CMTR - Promoting One of the Biggest Recruitment and Training Companies in the UK - Case Study Example

BRANDING OCEAN Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 Business Situation 4 Market Analysis and Market Position 6 SWOT Analysis of OCEAN 7 Target Audience of OCEAN 9 PR Objectives 10 Strategies Adopted Under Public Relation 10 Proposal Plan of OCEAN 11 Plan and Campaigns 12 Measurement and Evaluation 13 Budget 14 Conclusion 16 References 18 Executive Summary Conglomerated Management Training & Recruitment Group (CMTR) has asked for rebranding of CMTR as “OCEAN”. CMTR is till now working as a company with eleven different identities. In 2003, the BOD has decided to reform it into a single company so that the customers can understand the concept of the company more easily and clearly. There are many areas of development that is appreciable about the company but some areas lack focus and those need to be analyzed. The new brand OCEAN has to be rebranded in mind of all audience of CMTR in such a way that it does not lose its goodwill and also be able to achieve leadership and long term relationship with all existing and new clients. Branding is a concept that gives recognization to any name and business grow only when name spreads and when people are able to recognize the name at the time of purchase. OCEAN is a brand that is new for many and known with another name to many others. OCEAN needs rebranding for its sale in market. For this purpose, CMTR has taken help of public relation to build its new image in the minds of the target audience. Introduction CMTR started its journey in January, 1993 with a mission of exploiting all significant opportunities presented by combination of skills, demographic trends, every day changing environment of work and work culture, information technology’s impact on market and industries and most importantly the companies increasing demand for more professional workforce for maintaining and increasing their competiveness in industry and market so that they can develop faster and with due efficiency. CMTR has 250 branches all over the United Kingdom and many European cities like Dublin, Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris and Geneva with a workforce of 3500 people. 200 of its offices are owned by themselves and other 50 are franchises. It is a publicly quoted company in London Stock Exchange that started with capitalization of £ 1 m. At the time of first IPO of CMTR in LSE, its share price value was 70p per share. Products offered by CMTR are consultancy, recruitment and training and it is also in a business of facilitating multimedia training products. It has world largest mobile training centre and recruit specially IT professionals from all around the world counting 1000 permanent and temporary contract staffs weekly for its clients. Its client range consists of 75 FTSE 100 companies. Majority of its clients are medium sized firm covering industries and various commercial segments. Looking at growth history of CMTR, it is known as most profitable, biggest and a very fast growing company in this sector. Its market capitalization has increased from £ 1 m to £ 724.3m and share price from 70p to 510p in a decade and its turnover increased from £ 500m to £ 820m in the last year. Business Situation CMTR has a vision of achieving fast growth in coming three years. It is one of the most profitable companies in this industry having 75 FTSE 100 companies in its client range. Till December 1996, it has acquired16 companies costing around capital investment of £ 259 m. Generation of revenue for this company is through contracts and commissions that they receive for providing recruitment, training and consultancy services and also form the sale of multimedia training products. Generation of revenue can be distributed sector wise and regional wise. Form total revenue generated in sector wise distribution, 28% comes are from financial and banking sector, 24% from retail, 17% from engineering and utilities sector, 11% form public sector, 10% from manufacturing, 5% form transportation and remaining 5% from other sectors. In regional wise distribution 10% comes from Scotland, 15% from North England, 20% from Midland, 35% from South England and rest 20% from Europe. CMTR is has proved to be a promising company for investment with its growth rate and past fruitful history and its broad range presence. But despite of remarkable growth and big clients its presence is largely unknown in recruitment and training, those sectors it works in. In the board of Directors meeting this problem was been discussed and they came out with a conclusion. The conclusion was that the problem “Lack of branding” is a result of not having a single brand name. As CMTR is working under 11 different names it’s obviously difficult for any client to recognize the whole organization with all names. So the solution came out in year 2003 was to rebrand the brand CMTR by a new name called “OCEAN”. This will also, to some extent help CMTR in building leadership in this industry. In any organization what plays a major role is workforce working for it. If workforce is satisfied, organization will run. CMTR is growing very fast and is very successful in terms of networking with big clients, acquisition, and increasing its profit level but in all this they ignored human resource satisfaction. Now they are also facing problem of lack of shared identity among staff members. In run towards growth they mismanaged issue related to assigning of role, authority level, appraisal and reward programs, and many related issues that can motivate people to work more hard. CMTR is now surrounded with two major issues, one is rebranding new name and gaining leadership and other is that human resource. Market Analysis and Market Position In recruitment and training service sector, global market is still controlled by 4-5 leading players. Till now only 30% of this market is been captured in comparison to the overall global market. This shown that there is a large market to be covered; and this is also supported by market situation which is highly fragmented in nature. Opportunity for growth is high in this sector in both domestic and international divisions (Koncept Analytics, 2008). According to research done by BMG in 2006, there are 10,426 recruitment firms in UK. The network is spread with 15, 970 recruitment sites. 