Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

Vikram,

Hello and welcome to MarketingProfs Know How Exchange. I believe you will find this site very valuable as you pursue your MBA and later when you start your career.

It's been a while since I received my MBA, but I remember that an assignment like creating a marketing plan was more about demonstrating my understanding of the material I learned and ability to use it. This isn't an exercise of finding an existing marketing plan and then making a report on it.

A marketing plan is about the analysis of the present situation for a company and then based on that, put together a set of activities to meet the goals of the company. The analysis starts with the customers - first in the UK where they do have a presence. Who are Tesco's customers? What needs do Tesco satisfy for these customers? How do they satisfy these needs better than the competitors? What is Tesco's core competencies - what they do better than anyone in the UK? How do they leverage them into unique selling points? What is their branding strategy? What is their product/service strategy? Who are their competitors and what are the competitors' strengths and weaknesses? How do Tesco exploit the weaknesses and combat the strengths? What is their marketing plan in the UK (you won't FIND this - you have to look at the situation and infer what their plan is).

Now, with the UK understood, then you can "take it to China!" But, first, you need to look for differences in the situations. Who are the customers (by segment)? How big are the segments? What about the customers and their needs are different in China versus the UK? How can Tesco use their core competency to adapt so they still deliver products and services better than the competitors and with unique selling points? Who would be their China competitors? Any new ones? What are their strengths and weaknesses? How would Tesco exploit the weaknesses and combat the strengths? What is Tesco's SWOT, given mainland China? Does the brand strategy need to change? Does the product/service strategy need to change? If so, how? Given all this, what activities are required to be successful in China? Where should they start (in terms of geography and customer segments)?

On top of this, you need to follow whatever style/template your marketing class has presented you for the actual plan. There are many different styles, but the basics are the same. Customer, market, competitors, SWOT, activities (like advertising, press releases, store displays, coupons, TV/radio ads, etc.

Follow this process of analysis and reasoning and your marketing plan should be a winner. Good luck!

I hope this helps.

Wayde

Hi Vikram,
A good marketing plan always have to be a close study of the market where it is entering and how is it to be positioned.
so a good marketing plan for tesco entering in china would be a study on chinese market and trends followed by them. The culture of china must be known as it is very importatnt in international marketing.The product which is marketed must be suitable enough for the new market as amny a times though the product is good,but it fails due to bad market research of that particular area.
Highlight the strengths and goodwill of tesco so that trust towards the product can be built on a easier scale.
Analyse the need of the procuct in particular area and the marketability conditions.If there is no need,try creating a need for that by generating curiosity towards the product.
I may like to quote a example to support my above discussion:
A Product Called Livon(After Head Bath,it is applied on hair) in India,has created its need rather than existing need.so you may try upon these according to culture,custom,etc of china.
Good Luck Vikram.Its always good to help out a MBA guy as I have already gone through this phase.
Hope these ideas help you out to some extent.

Thanks

Rakesh

I would approach a marketing plan by listing the 4Ps (product, price, place, promotion) and the 4 parts of SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity, threats) as headings for individual sections and then start thinking about each section and fill in blanks. of course, as a student you won't have perfect information, but do your best to find what you can and make educated guesses.

There has been a decent amount written about Tesco in the news magazines, so definitely get all you can and read those.