% share each. Based in Singapore, United Personnel Service belongs to a new breed of companies (employment agency) that are built on foundation of a different philosophy, a new way of thinking. Patrick and his partners are a team of professionals who through a clear understanding of businesses and access to a network of quality professionals, are committed to creating a whole new concept in what broadly known as the recruitment business.
Patrick and his partners aim to make a difference to their clients by providing high quality advice on human resource management issues and by proactively supplying them with the best available people. How they go about doing it is they keep their ears to the ground, get into thick of the action and get their hands dirty. They make it a point to listen and understand their clients, the client’s business and the client industry. Patrick and his partners also aim to make a difference to candidates by providing them with personal and honest career advice and choices. Their relationship with both clients and candidates is long term.
The partners will help businesses: -Hire the best available talent – not the first available -Align the their recruitment activities with the their company corporate strategy -Free them from recruitment activities and allow them to concentrate on strategic corporate goals. -Reduce costs by retaining top talents. UPS services The business environment is constantly changing. The architecture of the traditional workplace is rapidly being restructured. United Personnel Service offers the right solutions for any company – from executive search to permanent placements and contact staffing.
For permanent placements(white and blue collars), United Personnel Service offers experienced, well trained professionals to fill positions from entry level to management. Their hiring methodology provides the client and candidate an on-site evaluation of the working relationship. United Personnel Service acknowledge that many companies is moving towards the trend of contact assignments to keep their workforce trim and flexible to achieve better operational flexibility and costs. UPS contact staffs are deployed on assignments with client for a period of 6 months and longer.
These contact staffs are carefully handpicked by Patrick and his partners as they continuously train and groom them professionally to fulfil client critical assignments with professionalism and excellence. Taking the cue from, Singapore Economics Development Board, engineering is and will remain the bedrock of Singapore’s manufacturing industries. With the growing demand for engineers in areas such as research and development (R&D), design and development, production and professionals services, organisations are facing a talent war for suitably qualified engineers.
With new projects constantly emerging, new positions are created. Employments have moved from employers’ market to employees’ market. Patrick and his partners would like to bring UPS to the next level. They would like UPS to be known in the industry as the choice employers would seek help for their placements in engineering positions. In order to achieve this, Patrick and his partners need to prepare a marketing plan. This marketing plan will be jointly prepare by Patrick and his partners and this plan will be able to let them know UPS market plan and enable them to leads UPS to the next level.
Marketing Plan Singapore business environment is a very competitive regardless of which industry. There are more than 200 employment agencies offering the same services like UPS. UPS and Patrick will require a marketing strategy that insures a consistent approach to offer their service in a way that outsells the competition is critical. However, in concert with defining the market strategy Patrick and his partners must also have a well defined methodology for the day to day process of implementing it. It will be of little value if Patrick lack either of the resources or the expertise to implement it.
There are two major components to Patrick and his partners marketing strategy: 1. How UPS will address the competitive marketplace? 2. How Patrick and his partners will implement and support UPS day to day operations? In the process of creating a marketing strategy Patrick and his partners must consider many factors. Of those many factors, some are important than others. Each strategy must address some unique considerations, it is not reasonable to identify every important factor at a generic level. However, many are common to all marketing strategies.
Patrick and his partners can begin the creation of his strategy by deciding what the overall objectives of UPS should be. Generally, this falls into one of the four categories: 1. If the market is very attractive and UPS is one of the strongest in the industry, Patrick will want to invest UPS best resources in support their offering. 2. If the market is very attractive but UPS is one of the weakest agency in the industry Patrick must concentrate on strengthening UPS, using their offering as a stepping stone toward this objective. 3.
If the market is not especially attractive but UPS is one of the strongest in the industry then an effective marketing and sales effort for UPS offering will be good for generating near term profits. 4. If the market is not especially attractive and UPS is one of the weaker ones in the industry UPS should promote their offering if it supports a more profitable part of their business or if it absorbs some of the overhead costs of a more profitable segment. UPS fall into the second category, the market is attractive but UPS is one the weakest in the industry.
Being a small setup, UPS do not have the financial budget to compete with the big boys in the industry. UPS is operating in a small overhead environment. Patrick and partners now needs to focus now on strengthening UPS and use their offering as a platform toward their goals and objectives. Patrick and his partners will need to perform several analyses to achieve UPS goals and objectives. Thought Patrick and his partners are not a marketing professional, they are aware of the importance of marketing plans. A marketing plan is like a guide book which gives and leads Patrick and his partners to achieve their goals and objectives.
