Cumeco Marketing Essay, Research Paper

This section of the marketing plan provides the marketing objective, the

selected target market, the selected services, our marketing statement and our

promotional recommendations. Goals tell were a business wants to go; strategy

answers how to get there. Every business must tailor a strategy for achieving

its goals. The strategy must then be refined into specific programs that are

implemented efficiently and corrected if they are failing to achieve the

objectives. Michael E. Porter, author of the book ?competitive strategy:

techniques for analyzing industries and competitors? has categorized

strategies into 3 generic types, which are: Overall cost leadership Here the

business works hard to achieve the lowest costs of production and distribution

so it can price lower than its competitors and win a large market share.

Differentiation Here the business concentrates on achieving superior performance

in some important customer benefit area valued by the market as a whole. It can

strive to be the service leader, the quality leader, the style leader, the

technology leader, etc. Focus Here the business focuses on one or more narrow

market segment rather than going after the whole market. The firm gets to know

the needs of these segments and pursues either cost leadership or some form of

differentiation within the target segment. As said before, Cumeco n.v. is in the

business of steel construction, pipefitting and welding. We think that Cumeco

n.v. must adopt a strategy that is based on a combination of the differentiation

and focus strategy. Our recommendation is that Cumeco n.v. must start focusing

on becoming a niche-player. As explained in the opportunity and issue analysis a

market nicher is a smaller firm that chooses to operate in some part of the

market that is specialized and is unlikely to attract larger firms. Now we can

start developing a marketing strategy statement. The different clients we

visited for our research had one thing to say: Cumeco n.v. delivers quality. The

one word that kept coming back was QUALITY. The marketing statement should

therefore be ?to become known in the industry as the symbol of quality in the

business of metal construction, pipe fitting and welding which can be

accomplished by always meeting the deadline and delivering quality works?.

With this marketing statement in mind we will start developing the marketing

plan. In our opinion, our main objective is to increase the awareness of the

company?s name and the services it provides and to position Cumeco n.v. in

such a way that when you hear the words Cumeco n.v you immediately think of

quality. By introdusing such concepts as Total Quality Management it will be

able to create a sustainable competitive advantage. We believe that with our

recommendations this can be accomplished. To evaluate the effectiveness of our

plan, we recommend a survey to be done 6 months after the execution of the plan

has started. The image of a company is very important, because it?s what your

target market perceives of your company. The selected target market is 8 The

general contractors as they are in charge of big construction projects and take

on smaller contractors like Cumeco to do a specific construction job 8 The

architect bureaus as they make the drawings and in most cases make the

calculations 8 The construction bureaus as they are specialized in making

construction calculations 8 Various companies e.g. manufacturers, factories (Amstel,

Coca-Cola) 8 Utilities companies e.g. Kodela, Setel, KAE The perception of the

customer is very important even in the steel construction business. If the

general contractors have a good impression of your company, it will be easier to

get a job order. Cumeco n.v. is being associated with quality, which is a good

sign, but it is also being associated with high prices. So we?ll have to work

on their price strategy. Cumeco n.v. has to start lowering its cost in order to

have a better competitive advantage. Although it is nice to be innovative and

come up with a new product, we feel at this time Cumeco n.v. must not come up

with a new service but work on the existing ones. We feel they should: ?

Increase their steel construction job orders ? Increase their pipe fitting

(steel and PVC) job orders ? Increase their aluminum welding job orders ?

Heavily promote their new sandblasting and coating facilities Recommendations

Since the first visit to Cumeco, we unanimously decided that a major problem at

Cumeco was the absence of an employee in charge with all the marketing &

public relations activities and mostly sales. Mr. Chirino is a person who wants

to be and is on top of each project. He makes sure the contract is negotiated

and signed, the project planning is done, the project calculations are correct,

the job is started, finished and delivered on time. As you can see, he does not

have the time to keep himself busy with the marketing and PR activities and

perform as a salesperson. We know it?s costly to take someone extra on the

payroll. If Cumeco wants to make marketing the key to increase the awareness of

its company and products or even their sales, a marketing officer with

additional duties such as sales is a must. This person would be working closely

with Mr. Chirino so he/she must be trustworthy. With the marketing officer in

place we can make as much suggestions as we like, because we know there is

someone in charge of the execution. Job description marketing officer In this

type of business personal selling is the key to success. You have to know your

clients, visit them regularly and build a long lasting relation with them. The

Marketing officer must function as a sales person. It is the job of the sales

person to give customer service. He/she will go to the general contractors, the

utility companies, the architect bureaus and the construction bureaus and try to

establish contacts and build relationship with these clients. The sales person

is in charge of making these companies aware of the existence of Cumeco, it?s

products and services and that Cumeco stands for quality in business of metal

construction, pipe fitting and welding. Once they are interested in offering

Cumeco a job, Mr. Chirino steps in. He is the one negotiating the contract as he

has more knowledge of the company?s capabilities, the work and the

calculations. After the job has been taken and delivered, the sales person goes

back after say 6 months to check up on the customer to see if everything is

still satisfactory and maybe even if they have another job. The marketing

officer is in charge of coordinating the marketing efforts. Our main objective

is to increase the awareness of the company?s name and the services it

provides and to position Cumeco n.v. in such a way that when you hear the words

Cumeco n.v you immediately think of. We tried to incorporate all the marketing

tools we believe will give results. Advertising We are aware that Cumeco does

not have the funds to do much advertising. If we want to achieve our goal one

point in the future we will have to start paying for some advertisements. Our

suggestions are: 8 Newspaper adds in ?De Makelaar? 8 Adds in the yellow

pages of the telephone book 8 Direct mailing of informative folders to the

target market We do not recommend any event or sponsorship marketing as we

perceive it not to be effective. It will not reach the target market

specifically. One of the main promotional activity Cumeco must start working on

is PUBLICITY. We can start working immediately on publicity. Our suggestions

are: 8 For the inauguration of the new sandblasting and coating facilities, give

an inauguration party and invite the press. Give out press releases together

with a folder containing all the work you have accomplished. Invite your target

market (head of the departments in charge of maintenance of the various

utilities companies and the project leaders of the architect bureaus,

contractors companies etc). In marketing we also have promotional items to put

at what we call the Point-of-purchase. We can make posters to put at the

hardware stores. These posters must make frequent visitors of the hardware

stores (who may be in the business of construction) aware of the name Cumeco.

Actually it?s difficult to come up with sales promotion items for a

construction company. We do recommend free merchandise in the form of calendars,

mugs, pens and key chains to be distributed to the target market. These items

must have Cumeco?s logo very clearly printed on it to increase awareness with

its target market.