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Enhancement for Marketing Systems for Sellers at Flip Kart

Submitted to

Dr. Asila Sayedi

Submitted by

Srikanth Darapuneni

Student ID

5153179

California University of Management and Science

Date: October 17, 2016

OUTLINE

I. Abstract

II. Introduction

III. Company overview

A. History

B. Business model

IV. Analysis

A. Industry analysis

B. Company analysis

V. PEST analysis

A. Political

B. Environmental

C. Social

D. Legal

VI. SWOT analysis

A. Strengths

B. Weaknesses

C. Opportunities

D. Threats

VII. Recommendations and implementations

A. Improving shipment and logistics services

i. Collecting data as far as courier services are concerned within the villagers and local towns

ii. Eliminating the fear factor associated with conducting an online transaction

iii. Improving on the online security regarding personal information and data

B. Awareness Creation

i. Conducting simulation programs and trainings

ii. Word of mouth promotions and media advertisements

iii. Eliminating the challenge of online security among the local citizens

C. Attracting Top Talent

i. Acquisition of well-known companies

ii. Offering rewards and promotions for high performers

iii. Acknowledging and giving credit to the work of an employee

VIII. Conclusion

Introduction

Among many online marketing companies, Flip Kart has had an advantage of achieving steadier growth to become one of the most preferred online sellers (Bhasin, 2016). On contrary, however, Flip Kart has faced several challenges that act as potential obstacles to continued success. Some of the problems include disintegration in the supply chain coordination, digital illiteracy, and poor management (Hollensen, 2015). An existence of such challenges suggests that Flip Kart does not have an all-smooth journey to success as they suggest that the company faces some forces that if unidentified could lead to a big failure of the company. In addition to the down pulling forces, there obviously exists positive forces to which Flip Kart owes its current prosperity. To identify the different forces, however, sufficient analysis is required to establish the negative and positive forces (Hollensen, 2015). Some of the most relevant analysis techniques are the SWOT and PESTLE analyses.

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis is a technique for analysis that guides a business organization to identify its favourable and unfavourable aspects both in the organization and out in its surroundings (Bhasin, 2016). Favourable aspects are the strengths while the negative ones are weaknesses. SWOT is an initiation for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Strengths are those aspects of a business that provide it a higher advantage compared to others while weaknesses are the aspects that place it at an increased disadvantage than other businesses (Hollensen, 2015). Opportunities, on the other hand, are those aspects that lie in the business’ environment and which it can exploit to its benefit. Threats, on the other hand, are those aspects that pose as potential causes of trouble for the business and that could result in failure (Yüksel, 2012).

I. Strength

Experience in a given business field acts as a big advantage for the concerned parties. Flip Kart has founders who had been in the e-commerce business before and could, therefore, understand the business better leading to a bigger possibility of success and highly efficient strategies which in turn make the company very competitive (Bhasin, 2016). Acquiring act as a big breakthrough for Flip Kart as well as giving it a big advantage in achieving a large number of customers (Hollensen, 2015). Currently, Flip Kart has more than 75 million users that are quite a sufficient number to guarantee it the success.

Being an online seller as well enables Flip Kart to avoid making unnecessary shipment as they transport those goods that have been ordered which saves time, fuel and financial resources that could have been wasted making trial and error shipments (Hollensen, 2015). Flip Kart offers such a wide range of products that enable it to increase attractiveness to customers as they can shop for a variety of products at Flip Kart.

II. Weaknesses

Being an e-commerce business operator translates to the fact, that customer’s orders are delivered to their requested destinations that make the responsibility of the item in the hands of Flip Kart. If in any case goods are damaged, the loss goes back to Flip Kart and not the customer.

E-commerce is a very competitive field of business and Flip Kart as part of it has to be a price taker from customers (Hollensen, 2015). Buyers can switch online marketing service providers and therefore have the advantage of setting prices that could at times be unfair in the case of Flip Kart.

High costs of acquiring customers are a great drawback for Flip Kart. Stiff competition in the industry makes the costs of acquiring new customers and partners relatively high.

III. Opportunities

Flip Kart is one of the most famous e-commerce service providers that gives it an advantage in achieving new customer recruitment (Hollensen, 2015). Advertising activities as well may be done easily because the company is widely known and no deep explanations are required.