To put together a genuine marketing plan, Patrick and his partners have to access UPS from top to bottom and make sure all the pieces are working together in the best way. Every market plan has to fit the needs and situation. There are standard components Patrick and his partners just can’t do without. -Situation analysis: The situation analysis will be able to help Patrick determine where UPS presently stands, what’s going on outside of UPS, what’s happening with customers and how the business is functioning internally.
The effective tools that can be used in a situation analysis are: The SWOT analysis and External Market Analysis. -Market strategy: This should include focused strategy and marketing mix. Situation analysis – SWOT The SWOT analysis begins by conducting an inventory of internal strengths and weakness of the particular organisation. External opportunities and threats may affect the organisation based on the market and overall environment. The goals of a SWOT analysis are: 1. Identify strategies that fit a firm’s resources, capabilities or competencies to its external environment. . Generate alternatives that apply an organisation’s strengths to exploit opportunities and counter threats. 3. Offer strategies to correct the organisation weaknesses. SWOT analysis is never about the past but always about the present or future. Strengths Strengths describe the positive tangible and intangible attributes internal to the organisation. They are within control. Strengths include positive attributes of the people involve in the business including the knowledge, background, education, credentials, contacts, reputation or the skills they bring.
Strengths also include tangible assets such as available capital, equipment, credit, established customers, existing channels of distribution, copyright materials, patents, information and processing systems and other valuable resources within the business. Strengths capture the positive aspects internal to the business that add value or offer a competitive advantage. Weakness Weaknesses are internal factors that are within control and detract from the ability to obtain or maintain a competitive edge. Weaknesses include lack of xpertise, limited resources, lacking of access to skills or technology, inferior service offering s or the poor location of your business. Weaknesses capture the negative aspects internal to the business that detract from value the business offer or place the business at a competitive disadvantage. These are areas that need to enhance in order to compete with the competitor. The more accurately the organisation to identify their weaknesses, the more valuable the SWOT will be for the business. Opportunities Opportunities assess the attractive factors that represent the reason for the business.
These are external to the business. These opportunities reflect the potential the organisation can realise through implementing the marketing strategies. Opportunities may be result of the market growth, lifestyle changes, resolution of problems associated with current situations, positive market perceptions about the business or the ability to offer greater value that create a demand for the particular services. Threats Threats include factors beyond the organisation control that could place their marketing strategy or the business itself, at risk.
These are also external – which is not controllable but maybe beneficial by having contingency plans to address them if they should occur. A threat is a challenge created by an unfavourable trend or development that may lead to deteriorating revenues or profits. Competition – existing or potential – is always a threat. Other threats may include intolerable price increases by supplier, government regulation, economic downturns, devastating media or press coverage, a shift in consume behaviour that reduce sales or the introduction of a “leap-frog” technology that make your products, equipment or service obsolete.
Thought part of this list may be speculative in nature however it still able to add value to the SWOT analysis. It may be valuable to classify the threats according to their “seriousness” and “probability of occurrence. ” The better the organisation are at identifying potential threats, the more likely it can position itself to proactively plan for and respond to them. SWOT analysis of UPS Strengths 1. Relationship selling. Patrick and his two partners always make an extra effort to get to each customer personally and always listen to them.
They always ensure they provide their professional service with a personal touch. Customer satisfaction is their motto. 2. Knowledge. Having gain experience in their early in working for the major and big employment agency, Patrick and his two partners have in depth knowledge of the industry. They also gain vast knowledge of how their competitors operate and their marketing mix. 3. History. Thought UPS is only around for a short period of time in the employment agency industry, they have already built up a strong base of loyal customers being employers or candidates. . Mobile. Part of the value proposition in recruiting is speed. With the latest technology and gadgets such as laptop and 3G mobile phones, Patrick and his two partners are able to provide real time services regardless where they are to their customers. Customers are able to contact them 24/7. Weaknesses 1. Brand power. UPS do not have the budget to place full page advertising on Saturday newspaper. The bigger agencies always place advertisement on Saturday recruitment section. Saturday recruitment section is still the main media for both employers and candidates.
