Module 04 Business Plan Project - Strategic Plan

Market Analysis and Promotion Strategy

Name: Rodney Wheeler

Institution: Rasmussen College

Course: B324/ENT3281 Section 01 Business Innovation: Best Practices in New Business Development

Date: 10/20/17

Market Analysis and Promotion Strategy

Target Market

The target market of Access Point Consultancy is mainly start-ups aged not more than five years. The institutions targeted are governmental and non-governmental, profit-making as well nonprofit making organizations. Start-ups are important to Access Point Consultancy because one of their main objectives is to minimize costs while venturing into their respective industries. Access Point Consultancy seeks to help them achieve this through the discounted costs approach.

Top Competitors

The main competitors are PriceWaterHouseCoopers (PwC), Ipsos Synovate and Deloitte Consulting. Access Point plans to use the gap left by these giant consultants in providing services to start-ups especially middle and low-income start-ups. The three have a long presence in the market, strong clientele base as well as market preference over other consultancy firms.

PwC strengths are large client base many of which are repeat clients, product diversification, not just financial services and an expansive geographical coverage in more than 150 countries (BrandGuide (2008). These gives PwC a big market share and the ability to overcome threats. Weaknesses perceived are work related controversies and allegations which barred the brand image at times, stiff competition from other leading players which restricts PwC’s market share and the brand is a detractor in most markets especially the middle market. PwC is still yet unable to use the opportunities in the market to combat these issues and thus they remain to be their weaknesses.

Swotanalysis24 (2017) points out to the strengths of Ipsos Synovate as: skilled workforce, domestic as well as foreign market and experienced business units. These are deemed to be strengths because the company has been able to take advantage of them and stay healthy in the industry. The weaknesses of Ipsos include among others small business units, disparager of some market segments and high cost services. These are deemed to be weaknesses because Ipsos has not done anything so far to include the markets belittled and their most middle and low-income clients shy away from going to them due to high price quotations.

The strengths perceived of Deloitte are a strong client base, huge revenues which give the potential of acquiring smaller competitors and expansive outreach. The weaknesses, similar to Ipsos and PwC include belittling some market segments, high price quotations and specialization in only business and IT consultancy. These are deemed to be weaknesses as they will provide a niche for Access Point to successfully build a remarkable position in the market.

Access point Consultancy will take advantage of the three competitors’ weaknesses by focusing mainly on the start-ups, which contribute a greater percentage of the market share detracted by these big companies. Moreover, offering diversified service will help the company combat the competitors’ strengths. Focus on reduced or discounted prices will also combat these strengths by earning Access Point a bigger market share among the neglected sector.

Service Features

The three main features of the service packages offered by Access Point are timely provision of data and reports, discounted prices and customer-tailored packages. Timely provision of data and reports will help customers have more duration to analyze the information provide for real-time decision making. Discounted prices will lower the costs incurred by customers thus saving them more for other operations. Customer-tailored packages will ensure that clients get what they want, even if Access Point views it to be not a need. Access Point services will be differentiated in terms of low costs and inclusivity of the middle and low-income earners.

Pricing Strategy

Access Point prefers a penetration pricing strategy. According to Stokes & Lomax (2008), penetration pricing helps create a customer base faster since low products attract customers as they are always price sensitive, especially when finances are a constraint. This strategy was selected because it will create a loyal customer base which will be hard to lose even on increasing prices a little bit. Our service packages will be priced depending on the requirements of clients, but with utmost consideration of the clients stand in their market or their financial wellbeing.

Sales and promotion

An online distribution channel will be adopted for the distribution of services offered by Access Points. Organic and paid for search engines as well as online ad campaigns will be used to reach out to customers. With the increased use of the internet in recent times, this provides the best way to reach out to millions of potential clients all over the world.

Social media networks, television and online ads will be the main promotion strategies. These are critical as they will help reach out to a huge market. Moreover, there has been notable increase in use of social media platforms for business related issues in the past few years (Humphreys & Wilken, 2015).

References

BrandGuide (2008). PwCPricewaterhouseCoopers SWOT Analysis, USP & Competitors. Retrieved October 20, 2017 from http://www.mbaskool.com/brandguide/management-and-consulting/4354-pwc-pricewaterhousecoopers.html

Humphreys, L., & Wilken, R. (2015). Social media, small businesses, and the control of information. Information, Communication & Society, 18(3), 295-309.

Swotanalysis24 (2017). Ipsos SA SWOT Analysis –Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats of Ipsos SA. Retrieved October 20, 2017 from https://www.swotanalysis24.com/swot-i/56729-swot-analysis-ipsos-sa.html

Stokes, D. & Lomax, W. (2008). Marketing: a brief introduction. Australia: Thomson.