Marketing Audit for Tedmond Fibre Glass

Tedmond Fibre Glass

Marketing is very important for any company which has the intention of surviving in a highly competitive environment. The success of a business like Tedmond Fibre Glass which operates with marketing and profit maximization goals is mainly dependent on the good establishment and management of the companys products (Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel). The analysis of the internal and external environment of the firm enables to determine its core competences and allows it to come up with the strategies to make possible the attainment of the profit maximization objective. This paper discusses the external and internal market analysis of Tedmond Fibre Glass, the target market, its relationship channels and promotional strategies.

External and Internal Environment

Company History

Tedmond Fibre Glass is a water tank company located in South Sumatra, Indonesia. The firm was founded in 1983 and has greatly evolved since its founding. Tedmond as it is commonly known among consumers as a prestigious brand which can be used in the development of new items that the company can be interested in manufacturing and selling. The corporation has a very famous brand as a majority of the customers always refer to the brand name instead of the actual product name because the water tanks are commonly known by the brand name. This makes Tedmond to be a famous brand which can help in the labeling of other goods manufactured by the firm which can make it easier for the clients to associate the product with the brand name.

The company has also come up with some other brand extensions like Lion, Duo Angso and Panther so as to manage the competition that the business is facing in the market. These subsidiaries have a much lower pricing but are of a lower quality than the original brand but when compared to other close competing firms, the products of these brands are way much better.

Markets, Products and Customers for the Company

Water is a scarce commodity and it needs to be stored. This calls for the production of water tanks to be used in areas where there is the likelihood of experiencing droughts, because people have to store the water before it becomes scarce. The market for water tanks is very attractive because the access to clean drinking water in most regions is very poor. The manufacturing of water tanks makes clean water available for people as they can store water in clean and rust free water tanks.

The main product of the company is the water tank. The firm makes its goods of fiberglass, stainless steel and polythene. There are also other products made of fiberglass like delivery boxes, tables, chairs, trashcans, bathtubs, slides and septic tanks. The customers of the company include households, offices, constructing firms, and other institutions like schools, hotels and hospitals that use water tanks to store water.

Environmental Trends

Opportunities

• Expansion into the Online Platform

Tedmond has the opportunity to expand into the social platform and the Internet. With the advancement in technology, it is very easy to reach the customers through the Internet (Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel). This opportunity can enable Tedmond to have an access to a broader market segment for water tanks. The positive action that the company can take is to partner with websites like eBay and numerous social media platforms to advertise and sell its products and also increase the customer awareness.

• Expansion into Construction

The company has a very good opportunity of expansion into the construction business. Due to the fact that there is a rise in the construction industry, the contractors often need the water tanks which can be a very good advantage to the firm as there would be an increased demand in its products. This can cover the seasonal fluctuations when there are droughts and people do not have any water to store which can make them not to require the water tanks.

• Low-Cost Production

Tedmond has an opportunity to be a low-cost manufacturer of water tanks and other products. This is because the company has very low production costs at its disposal which can enable it to increase its sales and profit margins (Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel). The positive action that Tedmond can undertake is to use the readily available material and cheap labor.

Threats

• Stiff Competition

Tedmond is facing tough competition from new players in the industry market. This is due to the increasing demand before the drought season when the demand for water tanks exceeds the supply. The defensive action that the company can undertake to eliminate this threat is to manufacture high quality products at a lower price which would make the competitors unable to compete with the low pricing and the high quality.

• Increased Number of Imitation Products

Upcoming competing firms have come up with imitated products which have become a big threat to the business. This is because such goods tend to damage the image of the companys merchandises among the customers as they would definitely not purchase the original water tanks after having a bad experience from having bought an imitated and low quality water tank (Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel). The defensive action that the firm can take is to improve its branding and develop effective market penetration strategies through increased promotion and advertising through the Internet to ensure that the clients do not purchase the imitated products.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

• Low Prices

Tedmond offers the lowest prices in the market as compared to its close competitors like Myron L. Company, Husky Portable Containment, Pioneer Water tanks, and Nationwide Tank Pipe. Since the prices of the products are much lower, it can lead to increased profits.

• Excellent Human Resources and Capital

Tedmond has a very good human resource system as it has skilled and experienced personnel. This is an advantage to the company because it enables effective satisfaction of consumer needs as the employees are well trained to manufacture high quality products. Not all firms rivals have such well-trained staff.

• High Quality Products

Tedmond has the ability to produce high quality items as compared to its close competitors which gives the business a competitive advantage.

Weaknesses

• High Dependency on the Suppliers

One of the biggest weaknesses that Tedmond has is its high dependency on the suppliers which can present an opportunity for the competitors. The company depends on its suppliers for all the raw material supplies which can be very dangerous to the business as it can be associated with the risk of production interruption. Some businesss rivals have solved this problem through cooperation with more than one supplier firm.

