The Marketing Challenge Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Marketing Challenge - Assignment Example Carrying out marketing planning and operations strategies assist the marketing managers of GM to be innovative, challenge, authenticate their decisions and benchmark their organization so as to create operational marketing activities and compete effectively with other competitors in the market. Strategic marketing operations equip the marketing managers with operational intelligence that assist in making tactical and strategic decisions. The report comprises of marketing audit, marketing planning and marketing mix that should be adopted by any marketing executive. Contents Executive summary 2 Marketing Audit 5 Marketing plan 7 P.E.S.TE.L ANALYSIS 11 Marketing mix- The 4Ps 11 Business lifecycle 13 B.C.G Matrix 13 Conclusion 13 Reference list 15 Introduction The increase in gas and oil prices, continuous decline of mortgage/housing/credit sectors and the reduced consumer confidence for the last few years have greatly reduced the volume of sales of the automobile industry. This has left the strategic planners of several leading companies in dilemma on how to increase the sales and win the customer confidence. In today’s complex marketing environment, true strategic marketing managers should be equipped with expertise to capture critical messages that are sent by very essential yet mostly non-controllable external factors in the market and continuously using information as a way of changing the essential controllable internal factors of the business to effectively and strategically position the company towards achieving its objective (Solis, 2012). Furthermore, identifying external threats and opportunities by firms could put managers in a position of controlling these factors. Careful analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats will enable managers to position their organization for future success. In order to meet the change in market, shift in liestyles, shift in customer loyalty of GM, I recommend the following strategies to be implement ed by the newly appointed manager in the GM company. Identify what competitive position GM MOTORSÂ   Before doing anything as a newly appointed marketing manager, he should identify what kind of competitive advantages that the company has. For instance how competitive is the company as compared to other competitors in the same market? Is it a market leader or price setter? The manager has to come up with competitive strategies to outdo other companies like Toyota which have designed gas electric vehicle. Marketing Audit This is the process of analyzing and evaluating marketing activities, approach, aims and results of a firm. The process help GM marketing manager to determine new neglected or unknown markets focus their right messages to intended customers and to refine their plans and strategies to assist in increasing market share. In order to carryout effective market audit, the following processes should be adopted by the manager. 1. Assemble of the overall overview of GM compa ny The newly appointed manager has to understand the overall overview of the company may include the location of the company, sales history, date of establishment, key personnel, number of employees, and company’s chronology of events like divestitures, mergers and acquisitions. He should also know the history of the company since its inception 2. Describe the marketing goals and objectives