Guinness: Modern Approach to Future Success in the Market - Case Study Example

Guinness: Modern Approach to Future Success in the Market 1. Introduction At some point, the best way to understand and recognise the success of Guinness is tracing its history because through it, there can be many ideas that can be used to exactly tell its whole story. The Guinness without question is very successful for over 20 years. Just like any other companies that are also successful at present time, Guinness has also many things to say about its success. In fact, just like any other companies which are also successful, Guinness surely has important formula on how it was able to obtain its status today. It gained so much popularity that studying it more closely would make sense as part of discovering other important factors that have contributed to business success of a firm. Guinness is definitely one of the companies with a strong market reputation and was meant to survive before and until today. Guinness remarkably from the start was able to clearly follow the path of consistency. It was remarkable that it started everything with a good marketing strategy and a management system that were passed on from generation to generation. Guinness started with Arthur Guinness and now his bloodline is responsible for continuing the company to be known worldwide. It is no doubt that marketing as its core business management is the most important thing that could be of great interest with the success Guinness gained for many years. Effective marketing strategies may vary from one company to another. There are many factors that need to be considered in identifying which among the marketing strategies best suited the concerned company. Factors such as people, procedure, and budget played its respective roles in developing an appropriate marketing tool to be utilized. It is of interest now on how certain brands of Guinness can gain certain market share in the future considering a tough competition at present. It is of interest whether there is still a great chance for the new entrants which are willing to take the plunge into competition. Considering that a certain brands and products need to ensure production with quality and a sound management on sales, it is of interest on how can then the new entrants as well as existing company ensure their survival in a very challenging competition. It is also of great concern that to start penetrating the market, the new entrants need to ensure modern high quality of products. It is then the objective of this paper to answer the main research question. What are the things that need to be done by Guinness in order to continue its success in the future? Answering this question will require the proponent to answer further the following questions? 1. Do the brands of Guinness speak of their quality? 2. What are the brands and desirable qualities of Guinness that customers are looking forward to? 3. What are the necessary things to be done for effective market penetration of the brands of Guinness? The above are all research questions this study is aiming to answer. In doing so, the proponent will take much effort in understanding the four marketing mix such as products, price, promotion and place to understand the process of survival that every entrant and key players in the competition must go through. This study will take sufficient amount of literature review of the four marketing mix and other related topics to present a benchmark on how Guinness can successfully penetrate the highly competitive arena of international market. 2. Literature Review This chapter contains information about marketing, market entry strategies and branding as major related ideas prior to continuing the success of Guinness in the future. Marketing Marketing is one of the most important activities in a business because it has a direct effect on profitability and sales. Most businesses have dedicated personnel handling this aspect of the company. It is important to make the management realize the important role of marketing as it is significantly connected with the other major departments of the company such as operations and finance. According to Bowman (2007), marketing encompasses all the activities that seek to identify what consumers want; and how to promote, deliver those goods and services. It is more than what many people know about marketing. Some businesses take this aspect as a tertiary priority which is a common mistake of companies. This view gives the company a higher probability to actually fall in the league of the failed businesses. Planning of marketing strategy for a company may not be as easy as it seems. Management usually assigns a creative and dedicated staff to do marketing research for the company to have solid grounds (marketing information) as basis of its business decisions. Marketing research is defined to be a systematic and objective search and analysis of information relevant to the identification and solution of any problem in the field of marketing. Marketing is about people (marketers and customers) and the ways marketers try to create a perfect fit between themselves and to the customers according to Solomon (1997). One of the marketing strategies is attending a consumer meeting/forum discussing on their needs and preferences related to the product to come up with creative ideas for promotions that will speak on product. According to Solomon (1985), marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives. While Dalrymple and Parsons (1986) described it as management philosophy that seeks to determine and satisfy customer needs using integrated marketing programs to achieve organizational goals. The idea of focusing more on serving customer needs would gain widespread acceptance of the product. The concept has been used successfully to reorient production personnel and to revitalize marketing programs in thousand of firms. The three (3) important dimensions of the marketing concept that must be understood are customer orientation, integrated company effort and goal-directed behavior. Kotler (1984) described marketing as a customer centered approach. That it plays an important role in launching a renewed era of economic activity and rising living standard. It is defined as the creation and delivery of a standard of living Marketing decisions generally fall into the following four controllable categories namely: product, price, place (distribution), and promotion. In the recent years, Borden’s marketing mix (marketing practices) included product planning, pricing, branding, distribution channels, personal selling, advertising, promotions, packaging, display, servicing, physical handling, and fact finding and analysis. E. Jerome McCarthy later grouped these ingredients into the four categories that today are known as the 4 P's of marketing. According to Solomon and Stuart (1997), marketing has the power to create value and that all aspects of marketing (4 P’s) are vital to the long-term success of a product. With this generalization, the 4 P's, also known as Marketing Mix, are considered to be the controllable parameters subject to the internal and external constraints of the marketing environment. Many companies focus on these parameters to make sound decisions. According to Simbajon (2007), the underlying goal of all marketing strategies is to create a sustainable competitive advantage for the enterprise. It is therefore important to enhance and develop the strong points of the current marketing strategies of the company. Market Entry Strategies Kalyanaram and Gurumurthy (1998) discussed about basic strategic planning in line with the market entry strategies of pioneers versus new entrants. The following are the basic competitive