marketing

Paper details:
case study n. 1, please see the case and answer to each question marked with letters a) b) c) and d). example question a): answer…….( same for b), c) etc etc. use the same criteria fo case study n.2 but the questions are only 2 (at the bottom of the info provided by letters A and B). use word and numerical example. please answer direct to the question.

FINAL ASSIGNMENT
CASE 1: Cadex Ltd.
Cadex is a Scottish firm selling telecommunications devices for private companies. At the end of a meeting in 2012, the shareholders asked the board to increase profitability.
The first thing that the marketing director decided to do was to engage a research company to carry out a survey on a representative sample of potential clients in the market. The research asked the prospects to rate the importance of some relevant attributes for the purchasing process. The survey also asked their perceptions about Cadex and its main competitors on these attributes. The overall results are shown in Table I.
Table I – Overall market results
Relevant attributes
Importance ( S=1 )
Opinions
(in a scale from 1 to 5)
Cadex
Jolly
Mbs
Total lines capacity
0.16
3.7
1.7
4.7
Reliability index
0.37
4.0
4.0
4.0
Advanced services
0.16
2.7
1.7
4.4
Technical assistance
0.31
3.0
4.7
1.3
Based on her experience in the industry, however, the marketing director knows that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) typically have different needs compared to large enterprises. Large enterprises, for example, have their own technical offices that manage and solve any technical issue related to their telecommunications devices and networks, while SMEs rely on the support and technical assistance from the manufacturer. Therefore, she decided to split the dataset into two sub-samples, according to the number of employees of the respondent company (ex-ante segmentation based on size).
The resulting values are shown in Tables II and III. In addition, the management knows that the intrinsic attractiveness of these segments is essentially the same: the growth rates are alike, the number of SMEs is bigger, but the unit margins from large enterprises are higher.
Table II – SMEs: the results of the survey.
Relevant attributes
Importance ( S=1 )
Opinions
(in a scale from 1 to 5)
Cadex
Jolly
Mbs
Total lines capacity
0.1
4
2
4
Reliability index
0.4
4
4
4
Advanced services
0.1
3
2
5
Technical assistance
0.4
3
5
1
Table III – Large enterprises: the results of the survey.
Relevant attributes
Importance ( S=1 )
Opinions
(in a scale from 1 to 5)
Cadex
Jolly
Mbs
Total lines capacity
0.3
3
1
4
Reliability index
0.3
4
4
4
Advanced services
0.3
2
1
3
Technical assistance
0.1
3
4
2
Finally, table IV reports some objective specifications about the three value propositions. It is the result of a competitive intelligence analysis completed few months ago.
Table IV – Key facts: actual specifications about the products in the market.
Technical Specifications
Cadex
Jolly
Mbs
Total capacity
416 lines
56 lines
320 lines
Reliability (ISO test)
94%
95%
92%
Number of advanced services
30
8
32
Assistance (average time before a technician from the manufacturer arrives on site)
24h
4h
48h
PRICE (£)
1290
990
1350
a) Please calculate the “Expected Values” and Value Indexes (2 points)
b) What can we say about our current positioning? Do we have a clear target? (1 point)
c) Which segment would you target and why? (Try to cross all the information that you have) (3 points)
d) Accordingly, what marketing actions would you implement first, to improve your current positioning? (2 points)
CASE 2: Chapeau Sa.
Chapeau Sa. is a French company which is completely focused on the market segment of SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises). The overall segment size is equal to 200,000 units per year and the growth rate is equal to zero. Given a price of $160 (average selling price) and overall marketing efforts equal to $400,000, Chapeau has a market segment share of 12%. The cost of goods sold is equal to $130 per unit. Other fixed operating expenses are equal to $300,000.
The marketing director is evaluating two strategic options: (A) a defensive strategy to reduce market focus (strategic withdrawal), and (B) an offensive strategy to grow market share.
(A) In the first case, the price of the product would be increased up to $196 per unit and the marketing efforts would be decreased by 15%. A market research estimates that, given these decisions, the market share of Chapeau within the segment of SMEs would decrease from 12% to 5%, while all the other variables would not change significantly (e.g., segment dimension and other costs).
If you were a shareholder, how would you evaluate this strategy compared to the starting scenario? Explain your answer through a clear numerical analysis (1 point for the computations about the starting scenario, 2 points for the computations about the ending scenario, 2 points for the comparative analysis).
(B) In the second case, the idea is to work on the awareness of the product (promotion strategy). Currently, Chapeau’s product has a 60% awareness among its target. The goal would be to improve product awareness from 60% to 70%. The level of all the other terms along the market share development tree would remain steady (ergo, the market share would increase proportionally). The additional marketing expenses for the new campaign would be equal to
$50,000. All other variables would remain constant (price, dimension of the segment, and other costs).
If you were a shareholder, how would you evaluate this strategy compared to the previous ones? Explain your answer through a clear numerical analysis (3 points for the computations about the new scenario and final decision).