Strategic Marketing Plan

Introduction
Values, Mission, Vision,
Objectives
What is a Strategic Marketing
Plan?
Company
Aims
How to Create a Strategic Marketing
Plan
What Strategic Planning Is
Not
My Performance During the Past 12
Months and my Influence on Strategic Roles

Introduction

Every company designs strategic plans to achieve their
set objectives and goals. These plans can be short, medium, or
long-term, according to the size and scope of the
company.

It is very important that the company specifies
accurately and carefully its mission. The mission is fundamental
since it represents the operative functions that the company is
going to perform in the market and supply to the
consumers.

For a company, it is very important to define its
mission, and if they are carefully devised they are a source of
success for the company. Revised missions have turned the destiny
of many companies.

In the following report, a Strategic Marketing
Plan for the
Corporate International Department of the Raiffeisenlandesbank
Steiermark Bank is introduced. The first part introduces the
theoretical description to take into account for its development.
The second part is basically a departmental analysis, to then set
the objectives and goals on the base of the needs of the Market
and the results from the last 12 months, together with the
application of this Strategic Marketing Plan.

Strategic Planning is a management system that
moves the focus from "what to achieve" (objectives) to "what to
do" (strategies). With Strategic Planning the aim is to focus on
those objectives that are possible to achieve and in what
business or area to compete, in correspondence with the
opportunities and threats that the environment offers.

The essence of strategic planning is the systematic
identification of the opportunities and threats that will arise
in the future, which, combined with other important data, supply
the base for a company to make better decisions in the present to
exploit opportunities and avoid dangers.

Sallenave (1991) states that "Strategic Planning
is the process by which managers order their objectives and their
actions in time. It is not a domain of top management, but a
communication and decision making process in which all the
strategic levels of the company take part". The aim of Strategic
Planning is to produce deep changes in the organisation’s
market and in its internal culture.

Strategic planning demands four, well-defined stages:
mission statement and organisational objectives, analysis of
company strengths and weaknesses, environment analysis, and
strategy statement.

Values, Mission,
Vision, Objectives

To correctly define Strategic Planning, it is necessary
to consider four different points of view, each of which are
necessary for its understanding:

THE FUTURE OF CURRENT DECISIONS: First, planning
deals with the future of current decisions. This means that
Strategic Planning observes the chain of consequences of causes
and effects for some time, related with a real or intended
decision that the Management will make. Strategic Planning also
observes possible alternatives of future courses of action, and
by choosing the alternatives, they turn into the base for making
current decisions. The essence of Strategic Planning is the
systematic identification of the opportunities and threats that
will arise in the future, which, combined with other important
data, supply the base for a company to make better decisions in
the present to exploit opportunities and avoid dangers.
Planning means to design a desired future and to identify the
ways to make it.

PROCESS: Second, Strategic Planning is a process
that starts with setting organisational goals, it defines
strategies and policies to achieve those goals, and it develops
detailed plans to ensure the implantation of the strategies, thus
reaching the desired aims. It is also a process to decide
beforehand what kind of planning efforts shall be made, when, and
how they shall be done, who will do them, and what will be done
with the results. Strategic Planning is systematic in the sense
that it is organised and conducted based on understood
reality.

For most of the companies, Strategic Planning represents
a series of plans produced after a specific period of time,
during which other plans are devised. It should also be
understood as a continuous process, especially regarding the
formulation of strategies, since changes in the business
environment are continuous. The idea is not that plans shall be
changed every day, but planning shall be performed continuously
and be backed up by the appropriate actions when
necessary.

PHILOSOPHY: Third, Strategic Planning is an
attitude, a way of life; it requires dedication to act based on
the observation of the future, and a determination to plan
constantly and systematically as an integral part of Management.
Besides, it represents a mental process, an intellectual
exercise, more than a series of prescribed processes, procedures,
structures, or techniques. To achieve the best results, the
organisation’s managers and staff have to believe in the
value of strategic planning and they should try to perform their
activities as best as possible. Ackoff says: "Not doing it right
is not a sin, but not doing it as best as possible
is".