72% of the firms’ are 10 or less than 10 years old, many with only one site and small workforce. In London more agencies are focused in providing registered workers, in Midland focus is more on recruitment of drivers and blue collar staff, in North number of agencies are less and in south requirement of IT professionals is more compared to other areas (The Recruitment and Employment Confederation, 2006). CMTR holds good position within its market area because it has a huge workforce, fully diversified, covering all major areas for capturing customers and a huge and strong client base. This is been proved by its fast growth rate and huge turnover ratio. SWOT Analysis of OCEAN Strengths The OCEAN brand name is supported by brand CMTR which is publicly listed in LSE with high growth rate, huge turnover growth, huge target market to cover as IT market is developing and has a great growing future, branches all over UK and some major places in Europe which make its work easy of capturing the maximum market, a long successful history, broad client range consisting of 75 fortune 100 companies, small competitors within UK and less in world, world biggest training institute, and most importantly a very efficient workforce. Weaknesses Weakness of OCEAN is that it is a new brand, despite of its all strengths is largely unknown in both recruitment and training sector of CMTR, facing with HR issues like lacking shared identity among staff members, lack of planning and execution of plans related to branding, full focus on profit, no evident PR process for publicity in history are few of the weaknesses. Opportunities Large uncovered market of almost 70% worldwide, few major competitors globally and not so strong competitors within UK and Europe, one single name will make customers know the brand easily and precisely. Huge and continuous growth and listing in LSE gives bigger opportunity for more goodwill that leads to good branding. Threats Threats of new entrants in the market, increased competition, global HR outsourcing, non acceptance of new brand name by customers and clients that may lead lack of preference from client and customer and also reduction in the number of clients, employee disturbances leading towards inefficient workforce are few of the major threats for the industry where OCEAN operates. Target Audience of OCEAN Target audience for OCEAN is primarily global because the demand of well trained IT professionals is increasing every day. After dotcom boom information technology has become a major department in every industry and will always be the priority because this helps them to sustain in this competitive market. OCEAN business will always be in demand due to increasing unemployment and IT needs and since it will soon start trading in LSE after 5 months so its target audience can be segmented based upon Stock Markets: All individuals who are trading in LSE, e.g. corporate, institutions, individuals and especially those who are frequently investing in recruitment and training sector. Sector: In all sector industries, information technology is implemented and IT professionals are always in demand. Individuals: All professionals who had IT related degrees and who are interested in IT jobs. PR Objectives PR objectives comprise of a purpose to create positive public image of an organization. It is done so that the public can understand both organization and its services properly. Planning in PR totally depends upon the target audience and the stakeholder group to be appealed. Activities in PR include, choosing the type of media that will have maximum effect on the target audience and message that will be most appealing to the audience. One of the objectives of PR is also to do every activity within budget assigned to them by the organization (McNamara, n.d.). Strategies Adopted Under Public Relation Prior to the planning of PR activities, it is all the more important to know the objectives of an organization and also their needs both said as well as unsaid. Here, OCEAN’s key considerations are to rebranding of the new name of the company in such a way that it can hide the entire pit falls of CMTR. It can reach the audience in broad range in a way that it can maintain its past goodwill with present and future leadership and can nullify the issues related to human resource within the organization. Primarily CMTR wants with its new name to be recognized in the market among audience, its clients and customers as a big brand so that they can gain leadership which they deserve. This will help them to attract more customers and more rapid growth. It also wants to satisfy its internal customers. Among the strategies adopted by PR personals, at the outset a proposal plan is prepared. This is done for planning strategies for the purpose of meeting all the objectives of an organization and identifying key audience. The preparation of plans and evaluation is conducted within the budget. Proposal Plan of OCEAN The key audience of OCEAN is segregated base on purposes like that for trading purpose and business purpose. There are three kinds of audience - traders, big organizations and job seekers. For each type of audience way of publicity will be different in some place. Plan for Traders - Publicity among traders can be done by giving free presentation or counseling on techniques of profitable investment. In this type, give an open invitation for all traders and also special invitation for all major investors and current investors. Publish advertisement on company website about new brand name. Advertisement should be published on news papers and magazines only on those which is most prepared by traders about the company’s historical growth, its future plans and renaming strategies. Run a show about the best business news channel about trading and in every break announces about the company positive factors, this will help in increasing branding in all audience groups. Plan for big industries or existing and future clients - Existing clients can always be retained if the delightful service can be provide to them but always certain value s added to it. For acquiring new clients, one can take help of existing clients. Collect a feedback from existing clients and send summery of analyses to all prospective clients. Publish your advertisement on some major prospective client website. For new acquisition TV shows, news paper and website advertisement will run or you can send