• Lack of Price Discounts

The corporation does not offer price discounts which becomes a weakness as the other competing firms use this strategy against it. This can make the customers opt to purchase the discounted competing products.

Target Market and Channel Relations

Target Customers and Segmentation

There are two types of target customers: the hardware stores and the individual clients. The hardware stores sell the products to the final consumers. The individual customers include both small and large households which mainly depend on the income level of the household. The company targets households with both high and low incomes levels. The firm uses demographic segmentation, namely its income aspect, as a base to identify its customers.

The buying behavior segmentation for Tedmonds products is that the items are made for households for storing water with the small households using the 550, 1100 and 2000 liter water tanks and the big households using a much larger volume capacity of tank.

The Companys Channel Relationships and E-Commerce Relationships

The form of channel relationship used by the company is both direct and indirect channels of distribution (Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel). Through the direct channel, the firm sells directly to the customers without having to deal with middlemen. This way, the company sells its products directly to the end users. The customers can also buy the goods directly from the firm itself without having to depend on the distributers to get the merchandise.

The indirect distribution channel, which is the most commonly used one by the company, involves one or two middlemen in the channel before the product reaches the customer (Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel). The firm mainly focuses on distributors to sell the goods to the clients meaning that the merchandise will have to pass through at least a channel from the company to the distributor and only then to the end user. The products are sold to the wholesalers, who then sell them to the retailers, who finally sell them to the end users.

The company also uses e-commerce relationships with the main focus being put on the business-to-consumer (B2C) channel and the P2P (peer-to-peer) channel (Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel). In this case, the main focus of the corporation is shifted from the sales of the product towards the relationship building with the customers. The relations between a consumer, another client and a business are visible through the purchase decision to buy the companys goods online. The firm also uses its official website to sell its merchandises and if the overall customer experience is positive, this can mean that the client can post a positive feedback on the product information which can, in turn, persuade other consumers also to try to purchase the similar item or brand to be able to obtain the same experiences as the person with the positive feedback did.

Efforts to Build Relations with Customers and Suppliers

Maintaining a good supplier and customer relationship is very important in a business (Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel). Tedmond, in its effort to make sure that it retains its current clients, guarantees that it maintains proper communication with them through the use of multiple communication channels by following and responding to all the feedbacks the company gets from its consumers. The firm also tries hard to learn more about its customers by trying to understand their needs and wants and then comes up with business strategies aimed at meeting these needs and wants through the use of the salespersons who are the main distributors of the companys products. The salespeople make visits to the customers and then bring back the feedbacks of the latter to the firm. This is a very good product differentiation strategy as it is mainly based on the delivering of an excellent client experience other than just the focus on the product. The company also rewards its salespeople, who are the suppliers in this case, according to their total sales of the goods. Customers are rewarded as well being paid for travels overseas. This shows an intention of the business to strengthen the relationships and boost sales.

Customer and supplier relationships in Tedmond Company are measured through the monitoring of client and supplier feedbacks and an increase in the number of suppliers and new consumers. A rise in the number of negative feedbacks from the customers and suppliers is a very clear indication that the counterparties expect more from the firm and it is a great opportunity for a business to listen to them. These complaints can make the company come up with the proper tactics to improve the product or service quality to convert these grievances to positive feedbacks. The monitoring of sales volume can help determine the increase in the number of customers which is a very good sign that the business is very effective.

Promotional Strategy

The Companys overall Communication / Promotion Strategy

The companys promotion strategy is the push strategy where the product is promoted among the customers through direct selling and advertising. The promotion through direct selling occurs when the firm after installing a tank for a client always makes sure that the brand name is visible to all other passers-by which can also appeal to them and motivate them to purchase the brand or the item (Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel).

The company advertises its products through the use of the social media and the Internet. The business puts up advertisements at the local radio stations, through the social media platforms, posts the videos of the firms profile and goods on Youtube and also on its official website where the customers can view all the information concerning the products they can need, including the prices. The companys advertising strategy is effective, as it is implemented using different means of advertising due to which it can reach various types of consumers.

Trade Shows by Tedmond and Their Effectiveness

Trade shows are a good means of promoting a companys products and services. This is because through the various exhibitions, the business is able to showcase its goods directly to the customers and other stakeholders (Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel). Tedmond occasionally participates in trade shows using them as a means of promoting its products to the consumers and a marketing activity. Participation in trade shows is very effective as it boosts the sales and profit margin due to increased awareness of the goods among the customers.

