• Posted on August 31, 2023
• Shubham khatri

MKT9705M International Marketing Planning Assignment Sample

Here’s the best sample of MKT9705M International Marketing Planning Assignment, written by the expert. 

Executive Summary

The main purpose of the report is to determine the international marketing planning that has been adopted by Aston Martin that is used by the company to increase the sales perspective of the car models in the global market. The market planning is produced in the report to understand the company in assessing the procedure to be fit for understanding the market wants and needs to be based on which the products and the services are improved. In the market planning, procedure RACE model and Horizontal Scanning model have been formulated to understand the marketing decisions taken by Aston Martin to gain competitive advantage. Moreover, the models have helped in understanding the marketing plan of the company in meeting the needs of the Consumers as external stakeholders and business partners as internal stakeholders. The recommendations stated that Aston Martin may utilise the social media platform to help in targeting the audience to increase sales perspective in the global market.

Introduction

The organisational management depends on the working of the company and the way the organisation tries to sustain and survive by taking up certain measures for the better development of the organisation. Moreover, Aston Martin is a well-known luxury car company which has been making sports cars since 1913 the company made the official entry into the racing track programme in 2019 has provided the company to enhance various kinds of motorsport activities (Astonmartin.com. 2022). The company has tried to implement environmental sustainability measures by accelerating the moves by making net-zero emissions, especially from the supply chains aiming to make green racing by becoming a member of Science Based Target Initiatives (SBTI) by aligning to the sustainable goals (Refer to appendix 1). The company has managed in putting forward innovative approaches by combining aerodynamic innovation with elegant style that helps in enhancing the sporting cars quite well (Refer to appendix 2). The market capitalization has helped the company to flourish well by making 514.75 million and the market stock prices and even the shares in the market have made an outstanding growth (Refer to appendix 3). In this report, the market situation and even the market share of prices have been understood and the way it provided Aston Martin to flourish well through better marketing planning and development by implementing better technology.

Business Background

Aston Martin is a luxurious car company which has the most expensive cars and even the company has a major opening in the racing ground of formula 1 has helped the company to progress well in the competitive market. Furthermore, the company is highly inclined toward intensity-driven management by making strategic repositioning for making effective brand awareness by accelerating better growth and development for managing high-performing production models that help the company to stay in the competitive market effectively (Astonmartin.com. 2022). Thus, in order to stay successful in the market the company makes extensive luxury cars by inculcating various kinds of strategies that help in implementing the exploration and creative management of the company.

The company’s current position in the market has been quite well managed by effective leaders the company which has helped the company to survive in the competitive market in a much more effective way. Additionally, the competitors of the company include Bentley motors, Jaguar, Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren and Porsche which has allowed the company to implement effective strategies to compete with these companies successfully. The annual revenue collection of the company increased to 1.1 billion British pounds in 2018 which has helped in managing the effective revenue management of the organisation quite well (Statista. 2022). The company too makes a lot of luxury cars in managing the sales and services by making innovations in the design of the company for attracting customers as customers are more inclined to these cars too.

The brand management of the company has been highly well managed as the company offers highly good products by managing both quantity and quality by managing both strongest and planned way of modelling effectively. Therefore, the company has to manage the competitors as well as better management facilities of the company that provides the company to flourish well and even allows it to establish a better market.

The challenges faced by the company revolve around the way the company is able to compete in the competitive market and it allows the company to sustain itself well. Moreover, the most challenging issues which Aston Martin has to go through are the loss in the sale of the cars in 2021 due to the expensiveness of the cars and various problems in the supply chain management which was due to the Covid-19 situation globally (The Guardian. 2022). The company experienced problems in the economic management of the supply of the cars and even the revenue growth of the company became stagnant in the post the Covid-19 situation which reduced the company’s ability to meet the extensive demands of the consumers (Automotive News Europe. 2022). Thus, the company has to manage various kinds of sustainability management that allow the organisation to flourish well and mitigate and manage the challenges of the company effectively.

Marketing Plan

It may be opined that the RACE model is one of the best marketing models which is mainly used to understand the marketing plan of a company, here RACE model is used to understand the marketing plan of Aston marketing effectively. In addition to that, there are force steps in the RACE model such as Reach, Act, Convert and Engage as these steps play a crucial role in analysing the marketeing framework of Aston martin.

Reach 

It is found that the management of Aston Martin always thinks to increase the reach of the product, for that reason the company always makes proper plans to increase the awareness of the brand in the existing market. Moreover, social media marketing strategies are extremely impactful in enhancing the awareness of a brand and apart from that, it is also useful in improving the image of the brand as well (Bilgin, 2018). The company also implemented a proper digital marketing strategy to attract a huge number of customers which has had a great impact on increasing the annual profit level of the company. One of the main takes of this step is to increase the numbers of reach of the product as the company currently uses multiple paid and earned media and touchpoint communications to enhance the interactions of customers.

Act 

The act is one of the most important steps in the RACE model as it has been observed that the marketing team of Aston Martin always act to encourage the target customers with the help of social media pages. Analysing a reputed journal it is found that the company uses different digital media such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Wechat and many more to increase the engagement of customers (Reddy, 2021). In the era of competition, it is extremely difficult for the automobile communities to encourage the consumers while the use of effective social media strategies and actions are impactful in increasing the competitive advantage of a company. The Act stage is all about taking effective actions to increase the interaction level of customers with the brand. Apart from the offline presence, a strong online presence is also important to interact with customers as in the online media the company shares photos of existing models of cars and shares customers’ experiences about the car which plays a crucial role in interacting.