STRUCTURE: Fourth, a formal Strategic Planning
system joins four types of fundamental plans, which are:
strategic plans, medium term programs, short term budgets, and
operative plans. In a company with decentralised divisions there
can be this kind of combination between each division plan, and a
different combination between strategic plans made in general
offices, and division plans. By means of these combinations, top
management strategies are reflected in current decisions. The
concept of a plan structure is also stated in the following
definition: "Strategic Planning is the systematic and more or
less formal effort of a company to establish its basic purposes,
objectives, policies and strategies to develop detailed plans to
put into action its policies and strategies and thus achieving
basic company objectives and purposes".

These four fundamental characteristics serve as a basis
for the development of conceptual and operative
definitions.

What is a Strategic
Marketing Plan?

A Marketing Plan is a management tool that determines
which steps to follow, and the methodologies and times to reach
certain objectives. Thus, a Marketing Plan is part of the
Strategic Planning of a company.

We cannot forget that it should not be an isolated
activity; on the other hand, it has to be perfectly linked to the
rest of the company departments (Finance, Production, Quality,
Personnel, etc.).

A marketing plan is a tool that allows us to
set a path to arrive to
a concrete place. It will be very difficult to devise if we do
not know where we are and where do we want to go. Hence, this is
the starting point.

We have to ask ourselves:

Where is the company at right
now?

Where are we going?

Where do we want to go?

We should take into account: Where is the company? Where
is it going if the internal and external situation does not
change? Where do we want to go? How do we get there?

Company
Aims

"Customer service is the
responsibility

of each and every one of
the

members of the work
team".

Traditional marketing has reached its upper limit. To be
corporate and marketing-successful we need to create clear
advantages for our customers. To know who really our competitors
are and where are they going to be in two years from now. To
surprise customers by doing things competitors do not do, to make
the customer happy. We have to attract and keep (by creating
customer loyalty) customers; we have to set our company values,
the objectives and our vision of the future (Philip
Kotler).

The premise "In our company the customer is the most
important element" should be the cornerstone of every company,
but for many Latin American companies it is only an
out-of-fashion cliché. Unfortunately, even in times when
companies should act more proactively in their dealing with
customers, many of them act as if they are doing them a great
favour by letting them purchase their products. However, market
globalisation, e-commerce and
high competitiveness are making this kind of companies quickly
disappear.

The truth is that the best companies in the world have
been founded over this premise: customer service is their biggest
obsession. Those who are in the vanguard in their field of action
are those to which customer satisfaction is their most important
driving force.

After more than a decade of working with executives and
professionals, I have arrived to the conclusion that the goal of
any company is but one: "To create and to keep customers". Many
executives mistakenly think that the aim of a new company is to
generate profits, to sell more than their competitors or to be
the leaders in their sector. The truth is that profits, sales,
market positioning and utilities are simply a measure, a
thermometer of to what extent the company is complying to their
true purpose of attracting and keeping customers.

Utility level is representative of how well the people
that are part of the company are working in complying with such
purposes. If the utilities are far from being what you expected,
then you must take some time to examine all the aspects that in
one way or another influence the attraction and keeping of new
customers, like product quality and price, marketing
techniques and sales, and above all, customer service. We should
take into account the following: in any business, first we should
know what do the customers want and need, then design the
products and services they want, to later produce them
efficiently and effectively (achieving cost, quality and
delivery). Then we should have the capacity to sell them, and if
necessary finance them, to finally charge them. If all the
previous steps are carried out correctly, but there are
collecting problems, i.e. cash flow, the whole company will go
deeply into trouble. For a company it is not enough to be
profitable, it also needs financial solvency. This implies that
even Strategic Marketing is fundamental for the company, it is
not enough for a company to be profitable. The companies with
better service levels possess higher profitability levels, as
long as the other business factors are correctly
managed.

Remember that it is the people that are in charge of
providing customer satisfaction, not the machines, or papers, or
strategies, or offices; it is the managers, advisors and sales
representatives. Customer service is the responsibility of each
and every one of the members of the work team. As executives we
must make sure that this is clearly understood in our companies.
It is also very important to understand that it is going to be
impossible for an unmotivated person, or with a poor attitude, to
render a great service. By investing in the motivation of your
collaborators, you will be investing in your customers’
service.

