Internal Analysis and Forecast

Introduction

This report is created to provide an overview of the firm 3 internal performance for the last 6 periods. Furthermore, it will look at the effectiveness of the marketing mix strategies being considered for the firm and selling of the products. The report will also look at the forecast for the sales, net profit, expenses, and budget for the period 8. The report will also look at the SWOT analysis of the firm.

Internal Analysis Overall Performance

The internal analysis is looking at the overall performance of firm 3 over the 6 period. It will look firm’s individual performance and its performance against the competitors. This will help in understanding on how well it is done in market share holding based factors like channels and the customer segments.

3.3

The graph above indicate the average retail prices for the two channels for firm 3. It can be observed that overall, the average retail prices for channel 1 is greater than channel 2.

Furthermore, it can be observed that the average retail prices for channel 2 is mostly and steadily increasing during the 6 periods. While the average retail prices for channel 1

increasement is varied over the six periods. While looking at the overall average retail prices for the channels, it can be observed that it gradually increases. Thus, it is important

4.5 to look at the prices for the channel as it can help in the customer purchase pattern. Which

lead to believe that the average retail price rate for the channels will increase in the same manner for the next period for the firm.

When observing this graph, it can be noticed that the lowest sales to the customers are the

modern student segment. While it seems that the maximum sales for the VMP by the firm

4.9 is the Assistants followed by the managers. While looking at the sales for the different

4.10 segments during the six periods it can be observed that the range of sales are differing for each market or customer segment. For instance, firm 3 had maximum market share for assistants in period 1, while for period 6 the maximum market share was managers instead ^4.11 of the assistants.

Performance Against Competition

The graph above is the average market share for virtual meeting platform on the bases of the market segments. From the graph, it can be noticed that the firm is doing better in two out of six market segments compared to its competition. These two market segments are assistants and managers with an average market share of 0.337 each. Furthermore, by ^5.3 observing the graph, it can be indicated that while it does not have the top market share firm 3 has also a decent average market share in creators segment. Though, the firm needs to be careful about firm 2 in that segment as there is only a .010 difference present. Therefore, the firm should focus on marketing and catering to these market segment needs and want slightly more. This is because it can get a better chance of revenue from these segments, while being ahead of the competition.

Portfolio

The graph indicate that the number of special features in the VMPs have increasing steadily in the past six period, it is not the same for the other 2 feature. In fact, the error protection has been generally the same between the 6 periods. There was only once that the error protection has reduce. While the case of ease of learning there has been a movement between the last periods. Given that many of the customer want a proper ease of learning, it makes sense to add new ways to help in the ease of learning. While it can also be suggested to add some more error protection features into the VMPs.

The graph shows how comparatively the firm is doing for the second product, DVC, against the competitors. It can be overserved at the firm is not doing comparatively well in the features. It needs to improve and find new features for each of them for the next period. This required to beat the competitor to make up for the lost time.

Effectiveness of Current Marketing Mix Strategies

Marketing is an important part for the success for an organisation and can act as a channel between an organisation and customer. One of the strategy used in marketing is marketing

7.2

mix. There are 4Ps in the marketing mix, the 4Ps are price, place, product and promotion. The understanding of the elements of the marketing mix can help understanding the target customer (Thabit and Raewf, 2018). The firm looks at the different marketing mix to help

7.3

in knowing what the customer will choice which firm.

Price

7.5 7.4

The suggested prices for the VMPs is between $150 and $400 depending on the number of features, channel distribution and firm manufacturer. The firm provides the wholesale price to the dealers which is later divided into the retail price. The firm has a good idea on the final price range for the product set by the retailers. The channels have a different mark up for the price due to the service provided by the dealers. The mark ups are 50% and 35% for channel 1 and channel 2, respectively. The prices can influence by the ^7.6

7.7

customer perceptions for the prices of the VMPs. Thus, to meet different perspective the firm is finding a mid-point.

