Conduct Marketing Audit Assessment

Sarto’s gourmet pasta process good information about the market and knows a great deal about the common attributes of our most prized and loyal customers. Sarto’s gourmet pasta will leverage this information to better understand who is served, their specific needs, and how sarto’s can better communicate with them. External audit

External macro-environmental factors
Economic factors: pasta sales are expected to grow by at least 10% for the next years. One of the reasons for this is the increase in number of hours people are working, which has resulted in more number of people eating out. Based on economic forecasts, the business believes that interest rates are coming down which will creat more disposable income, and therefore, more people eating out. However, based on the Australian Trresury report, current interest rate have been rising incrementally during the year and there has also been a tightening on credit card limits. Demographic factors

Male and female
Ages 25-50, this is the sagment that makes up 53% of the eugene market according to the Eugene chamber of commerce. Young professionals who work close to the location
Have attended college and graduate school
An income over $40,000. Eat out several times a week. Trend to patronize higher quality restaurant. Are cognizant about their health. Technological factors
The restaurant is still taking order via telephone, and has not taken the marketing firms suggestion of converting the take away ordering system to the new internet based technology. Although the staff is competent in their respective jobs, they are not skilled in telephone sales. This information was obtained from a face to face meeting with Rose Ready. Based on focus group conducted it was also found that costumer want to order via the internet, and not be stressed out by the phone system with its delay and difficult to understand accents and noise. Political or legal factors

An interview was conducted with Mario Sarto who was of the opinion that the business had been in difficulties since the start. One of the reason for this was that the government had not build the park and ride parking area as planned, and had stopped the project for another year. In his opinion this has had a big impact on people being able to access the restaurant at night. Mario was asked about his practice of charging different prices for deliveries and his response was that it as good business to charge rich people extra because they can efford it. There might be some ethical implications here from a marketing audit point of view and this was also put into question by some costumers in the focus group. External micro-environmental factors

Market charecteristics
For the last couple of years restaurant is heade towords a more sophisticated customers. The restaurant petron today wants food which is of high quality, made from high quality ingridents, is presented in appreciaative way and they wantto be offerd a larger selection of foods and no longer accepting a limited menu. Customer needs

For the couple of years restaurant offering have increased, providing customers with new choices. With more choices patrons have become more sophesticated. The business believes that along with more choice and high quality foods. Customer are also intrested in exotic taste. The ISBA world industry report also mention that customer are now looking for healthy eating options like salads, and also want more information on ingredents. This was also observed from the results of the focus groups. Competitor factors

It was informed by mario that one of the competitors of the restaurant stells’s had built a large thirty seat outdoor eating area and it was doing very well. Another of tis competitors pasta bite had a open up a restaurant in the adjacent suburbs giving the local customer greater option in pasta. Mario has therefor dropped prices on pasta products and this has resulted in a drop in gross profit. Another source of competition is the intoduction by supermarket of pre-packaged pasta product. Internal audit

Criteria to be used in the internal marketing audit
Existing research data
During the intial phases of the marketing plan development several focus groups were held to again insight into a verity of patrons of restaurant. These focus group provided useful insight into the descision and dicision making process of customers. An additional source of market research is carried out by suggestion card system. Sarto’s claim that it will work hard to implement reasonable suggestions. Access to ongoing market research will be achieved via the publication from the restaurant association but according to adriana como, even though there was sufficent data available in the restaurant association monthly magazine but this infromation not being used. The magazine is just kept for the staff and its never consulted by Mario. Internal sales data

The internal sales data showed that the business would need $45,000 in monthly revenue to break even. The sales forecast which have been prepared keep in mind a 65% gross margin, however, based on actual figure for 2009, this target has not been reached, and the forecasted sales have fallen. Supply chain management and ligistics

Adriana como is currently incharge of sales and promotions of the restaurant. Based on the interview conducted with her one fo the biggest problems she is facing that the phone ordering system is constructed in the kitchen next to cook with most responsibility to compile and check every meal. This has been creating real logistcs problem in dealing with take away orders. Another problem which she has been facing is that there is no cordination between the timing of promotional flyers and the preperations in terms of having suffecient stock purchases. Describe the organization conducting the marketing in terms of fuctional effeciency and internal interface with the organization Although sarto’s uses the services of ready made marketing as a client, the owner Mario sarto makes all the decision related to the marketing himself and mostly without any consultation with ready made marketing. The owner of the marketing firm rose ready believes that although mario sarto being the owner of his business has the right to do so he his decision are not always in the best interests of the business or its customers.

These are a number of suggestions which rose has given mario but he has not taken them in to consideration. Describe the marketing system in terms of marketing information, planning and control All decision related to marketing are taken by mario himself with or without consultation with the marketing firm. When inquired about new product development and forecasting sales, mario was of the openion that getting market research done was too expensive, he therfore just uses the accountants tax figure and his own gut feel to determine the sales forrecast. An interview is also conducted with Adriana como who has been made incharge of the sales and promotions of the restaurants. On inquiry she responded that her skills and qualifications are in the field of kitchen management, but mario had given her marketing position anyway. She was also asked about new product development and her response was that new product were developed based on marios assesment of how exotic the new product was are how easy it was to make and that in his opinion testing new products by giving them away was too costly and counter productive to increasing sales.

Describe the marketing productivity in terms of profitability and cost effectiveness. It si the opininon of the owner of the restaurant that all the business need with respect to arketing is the delivery of regular flyers in letterboxes. Mario is of the openion that advertsing and promotion should be directed at getting next weeks sales only. However, Rose Ready informed that based on the surveys conducted, the feedback was that majority of the customers were of the opinion that flyers are mostly junk mail. Rose had made the suggestion for engaging a PR specialist after marios friend bmag left the magazine. But this was again ignored by mario and there was no write up of the business for the entire first year. Due to Mario’s views that advertising and promotion should be directed at getting next weeks sales only, he has getting short print runs of flyers with full glose color and this as per Eric Yeung,the accountant has significantly increased flyers unit costs. Furthermore the target market of these advertising campaigns which are the family groups are not increasing and only the take away business has been increasing. The budgeted sales to families was 150,000 but the actual sales turned out to be only 112,000.