How to Create a Strategic
Marketing Plan

Based on the concepts learnt from the Strategy and
Marketing Lecturers during the MBA Course, the following steps to
take into account for the creation of a Strategic Marketing Plan
can be defined.

1. What is a Strategic Marketing Plan?
2. How can I develop a Marketing Plan?
3. How can I control
the implantation and development of a Marketing
Plan?
Introduction
Objectives

To know the most important aspects of the Marketing
Plan.
To know the different sections a Marketing Plan is
composed of.
To identify the control
systems of the Marketing Plan.

Sections

1. Introduction.

2. Forecast and Objectives.

3. Stages of the Marketing Plan.

4. Difficulties.

5. Summary.

Introduction

A Marketing Plan is a management tool that
determines which steps to follow, the methodologies and times to
reach certain objectives. Thus, a Marketing Plan is part of
the Strategic Planning of a company.

We cannot forget that it should not be an isolated
activity; on the other hand, it has to be perfectly linked to
the rest of the company departments (Finance, Production,
Quality, Personnel, etc.).

2. Forecast and Objectives

2.1 Forecast

We can say this section is already a part of the
Marketing Plan. It consists in answering the following question:
If our market and environment tendency stays the same and
continues, what will be our situation in the short, medium, and
long term?

We have to ask ourselves:

Where is the company at right now?
Where are we going?
Where do we want to go?

A marketing plan is a tool that allows us to set a path
to get to a concrete place. It will be very difficult to devise
if we do not know where we are and where do we want to go. Hence,
this is the starting point.

2.2 Objectives

Because of the previous analysis, it is convenient to
set the goals we pretend to achieve with the available
media.

The objectives should:

Be measurable qualitatively and
quantitatively.
Be reachable.
Count on the adequate means.
Be perfectly described.
Be accepted by the people involved.

3. Stages of the Marketing Plan

The Marketing Plan demands a methodology to be
followed with certain precision if we do not want to fall into
chaos. It is important to follow each and every one of the
following stages in the order they are mentioned.

3.1 Analysis of the situation

In this section we should identify:

The existing competitors.
SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and
Threats).
Products, prices, discounts, location, invoicing,
design, manufacturing, finances, etc. of every one of
them.
Sales policy, distribution channels used, publicity
and promotion.
Environmental, market, economical, political, legal,
technological etc. situation.
Consumer behaviour, product use patterns, sector,
industry or market customs.
Market tendency and possible evolution.
Situation of our company as regards product,
finances, productive capacity, research and development
technology, costs, personnel, media policies.
Who are our customers?
Why do they buy?
When do they buy?
Where do they buy?
How do they buy?
How much do they buy?
How often do they buy?

Forecast

What kind of forecast methods shall be used? Forecasts
are considered of great importance for operation management as
well as by sales administration and marketing
management.

3.3 Objectives

General Marketing Plan objectives.
Sale objectives per product.
Market share objectives.
Brand share objectives.
Quality objectives.
Time objectives.
Price objectives.
Margin and cost objectives.
Publicity and promotion objectives.
Target determination.
Sales share per salesman, delegation, and
team.

3.4 Strategy

The following should be duly taken into account: first,
what the company shall focus on, second, where does the company
pretend to position itself, and third, the kind of war marketing
to use (frontal, defensive, lateral, guerrilla attack). The
Life Cycle of different products or services we are
exploiting or have the intention to exploit shall also be taken
into account. Another important aspect is if goods with a "push"
or "pull" approach are going to be produced (JIT). When dealing
with banking services this distinction does not apply.

We understand by strategy a way to reach certain
objectives. Or, what are we going to do to reach our
goals?

The term strategy comes from military language. Charles
O. Rossoti says that strategy is "The engine that increases the
organisation’s flexibility to adapt to change and the
capacity to reach new and creative opinions". Strategy is a
creative task.

The following 4 sections should be explained in detail:

Product Policies

Which product do we wish to
commercialise?
Product characteristics.
Package design.
Brands.
Labels.
Target.
Quality.
Presentations.

Price Policies

Fees.
Sale conditions.
Discounts.
Margins.
Balance point.

Distribution Policies

Physical distribution of merchandise.
Distribution channels to use.
Sales network organisation.

Publicity and promotion policies.

Promotions.
Merchandising.
Media plan.
Development of advertising campaign.
Advertisement efficiency analysis.

