8 Corporate Strategy and Marketing Plan

1. 8Corporate Strategy and Marketing Plan

2. Corporate strategy • The corporate strategy of an organization reflects its objectives and goals and produces the principal policies and plans for achieving those goals. The corporate strategy normally defines the nature of the business the organization is to pursue which in turn has a great bearing on the kind of economic and human organization it needs to possess. Goals and objectives are usually set within a time framework.

3. The strategy entails matching the company’s activities to its resource capability. There is little point in trying to take advantage of some new opportunity if the resources needed are not available or cannot be made available. An organization must formulate strategy within the boundaries of the resources that are likely to be made available. This is a fundamental consideration that must be addressed when formulating the corporate strategy. • The strategy is also to do with the matching of the activities of a company to the environment in which it operates. Since the environment is continually changing, strategic decisions necessarily involve coping with change. The extent and speed of environmental change will vary and the pace at which strategy must change will necessarily vary too.

4. The Corporate plan • The corporate plan is the plan for the company as a whole. It defines the business in which the company/ organisation in the health or social care operates, indicates financial objectives that have to be accomplished, specifies how revenues are to be generated through various marketing programmes and assesses the various costs that will be incurred in achieving these objectives • The corporate plan answers the questions: • Where are we now? • Where do we want to go? • How do we organize resources to get there?

5. Hierarchy Of Planning Objectives • Auditing—where are we now? • Objectives—where do we want to be? • Strategy—which way is best? • Tactics—how do we get there? • Implementation—getting there • Control—ensuring arrival

6. The Marketing Plan • The composition of the overall marketing plan is such that it is built up from separate sub-plans. Sub-plans comprise: • A product mix plan - This indicates product deletions, product modifications and product additions, when they are to occur, and the volume, turnover and profit objectives, broken down by product groups and even product items. Products may be grouped together and each grouping should have its own set of objectives. • A sales plan - The sales plan specify desired servicing levels for existing accounts together with targets relating to the obtaining of new accounts. Targets are broken down by area and by the individual representative.

7. The Marketing Plan • An advertising plan - Where advertising is deemed important there should be an advertising plan. This plan should specify the timing, nature and amount of advertising to use by media. It should also include information appertaining to communications objectives, such as increasing the level of interest in a brand or achieving penetration of new users for each main brand • The sales promotion plan - This is assembled in a similar fashion to the advertising plan.

8. The marketing planning process: While writing the Marketing Strategy, you should consider • Specify the target market. • Indicate how the product is to be positioned in the minds of the customers. • Indicate how the product line is to be changed by the addition/deletion of product offerings. • Indicate the pricing strategy or strategies to be adopted. • Indicate how effort is to be expended to improve or change levels of distribution. • Show how the sales force is to motivated, compensated or altered in strength in order to sustain the new selling effort.

9. The marketing planning process: While writing the Marketing Strategy, you should consider • Show how service levels are to be maintained, improved or curtailed in order to facilitate the achievement of the plan’s objectives, • Indicate the nature of the advertising campaign that is going to help achieve the increase in the level of consumer awareness, etc. that will eventually lead to increased market share achievement. • Indicate how the sales promotion is to be changed in order to stimulate consumer purchases at the point of sale. • Indicate how the R&D budget is to be altered to enable the market share to be sustained in the long term through the introduction of new products and new models. • Indicate what is to be spent on marketing research to improve knowledge of consumer wants and needs and to monitor competitor moves.

10. How can you design a social marketing strategy for health / care awareness? • Social marketing is a systematic way of understanding the potentially complex nature of health behaviours and influences on them as well as in practical terms providing intelligent and targeted approaches (Hastings and McDermott, 2006) • Use All Marketing Mix while designing strategy.