Identify and Evaluate Marketing Opportunities Persuasive

1. List ways that Dell conducts research on its customers to continually improve products and services

* Customer Advisory Panel (CAP) Days
* Customer Spotlights on Dell.com
* Brainstorming session in forum groups
* Interaction with customers by face to face, during events, one to one through the customer service department * Through customer complain forum

2. What are the features of Dell’s research?

* Customer Advisory Panel Days are an example of how Dell can continually learn from their customers. Dell will hear directly from customers about the kinds of things they use their systems for, what they like about it and see the configuration they use to get things done. Other initiatives underway include a pilot of a 24/7 chat service in the U.S. and other countries where chat seems more popular over traditional phone service, redesigning support.dell.com, revamping of extended warranties, and a redesign of the Dell.com online configurator experience to name a few. The scope and direction of these initiatives – and others- are shaped by what we hear from customers.

Dell.com offers the customer the ability to:

* Upgrade the system so it can be configured to the technology the consumer wants * Style the product of their choice by selecting the colour, trim and art design. * Select from the line of available accessories. Dell’s core accessory business, “Design for Dell” has developed a line of accessories aligned with each Dell brand. By giving customers this wide range of choice, the end product is uniquely ‘created’ for the customer’s individual needs an personality. * Dell.com features a section called Community which provides customers and interested people with: solutions, advice, how-to’s’, discussions and friends

* Dell.com also provides technical support, which allows Dell customers to enter forums, get ‘how-to’ and ‘step-by-step’ information for specific technical issues and information on the latest ‘hot’ issues.

* Dell has direct relationship with individual customers and big companies.

3. What is Dell’s unique selling point?

Dell’s Unique Selling Point (USP) is the ability for consumers to select and customise their computer. Customers can purchase custom-built products and services. A pre-built machine may contain features the customers will not use, or not include features important for a specific customer need. Customers, whether online, via phone or in a retail outlet, can select the features they require.

4. What are the strategies Dell uses to generate revenue?

* Dell generates more than $50m revenue per day in sales through its worldwide websites. Core to Dell’s e-business success is a series of customised websites provided to its various customers. Dell.com provides a high level of service to its customers and suppliers. Ordering and production is speeded up, greater accuracy follows direct ordering by customers, and current technologies are delivered to consumers. Dell.com gives consumers the ability to purchase online and access technical advice. It is a fundamental feature of Dell.com to offer time to market technology. * Customers are able to order computers directly from Dell and receive them within seven to ten working days. * They have online services

* They sell software and spare parts
* They provide storage services (save data, Icloud, Yahoo, Google)

5. What does return on investment mean in relation to Dell’s marketing campaign and how is it measured?

The Return on Investment, often called a company’s return on total assets, measures the overall profit made on an investment expressed as a percentage of the amount invested. Return on Investment measures a company’s profitability and its management’s ability to generate profits from the funds investors have placed at its disposal.

An essential element of all Dell advertising is a call-to-action. They can be simple, such as ‘order today’ or more elaborate such as a complicated ‘seven step ordering process’. This makes Dell’s advertising and marketing activities measurable and allows the company to see a Return on Investment for any campaign. A campaign can be modified or redirected according to the measured results. Dell.com can be changed easily and quickly so print and television advertisements direct consumers towards the website for additional detail. This allows the more expensive advertising to be kept simple and unchanged, reducing costs. Dell can trace the ‘waterfall’ effect of specific marketing online. Dell records how many people: * Visit the website after the launch of a print-television campaign * Actually purchase the product or service

* ‘Drop out’ and where they drop out of the process.

This data enables the marketing campaign to be refined. By advertising direct to the consumer, Dell is able to create different vanity URLs and phone number for different marketing communication activities. This enables Dell to measure the response rate through online visits and phone calls.

What to do

The basic Return on Investment can be found by dividing a company’s net profit (also called net earnings) by the total investment (total debt plus total equity), and multiplying by 100 to arrive at a percentage:

Net profit / total investment x 100 = Return on Investment
So if net profit is $30 and the total invested is $250, the Return on Investment is: 30 / 250 = 0.12 x 100 =12%

6. Identify three external threats and two internal weaknesses that Dell could face.

Threats
* Increasingly popular brand names in the competition.
* Strong relationships that are held between competition and the retailers. * Competition can basically create the same computers since Dell builds computers, not designs them.

Weaknesses
* Dealing with a large amount of supplies from many different countries can cause a large issue when products are recalled. * They build computers, not develop them.

7. What types of information can a business gather from its internal systems about its customers to assist in the planning process?

* Customer general information
* Customer feedbacks

8. List four ways environment scanning can be conducted to look for information.

* Undirected viewing or unfocused scanning
* Conditioned viewing or semi-focused scanning
* Searching informal or formal
* Enacting

9. Describe qualitative and quantitative research and provide three ways research could be conducted.

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH is a method of inquiry employed in many different academic disciplines, traditionally in the social sciences, but also in market research and further contexts. Qualitative researchers aim to gather an in-depth understanding of human behaviour and the reasons that govern such behaviour. The qualitative method investigates the why and how of decision making not just what, where, when. Hence, smaller but focused samples are more often needed than large samples.

