Managing the marketing process of Jims Cleaning - Essay Example

? Managing Marketing Process This assignment is based on managing the marketing process. Jim’s Cleaningin Australia is used to demonstrate on how a company manages the marketing process. This assignment focuses on the measures taken for measuring business effectiveness; effectiveness can be measured by financial performance, market performance, and managing 7 P’s through 4 C’s. Jim’s Cleaning uses measurement metric approach to make business and marketing strategies. Business and market metrics are used by Jim’s Cleaning to evaluate its performance. Introduction An organisation orientation consists of production, product, selling, and marketing. If these four segments are not available, an organisation does not exist. Therefore, the marketing process is managed by the top marketing professionals. The top marketing professionals manage the marketing process by analyzing the market trends and market structure, absorbing the opportunities from the environment, developing the effective strategies, planning, implementing and controlling the marketing strategies and functions, and finally measuring the business efficacy to evaluate on how well the marketing process is managed by the top marketers. Jim’s Cleaning is the leading organisation that has been used in this assignment for analyzing its business effectiveness, marketing approaches, marketing strategies, and its business and market metric in which it operates. Measuring Business Effectiveness The effectiveness of the business can be measured by evaluating the performance of an organisation. The effectiveness of business is measured in terms of business profitability and business performance increased or decreased due to marketing activities. Marketing mix and customers are the two tools that must be accurately managed by the top marketers for managing and aligning the marketing activities together to achieve productive results. Marketing activities need to be according to the market segment and also according to the lifestyles of the market segment. A marketer must ensure that the goods and services must be available to the customers and a clear message should be communicated to them. Jim’s Cleaning is a well known company in Australia that has a numbers of franchises in various countries. It is regarded as the most profitable company that provides wide range of cleaning services to customers (Jim’s Cleaning Group). Following are some of the significant tools that measure the business effectiveness of Jim’s Cleaning. Managing 7 P’s through 4 C’s for Business Profitability It is commonly known that marketing is a game and there are 7 P’s of marketing; product, price, placement, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence. These 7 P’s are the tools that are needed for playing the game between the buyers and the sellers. Customers need to be catered in terms of all marketing aspects so that they prove to be highly profitable for the business. Buyers and sellers exchange values for satisfaction that results in profitability. Product, price, placement, and promotion are the traditional P’s used for goods, whereas, people, process, and physical evidence are the extensions used for services. If these 7 P’s are properly managed by the marketers through the use of 4 C’s, it means an organisation is working and managing the marketing activities effectively that results in the increased profitability, growth, and market value of an organisation. Customer Solution: Customer solution is related with the first P that is product. The top marketers search for the problem of the customers, identifies the problem, create solutions (goods or services) for the solving the problem, communicate the message to the customers about the goods or services, and finally delivers the value to the customers for satisfying their needs (Armstrong and Kotler, 82). Jim’s Cleaning provides cleaning solutions for homes and offices. It provides wide range of cleaning services; blind cleaning, car cleaning, carpet cleaning, pressure cleaning, window cleaning, and suburb services (Jim’s Cleaning Group). Its services are available in all the states. It provides top class and satisfactory services to the customers. When customers are need are met effectively they tend to use more of the service and this in turn increases the market share along with the profits for the firm. Customer Cost: Customer cost is connected with the price, that whether the customer can pay or not. It depends on the purchasing power and also on the worthiness of the product (Armstrong and Kotler, 82). If the product or service is of high value to the customer and also is of a reasonable price, then the customer will be interested in purchasing the product. Therefore, the cost element is an important element of consideration for all businesses. Jim’s Cleaning uses the advanced and technological equipments for providing valuable cleaning services to the customer with full protection. Jim’s Cleaning care about customer cost, therefore, it gives worthy services at reasonable prices (Jim’s Cleaning Group). Convenience: Convenience is connected with the placement. The product placement is a critical issue as the placement of the product should be noticeable by the customer for customers to avail it. So it is about how conveniently a product is placed and available for the customers in nearer locations. If the product is readily and conveniently available in the market, customers are satisfied. If a product is difficult to get by the customers, customer cost as well as customer solution increases for the business (Armstrong and Kotler, 82). Jim’s Cleaning services are consumable for every customer. For customer’s convenience, franchises of Jim’s Cleaning are opened in areas near to customer’s homes. The employees travel for miles to give services to customers. Customers can acquire services by making just a call to Jim’s cleaning (Jim’s Cleaning Group). Communication: It is related with the promotion that is communicating with the customers for solving their problems, giving them solutions, and marketing the products to inform the customers about the goods and service (Armstrong and Kotler, 82). Jim’s Cleaning has increased its market value by expanding its offerings and communicating them to the customers. Communicating the message to the customer using the right mode of communication is vital for the purpose of attaining successful results for the organisation. Offering is the best marketing strategy of Jim’s Cleaning. Direct sales, advertisements, and Jim’s Cleaning Chat are the common mediums used by Jim’s Cleaning for communication. Jim’s Cleaning Chat is the best communication path that helps Jim’s Cleaning for directly promoting its services. In this chat room, people share their experiences, views, concerns, and feelings experienced by the use of their services (Jim’s Cleaning Group). If all the C’s are properly managed by the marketers, the business can grow and profits can be gained by the organisation through the management of marketing process that holds the customers and their solutions together. Financial Performance (Marketing Profitability) Financial performance of an organisation helps in evaluating the effectiveness of business. Financial performance is directly linked with the marketing process. Financial accountability is an important element for measuring the business performance. It is how much a business has invested and the returns it received (Powell, 6). Invested = Return on Investment (profit/output) Financial accountability is the return on marketing, which is sales revenue generated by the marketing activity/program divided by the total cost of that marketing activity/program. ROM (return on marketing) is a financial metric. An organisation performance is measured on the basis of its financial performance and financial stability. Financial activity is related with the marketing mix activities that involves various marketing activities and gives transitional marketing outcomes by maximizing the profits (Woods, 14). All marketing activities hold returns that generate profit for the organisation. Return on advertising, promotion, distribution, price tactics, and product strategy varies from business to business. Returns on these marketing activities are the significant indicators of an organisational financial performance. Marketing expenditures enthusiastically amplifies the organisational performance. Model of econometric marketing mix is a competitive advantage and factor of profitability for the organisations (Stewart, 637). Jim’s Cleaning is a leading performing organisation. Its strong customer base and customer satisfaction has helped in generating strong revenues and profits for the company that has ultimately intensified its financial flexibility. Cleaning is a basic need of every individual and if this need gets satisfied, people feel relaxed. In Australia, both men and women work that makes difficult for the people to clean their houses. In this situation, Jim’s Cleaning cleans everything from blinds to floor and saves customer time. From the financial highlights of Jim’s Cleaning, it is seen that its franchise earns $57200 to $78000 per month. Weekly revenue is calculated to be $1100. $1100 is the minimum amount that a franchise can earn when work gets started. According to Franchising Opportunity in Australia, Jim’s Cleaning is ranked among top three companies of Australia that offers car wash services. It is the most profitable company that earns healthy returns. In car detailing, Jim’s Cleaning has the strongest position in Australia. Marketing Performance Market performance measures the external performance of an organisation. It focuses on the market value, market share, organisation growth, customer satisfaction, customer retention, etc. If the marketing programs align with the customer satisfaction, market performance of an organisation strengthens. There are several marketing tactics that increases the market performance of an organisation. All organisations should imply the marketing tactics for successful results. Thorough environmental scanning helps organisation in satisfying the customers and retaining them. The satisfied customers become loyal to the company and customer base increases for the organisation. The retaining of customers makes an organisation productive and profitable. The SMART objectives of marketing enhance business performance. If planned strategies and objectives align with each other, a company expands and grows (Neely, Gregory and Platts, 1229). Investment in Social Responsibility is a marketing activity that brings long-term profits. Social Initiatives is a corporate project which is for social welfare. If organisation takes initiatives for social programs, a positive image is created in the customer’s eyes. Corporate Community Involvement is another marketing activity which means organisation involves people of its own community. It strengthens the organisation’s performance (Neely, Gregory and Platts, 1230). Jim’s Cleaning is one of the profitable organisations in Australia. It uses technological cleaning products. It has a great market value in the cleaning industry of Australia. In car washing, it is listed among top three car washers of Australia and in car detailing; it is ranked on number one. It is a small business but still it has a strong presence in Australia, only on the National level. Around 90% of Australians know about Jim’s Cleaning. It has a total of 470 franchises operating in Australia. The business of Jim’s Cleaning is actively growing because of its active response to the customers (Penman, 9). Business and Market Metrics Internal and external metrics are essential for measuring the business performance. Not all the companies measure its stability by judging the performance in both metrics. In marketing metrics