UPS has no brand recognition. 2. This gives UPS, low exposure in the market. Thus, UPS is not known to many potential employers and job seekers. 3. Short of capital. Operating on a small capital, UPS is not able to offer customers (employers) longer credit term. Opportunities 1. Rapid market growth. Riding on Singapore’s booming and buoyant economy, there are more employment openings. Skilled professionals such as engineers are high in demand. 2. Complacency. Since UPS is a small company, big agencies will not regard UPS as a competitor. 3. New customers.
With the new projects constantly emerging, new positions are created. Many of these projects are from multinational companies. Companies are always looking to hire to overcome the skill and labour shortage in the engineering fields. 4. In good times, growing companies cannot deal with the pressure of hiring for many reasons. As a result, growing companies tend to utilise employment agency to support their efforts. 5. After Sales-service. Potential candidates who are eventually hire always forgot by most agencies. UPS can follow up closely with the candidates. Threats 1.
Possible of new entrants. As Singapore is a free market, setting up a register employment agency can be done in maximum 2 working days. 2. Recession. Asia markets follow closely with the America market; some experts are saying America is already in recession. 3. Increasing popularity of substitutes. Companies hiring from overseas like China, India or other countries. 4. Recessions in USA. The economy of USA affected global economy, recessions in USA will cause a global recessions thus jobs will be affected. Now the SWOT analysis is completed, actions need to be taken for UPS to Transform strengths into capabilities by matching them with opportunities in the environment. -Convert weakness into strengths by investing strategically in key areas. -Weaknesses that cannot be converted into strengths become limitations. Any limitation that is obvious and meaningful to customers must be minimised. Situation analysis – External Market Analysis According to David Aaker, external analysis is a necessary part of developing a marketing strategy. The purpose of an external analysis should be to consistently improve the choices a company makes and enhances the company’s competitive standing.
Aaker, “The need for strategic review and change is often continuous. Information sensing and analysis therefore also need to be continuous. ” ” The framework and concepts of external analysis can still play a key role in providing structure even when the analysis is continuous and addresses only a portion of the whole. ‘ Customers of the business may be the most determining factor of the change requirements and can be the most powerful source of information for creating a marketing plan. Segmentation
Segmentation is the key to developing sustainable competitive advantage. Being able to identify customers groups defines the process of segmentation and allows company to focus on competitive needs. In order to identify each segment, Patrick and his partners needs to know, who are their biggest customers, most profitable, most attractive potential customers. There are subgroups of every segment which need to be assessed too. Subgroups of each major segment can be identified through benefits sought, geographic location, price sensitivity, industries and application.
For each subgroup, Patrick and his partners’ needs to know what elements of the service the customers’ values most, customers’ objective and what changes are occurring customer motivation and priorities should be addressed. Perhaps, there maybe customers who are dissatisfied and are changing to other brands or suppliers. Reasons behind the customers’ problems associated with the products or service need to be assessed consistently, as well as future problems that customers are not yet aware of. Patrick and his partners need to take note and addressed questions of whether competitors are using weakness from UPS as leverage.
Customers can be defined through common characteristics, which include geographic areas, age organisation type or company. Patrick and his partners, when identifying of customer type they can broke them into groups of how they use their services, price sensitivity and how they use their competitors’ services. The customers Patrick and his partners are targeting are in the Customers – Potential Employers -Oil and Gases industry -Semi-con industry -Construction industry -Manufacturing industry -Research & Development (R&D) industry -Marine industry Customers – Potential Job seekers (engineer) Fresh University graduates -Polytechnic graduates -Working engineering professionals -Foreign engineering talent -Career switch professionals The large pool customers, Patrick and his partners need to segment them in details in order to achieve desirable result. Brand Loyalty Brand loyalty may be the greatest asset any company have. Therefore, it should be consistently sought after and evaluated. Customers who become loyal to a company’s brand may do so based upon quality, price, consistency, service or other competitive reasons associated with the product or service.
Whatever the reason customers become loyal to a product or service; it should be maintained and consistently evaluated. Part of assessing customer loyalty also includes what motivates the customer to purchase a product or service. Patrick and his partners, should ask the questions what lies behind the decision of the customer and how does that differ by segment? Any unmet needs of the customer truly represent opportunities for UPS should be addressed because they truly are threats to UPS’s share of the market or potential market share.
