1 EXTENDED ESSAY Business and management RESEARCH QUESTION: How efficient would it be for BP Mwanza, Tanzania to introduce pricing strategies such as penetration pricing to drive out their competitors in Mwanza, Tanzania. Candidate name: Zafar Mohamed Iqbal Abdullah Osman IB candidate number: dwt124 School name: Indus international school Pune School number: 003508 Adviser: Mr. Brian Alex Date submitted: 26th November 2012 Word count: 3700 2 Abstract: This paper aims to answer the question ‘’How efficient would it be for BP Mwanza, Tanzania to introduce pricing strategies such as penetration pricing to drive ut their competitors in Mwanza, Tanzania’’ By using different techniques such as the S. W. O. T and the force field analysis to see where the business and if the company is using pricing strategies like penetration pricing how will this help them get over their rivals, this will give a clear understanding on the current situation of BP, I will compare BP with different petrol companies to see how they are competing and also if the other companies are using other strategies. Furthermore I will comprehend if penetration pricing will help BP gain market share and sales or not and along with this will asset led arketing be a crucial aspect in penetration pricing. I will evaluate and mention how penetration pricing is better than price leadership, predatory pricing and going rate pricing on getting market share and a high sales volume through secondary data. Through the company’s profile, the use of the records such as sales from January to December of the year 2011 will help me see how the company has being operating for the past year and if they use penetration pricing will it benefit them in their main aim. Along with this I will conduct an interview of the Dealer Mr. Iqbal Osman to extracts information and his iews of the usage of penetration pricing. I will display this through the Primary research that I have collected This paper came to a conclusion that the introducing of penetration pricing would be efficient for BP in Mwanza, Tanzania to drive out their competitors. Word count: 280 3 Table of Contents Abstract: .................................................................................................................................................. 2 Introduction: .......................................................................................................................................... 4
Body .......................................................................................................................................................... 6 S. W. O. T ........................................................................................................................................................ 8 Force Field Analysis .................................................................................................................................... 10 How will Penetration pricing affect and gain sales for BP: ........................................................................ 1 Asset led marketing: .................................................................................................................................. 13 Why Penetration pricing is a better way of driving out competitors: ....................................................... 14 Interview analysis: ..................................................................................................................................... 16 Sales Of British Petroleum of 2011 Analysis: ............................................................................................. 18 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 19 Appendix ............................................................................................................................................... 21 Bibliography: ....................................................................................................................................... 23 4 Introduction: When most companies need to gain profits and increase the market shares and brand image in their business, the firms start thinking of driving out their competitors because the ain aim is to do that in order to be number one in the region and a particular common method that can be used is penetration pricing, which in the same way it is used as a market led based pricing strategy, Penetration pricing is defined as setting relatively low prices (or a specially introductory price) to gain brand recognition and market share. British petroleum of Mwanza, Tanzania was run by Mr. Abdullah Osman. Along the years Mr. Abdullah Osman started opening more petrol stations throughout Tanzania, which included Oryx another petrol company. The company has been opening many petrol stations throughout Tanzania and the market hares and profit of the business have increased. Due to strong competition, the company has been trying to tackle them by using different strategies that will make them over come their competitors, to gain market share and increase their brand image. I am going to see if penetration pricing can be one of them to help the company over come their competitions in the Mwanza region and how they are going to accomplish this. Mr. Iqbal Osman and his brothers took over the business because the father had retired and suggested them to continue the family business. But during 2009 British petroleum suffered a 5 loss due to the loss of one of its wner who was helping out in the business and played a key role in the business. As the company was running under a partnership deal between the two brothers, Mr. Iqbal Osman had to take over that petrol station single handedly in order to keep the business running and to sustain it from any losses or even being sold to other companies. For sometime during 2009 the company was going through losses, due to the new ownership. Mr. Iqbal Osman found it difficult to handle the company by himself and along with this the prices of the petrol had to be increased 8 times. Due to the changes in the petrol market it caused a lot of problems within he business itself in each department. After these happenings, there was a period of time when the company was going through a stream of success, which really benefited the company financially. This made them powerful in the petrol market in Mwanza and helped them increase their brand image. The company had adapted itself to the new ownership, which did start bringing up the companies brand and image through strong advertisement and making people aware of BP and leading their mission statement, which states “we are here to stay, we are here to serve”. While this was happening the subordinates of the company gained new skills and started orking better than before and the output of the company increased by a high number. This really benefited the company and it did start getting back on track. The company is now trying to introduce new ways to keep up the profits and to gain market shares in the petrol market and increase their brand image. This includes pricing strategies such as penetration pricing wherein the company set a relatively low price to gain brand recognition and market share to attract customers and gain more market shares. By doing this BP Mwanza, Tanzania hopes this will help them to drive out their competitors and gain market shares and brand image and make
British petroleum number one 6 in Mwanza Tanzania: This paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of penetration pricing in BP, hence the research question ‘’How efficient would it be for BP Mwanza, Tanzania to introduce pricing strategies such as penetration pricing to drive out their competitors in Mwanza, Tanzania’’ find relevance. Body Findings: For data collection I am going to use both primary and secondary data to investigate if the pricing strategies will have any effect to the competition and bring up the brand image. For my primary research I am going to take an interview of the Dealer Mr. Iqbal Osman, to see his views on if this ricing strategies especially penetration pricing are launched will this be a success to the company and will this help the company drive out the competitors or not, also if the company really need to strategize their prices or not in order to drive out the competitors, or will this benefit the company. I will also use the company’s records to see if they introduce these pricing strategies will it have any effect. I will use the company’s sales for one year ago and see how the prices have varied through out the whole year. And from this I will be able to see if the prices of this year are better than last years, also this will give me and dea on how penetration pricing will be effectual to the driving out of their competitors and gaining market share and increasing their brand image in Mwanza Tanzania. For my secondary research, the use of S. W. O. T will help me find the strength, weakness, opportunities and the threats by the use of SWOT this give me a better understanding of the 7 organization position in the market place and therefore the formulation of the company’s strategy of its long term survival and it will give me a broader perspective of BP itself and this SWOT analysis will be a powerful source to see if this penetration pricing would be a good idea or not for
BP. The use of the force field analysis will help me see if the change of using penetration pricing will be a good idea or not. I will do this by analyzing the forces for and against and after analyzing it will show weather it will be successive or not. I will use other external resources like the internet to find out more information about the company and to see if the company can or cannot introduce these pricing strategies at the state that they are at the moment also the internet will give me statistics of the company which will help me. British petroleum have many competitors in the market in Mwanza Tanzania there are more than 5 other ompanies that are competing with BP, these companies use different techniques to try and give a better brand image they use loads of advertisements and they try to attract customers in order to get more market shares than BP and this affects BP a lot, the use of these other strategies used by the competitors will give me an idea on how BP is facing against its odds. The usage of on how the company is investing in capital and how it is benefiting them and at the same time is it producing more for the company, if the company puts in more money they will get skilled workers and the output would increase and the quality of the machine will be