3.5 Tactics to Use

A tactic is a strategy of a lower order. Actions to
achieve smaller objectives in smaller periods of time. They are
more specific tasks, and not as global as strategies would
be.

What should each person do specifically?
When should they do it?
How should they do it?
Who should do it?
What are the resources available?
Work and task planning.
Technical, economical, and human
resources.
Organisation.

3.6 Controls to use

Control procedures shall be established to assess the
efficiency of every action, as well as assess if programmed tasks
are performed in the way, method and time expected.

There are three types of control:

Preventive: They are those controls that we set
beforehand as possible causes for mistake or delay. They allow
having a set corrective action if it is the case.
Corrective: They are performed once the problem
has occurred.
Late: When it is too late to
correct.

That is why it is better to establish preventive
controls for each of the proposed tasks.

3.7 Feedback

As we implant the Marketing Plan it could be the case
that some initial conditions change. For example, a reaction from
the competition, new products entering the market, etc. This
means correcting the Marketing Plan as
convenient.

The Marketing Plan should not be rigid and fixed. On the
other hand, some flexibility in its application should be
shown.

It is important to establish a contingency plan
for every possible new situation.

3.8 Finance Planning

The objective of this section is based on the need of
planning the costs and budgets related to the Marketing
Plan.

It is necessary to prevent beforehand each and every one
of the costs, as well as the different budgets we shall assign to
every department.

Publicity and promotion costs.
Sales costs and profits.
Research costs.
Product development costs.
Logistics and distribution costs.
Margins and balance point.
Determining a budget for every
department/area.

4. Difficulties

There are some difficulties that we cannot forget as
regards implantation of the Marketing Plan. We might as well
identify them to prevent them. The most widely known are
the following:

Badly defined or disproportionate
objectives.
Lack of technical, human or financial
means.
Not foreseeing possible competitor
action.
Not having alternative plans.
Poor planning as regards action
execution.
Lack of implication on behalf of the
Direction.
Not setting adequate controls.
Poorly motivated or trained personnel.
Inadequate target.
Lack of anticipation as regards contingency
plans.
Poor market information.
Inaccurate information analysis.
Excess of information and unnecessary bureaucratic
formalities.
Lack of coordination between different company
departments.

5. Summary

What Strategic
Planning Is Not

Strategic Planning is not about making future decisions,
since decisions can only be made in the present. Future planning
demands choosing between possible future events, but decisions
themselves, which are made based on these events, can only be
made in the present. Of course, once taken, they can have
irrevocable consequences in the long term.

Strategic planning does not foresee product sales to
then determine what measures to take to ensure the realisation of
a certain forecast related to factors such as: material purchase,
facilities, work force, etc. Strategic Planning goes beyond
current product forecasts and current markets, and asks a lot
more fundamental questions such as: Do we have the right
business? Which are our basic objectives? When will our current
products be obsolete? Are our markets increasing or decreasing in
size? For most companies there is a gap between an objective
forecast of current sales and utilities and the wishes of top
management as regards those issues. This gap can be eliminated by
means of Strategic Planning.

Strategic Planning does not represent a programming of
the future, neither the development of a series of plans that can
serve as a pattern to use every day without changing them in the
far future. A great part of the companies revise their strategic
plans periodically, generally once a year. Strategic Planning has
to be flexible to take advantage of the knowledge about the
environment.

In fact, it does not consist in the preparation of
several detailed and interrelated plans, although in some big and
decentralised companies it does. The basic conceptual nature of
Strategic Planning encompasses a large variety of planning
systems, from the most simple to the most complex.

Strategic Planning does not represent an effort to
substitute the Management intuition and criteria, an aspect that
should be highlighted.

Strategic Planning is not only a group of functional
plans or an extrapolation of current budgets; it is an approach
of systems to lead a company through its environment for a while,
to achieve the desired goals.

My Performance During the
Past 12 Months and my Influence on Strategic Roles

I am currently working at the Department of Foreign
Relations and International Trade at the Raiffeisen Cooperative
Bank. I started working in the Documentation Department (where
all the operative activities regarding letters of credit,
international warranties, and exports advisory to customers are
developed).