If UPS does not address these issues, they maybe addressed by a competitor’s company, which give them a marketing edge to build a strategy around. Being a small company, UPS do not come into the mind of employers and job seekers when their needs arise. Patrick and his partners now need to build UPS image slowly and progressively. Build a brand image is a long term commitment which Patrick and his partners had to be fully focus. Competitor Analysis It is important for Patrick and his partners to evaluate their competition on a regular basis.
Identifying who they are competing with, who is the most intense and least intense can give strength in developing a marketing strategy and plan. They should also evaluate who are the makers of substitute services and who, potentially could become potential competitive entrants. Evaluating the competitors means analysing competitors’ objectives, strategies, level of commitment, costs, image, advantages and disadvantages. In doing so, it will give Patrick and his partners a view of possible leverage areas, strategic weakness, customer problems and unmet needs.
This process could be done effectively by identifying and placing competitors in strategic groupings, Groupings may include similar competitive strategies, distribution channel, communication strategies, price, position, aggressiveness, assets and competencies, including brand associations, logistics, capability, global presence. Patrick and his partners can use interviews from customers of competitors, information found on competitors websites and other media to assist in categorising and evaluating the level of strength and weakness of each of these areas.
In order for Patrick and his partners to develop a marketing plan they need to research and analysis external factors. These external factors include competition, opportunities, threats, trends and strategic uncertainties. Identification of who the competitors are and who will be possible competitors is also a necessary step of building a solid marketing plan. In doing so, potential strengths and weakness can be identified in order to develop a strategy for creating brand loyalty and a more competitive marketing strategy and plan.
This coupled with identifying who the customers are their needs, likes and dislikes could be the difference in creating marketing strategies that that succeed and fail in the long-run for UPS. Big picture analyses of both are truly the keys. Customer Analysis Knowing the customers intimately is important as it leads to sale. Knowing who the customers are and what they want and what motivates them to purchase will enable Patrick and his partners prepare an effective marketing plan. Patrick and his partners must not confuse “wants” and “needs”.
People don’t necessarily purchase what they need, but they will most always purchase what they want. People will buy what they want and not what they need. This too applies to those “sophisticated” corporate honchos. To really get to know customers, Patrick and his partners will need to ask themselves questions such as: -How does my potential customer normally require the service? -Who are the primary requestor and the buying influence in the whole process? -What kind of habits does the customer have? -What are their target customer’s primary motivations for requiring the service?
Customers nowadays are knowledgeable and tech-savvy, therefore getting and providing the right and ample information to them is very important. With regular customer visitation and listening to customers will help Patrick and his partners to know -The trends of the industry and market -Build rapport with customers -Intelligence gathering of competitors Focused strategy – Differentiation UPS and many companies everywhere are struggling to differentiate their offerings. They dream of establishing an unassailable market position for their solutions, a position that will enable them to capture a lion’s share of the customer’s mind and wallet.
UPS competitors are cutting prices, simultaneously introducing new services and adding features to their existing product portfolio. To their frustration, no matter how enticingly and expertly their portraits of the solutions are painted to customers their solutions and their competitor’s solutions usually end up looking amazingly alike. Theodore Levitt declared: “The search for meaningful distinction is a central part of the marketing effort. If marketing is about anything, it is about achieving customer getting distinction by differentiating what you do and how you operate. All else is derivative of that and only that. Essentially, Patrick and his partners are faced with one of two fundamental strategies: become the low price provide in their category or industry, which requires a cost structure lower than their competitors or substantively differentiate their products/services from their competitors. Many companies try to accomplish the latter by creating additional products or upgrading their existing products or services with incremental features. However, while these companies are providing options, what meaningful value are these incremental products or services improvements really providing?
This strategy of continually upgrading products or services, while seemingly a necessity to keep on a level playing field, provides little in a way of true differentiation. A true differentiation needs to be somewhat sustainable and difficult to replicate. This is especially troublesome with physical products because the functions performed by most recent product or feature are quickly copied. Research reflects that even the most sophisticated functionality provided by new products is replicated within three to six months. Specifically, delivering outstanding service to customers will go a long way toward providing sustainable advantage.
Research has consistently revealed that Singapore businesses have not improved service delivery over the past decade. This finding clearly reflects that most Singapore companies, while understanding the value of service are not delivering on this powerful means of differentiation. Service is a way to achieve sustainable differentiation and higher margins. Many organisations realise the importance of providing good service but most don’t grasp that great service delivery requires a tenacious focus on execution. Patrick and his partners knew that excellent service delivery is hard work and operationally exhausting.
