Digby's New Marketing Strategy

A Broad Cost Leader strategy maintains a presence in all segments of the market. The company will gain a competitive advantage by keeping R&D, production and material costs to a minimum, enabling the company to compete on the basis of price, which will be below average. Automation levels will be increased to improve margins and to offset second shift/overtime costs.

After a period of declining sales for Allround, we increased the advertising budget to be consistent with our competitor’s budget. We decided to be very consistent with our strategy over the ten periods; however, in hindsight we should have implemented a more dynamic strategy that factored in the changing

Marketing plan is always based on information regarding product, customers, market and competitors. The best way to analyze all this information is through a SWOT analysis. SWOT stand for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This analysis takes into account both internal and external factors, internals being strengths and weakness, and external being opportunities and threats (Kotler & Keller, 2009).

You, Joe Insalacco, are a potential buyer of Daphne’s Catering Ltd. With the financial statements, you are looking to evaluate the performance to determine whether this is a company worth purchasing. You are not familiar with the accounting matters of DCL but your objective is to minimize net income so that you can purchase DCL for a lower price.

This report is designed to provide an evaluation of the financial fitness of Chester, Inc. through the creation and analysis of a full set of financial statements. Methods that will be used to analyze the income statement, balance sheet and statement of cash flows include: horizontal and vertical analysis, ratio analysis and comparison to competitors and the industry. All calculations used to create the financial statements and analyze them can be found in the appendix of this document. A list of differences between the presentation of these financials and International Financial Reporting Standards will also be included at the request of management. Results of this analysis shows that Chester, Inc. is performance is under industry averages in several areas, particularly in liquidity and profitability.

The SWOT analysis is a great way for companies or organizations to determine their brand and product’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. In order to more effectively determine these areas, separation of internal and external issues within the company or association is crucial.

Cost leadership (Johnson et al., 2013, p194) strategy involves becoming the lowest-cost organisation in a domain of activity. In this case, NiMH battery prices were reduced to remain competitive in the market considering the fact that NiMH batteries represented the Cash Cow of the company.

At the end of decision five, we paid off some of the short-term debt and had a balance of $20,000. Furthermore during decision six, we continued to meet our customers’ criteria in all segments in order to capture the market. We continued to invest in R&D, sales and promotions and TQM and paid off short-term debt. At the end of round six, our company was very profitable with sales of $311,484,788 and profits of $42,887,086. Since our company was mature and well established, we issued dividends to stockholders. At the end of decision six, the company’s stock price was $108.73.

The second part will present the SWOT analysis based on internal and external environment. The last section is to set the marketing objectives for developing the marketing strategies.

The Earnings Per share in 2012 and 2013 were $2.90. This is an indicator that the company is still profitable since the ratio is a constant. The price per earnings in 2012 was 12.5 and 17.7 in 2013. A decrease in the price per share may indicate a vote of no confidence to investors. However, this can be attributed to the industry sector as well the stock.

Profitability ratios are basically figures to measure if the company is doing well in the terms of profit[13]. ROCE ratio has increased in 2011 but in 2012 it deteriorates by 3%. This fall indicates that company was not successfully getting high returns as a percentage of its resources available, compared to 2011.

After analyzing the results from the previous quarter, it was determined that the prices set for each segment were not sufficient. Product sales priority were also not properly adjusted. With the R&D investments, sales priorities needed to be changed for the main focus to become the most profitable market segments. Prices were not competitive which in turned decreased revenue, market share, and profitability. To become more competitive we altered the prices in each market segment. The Workhorse product was the first to change, the price was lowered to $2500 in an attempt to increase sales; at this price Team 4 was still making a profit on this product, as well as making the price much more competitive. The Workhorse sales priority was also lowered to 3rd in Americas and 4th in APAC and EMEA. This product was not selling as well as we had hoped, and was no longer as profitable as it once was which led to this decision. Next, the Innovator product’s price was adjusted; this involved a price increase to $4100. This price was adjusted to include the new

The strength of the SWOT analysis comes derives from the way that it can be used for a wide range of business situation and in industries. And SWOT analysis weakness is that it needs clear thinking and good decision making ability to get any real qualities from using it. The best ways to achieve this is to concentrate on internal and external strengths and weaknesses. The strength is something that has positive effect on your business and it gives your organisation a competitive advantage. It includes your unique selling point, products, resources and what you

Our strength is in our service. We believe we provide a superior service compared to our competitors. We are confident this will be a major factor in our success.

A successful cost leadership strategy usually provides the entire firm with high efficiency, low overhead, limited perks, intolerance of waste, intensive screening of budget requests, and wide span of control efforts. However, some risks of pursuing this strategy are that competitors might imitate the strategy, thus, driving overall industry profits down; that technology breakthroughs in the industry may make the strategy ineffective; or that buyer’s interest may swing to other differentiating features besides price.