Last week! - week 11

I wasn’t able to open the recording this week but its finally come, the end of the semester. I thought that it flew by and I learned a lot. I think that I learned more about running a business and marketing then all of my classes so far. I thought that it was interesting actually being given a company to market. I learned about timing of decisions as well as when a good time to alter things such as pricing or sales force or advertising budget. I would have never thought that all of this altering of a marketing plan or strategy would take place. However, it was done over the course of ten years so if I think about how much times have changed over the past ten years, I can see how this is relevant. That might have been the most important thing that I took out of the Pharmasim experience. There are infinite amount of changes that could occur in the market at any time. Some can propel a product to success and another can decline it.

For this week for my advice memo I named the critical success factors for Allstar as included symptom relief, relationships with channels, relationships with doctors, brand awareness, and sales force. In other words, what the customer wants most is for their symptoms to be treated, first and foremost. They first need to be convinced that the product will help them and the context of the advertising message should always be evaluated for improvement. Once the customer tries the product and experiences its effectiveness they can become loyal customers. Loyal customers will build up the brand awareness of a product and be able to pass on the word to friends and family to try it. Dispersing the product throughout the right channels is very important too as well as maintaining shelf space in comparison with competitors. Once channels see that the Allstar product lines are successful, they are more likely to sell the product within their channel. Providing the product to them as a discounted package will allow the company to build relationships with each channel. In other words, it will be easier to distribute Allstar products throughout the channels with a positive working relationship. This positive relationship can also be built up with recommendations from doctors. Doctors need to hear the health benefits and how Allstar products will be able to benefit them as well as their patients in the long run. If a doctor prescribes a product and a patient is satisfied, this will reflect well upon the doctor who will now have a trusting relationship with Allstar. At the same time, sales force is a major success factor. Having the appropriate amount of employees in certain sectors is crucial. For example, doctors are educated about products from the detailers so the right amount of detailers is important. Too many or too few might end up hurting the relationship with the doctor. Too few employees may also make production slower and less effective. Too many employees may consume a large amount of the budget that could be allocated more effectively.

I also stayed consistent with my teams marketing plan and recommended that the next market to go into should be the allergy market. This is because the market is small with a growth rate of only 5.3%, however the market penetration is 47.1%. At the same time, the usage rate is high and the price rivalry is low with most of the products priced the same. There are also only two barriers for entry with only one substitute. Most importantly, channel access is easy and customers are fairly familiar with the market.

Lastly, my advice for the assembly of the marketing team was that the team must be able to bounce back and remain innovative in order to continue with push the company forward rather than crumbling under the pressure. In other words, this team must be able to constantly be making decisions, either to correct a mistake or to improve the product. The new management team must be able to work off every member’s strengths. Everyone should be able to bounce ideas off of each other and should be able to learn new aspects of the business that were unknown before. There needs to be research done to determine how to innovate. There are always changing in the market and so management teams but be able to adapt.

Overall, I thought this was a great class and I was happy to be in the group that I was. I took a lot of knowledge out of the coursework that will

Week 10

This week was all about revising our marking plan. I think that my team learned a lot from this because looking over all of the analysis’ we are able to see our mistakes and what can be changed to fix them. Periods 3 through 7 were up and down for us so now we are just trying to get to that consistency level that will make for a successful company, with successful product lines. As of now we were barely meeting the critical success factors, which included symptom relief, relationship with channels and doctors, brand awareness and sales force. I also think that the variable analysis was able to help us a lot in writing the revision memo. It laid out the demand and margins of our products as well as show are expenses. With understanding supply and demand we can hopefully increase our market efficiency to make a bigger impact in the market. The volume, margin, marketing expense and net marketing contribution also allowed us to compare all seven periods to get a better look on our progress. This analysis can be done by comparing values from the previous period or from the beginning period. I think this is helpful because it shows our progression from the start but also shows where we went wrong from start to now.

The Managing metrics article I think was a good read and was basically a more detailed explanation of what should be done in terms of marketing. Our first thing that would come to mind when it comes to business models is that the customer is always first. But the metrics allowed me to better understand by saying a company serves its market by asking:

• Who is the customer?

• What does he, and will he, want?

• Who is the competitor?

• How do we create, communicate and deliver value to this

customer?

• How do we make money in this process?

With a more detailed approach I think that the intended effect will be more easily attainable. I also thought it was interesting in the article when they said that there will be different metrics for each company. I think that its even more impressive than when a company is able to succeed off of their business model just by having an idea of what to go off of. I think that this is a great example of how a marketer is effective.

As of now, I am hoping that our revised plan will help us with Allstar products. We want to reach that point when there is no more regressing in the market. And with metrics it is important to note that allow we might reach that level, we will still have to be constantly adjusting our plan as managers in order for Allstar to remain competitive and innovative.