It requires explicitly defining what customers want and measuring how will they deliver on customer requirements. Patrick and his partners, needs to constantly upgrade themselves thru training, develop and understand the systems well. Thought, Patrick and his partners use technology to assist them in providing services to their customer. They must bear this in mind; technology is an enabler and not the solution to delivering great services. Without knowledge of the customers’ need and specific measures required to ensure that those needs are met, the technology would mean nothing.
A vast amount of research has gone into what customer values in service and the results have consistently revealed that they highly value two attributes: reliability and responsiveness. Reliability means dependable, accurate and honest and delivering on your commitments. Responsiveness means being eager to help, offering an appropriate number of choices and demonstrating both flexibility and simplicity in those out of the ordinary circumstances. The Internet and related information technology can certainly help Patrick and his partners become more reliable and responsive; however, technology also adds another layer of complexity.
Email is a great example. If UPS does not have the standards for getting back to customers, emails will often languish and sometime go unanswered. In a 2003 research of customer expectations for email response times, it was discovered that more than 50% expected email to be returned within 24 hours period but less than 50% of companies surveyed met those expectations. In addition, it also discovered that 29% of the businesses did not respond to the email at all! Obviously, these companies do not have a clear picture of what customers expect when it come to providing reliable service.
Patrick and his partners must make a commitment to respond to their customers’ emails, faxes or phone calls within the timeframe they expect. Responsiveness is the second core attributes of great service and should be prime driver in all service delivery processes, including the Web site. Customers expect to use whatever communications medium is easiest for them. Another key element of responsiveness is an easy-to-use Web site. Online consumers expect to complete a purchase in three clicks. About 60% of potential customers drop away with each additional click in the online ordering process.
It is imperative that Patrick and his partners design a Web site with customers’ service expectations in mind. They want customer loyalty and providing great service is the prime determinant of customer loyalty. Creating sustainable differentiation is a daunting task for Patrick and his partners but providing great service provide a business with a hard to replicate value proposition. When Patrick and his partners start with meeting their customers’ need for reliability and responsiveness, they are well on their way to providing a competitively superior level of customer value. Marketing Mix
Regardless yours customers are Baby Boomers, Echo Boomers, Gen X-ers or Gen Y-ers or even Seniors one thing is sure: They know and understand much more about marketing than ever before. Today’s customers are more fickle, curious and educated. The bottom line is this: To meet and exceed the growing challenges that today’s customers inflict upon a brand, marketers must find the right balance of marketing tools and programme elements to create and deliver the right product or service to customers at the right place, right location, right time and with the right features and attributes.
The standard Four Ps of the marketing mix—Product, Price, Place (distribution) and Promotion—are often viewed singularly and in more of a silo approach. But we’re finding more and more that each cannot work alone. In fact, it would be challenging to look at them just as independent functions of the marketing mix. By integrating these traditional tools to adapt to today’s constantly changing and fluctuating marketplace, marketers can be more productive in the overall process. Marketing Mix – Positioning (Niche)
When companies or individuals invest money in a new venture, they generally don’t want to shoot small with their marketing positioning, out of fear that they won’t be able to attract enough business by marketing to just one niche segments within their chosen market. The fact is many companies take comfort by striving for a market position that have wide appeal, they will only need to capture a small percentage share to be profitable. Patrick and his partners realise that even a small share can be remarkably difficult to obtain with a new offering in a highly competitive market.
A “shoot for the middle” strategy ignores that there are already plenty of competitors fighting over the existing market positions within the core of the market, including common positions such as “low cost provider,” “best in class service” and so on. By owning an identifiable market position or niche that may appear to be on the fringes of the market, Patrick and his partners may greatly improve UPS chances of survival and success. Their offering will be well aligned with the needs of some people in the market as opposed to an offering that is designed to appeal to everybody but does so only mildly.
Three reasons why niche positioning. Having an impact: A strong position that targets a market niche is much more likely to help UPS make a dent in the market. It provides UPS with an identity and gives customers who are unfamiliar with UPS a reason to consider dealing with UPS. For example, if UPS is a new employment agency, they could only attract the fresh graduate job seeker niche. Professionals and big organisation will ignore UPS market position but OK.