Operating in a wide range of products gives Flip Kart a big opportunity to expand its business. A wide range of products provides economies of scale that translate increased returns.

Digital literacy levels are increasing each day giving e-commerce service providers an advantage in making themselves known to people. Flip Kart can use the opportunity of increasing digital literacy to acquire new customers (Bhasin, 2016).

IV. Threats

High-level competition is the biggest threat that Flip Kart faces. Companies like Amazon and eBay pose a stiff competition that greatly threatens the performance of Flip Kart.

As an online service provider, Flip Kart faces the threat of online data breach. Malicious parties might interfere with their customer records and information affecting service provision activities and customer satisfaction levels.

Government restrictions as well act as a threat as they may at times limit the transaction activities that produce the best return levels. Regulation on FDI related issues in multi-branding retail has highly interfered with the success levels of success in the online marketing industry.

	Positive	Negative
Internal	Strengths Experience Acquisition of big companies No unnecessary shipments Wide variety of products	Weaknesses Price taking Transportation risks High costs of customer and partner acquisition
External	Opportunities Fame Wide product range Increased digital literacy	Threats High competition levels Online data breach Government regulations

Figure 1: Swot Analysis Table

· PESTEL Analysis

PESTEL analysis is a framework that is used by businesses to analyze macro-environmental aspects that affect them. PESTEL analysis acts as a strategic tool to establish a better understanding business position, market behavior and offers directions for operations (Bhasin, 2016). PESTEL analysis consists of political, economic, socio-cultural, technical, environmental, and legal aspects surrounding the business (Hollensen, 2015). Flip Kart’s PESTEL analysis would help establish the factors of the environment that highly affect it and guide it on what aspects to concentrate on.

i. Political Factors

Political factors are concerned with government intervention into the business sector through regulation or restriction of activities (Hollensen, 2015). Regulations have greatly affected the growth of Flip Kart like in the case where Flip Kart dropped acquiring Airtel Zero because it was considered not right to have the advantage of having free internet access while others are using it at costs.

ii. Economic Factors

Business factors that affect the way a business operates as well as how it makes its decisions are economic factors. Some economic factors consist of interest rates, exchange rates, inflation rates, profit rates, among others (Hollensen, 2015). In cases where Flip Kart offered large discounts on their Billion-sale day, it experiences large profit margin drop and had to remove customer listings to avoid experiencing loss.

iii. Social Factors

Social factors are those business aspects that incorporate the concerns of the society like health consciousness, cultural aspects, age distribution, etc. social factors that affect Flip Kart may involve the level of digital literacy which in turn influences the level of online purchase embracing, the level of trust held by people for online purchasing etc.

iv. Technological Factors

Technological factors concern with the way a business is able to update the production or service provision methods used as technology advances. Flip Kart has been on its toes to keep pace with advancing technology that saw it update its purchasing application to be able to be used in phones.

v. Environmental Factors

Environmental factors include ecological aspects of nature such as weather, climate change, etc. which tend to affect many industries (Bhasin, 2016). Flip Kart’s nature is not affected much by environmental factors, but they may interfere with the delivery of customer orders.

vi. Legal Factors

Factors that affect the way a business runs, the pricing procedures, product demand, and supply, etc. are legal factors. Legal factors affect Flip Kart in terms of price controls and service charges. Charges that Flip Kart fixes on its products should align with those of other e-commerce companies to avoid unfair competition through low pricing (Bhasin, 2016).

References

Bhasin, H. (2016). SWOT analysis of Flipkart - Flipkart SWOT analysis. Marketing91.com. Retrieved 17 October 2016, from http://www.marketing91.com/swot-analysis-of-flipkart/

Hollensen, S. (2015). Marketing management: A relationship approach. Pearson Education.

Jurevicius, O. (2013). PEST & PESTEL Analysis,". Strategic Management Insight, 13, 2013.

PESTEL-PESTLE Analysis of Flipkart. (2016). Free PESTEL Analysis. Retrieved 17 October 2016, from http://freepestelanalysis.com/pestel-pestle-analysis-of-flipkart/

Yüksel, I. (2012). Developing a multi-criteria decision making model for PESTEL analysis. International Journal of Business and Management, 7(24), 52.