Global Marketing Strategy Assignment Sample
An Analysis and Evaluation of an SME’s Global Marketing Strategy
Introduction
Marketing strategy plays an important role within operations of a company. In this respect, implementing proper cultural notion while designing a marketing strategy helps an organisation to create high brand awareness and sell its products and services across global scenarios. The current report will be analysing issues of the company impact of culture to be faced by Verdant Leisure in its global marketing strategy. Impact of culture on marketing tactics and strategy of Verdant Leisure will be analysed with the help of cultural theory alongside four elements of marketing mix that are price, promotion, place, and products.
Background of the company
Verdant Leisure is a company under the hospitality sector operating within the domain of the UK (Verdant Leisure, 2021). It is a bespoke operator of holiday parks that mainly offers self-catering holidays across Durham, Northumberland, and Scotland, operating since 1990 with over 250 employees (Verdant Leisure, 2021). This SME is highly committed towards development and continued investment for all the people and parks. Based on the notion of proper and excellence service, the company has won several awards. It includes gold and silver prize in ‘best parks in the UK category’ and ‘best family park in the UK category’ respectively. Other than that, this organisation also won ‘British Travel Awards’, ‘Best UK Family Holiday Company category’ and many others (Verdant Leisure, 2021). In addition to this, this SME is also involved in charity actions and supporting the community for its development. Apart from that, the company is also highly involved in the aspects of sustainability. Parks of this company are mainly surrounded by natural beauty and thus the company is highly engaged in promoting sustainability and protecting environment. Besides, verdant Leisure is also committed in improving environmental conditions and deals with protecting it through its operations. As of 2020, revenue of the company depicts $18.2 million further depicting proper operations of the company as successful SMEs within the domain of the UK (Verdant Leisure, 2021).
Impact of culture on marketing tactics and strategy of Verdant Leisure
Culture tends to have high influence on choice of products further depicting high influence on customers’ lifestyle. It is because, as per the illustration of Minkov et al. (2019), the lifestyle of customers depends on how the customer will behave and the things they will demand. In addition to this, culture also seems to influence the purchasing habits of customers. For instance, a customer can purchase the same products repeatedly and at the same time, a customer can purchase new products. This mainly depends on cultural aspects of the customers within a market. Additionally, as per Beugelsdijk et al. (2017), international trade seems to be highly impacted by cultural notions. As a result of increased international trade, companies are highly observed to be faced with cultural differences in the strategy of marketing as different nations seem to be having different cultural instances that further impacts the operation of companies in the global scenario.
Based on the current scenario, Verdant Leisure is an SME operating within the UK domain under the hospitality sector. In this respect, globalisation of the company is likely to create several cultural differences in its marketing tactics. As the company operates in the UK, therefore, the operations and facilities provided by the company are based on UK culture. In this respect, as the culture of different nations is different, therefore, Verdant Leisure is likely to face cultural difficulties in its global marketing strategy. However, as argued by Sawagvudcharee and Yolles (2019), culture also impacts highly on brand image within a domain. It is because, if a company fails to meet the cultural values within a market, then the company gets low exposure within targeted markets. Henceforth, it can be stated that culture seems to be having a high impact on the marketing strategy of Verdant Leisure.
The Hofstede model of cultural differences depicts six dimensions that mainly create cultural differences. It includes, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, long term orientation, indulgence, and individualism (Beugelsdijk and Welzel, 2018). Considering this cultural model, it can be stated that, power distance within the domain of the UK scores low. This reflects that operational instance of Verdant Leisure are characterised by equality and minimisation of inequality. Internal and external stakeholders of the company are equally treated further depicting equal and fair distribution of power within organisational domain. In this respect, countries operating with hierarchical structure that mainly denotes unequal distribution of power within organisational domain seem to be highly impacting marketing strategies of stated SME. As depicted by Schwartz’s Model of culture, hierarchy further stating humble and authoritative notion denotes one of the cultural barriers (Ozer and Schwartz, 2021). As Verdant Leisure is characterised by non-hierarchical nature, therefore, this instance may create cultural barriers for the company. On the other hand, the UK also promotes individualism and recognises individual efforts. This culture may not match with other countries that mainly deal with the notion of teamwork and thus Verdant Leisure is likely to face cultural barriers.
Apart from that, the UK culture is also driven by high masculinity power. As per Kristjánsdóttir et al. (2017), a high score in these aspects reflects male dominated society. As per organisational culture model by Edgar Schein it can be stated that artefacts, exposed values, and basic assumption mainly shapes the culture of an organisation (Schein and Schein, 2018). This is mainly derived from the values followed within an organisation. In this respect, nation that prefers feminism or that are being designed by equal power of male and female population tends to impact marketing notion of Verdant Leisure in its global marketing strategy. Besides, low scores of uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation reflects low future perseverance by Verdant Leisure though the company is highly involved in maintaining sustainability notions in its operations. However, as argued by Huang and Crotts (2019), British culture followed by Verdant Leisure is also likely to impacts its global operations and marketing strategies as this culture differs from other cultures that further impacts customer choices and preferences. Apart from that, culture also impacts on strategies of distribution, sales, and promotion within an organisational domain. Additionally based on the notions provided by Trompenaars cultural model, it can be analysed that individualism and communitarianism creates high differences between two nations. As the UK culture is highly based on individualism, therefore, working pattern of Verdant Leisure is also highly characterised by individual notion. As a result of this, nation having team work notion seems to be impacting the operational instances of the company (Carolina, 2019). Therefore, global marketing strategy of Verdant Leisure is likely to be impacted by cultural notions of different countries.