The effectiveness of participating in trade shows by the company can be evaluated through the determination of the total number of new clients, growing number of customer feedbacks and visits on the firms website and rise in brand popularity and awareness. This helps very much in the improving of the corporate image, gathering all information on the current competitors in the industry market, introducing new products to a large number of people at once and communicating with potential and promising consumers.

Importance of Personal Selling and Public Relations to Tedmond Company

Personal selling and public relations are very important to Tedmond Company. Personal selling, on the one hand, is the process of selling a product by the seller directly to the end user. Public relations (PR), on the other hand, develop positive relationship between the media, public and the organization and provide the ability to handle any negative attention successfully (Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel).

Personal selling is very important to this company because of the increasing customers expectations which can make any business give this process a high priority (Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel). The firm can get a very strong market position if it is effective enough. A sales person often attends to a client personally which means that personal selling also creates business-to-customer relationships and makes consumers regular to the business. Nowadays, very many people tend to trust more the individuals who personally sell them products than the advertisements which, in most cases, are usually highly exaggerated.

Personal selling is very appropriate for any corporation that is growing or anticipating growth in annual sales and profits. This is because this approach to selling provides a two-way form of communication as the salesperson not only sells the firms goods but also collects all the feedbacks from the clients directly. The salespeople also pay close attention to all the consumers needs which shows that customer satisfaction will be attained as well as helps improve the companys brand image in peoples minds. The customers, in most situations, trust the salespersons and a majority of them would prefer dealing with a salesperson than directly with the firm.

Public relations are a very important aspect to Tedmond Fibre Glass, too. PR is necessary for the company as it helps in the building and strengthening of business-customer relationships. The public relations enable the firm to communicate with its supporters and advocates and serve the community which can lead to financial support or even industrial partnerships.

Promotional Strategies that May Help Tedmond Company

Tedmond Company can employ discount programs as a form of promotional strategies which can allow the firm to cope with the increasing competition posed by the new market entrants (Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel). The discount programs enable customers to get special discounts upon a repeated purchase of the companys products or even for every new client referral. The firm offers its consumers a special discount to give them an incentive to carry out the word-of-mouth advertising. This type of marketing is very cheap as there are no direct costs associated with it and thanks to it, the business can gain a lot of popularity over the close competing firms. Currently the company does not offer any price discounts which shows that if it promoted discounts, it would increase the sales volumes which would, in turn, raise the profit margins as the customers tend to spend more on discounted products.

An after-sale client feedback survey is another promotional strategy which can be used by Tedmond. This approach enables the company to ensure that there is ultimate customer satisfaction and allows the firm to come up with better ways and methods of meeting and satisfying all the consumer needs. This is because the business will be quite aware of all the changing client preferences and tastes.

The use of social media platform is another means of promoting the products of Tedmond Company. This can be explained with the fact that currently the majority of people have shifted to using the social media platforms for almost all their shopping needs. This puts the company at an advantage as it can be able to reach very many potential and promising customers through the social media. This can highly boost the profit margins of the firm through the increased sales (Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel). This promotional strategy is very effective as it actually shortens the distance between the company and the end user. This is because the business will have a direct link and communication with the customer as the clients through the social media will get all the information about the corporations products, and even make the purchase decision while the item will be delivered to the consumer directly from the company without having to involve third parties or middlemen like the wholesalers, distributors or retailers.

Conclusions

• Performance Level of the Company and Lessons Learnt

What I have learnt from this company is that a good firm can be successful in the highly competitive industry market if it is properly managed and has a good promotional plan. The performance level of Tedmond Fiber Glass is excellent which makes its business operations a huge success. This is because the company has been long enough in the market to create superior brand awareness and it also charges the lowest prices in the market which the competitors often find extremely difficult to keep up with. This has given the business a sustainable competitive advantage. The success factors of Tedmond Company are its innovation zeal, high technology integration and low production costs. These are the aspects which have contributed to the success of the firm.

• Recommendations for Future Plans

What I would do differently in this company is that I would improvise more promotional strategies to increase the awareness of the brand among the customers. Some of these strategies would be the introduction of a loyalty program where the clients could earn points for shopping on the brand items. This would be aimed at the retention of existing consumers and increasing the sales volumes.

What I would suggest for the company for its future plans is to implement human resource strategies which are very effective as they can reduce the rivalry intensity in the market. This is because the business would be able to attract and maintain the most talented personnel which can lead to enhanced customer satisfaction and help in trimming and cutting down some of the production costs which are associated with the training, hiring and maintaining employees in the company.

Constant innovation is another suitable suggestion. The adaptation of recent and current technologies can make a company to be innovative enough to come up with new innovative products to suit the ever changing tastes and preferences of the customers. This would reduce the threat which can be brought about by new market entrants.