In the conventional view, qualitative methods produce information only on the particular cases studied, and any more general conclusions are only propositions (informed assertions). Quantitative methods can then be used to seek empirical support for such research hypotheses.

In other words, Qualitative research is intangible data that is a lot more nuanced as it relates more to people’s emotional responses to products.

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH refers to the systematic empirical investigation of social phenomena via statistical, mathematical or computational techniques. The objective of quantitative research is to develop and employ mathematical models, theories and/or hypotheses pertaining to phenomena. The process of measurement is central to quantitative research because it provides the fundamental connection between empirical observation and mathematical expression of quantitative relationships. A Quantitative data is any data that is in numerical form such as statistics, percentages, etc.

Quantitative research is widely used in social sciences such as: psychology, economics, sociology, and political science, and information technology, and less frequently in anthropology and history. However, research in mathematical sciences such as: physics is also quantitative by definition, though this use of the term differs in context. In the social sciences, the term relates to empirical methods, originating in both philosophical positivism and the history of statistics, which contrast qualitative research methods.

Qualitative methods produce information only on the particular cases studied, and any more general conclusions are only hypotheses. Quantitative methods can be used to verify which of such hypotheses are true.

Ways research could be conducted:

Qualitative| Quantitative|
* Observation * Real-time observation * Trace studies| * Survey research * By mail, email, internet, telephone * Face-to-face, etc.| * In-depth interviews * Individual * Focus groups| * Experimentation * Laboratory experiments * Field experiments * Quasi-experiments| * Projective techniques * Collage * Picture completion * Metaphors and analogies * Psycho-drawing * Personalisation| * Archival studies * Internal archives (company records) * External archives|

10. How could the Australian Bureau of Statistics assist with the research process?

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is Australia’s official statistical organisation. It assists and encourages informed decision-making, research and discussion within governments and the community, by providing a high quality, objective and responsive national statistical service. If the information you need from the ABS website is not possible to find, or require further statistical information you can contact them via the ABS’ National Information and Referral Service (NIRS) which is a phone information and referral service, or Client Services. ABS trained consultants can work with you to satisfy your statistical information needs. The ABS has offices in each State and Territory of Australia.

11. What is a business opportunity? Provide two examples.

A business opportunity is a set of circumstances arising through changes in the environment that the business could take advantage of to achieve its objectives. This type of opportunity is largely outside the control of the business, they are often only around for a short time and need to be taken advantage of while they are available.

Examples
* Franchise Opportunities
* An environmental disaster, like an oil spill, means that an industrial supplies business can supply the material to clean up.

12. What is a business threat? Provide one example.

Threats
* What obstacles do you face?
* What are your competitors doing?
* Are quality standards or specifications for your job, products or services changing? * Is changing technology threatening your position?
* Do you have bad debt or cash-flow problems?
* Could any of your weaknesses seriously threaten your business?

A business threat is a set of circumstances that mean the business may be unable to fulfil its objectives.

Example: the value of the Australian dollar falls sharply meaning that the cost of importing goods from overseas is more expensive.

13. What does the Pareto Principle mean? How could your business use the Pareto Principle to grow market share of a product?

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

Business-management consultant Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed in 1906, that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population; he developed the principle by observing that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas.

It is a common rule of thumb in business; e.g., “80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients”. The Pareto principle is only tangentially related to Pareto efficiency, which was also introduced by the same economist. Pareto developed both concepts in the context of the distribution of income and wealth among the population.

14. True or False?

a) As a result of increased competition, the lifespan of business opportunities in the marketplace is increasing – False

b) The success of a new opportunity is always measured in terms of profit – False

c) It is important that any new product or service is assessed at each stage of the development process and should not proceed to the next stage until it has met the specified requirements – True

d) If a number of new product or service ideas are developed, the ideas should be ranked against criteria to determine the best idea – True

e) A marketing information system is available as a software package – True

15. Describe how Ansoff’s Matrix is used to develop new opportunities with a range of strategies.

Diversification is the name given to the growth strategy where a business markets new products in new markets.

This is an inherently more risk strategy because the business is moving into markets in which it has little or no experience.

For a business to adopt a diversification strategy, therefore, it must have a clear idea about what it expects to gain from the strategy and an honest assessment of the risks. However, for the right balance between risk and reward, a marketing strategy of diversification can be highly rewarding.

16. Break-even Analysis: Calculate the break – even point for ice-cream sales.

Ice cream are bought for $2.00 each and sold for $2.50. The business has fixed costs of $400 per week. How many ice creams must be sold each week and therefore each day to break-even?

Break even point = fixed cost / (selling price – variable cost)

400 / (2.50 – 2.00)
400 / 0.50
800 ice creams per week
114 ice creams per day

References

www.dell.com

www.afrbiz.com.au

WAIFS Student text book – Identify and evaluate marketing opportunities