Marketing mix
Marketing strategy of an organization can be identified through marketing mix elements. According to Thabit and Raewf (2018), elements of marketing mix mainly depict price, promotion, and place and product strategy of an organisation. Proper designing of marketing strategy aims at proper promotion of organisational products that further helps in reaching the targeted customer base. Additionally, as per Dost et al. (2019), elements of marketing mix help in covering all areas of marketing that provide high benefits to organisational operations. Moreover, analysing elements of marketing mix also helps in understanding the cultural differences and its impact on marketing strategy in global operations of an organisation. In this respect, analysing for 4Ps of marketing of Verdant Leisure will be effective in analysing current marketing strategy of the company further analysing its impact on global operating scenario.
Place
As of current scenario, Verdant Leisure seems to be operating within the domain of North East England and Southern Scotland with nine holiday parks and 3000 pitches (Palatine, 2019). Verdant Leisure mainly targets tourist spots that mainly attract people and help them to relax in their holidays. In addition to this, the company also seems to be adopting a buy and build strategy within its marketing. According to Alipour (2019), the strategy of buy and build depicts expansion of company’s operations with the help of developed expertise so that the company gets successful in building the desired infrastructure at the selected location. This strategy of Verdant Leisure can be considered as one of its issues and is likely to impact its global marketing strategy. It is because, the company may not get the facility of having developed expertise in global scenario that might impact infrastructure development of the company in global operations further influencing its marketing notions negatively. Based on this notion it can be stated that Verdant Leisure may adopt a proper strategy of distribution that in turn will create a positive effect on the place strategy of the company.
In this respect, a selective strategy can be adopted by Verdant Leisure in the global marketing notion. As opined by Wang et al. (2018), selective strategy depicts marketing the products and services of the company to selected stores. For instance, in the current scenario, Verdant Leisure can promote its products and services to all consultancy service companies in targeted markets. As a result of this, Verdant Leisure can gain high exposure within the global scenario and thus will also be effective in gaining a high customer base. Other than that, selecting local consultancy services for promoting its products will also be effective in lowering the chances of facing cultural barriers in its operations. In this respect, this strategy can be adopted by the company. However, as reflected by Demmler et al. (2018), implementation of selective distribution strategy, requires proper evaluation of end users. In this respect, the first step for Verdant Leisure in terms of implementing selective distribution strategy reflects selection of proper end users followed by identification and researching potential market intermediates and proper management of distribution channels.
Price
From the current scenario of Verdant Leisure, it can be observed that the company operates with a low-price strategy of pricing that can be considered as one of its issue. According to Kienzler and Kowalkowski (2017), low pricing strategy aims at setting prices of products and services low so that every customer within the targeted market can avail products and services of the company. Customers within a market tend to be highly attracted towards products that are low in price. However, as argued by Othman et al. (2019), companies expanding globally also seem to be setting low prices of products and services to match cultural notion of targeted market and attract customers at the same time. Nonetheless, as counter argued by de Mooij and Beniflah (2017), low prices of products and services also reflects cultural challenges for companies in global markets. It is because customers in certain nations seem to prefer products and services with high prices. As per them, products and services with high prices seem to hold high value. This mainly reflects customer’s lifestyle that further reflects cultural notion of customers or the nation.
However, considering global strategies of marketing, it can be stated that Verdant Leisure can adopt the strategy of market penetration pricing. According to Pomering (2017), strategy of market penetration depicts low prices at the time of entering a new market. However, prices within the expanded market are raised once the products and services of the company gain high exposure within the domain and are highly demanded by customers. This strategy will be effective for Verdant Leisure in terms of global marketing because low prices of customers can match cultural notion of customers preferring low prices of products and services and thus increase the sales and revenue of the company. On the other hand, customers judging products by price value can also be satisfied by this pricing strategy. It is because, after gaining proper market exposure when Verdant Leisure will increase the price, then the customers preferring high product price value will also be attracted. Therefore, to implement this strategy, Verdant Leisure needs to lower prices of products and services while entering new markets and gradually increase its prices when the company’s products will be highly demanded by the customers. This will also be effective in increasing the revenue margin of the company further sustaining future growth.
Promotion
Promotion is another important element of the marketing mix. As depicted by Mahmoud (2018), promotion indicates proper marketing of products and services that further enables to create high awareness within targeted domains. Based on the current situation it can be observed that, Verdant Leisure adopts the strategy of website development to promote its product and can be considered as one of its issues (Attacat, 2020). The aspect of website development indicates developing own brand of the company by creating an official webpage. This page generally reflects all the information regarding the company’s operations. This page can be simple with limited information or can also be complex with various information regarding company’s operations.