Product

The VMP product is developed with the basic features, like audio and video conferencing and screen sharing. While the special features for the product includes usage of spreadsheet application, using from a smartphone and multiple device capabilities. The

7.8

VMPs with the special features are targeted to the segments that want multiple special features. Thus, there are limited special features added on the product to reduce the error problems and there is also an ease of learning. These two features or attribute are more

8.1

important to all the customers segments, especial the home users, concerned parents and hired assistants. The product has set of warning signals for error protection. There is an instruction manual and tutorials to help in the learning factor for the VMPs. This can be used on the customer speed. ^8.2

Promotion

On the case of promotion done by the company, there is a variety used to help in the sales of the product. This includes sales promotion, personal selling and advertising on regular bases. There is also the use of magazine and other publication promotion. Furthermore, the firms encourage word-of-mouth to help in promotions. The firm uses more of ^8.3advertising towards the customers. the advertising done on multiple media platform. There is also advertisement of the firm website. The firm use direct advertising to help in the primary demand for the products to selected market segment. This helps in influencing the future purchases and increasing the market share.

Place8.4 8.5

The place for selling of the product is done on the bases of 2 types of places. The first type is an indirect distribution. This has the firms selling their products via a middlemen to the final customers. The initial sales of the VMPs is done on a combination of direct and indirect sales. The second type of place for selling is a dual distribution. The firm use this method heavily. This has two channels, which are full-service dealers and discounted dealers. Full-service dealers are used to service local customer based on a selected line of VMP solutions. The sales from this channel is more in-store selling. The discounted dealers are the online dealers that are interest selling VMP products on their websites.

The sales from this channel is done on bulk. The difference between the channels is the services and the assortment of products sold. 

Forecast

Net Profit, Sales ^9.1

Sales

The predicted unit sales for the period 7 and 8 is calculated on the bases of moving average from period of 1 to 6. The reason for using the moving average is because it can help act as a base line. Also, it can act on the average per period bases of 3 periods. The predicted unit sales for channel 1 and channel 2 for period 8 are 23,451 and 25,659, respectively. In the case of unit sales for period it seems that the firm is doing better with ^9.2 dual distribution sales (channel 2) in the coming period.

The predicted wholesale price for the period 7 and 8 is calculated on the bases of moving average from period of 1 to 6. The reason for using the moving average is because it can

10.1

help act as a base line. Also, it can act on the average per period bases of 3 periods. The predicted wholesale price for channel 1 and channel 2 for period 8 are $191.50 and $184.00, respectively. Thus, it can be suggested that overall there is a better _10.2 wholesale price point for channel 1 than channel 2.

Net Profit

10.3

The predicted wholesale price for the period 7 and 8 is calculated on the bases of moving average from period of 1 to 6. The reason for using the moving average is because it can help act as a base line. Also, it can act on the average per period bases of 3 periods. The predicted net contribution for period 8 is $4,235,398.77. Looking the predicted net

10.4 contribution, while still being a loss, it can be suggested that the firm will have a better results of the sales of the two products. Therefore, reducing the loss and potential heading towards a profit.

10.5

Budget

Given that the next year budget is calculated based on percentage of the industry, the same was done for predicting the budget of period 8. The percentage of the industry was calculated based the average of the six periods. The average percentage of the industry came to be 26%. While the calculating of the next budget for period 8 was done on two steps. First step being getting a total overall sum of the budgets that were set in the six periods. After which the using the average percentage of the industry on the overall sum the predicted budgeted for period 8 was calculated. The perioded budget for period 8 comes to be $ 1,927,900. This budget amount will be useful for the next period because of the increase of the types of the products being sold by the firm. It will help in better managing of the different requirement of the two products. While calculating the budget, there was also the checking of potential remaining funds for period 8.

11.1

 

SWOT

SWOT analysis is a tool used for strategic planning and management by organisation. SWOT is an acronym for strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats. The SWOT analysis looks at the internal factors, strengths and weakness, and external factors, opportunities and threats, for the organisation. The strengths and opportunities are help in achieving the organisation objectives. While the weaknesses and threats are harmful in achieving the organisation objectives. SWOT analysis is generally structured as a matrix (GÜREL, 2017).

