Cumeco Marketing 10626

This section of the marketing plan provides the marketing objective, theselected target market, the selected services, our marketing statement and ourpromotional recommendations. Goals tell were a business wants to go; strategyanswers how to get there. Every business must tailor a strategy for achievingits goals. The strategy must then be refined into specific programs that areimplemented efficiently and corrected if they are failing to achieve theobjectives. Michael E.

Porter, author of the book “competitive strategy:techniques for analyzing industries and competitors” has categorizedstrategies into 3 generic types, which are: Overall cost leadership Here thebusiness works hard to achieve the lowest costs of production and distributionso it can price lower than its competitors and win a large market share.Differentiation Here the business concentrates on achieving superior performancein some important customer benefit area valued by the market as a whole. It canstrive to be the service leader, the quality leader, the style leader, thetechnology leader, etc. Focus Here the business focuses on one or more narrowmarket segment rather than going after the whole market. The firm gets to knowthe needs of these segments and pursues either cost leadership or some form ofdifferentiation within the target segment. As said before, Cumeco n.

v. is in thebusiness of steel construction, pipefitting and welding. We think that Cumecon.v.

must adopt a strategy that is based on a combination of the differentiationand focus strategy. Our recommendation is that Cumeco n.v. must start focusingon becoming a niche-player. As explained in the opportunity and issue analysis amarket nicher is a smaller firm that chooses to operate in some part of themarket that is specialized and is unlikely to attract larger firms.

Now we canstart developing a marketing strategy statement. The different clients wevisited for our research had one thing to say: Cumeco n.v. delivers quality. Theone word that kept coming back was QUALITY.

The marketing statement shouldtherefore be “to become known in the industry as the symbol of quality in thebusiness of metal construction, pipe fitting and welding which can beaccomplished by always meeting the deadline and delivering quality works”.With this marketing statement in mind we will start developing the marketingplan. In our opinion, our main objective is to increase the awareness of thecompany’s name and the services it provides and to position Cumeco n.v. insuch a way that when you hear the words Cumeco n.

v you immediately think ofquality. By introdusing such concepts as Total Quality Management it will beable to create a sustainable competitive advantage. We believe that with ourrecommendations this can be accomplished. To evaluate the effectiveness of ourplan, we recommend a survey to be done 6 months after the execution of the planhas started. The image of a company is very important, because it’s what yourtarget market perceives of your company.

The selected target market is 8 Thegeneral contractors as they are in charge of big construction projects and takeon smaller contractors like Cumeco to do a specific construction job 8 Thearchitect bureaus as they make the drawings and in most cases make thecalculations 8 The construction bureaus as they are specialized in makingconstruction calculations 8 Various companies e.g. manufacturers, factories (Amstel,Coca-Cola) 8 Utilities companies e.g. Kodela, Setel, KAE The perception of thecustomer is very important even in the steel construction business. If thegeneral contractors have a good impression of your company, it will be easier toget a job order.

Cumeco n.v. is being associated with quality, which is a goodsign, but it is also being associated with high prices. So we’ll have to workon their price strategy.

Cumeco n.v. has to start lowering its cost in order tohave a better competitive advantage. Although it is nice to be innovative andcome up with a new product, we feel at this time Cumeco n.v. must not come upwith a new service but work on the existing ones.

We feel they should: ·Increase their steel construction job orders · Increase their pipe fitting(steel and PVC) job orders · Increase their aluminum welding job orders ·Heavily promote their new sandblasting and coating facilities RecommendationsSince the first visit to Cumeco, we unanimously decided that a major problem atCumeco was the absence of an employee in charge with all the marketing &public relations activities and mostly sales. Mr. Chirino is a person who wantsto be and is on top of each project. He makes sure the contract is negotiatedand signed, the project planning is done, the project calculations are correct,the job is started, finished and delivered on time.

As you can see, he does nothave the time to keep himself busy with the marketing and PR activities andperform as a salesperson. We know it’s costly to take someone extra on thepayroll. If Cumeco wants to make marketing the key to increase the awareness ofits company and products or even their sales, a marketing officer withadditional duties such as sales is a must. This person would be working closelywith Mr. Chirino so he/she must be trustworthy.

With the marketing officer inplace we can make as much suggestions as we like, because we know there issomeone in charge of the execution. Job description marketing officer In thistype of business personal selling is the key to success. You have to know yourclients, visit them regularly and build a long lasting relation with them. TheMarketing officer must function as a sales person. It is the job of the salesperson to give customer service.

He/she will go to the general contractors, theutility companies, the architect bureaus and the construction bureaus and try toestablish contacts and build relationship with these clients. The sales personis in charge of making these companies aware of the existence of Cumeco, it’sproducts and services and that Cumeco stands for quality in business of metalconstruction, pipe fitting and welding. Once they are interested in offeringCumeco a job, Mr. Chirino steps in. He is the one negotiating the contract as hehas more knowledge of the company’s capabilities, the work and thecalculations.

After the job has been taken and delivered, the sales person goesback after say 6 months to check up on the customer to see if everything isstill satisfactory and maybe even if they have another job. The marketingofficer is in charge of coordinating the marketing efforts. Our main objectiveis to increase the awareness of the company’s name and the services itprovides and to position Cumeco n.v. in such a way that when you hear the wordsCumeco n.

v you immediately think of. We tried to incorporate all the marketingtools we believe will give results. Advertising We are aware that Cumeco doesnot have the funds to do much advertising. If we want to achieve our goal onepoint in the future we will have to start paying for some advertisements. Oursuggestions are: 8 Newspaper adds in “De Makelaar” 8 Adds in the yellowpages of the telephone book 8 Direct mailing of informative folders to thetarget market We do not recommend any event or sponsorship marketing as weperceive it not to be effective. It will not reach the target marketspecifically.

One of the main promotional activity Cumeco must start working onis PUBLICITY. We can start working immediately on publicity. Our suggestionsare: 8 For the inauguration of the new sandblasting and coating facilities, givean inauguration party and invite the press. Give out press releases togetherwith a folder containing all the work you have accomplished. Invite your targetmarket (head of the departments in charge of maintenance of the variousutilities companies and the project leaders of the architect bureaus,contractors companies etc).

In marketing we also have promotional items to putat what we call the Point-of-purchase. We can make posters to put at thehardware stores. These posters must make frequent visitors of the hardwarestores (who may be in the business of construction) aware of the name Cumeco.Actually it’s difficult to come up with sales promotion items for aconstruction company.

We do recommend free merchandise in the form of calendars,mugs, pens and key chains to be distributed to the target market. These itemsmust have Cumeco’s logo very clearly printed on it to increase awareness withits target market.