Working engineering professionals who are two years out of university will hear UPS marketing message and may respond because UPS offering is uniquely positioned to appeal to their needs. In this way, a niche strategy gives some of the people in UPS chosen market a strong reason to approach them. This is almost always preferable to giving many people in the market a weak reason to contact and approach UPS or no reason at all. Marking a dent in UPS chosen market through a niche strategy is critical in gaining some revenue for Patrick and his partners’ business venture and a key to long term survival.
Defending the business: In any business, you can be sure that as soon as you have a few customers, a competitor will be after them. A strong market position will help UPS defend their growing customer base. Patrick and his partners will needs to match UPS position well against the needs and wants of a niche market and they will build a loyal customer base that won’t easily swayed by competing offer. Grow the niche Service the needs of a particular market niche well, and your niche will start doing some marketing for you.
Patrick and his partners can start to generate referrals or word-of-mouth advertising from within their niche customer base that attracts customers who fall outside their niche. In this manner, UPS strong, defined market position can help Patrick and his partners build business in other segments of the market over time and grow beyond their current niche position. Of course, word will spread within their niche as well. People within their niche may be alike in certain demographic categories and thus more likely to spread word about UPS to peers.
A defined market position that targets a niche market is a great opening play for a new business or business breaking into a new market. Whether you are leading new product marketing efforts for a major corporation or starting up in the most entrepreneurial of business, a niche market allows for good short term prospects and the potential for long term business maturation beyond your initial niche position. Market Mix – Pricing Pricing is one of the 4 Ps of marketing and the most basic tactic, having been around for hundreds if not thousand of years.
It is the most direct way of communicating value to customers and has the most direct impact on bottom-line performance. At the same time, price as a marketing instrument is difficult to leverage effectively because it involves decision making vertically and horizontally within the company. Apart from the bottom-line, it also impact brand perception: Too low a price may cause the brand to be perceived as a commodity whereas too high a price runs risk of being priced out of the market. There are three pricing strategy, Patrick and his partners can consider. A Skimming Strategy: If UPS offering had enough differentiation to justify a high price and Patrick and his partners desire quick cash and have minimal desires for significant market penetration and control then set their prices high. -A Market Penetration Strategy: If near term income is not critical and rapid market penetration for eventual market control is desired then Patrick and his partners set their prices very low. -A Comparable Pricing Strategy: If UPS is not the market leader in the industry then the leaders will most likely have created a ‘price expectation’ in the minds of the marketplace.
In this case, Patrick and his partners can price their offering comparably to those of their competitors. Pricing has several business objectives, which can become the primary pricing strategy or may form a portfolio of pricing strategies that can be alternated to meet different market conditions: -Profit maximisation: This is pricing for maximum profit and can be pursued if the product is sufficiently differentiated in the market. -Target ROI- or ROA-based pricing: Here price is simply Cost of Goods Sold + [target return times total investment or total assets]. Market-share growth: For well-capitalised firms, a short-term offensive strategy may involve lowering price to almost break-even levels to increase market share. In addition to greater market share, which can be later leveraged to increase prices, this strategy also helps in increasing margins by lowering costs from the economies of scale achieved through higher volume. The above matrix is an adaptation from the well-known BCG Matrix. The most appropriate pricing strategy for UPS will be Comparable Pricing Strategy as it will enable UPS to achieve their goals.
By using Comparable Pricing Strategy, Patrick and his partners will be able to compete with the major employment agencies in the industry. This pricing will too help UPS to create brand awareness as it perceive to the customers that UPS is not like other common employment agencies. This pricing strategy will help Patrick and his partners to fully maximise the profits and when the time is right they can increase their price in stage thus creating that UPS is the premium employment agencies when come to engineering jobs.
However, this price increase will too have to determine by internal and external factors. Marketing Mix – Promotion Promotional efforts should be measured and provided financial returns. Patrick and his partners will require establishing promotional mix strategy that will best reach their target market and result in increased sales. The marketing medium is the communication vehicle Patrick and his partners use to deliver their marketing message. It is important to choose a marketing medium that gives UPS the highest return on marketing dollar.