With time, by exposing my ideas to the Bank’s
Board of Directors, I was able to participate in new, innovative
ideas for the "change and continuous improvement of the Foreign
Department".

The situation of the Bank at the beginning of my work
was that each department worked independently from the others.
Even if the Foreign Department deals with international
negotiations of corporate customers, we did not work together
with the Commercial Advisors, neither with the Cultural
Department, nor the Marketing Department.

According to what I learnt during the course of my MBA
in Strategy, Cross Cultural Management, Sales Management, and
Marketing management, I could see the importance of the
interrelation between different departments and sciences. That
is, one is backed up by the other, and in corporate strategy, it
is very important to interrelate them all.

As a result from my meeting with the Management and
according to the topic I was to write about in my Master’s Thesis, it all led me to work
in the "organisation of a strategic project for the Foreign
Department".

The idea started to take shape by analysing the current
situation of the Bank, and its commercial and organisational
strategy. We cannot at this point change completely its strategy,
but we can apply a "continuous improvement" strategy in
Globalisation times.

According to what was said in the first part of this
work on the "Strategic Marketing Plan" and "Strategy", and taking
into account all the steps to follow, and what really strategy
is, the following items were taken into account:

The Bank’s Vision is to take into account
"customer service quality, especially in the commercial segment
(A, B and C)". A vision of quality and of qualitative customer
service, in the long term.

The set objectives are varied, but the most important
are through qualitative service, keeping current
customers/members, as well as seeking new long-term potential
customers.

This can be reached and carried out taking into account
the application of a "Strategy and optimum Strategic Marketing
Plan".

That is why I considered the importance of working with
different departments as a team, a concept learnt from the
Leadership course.

My first proposal was to work with the following
departments together:

International Department (together with the
Chambers of Commerce)
Commercial Department (Advisors and Credit
Department)
Marketing Department
Cultural Department

The idea was to meet with the four departments and
discuss the topics of implementing a group Strategy and to
clearly define its objectives.

This plan was put into practice, and since 7 months ago,
having my proposal being accepted by the Board of Directors, the
"Subleaders" of the different sub-departments and the main
"Leaders" are meeting every 15 days and discussing all our
proposals, reporting all the advances and changes in each
department, and controlling the set objectives.

The proposal itself has been the following applied
Strategy:

Bimonthly meetings between Leaders and
Subleaders
Training of personnel in the different areas
mentioned (e.g. Customer Advisors have received training on
Foreign Department tasks, and Marketing and Cross Cultural
Management knowledge)
The Marketing Department now works together with
the other departments by doing a previous market research and
talking with Customer Advisors on how to completely satisfy
customer needs
Working together with the Cultural department,
organising cultural and informative events for customers
telling them about new products, Bank innovations, and
current issues related to financial and international
Economics.

As a future objective there is the creation of a Latin
American Chamber where our investors and Customers can be advised
on Alca, Mercosur and
Nafta Economy.
Another service for our customers.

As a moral learnt
from the past 12 months:

In any Strategic Plan it is important to analyse the way
in which the bank is affected or compromised by the power of
negotiation of customers and suppliers, substitute competitors (a
lot of companies like GE, GM, Sears, amongst many others, compete
with banks as regards credits and in providing services like
credit cards), possible entry of new competitors in the market
(as a result of EEC Globalisation), capacity of current
competitors, level of fixed costs, growing importance of
technology (ATMs, handling accounts from the customer’s
office,
amongst many others), flexibility of the Bank when adapting to
new demands, and also strategic plans as regards staff
training.

We have to analyse the company’s (i.e. the
Bank’s) competitive advantages, as well as taking into
account the different strategies to apply, e.g. vertical
integration (backward or forward); horizontal integration,
take-over, product development, market development, market
penetration, diversification (new services in new markets), etc.
Of equal importance is to analyse in what stage of their life
cycle each product or service offered by the bank is at (which is
the matrix of different banking groups), and in that way applying
a policy according to different types of services. Besides,
depending on each cycle stage different actions correspond as
regards service redesign, publicity, service price,
etc.

Even if there is no unique formula, any Strategic
Marketing Plan should be further enriched by including a thorough
analysis based on the previous points.

Author:

Karin Hiebaum

Bachelor in Business Administration

Magister in International Trade