However, as argued by Raewf et al. (2021), development of websites also depicts cultural issues in the aspects of marketing. It is because, as per regulations of different countries, the website of the host nation cannot be accessed by people of the home nation. In this respect, the strategy of website development in terms of promoting the products and services of the company can be highly impacted in global scenarios through cultural instances. Based on the notion of global marketing strategy, it can be stated that Verdant Leisure can adopt the strategy of social media marketing in terms of promotion. As per Jacobson et al. (2020), social media marketing generally reflects advertising products and services of a company on the sites of social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and others. It is because the sites of social media are widely used by populations across the world. Besides, advertising using social media sites mainly attracts people quickly and helps in spreading information at a very fast pace.
As of 2021, the most popularly used social media sites reflects Facebook with 2895 billion of users monthly followed by YouTube with 2291 billion users, WhatsApp with 2000 billion users and others (Statista, 2021) [Refer to Appendix]. Analysing this aspect, it can be stated that adaptation of social media promotional strategy can be effective for Verdant Leisure in its global marketing strategies. However, as argued by Li et al. (2021), implementing the notion of social media promotional strategy can also be effective in creating cultural challenges for the company. It is because; sites of social media such as Facebook, Instagram and others are banned in China and other nations. Considering this situation, Verdant Leisure needs to analyse social media sites popular in the nation of expansion. In order to implement this strategy, the company needs to create official pages of respective social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook and others and provide advertisements regarding products and services of the company with proper image and description. Henceforth, this strategy will be effective for Verdant Leisure in its global marketing strategy.
Product
As of current scenario, Verdant Leisure seems to be dealing with product standardization strategy that can be an issue in the global scenario. Based on the opinion of Wilkins et al. (2019), the strategy of product standardisation reflects following certain and proper guidelines regarding the aspects of the product. This strategy mainly maintains high consistency regarding the nature of the products within the market so that it can be identified by the customers easily. As per Tecchio et al. (2017), this strategy mainly helps in creating high brand awareness and image within a market. In addition to this, it also reflects proper maintenance of quality alongside the appearance of the products in any situation. On the contrary, as argued by Liu and Shi (2017), this strategy tends to lower the aspects of variety within any products and services. As Verdant Leisure deals with a preconceived notion of holiday parks, therefore, the company seems to be using this strategy so that it can be effective in maintaining consistency in each of its parks. It also helps the company to maintain its legacy and brings high consistency within its services to the customers.
However, as argued by Majer et al. (2018), this strategy adopted by the company tends to be highly impacted by cultural barriers. It is because; the culture of the UK differs from other nations. As a result of this, the parks that have been built by the company are based on UK culture that may not be accepted by other nations. For instance, if Verdant Leisure builds the same type of parks in the US or any other nation, then the company may face barriers in terms of cultural differences. In this respect, the company can adopt the strategy of product adaptation. According to Krupka et al. (2017), the strategy of product adaptation mainly denotes adapting to the cultural norms of the country of operations and modifying its products and services accordingly. Besides this strategy also helps in adapting to the choice and preferences of local customers that further denotes high demand of product and services in the country of operations. In this respect, Verdant Leisure can adopt this strategy so that the company can be effective in modified holiday parks based on the cultural norms of those nations and the demand and preferences of the customers within the domain.
Conclusion
From the current report it can be concluded that cultural barriers are highly capable of destroying the operating notion of a company within a market. In addition to this, cultural notions also play a viable role in global marketing strategies as the cultures of different nations are different from each other. Verdant Leisure is a UK based company under the hospitality sector dealing with the services of holiday parks across the UK. the parks designed by the company are based on the culture of the UK that seems to be highly different from other nations as per size dimensions stated by Hofstede cultural dimension mode. It includes power distance, individualism, feminism, uncertainty avoidance, long term orientation and indulgence. Currently, verdant Leisure seems to be functioning with the strategy of low pricing, product standardisation, website development, promotional strategy, and others. These strategies are likely to be impacted by cultural notions in the global scenario. As a result of this, adaptation of product adaptation strategy, social media promotional strategy, selective distribution strategy and market penetration pricing strategy can be effective for the company.
Recommendation for next three years
Considering above analysis, it can be stated that current strategies of the company are likely to be impacted by cultural notions in global scenario. In this respect, following the elements of marketing mix, the strategy of product adaptation along with social media marketing market penetration pricing and others can be effective for the company in dealing with cultural differences in global scenarios. Based on this notion, the company should implement aspects of training and development within organisational domain in the first year. As per Bhayani (2019) training and development helps in developing skills of the employees that further will be effective in coping cross-cultural differences in global scenarios. In the second year, the company can implement a change management approach within the organisational domain further implementing the strategy of social media promotion, market penetration pricing, and intensive distribution strategy and product adaptation. Through a change management approach, the company can be able to manage and implement the stated change within organisational domain without impacting operational notion. In the third year, the company can implement the notion of continuous improvement within the domain. Through this strategy, the company can be effective in managing the change and deals with continuous improvement of its products and services.
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Appendix: Social media usage (in billions)
(Source: Statista, 2021)
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