Assume that you are a consultant for an international management strategy consul
ID: 432664 • Letter: A
Question
Assume that you are a consultant for an international management strategy consulting firm. Your firm has been approached by Mr. Hans Wursching, CEO of TransSprech, A.G., a newly formed cellular phone service and phone provider based in Stuttgart, Germany. TransSprech has a satellite GSM network with complete coverage in Europe and the United States, as well as throughout most countries in the world. The company has established some semblance of a marketing and management strategy, and you have been asked to review the current strategy and help the company go to the next level by growing its sales.
You recently conducted the initial information-gathering meeting with Mr. Wursching, and received the following information:
? TransSprech maintains corporate offices in numerous cities around the world. However, its customer service outlets and retail sales are conducted through the company website, as well as through licensed electronic retailers. It does not maintain its own customer service or retail locations.
? Its target markets are both companies and individuals wanting cellular phone service with worldwide coverage and who are willing to pay a premium to get it. It already has about three thousand customers worldwide and is hoping to grow to ten thousand by year end.
? Corporate customers are more valuable customers because they are buying in larger volumes. Establishing a customer base is very important as this company attempts to establish itself.
? No sales force has been established. So far, the company has received many customers in response to its advertising.
? It offers individual customers four different cost plans with respect to the cellular service as well as five different phone options. However, corporate customers can negotiate variations within the established options.
? The phones themselves are similar to those used by TransSprech competitors but the satellite network providing the coverage is far more advanced.
? The company has retained a Berlin-based advertising and public relations agency to develop a worldwide advertising campaign. Print and TV advertisements have recently saturated the European market and will soon be shown in the US market. The company is currently running several promotions to get its product and name known; however, its long-term goal is to offer a premium, non-discounted product that is desired because of its value and quality, not low price.
? Because the company and its product are in the early stages of development, there have been technical problems, and the company has had to provide a great deal of service to its customers.
? Mr. Wursching understands that it costs more to acquire new customers than to retain existing ones, so he would like to establish a customer relationship management plan at some point to improve customer loyalty and retention. He has a well-trained customer service operator staff in place.
Questions:
1What is the company’s strategy with respect to each of the four elements of the marketing mix (product, distribution, price and promotion)?
2Based on the current marketing strategy, should the company’s promotion mix focus be on personal selling or on advertising?
3What further questions might you ask Mr. Wursching to help his company move toward a more relationship-based business? What recommendations would you like to offer to Mr. Wursching to make relationship-based selling a focal point of TransSprech’s organizational policy and culture?
Criteria Identification of the main
sales Issues/ Problems
raised within in the case Analysis of the sales
Issues Comments on effective
sales solutions/strategies
and providing
recommendation
Writing and
documentation in
business format and style
Explanation / Answer
The Schaeffer has been increasingly aggressive with annual earnings progressing with a goal of 10%. The executives are under the fear that the existing IT infrastructure will not be equipped to support it. Additionally, the manufacturer is faced with some drawbacks and several obstacles with their “shared system” followed over time, as there were complaints in regards to the support desk, and the performance of the WAN has now not been good as predicted. Accordingly the decision to outsource is aimed to handle these problems and likewise provide further advantages similar to:
Higher technical capabilities for Schaeffer: The IT department of Schaeffer has been stretched to the restrict just aiding day-to-day events of the company. Accordingly, the outsource corporation (ABC corporation) provides a very enormous provide of good-knowledgeable staff, as good as endless provision of existing hardware and application resources that may be adjusted to fit all dynamic or unforeseeable needs the organization may have simply.
Increase in IT assets to support enterprise progress: The Schaeffer company has had formidable development pursuits of increasing into new product traces, acquiring companies, and increasing into new ingredients of the sector (specifically for the Reitzel division of Schaeffer). The outsource organization presents ample advantages to those pursuits as they already have present assets and IT infrastructures in all the countries Schaeffer is placed and where they hope. This erases additional setup cost and reduces cost of operations and renovation for Schaeffer.
Elevated flexibility: The outsource corporation has hundreds of thousands of hundreds of respectable workers for Schaeffer to decide upon from to serve their wishes. The challenges of employee turnover will likely be forgotten and the outsource company will endure expenses of recruiting and coaching of those employees for use for the Schaeffer corporation.
Prior the procedure of setting up the request for concept (RFP), the purpose is for Schaeffer manufacturer to clearly respect the underlined trade add-ons or system technique that want provision or developed offerings. Choosing what is the real trouble to be addressed, is what effectually results in the next steps. In the 2nd phase, Schaeffer corporation wishes to align its know-how technology provided services with staff methods, as they part of the developmental decision-making system.
Session of Gartner Consulting crew is taking location in the third step, as a fundamental facilitator of serving to Schaeffer Co. To gather the relevant data that enable for integrating the corporation’s RFP and taking it to the following stage. As good, Gartner Consulting group, as an external social gathering, has a greater possibility of utilizing the worldwide aid, in exact, patterns of RFP of worldwide suppliers, in documenting the Schaeffer company idea. Within the fourth step, Gartner Consulting staff plays the position of giving advice and taking a designated course of the controversy. The partnership relation with ABC organization would influence in each keeping IT in apartment and negotiate for a greater concept fee that related to the accomplice’s outsourcing cost. The fifth step taken to improve the RFP is also for the consultants to define and specify the timeline, alternate of knowledge resources, monetary fee, and the expected deliverables from the session process, all are to be assigned and agreed through the 2 companies within the constitution.
The perceived dangers of outsourcing raised by the managers at Schaeffer have been:
·long run Relational dependence on ABC enterprise.
·current understanding technology platform and staff of Schaeffer.
·expensive and unpredicted chance.
Schaeffer’s prime supervisor had strong arguments in favour of keeping their understanding technology in-condo rather than outsourcing it to ABC organisations. Establishing an extended dependence on ABC organization was perceived