three metrics are commonly judged by businesses; market metric, customer metric, and competitiveness metric. In market metric, organisations judge performance based on its growth and share. Market share and market growth helps marketers to know the competitive position of their organisation and how the firm is operating against its competitors. In customer metric, customer satisfaction and customer retention are two sources of performance evaluation. Customer satisfaction indicates the repurchase behavior of customers and if customers are dissatisfied, the marketer can understand the reason and can improve products to meet customer demand. Customer retention indicates the future growth and cash flows. In competitiveness metric, product performance and service quality are the indicators. Product performance shows that how well a product is purchased, repurchased, and recommended to other users. Quality of product and service admired by the customer makes customer’s post-purchase behavior positive and customers tends to buy the product again and again (Farris et al., 16). Jim’s Cleaning measures its performance by using marketing metrics that directly compares its performance with the competitors’ performance. The revenue or profit generated by Jim’s Cleaning per month is $57200 to $78000 and its revenue keeps growing because people do not stop acquiring cleaning services. It has a large market share and market value. Jim’s Cleaning has a higher customer retention rate that generates revenue, increases productivity and finally makes Jim’s Cleaning profitable. Customer satisfaction is directly related to customer retention. However, some customers do not hold positive attitude towards Jim’s Cleaning and considers it as a worst service provider. For this reason, Jim’s Cleaning evaluates the feedback of the customers and then analyze its business performance that whether it has maintained its values or not. The main value of Jim’s Cleaning is to provide reliable and satisfactory services to customers (Penman, 13). Profit metric and cost metric are the two types of business metrics. Cost metric includes the expenses and profit metric includes the return on sales, investment and capital. Jim’s Cleaning holds huge market share and market value. From the cost metric of Jim’s Cleaning, the performance of Jim’s Cleaning is evaluated. Return on Investment in franchise of Jim’s Cleaning is healthy and good enough for newly opened franchise which earns at least $1100 in a week. The little a person invests, the more he gets. It is ranked among top five companies of Australia that offers less cost of franchising (Jim’s Cleaning Group). Measurement Metric used by Jim’s Cleaning: Jim’s Cleaning uses measurement metric to drive strategies of business and marketing. The company must make active decision to meet the customer’s needs and satisfy them. Company uses measurement metric tool for making investing decisions and formulating business strategies as well as marketing strategies. The marketing and corporate strategies are formed by measuring the outcomes, identifying the weaknesses and threats, scanning the environment for latest needs, and finally coming up with unique solutions in the market. Jim’s Cleaning spent hours in thinking about its weaknesses and rethink its business model for upgrading and improving its services. Jim’s Cleaning believes in accurate, timely, and relevant information. Strategies made by assumption results in failure and business revenues deteriorate. Jim’s Cleaning is into numbers of businesses. In service industry, market trends change abruptly, therefore, it can be said that Jim’s Cleaning make strategies by inspecting its effectiveness by the use of “Breakthrough Framework”. This framework enables Jim’s Cleaning to know that whether it needs to do repositioning (make new product), breakthrough (change the industry), aligning the operations, or a company is high-performance organisation. Finally, Jim’s Cleaning brings incremental, transformational, or substantial change to drive new strategies (Penman, 87). Breakthrough Framework used by Jim’s Cleaning EXTERNAL INDUSRTY COMPANY Trends of market and competition Product focus and market focus of company INTERNAL Best business practices in an alike industry Structure, process, and culture of company Conclusion This assignment is based on how Jim’s Cleaning manages its marketing process. To measure the business effectiveness, financial performance, market performance, and managing marketing mix are the important tools used by Jim’s Cleaning. Jim’s Cleaning satisfies the needs of customers by providing them with a long range of cleaning solutions. Performance metrics are used by Jim’s Cleaning to evaluate performance and then make business and marketing strategies on the basis of those metrics. Jim’s Cleaning uses breakthrough framework for driving strategies. Works Cited Armstrong, Gary and Kotler, Phillip. Marketing: An Introduction. India: Pearson Education. 2005. Print. Farris, Paul W., Bendle, Neil T., Pfeifer, Phillip E., and Reibstein, David J. Marketing Metrics: 50+ Metrics every Executive should Master. India: Pearson Education, 2006. Franchising Opportunity in Australia. “Automotive Franchise”. 2011. Web. 17th March 2012. Jim’s Cleaning Group. “Jim’s Cleaning for Home and Office”. 2011. Web. 17th March 2012. Neely, Andy and Ken Platts. “Performance measurement system design: A literature review and research agenda”. International Journal of Operations and Production Management. 25 (2005): 1228-1263. Print. Penman, Jim. What they will Franchise Next: The Story of Jim’s Group. Australia: Jims Group. 2003. Print. Powell, Guy R. Return on marketing investment. Albuquerque, NM: RPI Press. 2002. Print Stewart, David. “Marketing accountability: Linking marketing actions to financial results”. Journal of Business Research. 62 (2009): 636-643. Print. Woods, JA. “Communication ROI”. CommunWorld. (2004): 21-14. Print. Read More