strategies they discussed that can greatly help successful market product penetration. They explained that to penetrate an existing market, reduction of price is recommended. According to them, this can attract new potential customer. This can trigger customer to switch and try a new product they have not tried before. Another point includes improving products or service with focus on a niche market. In this part, Kalyanaram and Gurumurthy (1998) discussed about innovation. According to them, innovation can help the new products compete with the existing ones. The third point they clearly emphasized is about targeting new geographic markets for existing products. From the discussion of Kalyanaram and Gurumurthy (1998), it is clear that they are suggesting for market expansion by trying to widen the scoop or coverage of a certain product through its distribution to a large area. In this case, the distribution of a product in a wide setting makes sense for a successful market penetration. The last basic point they pointed out involves developing new channels of distribution to access new markets or better penetrate existing one. However, they added that sometimes it is too risky to penetrate an existing market where there is less understanding of the environment. According to them, sometimes it is enough to stay developing the existing market where there is much more understanding of the environment. According to Houska (1992), there is a difference between large scale company and small scale company when it comes to marketing strategies. Apparently, the clear delineation of the two is the budget for marketing activities and expenditures. The large scale company could afford hiring high caliber professionals and consultants to do marketing research unlike small scale company which is not feasible to hire such because of its financial constraints. There was a study conducted by researchers in Tennessee Technical University recently about small scale industrial products company for various industries as cited by Houska (1992). It says that the most of the firms used only a limited number of marketing techniques and were either unaware of or ignored other low cost marketing opportunities. It was also observed that small scale companies utilize common marketing strategies which are low-cost. In this study the respondents believed that the potential marketing strategies and methods available to them were limited by company size and financial resources. It implies that marketing expenditures is not a priority rather than manufacturing expenditures. Branding The market is inundated with different brands. In effect to this, the customers are influenced by the brand’s portrayed image. Perhaps, branding or creating brand image is still the most powerful tool that a certain item in the market can nail on to come up with an impressive market share. Branding reduces the marketer’s selling time and effort for it makes shopping easier (McCarthy and Perreault 1998). However, the problem lies on how to obtain such objective. In the case of footwear Industry, it is driven by multinationals which have made their way to success in only a few years and this can be measured by the level of customer awareness on their product brands. A good market share is gained or earned and not given without doing the right thing. In today’s age of highly competitive world, each brand is raising to be a cut above the other. Some powerful weapons that can help the brand sustain the tough competition include product design, quality, product performance, price, brand image, promotion, marketing and customer service (Global Industry Analysts Inc., 2007). 3. Methodology In this chapter, the researcher presents the method to be used, sources of data, data gathering instruments, sampling technique, procedure of the study and statistical treatment. This research will undertake a comprehensive Literature Review to examine the factors that are required for successful penetration of Guinness and its brands in the future. On the completion of this review, hypotheses will be drawn up that will be validated through a primary research. Such a research will be necessarily objective and will be conducted through series of case analyses. Research Philosophy The validity of information and results of this study will be what the proponent is trying to develop during and at the end of the study. Method to be used The researcher will make use of the descriptive method as a technique to collect information or data. The descriptive method will utilize the numerical data to be gathered from the results of a survey and controlled data to achieve levels of reliability. The case analyses will allow the collection of data from large number of existing and available cases and will make it possible to compare results by providing structured results through formulated appropriate questions which were qualified in accord with the level of information desired. Why Case Analyses? Case analysis is so far one of the best ways to gather information on a specific subject matter. In line with this, various available related literatures will be reviewed as the basis of formulating some questions. After this, the questions will be formulated and approved by the instructor, and then the actual case analyses will be initiated. Sources of Data There will be at least 10 cases needed in this study and those are in line with the industry Guinness belongs. These cases may come from existing studies or other related studies from journals and available related literature. Primary and Secondary The primary data that will be used in this research comes from the cases which will be given effort to relate them to existing ideas and strategies presented by various academic sources. In this case, the secondary data are those coming from various academic sources as well. Qualitative and Quantitative Data The quantitative data are those coming from the actual figures that will be mentioned from the cases and these can be given more emphasis through various ideas and concepts coming from various academic sources. The qualitative data are those coming from various academic sources. Data Gathering Instrument The data will be collected from the library, internet, journals, magazines and other related areas where there are available and related information that can be readily used in the analyses. Reliability of the Methodology All of the primary and most important information that will be gathered from this study will depend on the data available and will be gathered from the sources. Any misunderstanding or misinterpretation on the part of the proponent in the analyses is considered a limitation of this study. References Bowman, J. (2007). The fundamental role of marketing in business. Retrieved September 17, 2009. From http://ezinearticles.com/. Dalrymple, D. J. & Parsons, L. J. (1986). Marketing management (4th ed.). USA: Prentice Hall. Global Industry Analysts Inc. (2007) ‘Global Footwear Market to Exceed $192 Billion by 2010’. [Online] Available at: http://www.andhranews.net/intl/2007/July/12/em-Global-Footwear-Market.asp (Accessed: 26 October 2009). Houska, C.M. (1992). Effective marketing techniques for small industrial Kalyanaram, G. and Gurumurthy (1998) ‘Market Entry Strategies: Pioneers Versus Late Arrivals’. [Online] http://www.wright.edu/~tdung/entry.pdf (Accessed: 1 November 2009). Kotler, P. (1984). Marketing management (5th ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall. McCarthy, E. J. and Perrault, W. D. Jr. (1998). Basic Marketing. 9th edition. New York: JMC Press Inc. Solomon, M. R. (1997). Marketing (int’l ed.). New York: Mc Graw-Hill. Solomon, M.R. & Stuart, E.W. (1997). Marketing: real people, real choices (int’l Read More