Marketing Strategy free essay sample

Starbucks, a leading specialty coffee retailer in the world has been selected because of its strategic approach in responding to external pressures as well as their strong capabilities in sustaining themselves in a highly competitive environment. Their approach to product development, technological advancement and in providing a unique experience would lend to them establishing themselves in Trinidad and Tobago. As the foundation for investigation, analysis, Porter’s 5-forces Model and Value Chain have been applied. They were used to analyze the macro, micro and internal factors with the given limitations for each odel. The report found that the major areas of threats are dependency on suppliers, price sensitivity that is affected by the global economic recession and competition. Despite the threats, the report focuses on Starbucks competencies in product innovation, set distribution channels, providing quality service and experience and technological advancements to enter into Trinidad and Tobago’s market through Market Development Strategy (Ansoff 1968). The weak points in this definition include failure to mention that marketing is a process that involves different steps including segmenting, targeting and positioning. The definition focuses only on creating demand and gaining profit with no reference to delivering value to customers or to managing customer relationships. Marketing is defined by the AMA as The activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. This replaces the previous definition, which still appears in the AMAs dictionary as: An organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders. † This new definition has a more extensive view of marketing describing it as an activity and a set of institutions along with its original defini tion of being a multi-step process. It also highlights the fact that marketing is beneficial not only to customers, organizations and stakeholders but also to the society as a whole. â€Å"Exchanging offerings that have value for customers† replaces â€Å"Delivering value to customers† in the old definition to empathize, from my point of view, the transactional spirit of the marketing process being one of mutual benefits exchange and to convey the idea that the value delivered to customers is not stagnant and should be continuously updated to satisfy their evolving needs and wants. I do not see any points of weakness in this definition except my failure to understand the exclusion of mentioning marketing as an organizational function requiring the involvement of several departments as well as not referring to managing customer relationships which is an important milestone in the marketing process. My Definition of Marketing â€Å"Marketing is the process of gaining insight to what customers really want, creating demands based on this insight and making profitable exchanges to customers, clients, partners and society. † N. B. Underlined words justify the strong points in my definition) Definitions of Marketing Management Marketing Management is defined by the AMA as â€Å"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 goals. † This definition’s strong point lies in referring to marketing management as a pro cess and mentioning some managerial tasks as planning and execution. Many weak points, in my opinion, can be clearly detected in this definition. No reference is made to choosing target markets or even attracting and maintaining customers. Ideas, goods and services used in the definition are outdated and better be replaced by creating, delivering and communicating value to customers. In addition, the word â€Å"goals† is not as descriptive of individuals’ aims from marketing as words like needs, wants or demands. â€Å"Marketing Management is defined in THE Wikipedia as â€Å"A business discipline which is focused on the practical application of marketing techniques and the management of a firms marketing resources and activities. † The strength of this definition comes from referring to the use of marketing techniques and implying the need to manage the marketing resources of the firm. The weakness of this definition is due to lack of the different aspects referred to in discussing the previous Marketing Management definition. My Definition of Marketing Management: â€Å"The process of managing profitable customer relationships through choosing proper target markets as well as attracting new customers, retaining and growing current customers by sustained creation, delivery and communication of superb customer value. † N. B.