 

Conclusion

In conclusion, this report is looking at the internal analysis of the overall performance of the firm. It can be observed that the firm has a strong client base for the segments of hired assistants and high-tech manager. Though, it is having a lower market share in students segment which can act as a weakness or threat to the firm’s operation. The predicted unit sales and wholesale price for the firm is calculated channels wise. While the net contribution and budget are calculated on the bases of the overall bases. There is also a need to have a more stable number of counts for the ease learning of the product as it important part of the product that the customers consider. Also, while planning the price the customer perspective should be consider. The firm should also look at how to combine the promotion with place of distribution of the product.

 

14.1

References

GÜREL, E., 2017. SWOT ANALYSIS: A THEORETICAL REVIEW. Journal of

International Social Research, 10(51), pp.994-1006.

Thabit, T. and Raewf, M., 2018. The Evaluation of Marketing Mix Elements: A Case Study. International Journal of Social Sciences & Educational Studies, 4(4), pp.100-109.

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Index of comments

3.1 Always start with a paragraph before the graph. Otherwise, I don't know what I am looking at.

3.2 VMP or DVC or both?

3.3 Reference your graphs/tables/diagrams

4.1 I want to know...How much $ have you made? How do I know whether we have enough $ for the future? Where did it come from and where should we focus on our attention for future growth. WHAT DRIVES SALES?

4.2 where is this information?

4.3 Less observation and describing the data and more interpreting the impacts on your firm.

4.4 is this reflective of what you are trying to do? 

4.5 what about how the needs of the segment?

4.6 my take away from this is that prices have gone up and down - did this match with changes to targeting, product features etc? did it have an impact on sales, is it something we should do in the future?

4.7 why increase? What did you base your assumption on?

4.8 WHY?

4.9 Why? Give reasons.

4.10 no value in this broad basic statement. A waste or precious page limits.

4.11 so what happened? What were your competitors doing during this time?

5.1 DVC vs VMP - need to know how these products are performing.

5.2 if you are presenting data over time you need ot say something about the shits over time. otherwise jsut report the most recent. you need ot be clear about how this is internal, not competitor analysis

5.3 sales vs revenue? Where are you making the biggest profit? VMP vs DVC?

5.4 Strategy assignment.

5.5 You have missed the point of this section - how much $ does your firm have? I do not have a clear picture of the overall performance of the firm.

6.1 Where is your BCG?

6.2 why?

6.3 which segments? Do they ALL want this feature? What does the product positioning report say?

7.1 why? How does this relate to the needs of the segment?

7.2 We know this theory - don't waste your pages.

7.3 Looks at marketing mix to identify what is effective!

7.4 evidenvce to support this. This is very general - you have data that is much more specific. how does it vary by segment?

7.5 What about DVC?

7.6 This is again describing some data - how does this contribute to decision making - how do you know if your pricing strategy is working or not?

7.7 how does this relate to the needs of the segment?

7.8 Which segments?

Index of comments

8.1 are you trying to target everyone?

8.2 I am not sure of the relevance of this here.

8.3 SO how effective has it been? What has worked and what has not? What is your competition doing?

8.4 Where are the insights? This is repeating data.

8.5 Tell me about the effectiveness of your distribution strategy in relation to the needs of your segment?

9.1 VMP or DVC? Be specific.

9.2 why? very vague

10.1 repeating yourself.

10.2 How do you know this will be effective in growing your firm?

10.3 repeating

10.4 Volume Vs Value - where and who is going to buy the most units to achieve these targets? Where should the budget be focused on for your firm to grow?

10.5 I do not have a clear picture of this.

11.1 So you expect the sales to remain consistent? Will competitors try and steal your market share? Are your segments happy with you? Where are the opportunities to grow? How is your firm performing relative to competitors? Need so much more here.

12.1 How strong? Leader?

12.2 Is this segment targeted?

12.3 So what? What impact does this have on your firm's performance?

12.4 Better than what?

12.5 Opportunities are EXTERNAL - these are internal.

12.6 How is this a threat? Be specific.

14.1 Simulation data?