International Business Development Plan
Background
Scottish Soapworks is a small scale enterprise, offering a range of natural and sustainable personal hygiene products. For its production the company chooses a mix of certified products of both international and local origin such as honey, oatmeal and Scottish Malt Whisky (Scottish Soapwork, 2018). The company’s brand revolves around a mix of natural products that were selectively manually transformed, to offer the clientele group not only a product of high quality, but high ethical value. The business model is primarily affected by the unique choice of products and sustainable values that reach the needs of an aware ecologically responsible consumer group, whom nowadays through social media have illustrated their high bargaining power (Gunderson, 2014). The product differs from other sustainable alternatives from within the market, for being highly local in its ingredients, a trend often disappearing in light of the vastly emerging globalisation (Grimm et al., 2016). Due to its close physical and physic location Ireland is chosen as the new market of entry (Yan et al., 2016)
Target International Markets
At the current time, the company offers its product range in the limited market such as UK and Scotland. But, as concerning of the product quality and varieties in the product line, Scottish Soapworks has good opportunity to expand business in the international market. For this, Scottish Soapworks will target Ireland. In this, it would like to make the customers in the Ireland. In this country, there is a significant business growth for the company because the GDP growth is high (GDP $72,485 per capita in 2016) (OECD, 2017). At the same time, per person income is also high that will support the Scottish Soapworks to make the sufficient sales in the Ireland. Ireland is selected as the target market because in the DNA structure of the Ireland people are similar to Scotland. That is why; skin type of Ireland is also similar to Scotland (Wade, 2007). Hence, company is looking more opportunity in this country.
Business Models
In the planning the business expansion, it is essential to have the sufficient information on the business model of the company. In the context of Scottish Soapworks, its business model depicts that company wants to meet the people from the sustainable product range. For this, uses only sustainable ingredients including palm oil, organic cocoa butter, organic olive oil and organic coconut. At the same time, business model of the company also shows that it is engaged in the business to customer activities where it directly provides the product to the customers (Scottish Soapwork, 2018)
Product
The soap products are provided by the company in different varieties by considering customer requirements for maintaining their beautiful skin. Moreover, all products are truly handmade soaps which are made by a wonderful team member. For last 12 years, the team has been successfully working hard for developing a good product i.e., by chopped, blended, stirred and poured. The company operates its business in only one country i.e., Scotland, United Kingdom. In addition, the proposed international target market of Scottish Soapworks is Ireland. Ireland is a suitable country to target a large number of customers by expanding the business to a next level (Scottish Soapwork, 2018).
Advertising
In the business expansion process, the company will conduct the marketing activities that will be helpful to introduce the product in the market (Cvelbar, et al., 2017). Advertising is one of the main activities to increase the brand awareness in the market. In the reference of this, the company will take the help of the marketing mix. Under the marketing mix, Scottish Soapwork will use four main strategies such as product, pricing, promotion and place strategy (Huang and Sarigöllü, 2014). In this, under this product strategy, Scottish Soapwork will design its product according to the needs of the target market. In this, the company will produce the sufficient range and different quantity sizes according to different family sizes. At the same time, the pricing strategy is associated with money that customer will pay for the product. As the initial stage, the company will keep its price low and competitive in order to increase the market share. It will help to develop the customer base. In the place strategy, Scottish Soapwork will decide where it can offer its range of the product (Fan et al., 2015). Under this, the company will develop the strategy to sell its products at the crowded areas such as big malls, city center, and shopping centers. It will provide the great opportunity to make the high sales. In the promotion strategy, the company will develop a plan as what method that can be used to promote its product in the market. For this, the company will use both advertising methods such as the traditional and modern. It will help to mitigate gap between the advertising processes (Bahadir et al., 2015).
Unique selling point: differentiation strategy
In the current business environment, if a company wants to become the success then it is essential for this to concern on the product differentiation strategy (Brenes et al., 2014). In this, it is found that differentiation strategy is mainly based on who the product or service of the company is different from the competitors). In this, it is evaluated that the product of Scottish Soapwork is different from its competitors. Under this strategy, Scottish Soapwork seeks to provide some unique products. The company provides the best combination of the natural products with the help of the sustainable ingredients. In the expansion of the business, the company will be able to get the attention of the customer by offering soaps. The differentiation strategy of the company determines that it is valuable for the customers (Mungai and Ogot, 2017). At the same time, the company does not use any equipment in the manufacturing. Its products are handmade by the workers.
References
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Brenes, E.R., Montoya, D. and Ciravegna, L. (2014) Differentiation strategies in emerging markets: The case of Latin American agribusinesses. Journal of Business Research, 67(5), pp.847-855.
Cvelbar, L.K., Grün, B. and Dolnicar, S. (2017) Which hotel guest segments reuse towels? Selling sustainable tourism services through target marketing. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 25(7), pp.921-934.
Fan, S., Lau, R.Y. and Zhao, J.L., (2015) Demystifying big data analytics for business intelligence through the lens of marketing mix. Big Data Research, 2(1), pp.28-32.
Grimm, J., Schmidt, P., Huddy, L. and Seethaler, J. eds. (2016) Dynamics of national identity: media and societal factors of what we are. UK: Routledge.
Gunderson, R. (2014) Problems with the defetishization thesis: ethical consumerism, alternative food systems, and commodity fetishism. Agriculture and human values, 31(1), pp.109-117.
Huang, R. and Sarigöllü, E., (2014) How brand awareness relates to market outcome, brand equity, and the marketing mix. In Fashion Branding and Consumer Behaviors. Springer, New York, NY.
Mungai, E. and Ogot, M. (2017) Generic Strategies and Firm Performance: An Investigation of Informal Sector Micro-Enterprises in Kenya. International Journal of Business and Management, 12(3), p.148.
OECD (2017) Online. Available at: https://data.oecd.org/ireland.htm (Assessed: 06 March 2018)
Scottish Soapwork (2018) Online. Available at: https://www.thescottishsoapworks.co.uk/ (Assessed: 22nd Feb 2018)
Wade, N. (2007) English, Irish, Scots: They’re All One, Genes Suggest. Online. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/science/05cnd-brits.html (Assessed: 06 March 2018)
Yan, X., Andrews, T.J. and Young, A.W., (2016) Cultural similarities and differences in perceiving and recognizing facial expressions of basic emotions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 42(3), p.423.