This means that Patrick and his partners must choose the medium that delivers their marketing message to their niche prospects at the lowest possible cost. To sell an offering Patrick and his partners must effectively promote and advertise it. There are two best promotion strategies, Push and Pull. -The Push Strategy maximises the use available channels of distribution to “push” the offering into the marketplace. This usually requires generous discounts to achieve the objective of giving the channels incentive to promote the offering, thus minimising the need for advertising. The Pull Strategy requires direct interface with the end user of the offering. Use of channels of distribution is minimised during the first stage of promotion and a major commitment to advertising is required. The objective is to “pull” the prospects into the various channel outlets creating a demand the channels cannot ignore. There are a few advertising strategies, Patrick and his partners can consider. -Advertising on publications that target on and read by professional engineers and human resource practitioners. Using technology such as SMS (short message service) to update customers with the latest information. -Referrals reward scheme, whereby Patrick and his partners can give small reward for referrals. -Placing advertisements on Saturday recruitment newspaper on a monthly basic. Saturday recruitment newspaper is widely read by job seekers. Traditional media like newspaper still is one the best media to outreach to the masses. Due to a tight promotion budget, this is the best option that allows UPS to build brand awareness. -Create a user friendly website that allows communication via MSN messenger.
Marketing Mix – Place Many companies have look at product, pricing and promotion as ways to expand revenues, one of the strongest strategies in the marketing mix is place. The place is where the products or services are sold must conveniently meet the needs of the target market. Companies like UPS need to master the art of distribution in order to gain competitive advantage. Small company such as UPS need to learn how to squeeze competitive advantage out of “place. ” In marketing mix, “place” is much broader than simply mastering channel sales.
It’s also optimising the supply chain. An effective supply chain can be difference between a barely profitable company and one that dominates. Getting the right services to customer demands ultimately increases customer satisfaction and prevents money from being left on the table. UPS is location in Jurong, west part of Singapore and this area are dominates by manufacturing and R companies. Patrick and his partners had made the right decision by setting the office in Jurong. They will have access to many engineering companies in this area.
This area is easily accessible too where by the MRT station is just a stone throw away. Outreach to potential customers is not an issue. Customers are too able to contact Patrick and his partners 24/7 via mobile phone or emails or SMS. Conclusion Creating a written marketing plan is only the first step for Patrick and his partners’ first step to improved sales. The marketing plan is critical as help Patrick and his partners to distinct their competitive advantage, understand their competitors better, their position in the market.
Once completed, this plan will allow Patrick and his partners to understand the strategies and why resources are being allocated the way they are. The marketing plan will be able to help UPS perform better than their competition in the eyes of their target market. The essence of marketing is to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. Without having clearly established and measurable strategies, Patrick and his partners will never learn from their successes and failures. Patrick and his partners will have to take critical steps to make the marketing plan a reality as it will leads to increases revenues.
References: Textbooks •David A. Aaker Strategic Market Management: New York, NY: Wiley & Sons 2001 •Theodore Levitt, The Marketing Imagination: New, Expanded Edition (New York: Free Press, 1986) •Ferrell, OC Michael D, Hartline and George H. Lucas , Marketing Strategy: Harcourt Inc 2002 •Tim Berry and Doug Wilson, On Target, The Book on Marketing Plan •Michael Porter, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. 1985 •Griffiths, Andrew, 101 Ways to Market Your Business: Building a Successful Business with Creative Marketing.
Allen & Unwin 2007 •Hughes, Arthur Middelton, Strategic Database Marketing: The Masterplan for Starting and Managing a Profitable, Customer-based Marketing program, 3rd Edition, McGraw-Hill 2005 •Walker, Orville C. , John Mullins and Harper W Boyd, Marketing Strategy: A Decision Focused Approach, 5th Edition. McGraw-Hill/Irwin 2005 Articles •Exciting job outlook for engineers, The Straits Times 2005 •Battle for talent as job market hits 4 year high, The Straits Times 2005 Electronics references •www. acra. gov. sg •www. mom. gov. sg
Contents 1. About UPS Pg: 1 2. Marketing Plan Pg: 4 3. Situation analysis – SWOT Pg: 6 4. Situation analysis – External Market analysis Pg: 11 5. Focus strategy – Differentiation Pg: 16 6. Marketing Mix Pg: 20 7.
Marketing Mix – Positioning Pg: 22 8. Marketing Mix – Pricing Pg: 25 9. Marketing Mix – Positioning Pg: 27 10. Marketing Mix – Place Pg: 29 11. Conclusion Pg: 30 12. References Pg: 31