Identifying the Customer and Problem for NIKE

Describe a primary decision maker in your target segment: who they are, what they like, how they make buying decisions. Describe the primary problem(s) your organization, product or service will help them solve.

Factors Influencing Customer Decisions

Provide a brief profile of your target segment using at least three of the following categories:

• Geographic characteristics: e.g., location, region, population size or climate.
• Personal and demographic characteristics: e.g., age, gender, family size, family life stage, income, personality.
• Social and Psychological characteristics: e.g., culture, social class, lifestyle, motivation, attitudes, reference groups, beliefs.
• Situational characteristics: e.g., buying situation, level of involvement, market offerings, frequency of use, brand loyalty.
• B2B/organizational buying considerations: e.g., individual factors, organizational factors, business environment factors, types of complexity

Critical Thinking Case HubSpot Focus on Flexible Benefits

What would your manager say to you if you came up with the idea of traveling with Justin Timberlake on tour for an entire year? This would not just be a work from home agreement but an actual out of office plan for one full-year sabbatical. That is exactly what happened at HubSpot when Rosalia Cefalu had a crazy idea that actually got approved. HubSpot, a global inbound marketing company, has approximately 19,000 customers in over 90 countries and 1,960 employees, stretching from Cambridge, MA, to Sydney, Australia. “We don’t think that culture is about free beer and ping-pong and dogs in the office, it’s about what you believe, why you do what you do, and who you choose to work with,” states CTO and cofounder Dharmesh Shah. Although HubSpot has plenty of free snacks on hand for their employees to enjoy, other flexible benefits HubSpotters enjoy are unlimited vacation time, tuition reimbursement, flexible hours, and an overall environment that balances freedom with accountability. At HubSpot it goes deeper than just the perks. The focus from the top down instills pride and passion within its employees, which then translates into happy customers. Although flexible benefits are a big perk of working at the third-best tech company to work for, according to Glassdoor’s annual Employee Choice awards, the culture isn’t for everyone. The company practices a sense of understanding, knowing that employees will move on and do not need to stay to be loyal and that sometimes someone is no longer needed—either because of performance, or changes in the company’s needs. This isn’t taken personally, and HubSpot is able to grow and continue to grow because it objectively sees the performance of its employees and what is best for the company and employee.

Questions: 1. How does HubSpot’s focus on culture affect employee performance? Chapter 8 Performance Appraisal and Rewards 283

2. What concerns would you have regarding giving employees countless flexible benefits such as HubSpot does; for example, a yearly sabbatical?

Marketing Information and Research for NIKE

Research Question

Describe an important question you need to answer or a problem you are trying to solve in order to help the organization meet its goals and objectives.

Information Needed

Describe the information your organization needs to make effective decisions about how to answer this question or solve this problem.

Research Recommendations

What research do you recommend in order to provide the information you need? What research method(s) would you use to get the information you need? Will it involve secondary data and research? Primary research such as interviews, focus groups and surveys? Why do you recommend this research approach?
Customer Decision-Making Profile

Topic is on NIKE

Competitive Advantages

List the competitive advantages of the product, service or organization you’re focusing on: the things that make it different from competitors in positive ways.

Market Niche and Positioning Strategy

Describe the market niche you want to fill, along with the positioning strategy you recommend using. Why do you think this is the right approach?

Positioning Statement

Develop a positioning statement using this formula: “To [target audience], [product/service/organization name] is the only [category or frame of reference] that [points of differentiation/benefits delivered] because [reasons to believe].

Repositioning Considerations

Do you recommend a repositioning that improves on what the organization has been using up to this point? Why or why not?

3.In B&B Café, a two-day workshop on effective feedback skills will be given to 20 managers. It is focused primarily on performance reviews. To ensure that the training program can achieve its objectives, you are required to:

a. explain how the training program should be evaluated throughout the training process and

b. describe four types of evaluation outcomes after training with an example each.

4.The increasing number of competitors, which leads to the decline in the business profits of ABC Restaurant, has been brought to the attention of a senior manager. He believes that training should be given to regain the market lead in a highly competitive market. You, as a training manager, are approached by him for assistance. In a meeting with him, you are required to:

a. discuss the type of training needs analysis relevant to the situation and

b. elaborate how data are collected to analyse the training needs.

According to Jeffrey Liker, what do the following historical leaders have in common? Dieter Zetzsche and Carlos Ghosn Contrast how these two leaders achieved their roles as President with Toyota's President, Fujio Cho. How did Fujio Cho's rise to leadership differ? What are the risks of bringing in a leader from outside the company to turn around an ailing company?

The Juran Institute suggests 10 important considerations for data collection. What are these 10 important considerations for data collection suggested by the Juran institute?

Branding On NIKE

Brand Description

What is the “brand” you are trying to build? What do people think about this brand today, and how do they experience it?

Brand Promise

What is the brand promise for this brand? If one hasn’t been defined yet, create one. If you believe the brand promise needs improvement, please suggest how you would refine it. Why is your recommended brand promise a good fit?

Brand Voice and Personality

Describe your brand voice and personality using the is/is never template:

• [Brand] is:
• [Brand] is never:

Brand Positioning and Strategy

Make a recommendation about brand positioning and/or branding strategy to help build the brand and contribute to aligning it with what your target segment wants. How will this contribute to the success of your product, service or organization?

Part II: Case Study

Market Research Example: How Coca-Cola Lost Millions with This Mistake

Author: Scott Smith, Ph.D.

Source: Qualtrics

In the mid-1980s, the Coca-Cola Company made a decision to introduce a new beverage product (Hartley, 1995, pp. 129–145).