proposals also to them. Plan for job seekers - Participate in big campaign where maximum number of job seekers assembles through banners and visual advertisement. This participation can be in campus fest or in any educational shows Plan and Campaigns All the objectives of OCEAN can be achieved by branding OCEAN in mind of every prospective individual. Brands always move on, they are never stable in human mind. Its position changes with change of perception of that individual towards that brand. For branding what is needed is the change in perception. PR plans for changing perception of OCEAN audience and making it a number one brand in their mind carries first TV advertisement and OCEAN hosting a TV show for trading best business news channel, article on OCEAN about its history and future plan on news papers and articles, collection of feedback from existing clients analyzing it and taking measures for improvement and sending those feedback and plans summary to all prospective and existing clients, participation on campaigns like on campus where maximum young crowd gather, tie up with big IT institutes and substitute organizations also advertising in websites, newspapers and magazines. One more step can be taken by sending case studies to all major institutes for coming out with many solutions and feedback, this will solve dual purpose give valuable feedbacks and solutions and recognization about the company among students, and every member associated with the institution and with those people associated with that institution. At the time of launch television and news paper advertisement about change of name, it is very essential that the advertisement should also contain the IPO price and terms and conditions and the period of application. All this information could be published earlier also but at time of launch it is very essential to do. Measurement and Evaluation There are many methods that can be used in measurement and evaluation process of all PR activities. For measurement and evaluation purpose, the activities should be in a measurable value. Tools and system adopted for monitoring and measurement of process and its result includes management of objectives (MOB), Benchmarking, Total Quality Management (TQM), Quality Assurance (QA), World’s Best Practice, Key Performance Indicator (KPI), Customer Satisfaction rating, Balance Score card, and Quality Accreditation (ISO 9000) (Jim. R, n.d.) Traditional metrics can be used for determining importance of any public relations campaign at the initial stage. These metrics are used to evaluate benefits in a long term prospect and not only as a response for short term goals. This metrics require professionals thinking and strategy. This helps in measuring success of the whole program (Oates & David, 2006). Budget Budget are prepared by the PR company for overall proposal implementation but it is not final; it can get changed because of many reasons. Those reasons may be financial budget estimated by the organization, changing demands of PR activities and the changing rates of all substitutes and components. Budget for OCEAN estimated by PR group will be OCEAN Budget for PR activities Name of Activities Estimated Cost Variation in cost   (£ .000 m) -5% 5% TV show 3 2.85 3.15 Advertisement on 0 0 Television 1 0.95 1.05 News paper 0.5 0.475 0.525 Magazines 0.5 0.475 0.525 Websites 1 0.95 1.05 Investment on campaigns 0.05 0.0475 0.0525 Tie up cost 0.08 0.076 0.084         Total Estimated Cost 6.13 5.8235 6.4365 All this measures are taken for publicity of OCEAN but it has one more issue to be solved and that is “Lack of shared identity in staff members”. This issue will get resolved to some extent if company get recognization in market but it also requires some major steps to be taken. For this issue PR professional comes out with an idea of providing training programs to all employees, especially to that of HR department on how to handle human resource. Rules and proposals for the appraisal and reward system and methods for maintaining transparency are prepared. They also segregate work according to human skills and capabilities and prepare a full memorandum about authority and all rules and facilities provided for the employees. For this they take help form a reputed HR consultancy firm and feedback from employee regarding their want and then they prepare plans to take action in the issue. Also certain rewards are awarded to them with new responsibilities and position to those, whom CMTR think have really worked hard. Conclusion CMTR is a public company listed in LSE. It is renaming itself as OCEAN and it will start trading under new name OCEAN after 5 months. CMTR is one of the biggest recruitment and training organization in UK and some part of Europe with total work force of 3500. It is rebranding by new name and has taken support from professional PR professionals. PR professionals have advised them too many techniques like hosting television show in business news channel, advertisements in TV, newspapers, magazines and tie up with institutions and more. PR professionals come out with all this solutions by detailed analysis of its problem and target audience. Beside this they also solve the problem of issues that CMTR is facing in the department of human resource. References Jim, R. No Date. Research in Public Relations. PDFCAST.org. [Online] Available at: http://pdfcast.org/pdf/research-in-public-relations [Accessed June 17, 2010]. Koncept analytics. 2008. Global Recruitment Market: Highly Fragmented Market Creates Opportunities. Research and Market. [Online] Available at: http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/591023/global_recruitment_market_highly_fragmented [Accessed June 17, 2010]. McNamara, C. No Date. Public and Media Relation. Free management Library. [Online] Available at: http://managementhelp.org/pblc_rel/pblc_rel.htm [Accessed June 17, 2010]. Oates & David. 2006. Measuring the value of Public Relation: Trying effort to Business goals. PR Tactics and the Strategies. [Online] Available at: http://www.prsa.org/intelligence/businesscase/measurementresources/measuringvalueofpublicrelations [Accessed June 17, 2010]. The Recruitment and Employment Confederation. 2006. Recruitment Industry ‘Census’ 2006. Recruitment Industry. [Online] Available at: http://www.rec.uk.com/about-recruitment/research/bookshop/2006agencycensus [Accessed June 17, 2010]. Read More