Last blog

Last blog….

I am not sure if this will ever be read by anyone but there is a bit of catharsis action going on.  I think that I have put in more hours and worked harder in this class then any of the other 15 classes I have taken at WNEU in the last year.  And for all that work I will probably get my first non “A”.  

This week I struggled with the advice memo.  I have felt each week that I have no idea if I am heading down the right path as I set out to do these assignments.  In most of my professional experiences, I have had an example to read to at least see what the finished product looks like and have a feel for expected level of detail in the content.  In this class not a single example was give which made it very difficult and frankly unrealistic from a real world prospective.   

I fully believe that every organization should be customer focused.  I cannot think of one that would not have a customer.  I have been fortunate enough to have served in two during my adult life that understood this.  This also made it difficult to imagine the planning being done and described in the class as limited to the marketing department.   

I did enjoy the simulation.  I had more fun with it during the individual play and think the retry and restart options are more useful toward learning than being locked into one time like in the team play time.

I am simple glad that I have a weekend off, oh wait, I have to read for my new classes starting next week.  Bummer!

Revision of plan

This week we focused on the review of our marketing plan with the goal of revising it for the next three periods.  We conducted a new SWOT analysis.  Many of the key issues remained the same, our original plan did not accomplish what was required to eliminated these issues.  We also looked at our forecast in depth.  One of the biggest problems with the plan was that the forecast was based on a large number of assumptions.  These included market growth and inflation.  Our assumptions did not prove to be correct of either of these points.  Because to had targeted gaining market share and assumed that the market was going to grow throughout, our projected unit sales were significantly higher than actual sales.  We also assumed that inflation would continue at the same relative rate.  This also was not the case.  This lead to a miss on our pricing strategy.  Overall, we were on target for the first couple of periods while the market was growing and matched our plan.  We stumbled when the market turned and we did not adjust our plan in period 5 to account for these changes.  This lead to our version of Allstar giving up all the advances that we made in the first several period.  I believe that our team felt that we needed to stick to the plan vice adjusting midstream.  I believe that I did better mid stream because I had a general plan the third time I ran the simulation but did not feel constrained by the fact that I was going to be graded on how well I executed the plan.  This allowed me to change strategies as I went without worry.  The revision was not as difficult as generating the plan from scratch, but still required a lot of work.

Execution of plan

The execution of the marketing plan went well for the first few periods.  This was mainly because the simulation conditions matched the conditions that were assumed in the plan.  As the simulation progressed the industry growth went negative and inflation went high than low.  All of these changes lead us to be off target with our predications.  The basic strategy appeared to be working at first.  We stuck to the focus markets of our plan and the marketing mix.  We launched the brand extension and it grew as expected.  I would think that in the real world, each year I more detailed review of the performance to forecast would have to be done.  You would not change markets in each case but you would at a minimum adjust forecasts.  I was interesting to see how the product behavior followed the predications at first.

Marketing plan

Creating the Marketing Plan this week was not as difficult as the situational analysis from last week.  The team worked well together.  We spent 6 hours working in the same room.  Each brought what we had learned from the individual assignment as well as from the practice in the simulation.  The first thing we tackled was the mission statement and vision.  We had a good start because Brian had done the “try this” earlier in the term.  Once we knew what we wanted to do this Allstar as a whole, we focused on selecting markets.  We selected two markets for Allstar, the cold and cough and the children’s cold markets.  We then worked through the value position in each market and the tactics for each.  We spent a lot of time back in the simulation verifying information.  We then divided the final tasks.  I took on the spreadsheet forecast and the budget piece.  I found it challenging making all the assumptions that were needed.  I spent time in the simulation to see how different parts of the budget behaved.  For example, I figured out that R&D was always 1.2% of the Manufactures Sales for the past period.  After making the assumptions and make the decisions for the next period, I got the “what if” numbers.  Those numbers were the starting point for the extrapolation of the remaining periods.  In all it seem very unlikely, because of all the assumptions, that we will end up anywhere near the projected figure.

Metrics

The metrics that I recommend are:

• Sales revenue
• Market share
• Contribution after marketing
• units sold
• customer satisfaction

Simulation Incidents

This week our team advanced through the first 2 decision sets in the simulation.   We worked through the decisions as a team using GoTo meeting.  This was my first experience with this online collaboration tool.  I found it very easy and useful.  I was able to navigate the simulation and the team was able to look at the same screen eliminating confusion as to what data was being discussed.  

We had two special incidents occur during the first periods.  We did not know at the time that the social media choice would not affect the outcome of the simulation.  We discussed our personal use of social media and how it influences are purchases.  From our collective experiences we choose to use Facebook and Twitter with Adwords.  We felt that the brand would get more exposure from this option than from having a web page and blog. 

I was disappointed to find out that it only gives a block of meaningless comments on the dashboard page.

The second event was the expiration ethics question.  We talked about the different options and quickly decided that shipping it to our normal customers was not an option.  We did not want to damage any relationships.  We did talk about the two remaining options.  We agreed that selling our product outside the normal distribution channels was the best option because it would minimize the loss on the product.   This is a scenario is one that I have to deal with in real life.   We have shelf life flags on our products that warn us if the material in inventory is approaching expiration.   We have several different methods of dealing with the issue.  We retest material and extend shelf life when possible.  We sell material with short remaining shelf life at discount.  We rework trough the manufacturing process to reset the self life.  Finally, as a last resort, we scrap the material and pay the disposal cost.   The biggest driver in this conversation is does the choice meet the customer’s needs.  For example, extending self life through testing might get the material to the customer faster than reworking or making from scratch.

Benefits Ladder

Benefits ladder for our pharmsim product

Emotional:  Trust that you will feel better and feeling that you are getting the most for your money

Functional Benefits:  Relieve from cold symptoms

Product attribute:  Maximum dosage of active ingredients


Benefits ladder for Eastman Q series advanced interlayer

Emotional:  comfort and relaxed feeling of peacefulness in car, enjoyment of cars audio systems, satisfaction of doing something for environment

Function Benefits: quieter car cabin, lighter car

Product attribute:  Sound eliminating technology in the auto glass interlayer allowing for thinner glass and quieter cabin