The company had evidence that taste was the single most important cause of Coke’s decline in the market share in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

A new product dubbed “New Coke” was developed that was sweeter than the original-formula Coke.

Almost 200,000 blind product taste tests were conducted in the United States, and more than one-half of the participants favored New Coke over both the original formula and Pepsi.

The new product was introduced and the original formula was withdrawn from the market. This turned out to be a big mistake! Eventually, the company reintroduced the original formula as Coke Classic and tried to market the two products simultaneously.

Ultimately, New Coke was withdrawn from the market.

What went wrong?

Two things stand out.

First, there was a flaw in the market research taste tests that were conducted: They assumed that taste was the deciding factor in consumer purchase behavior.

Consumers were not told that only one product would be marketed. Thus, they were not asked whether they would give up the original formula for New Coke.

Second, no one realized the symbolic value and emotional involvement people had with the original Coke.

The bottom line on this is that relevant variables that would affect the problem solution were not included in the research.

Check out these old school Coke commercials.

Link: https://youtu.be/o4YvmN1hvNA

Link: https://youtu.be/ky45YGUA3co

So, what’s the lesson?

Market research matters.

When done correctly you gain decision making power. If done incorrectly, it could end up costing your company millions.

Questions

1. What are the reasons for New Coke to be withdrawn from the market?

2. What is the emotional involvement people had with the original Coke?

3. How could companies avoid this type of market failure? Please list at list three factors that you would use to predict a new product’s market performance and explain.

Roach owned a truck with a large crane attached. Roach took the truck to Vern’s Auto to have the crane removed with the intention of mounting it on another vehicle in the future. Vern’s allowed Roach to leave the crane in its yard, assuring him it would be safe. A few months later, Roach decided to sell the crane. When he went to get the crane, it was gone. Vern’s had no idea what had happened to it, and because they had charged nothing for storing the crane, it was not interested in finding out. QUESTIONS: Is Vern’s responsible for the missing crane? What are the determining factors? What information is missing? What steps should Roach and Vern’s have taken to safeguard the crane?

2. Table below shows monthly beer sales at Gordon’s Liquor Store in 2017.

a) Forecast beer sales needed for January 2018 using an exponential smoothing method

α = 0.2, α = 0.4 and α = 0.9

b) Compute an adjusted exponential smoothing for the data using:

α = 0.3 and β = 0.5, α = 0.2 and β = 0.6

c) Calculate MSE for Ft and Aft

During this course, you will learn to develop all the essential elements of a Business Plan, it can either be an existing company on the NASDAQ exchange which is the "American stock exchange, which is located at One Liberty Plaza in New York City known as the New York Stock Exchange" or "a company that you would like to start one day". Some of your plans will be hypothetical, as access to certain information in the company is restricted, but you can focus on the actual existing customers and products or services the company offers to the public. If you are developing your own company it will be made up so just answer the questions that are being asked.

Student Instructions:

1. Complete these sections of the Business Plan.
2. Consider it a research assignment.
3. You are not to leave the question you need to answer in the Business Plan. Make sure to answer them in paragraph form.

1. I've purchased 10 pounds of whatchamacallit fruit at the farmers market from Farmer Frank. Once it has been peeled, cored and sectioned I have 2 lbs and 3 ounces of trim.   The cost was $36.42 for 10 pounds.

What is the AP cost per pound?

2. I've purchased 10 pounds of whatchamacallit fruit at the farmers market from Farmer Frank. Once it has been peeled, cored and sectioned I have 2 lbs and 3 ounces of trim.   The cost was $36.42 for 10 pounds. What is the EP cost per pound?

3. I've purchased 10 pounds of whatchamacallit fruit at the farmers market from Farmer Frank. Once it has been peeled, cored and sectioned I have 2 lbs and 3 ounces of trim.   The cost was $36.42 for 10 pounds. What is the Yield Percentage?

4. I've purchased 10 pounds of whatchamacallit fruit at the farmers market from Farmer Frank. Once it has been peeled, cored and sectioned I have 2 lbs and 3 ounces of trim.   The cost was $36.42 for 10 pounds. Chef Al Donta need to produce 48 whatchamacallit fruit pies with each pie needing 2lb 8 ounces of fruit. How many pounds (ROUNDED UP TO THE NEXT FULL POUND) of fruit must be bought to produce the required pies. (use the yield percentage !)

5. I've purchased 10 pounds of whatchamacallit fruit at the farmers market from Farmer Frank. Once it has been peeled, cored and sectioned I have 2 lbs and 3 ounces of trim.   The cost was $36.42 for 10 pounds.

If I purchase 25 pounds next week, how many pounds (show pounds and decimals parts of pound) will I have once they are peeled, cored and sectioned with the same yield percentage as the first week?

6. AP 50 lbs of carrots will yield how many pounds of EP lbs. at an 88% yield. Use pound and decimal amount for your answer.

7. AP = $1.99 per pound, YP = 74%. What is the EP cost PER OUNCE?

8. AP = $16.18 per 10 lbs, YP = 83%; what is the EP cost per lb?

9. What is the AP cost per ounce of a 50lb bag of Golden Beets purchased for $39.99 per bag?

10. What is the EP cost per ounce of Golden Beets purchased at $39.99 per 50 lb bag, with a yield of 86.5%?

13. Define omni-channel retailing and explain its connection to shopper marketing.

14. Name and describe the five major promotion tools used in a company’s marketing communications mix.

Which do you think is the most important and why?

In this discussion question you will management assessment tools.

Cost-volume-profit may be one of the most valuable assessment tools available to management. Discuss why CVP is so important and provide a real life example you may have been involved in or find of interest as far as break-even for a product/service.