Convert 

Converting sales is one of the main jobs of the company as a result the company has executed an effective digital marketing plan to increase the conversion of sales. Moreover, without converting the sales, a company may not be able to generate leads in the existing market whereas Aston marketing has increased the conversion of sales in recent times. User-orient digital marketing strategy always plays a paramount role in increasing the conversion rate as this strategy uses the resources of users to attract and gain more customers which enhances the sales conversion rate effectively (Lin, 2021). 

Engage

The company has understood that there is a huge requirement for long-term engagement of customers or else it is not possible to increase the sales of cars. Due to this reason, the company uses digital and integrated communication channels to enhance the engagement level of customers to the brand. Due to this strong engagement with customers, the company is able to increase the annual revenue by 79% in comparison to 2020 in 2021 the annual revenue of the company was around £1.1 billion which denotes the success of the marketing planning of Aston Martin (Amsc-prod-cd.azureedge.net. 2022). The company successfully engages with all customers which helps the company in building long-term relationships and it results in an increase in repeat sales in the company. 

Horizon Scanning

Horizon scanning is the process of prediction which is a sign of development with the help of a systematic examination of potential opportunities and threats through the latest technologies. Horizon scanning provides a way to prepare for the future and implements required strategies to accept the changes in the future and overcome the challenges and it helps to find internal as well as external environments of an organisation or field. Foresight activities are generally planned to push the boundaries of human perception and design strategies to address the consequences of the current strategies and horizon scanning is recognised as one of the foresight strategies (Rowe et al., 2017). However, horizon scanning helps the management of a company to articulate an accurate business plan and it helps to achieve desired profit in the future and retain the growth and development of the company. Along with that, Aston Martin is one of the reputed automobile companies and foresight scanning helps the company to identify the threats and opportunities by assessing the internal and external environment of the company.

Horizon planning helps to build the strategy in different steps such as searching for scanning products, communication and use of scan products, perception of scan reports and many more (Refer to Appendix 5). There are various factors such as sources of information, decision criteria, methodological tools to tailor the generic possess, and increasing the influence of the policies which helps to optimise the horizon-scanning process (National Academies of Sciences, 2022). Horizon scanning in recent times mainly utilises social media platforms, and the internet to track key persons, and press releases, assessing particular websites to gather information on the current scenario regarding the company. Apart from that, horizon scanning also exploits social media marketing which helps to acknowledge the current trends in the contemporary market and develop strategies to maintain earnings in the future. For many practitioners, horizon planning and foresight planning are identical tools which help the company determine the contemporary actions as well as alternative scenarios for generating strategies, visions, policies or decision-making (Cuhls, 2020). In the current market scenario, several factors are posing a threat for the automobile company such as rising competition, environmental issues, globalisation and many more which affects the pace of progress of the companies. Horizon scanning helps to forecast the upcoming demand of the market and generate solutions according to the needs of the consumer which boosts the brand image of the company. 

Horizon scanning helps to identify the emerging business issues which help the automobile company to take effective initiatives to maintain a positive profit margin. It is also important for the companies such as Aston Martin to analyse the other companies’ business strategies to grow competencies and keep the business process updated. It also helps to boost critical thinking in relationship with external and internal activities to make the future more sustainable. In addition to that, technological advances boost the horizontal canning and particularly the technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain, and big data are providing ample opportunities to bring revolution in foresight planning (Kostin, 2018).  

The microenvironment of a business is related to the internal activities whereas the macro-environmental factor refers to the contemporary external scenario of the company. The horizon scanning helps to identify the current potentialities of the automobile company and provide solutions to mitigate the current issues by analysing the micro environmental factors of the company. On the other hand, the macro environment comprises several factors such as political, social, economic, technological, social, and legal and in the contemporary situation there are several issues related to these factors. Horizon scanning is also similar to environmental scanning and helps to address the current issues and provides effective solutions by helping to make decisions for the company. Considering research it is quite clear that horizon planning provides support to take the mission, and vision and adopt the proper aim with the help of technologies to fulfil it within a timeframe (Champion et al., 2021). Horizon scanning also provides extensive support to the automobile company to bring innovativeness within the work process by implementing innovative technologies such as digital marketing, AI and so on. Moreover, the different factors such as monitoring, evaluating, foresight, analysing the system, and context are included in the strategic intelligence as part of horizon scanning which boosts the strategy-making process of the company (Refer to Appendix 6). 

Aston Martin is one of the reputed automobile companies and the company operates its business in the international range whereas it also faces different types of risks in this contemporary era. Nowadays one of the spectacular risks is pandemic Covid-19 which poses a real threat to the automobile industry because several phases of lockdown affect the supply chain of the automobile company. Therefore, horizon scanning is appropriate for designing a proper plan to mitigate the crisis by supporting the company with proper forecasting. In national as well as international ranges there is huge competition and for that reason, foresight planning helps to boost the growth and development of the company. According to the researchers, external challenges adversely affect the automotive industry and horizon scanning helps to reflect upon the decision-making process to overcome those challenges (Vecchiato et al., 2020). Horizon scanning also helps the company to boost the segmentation process depending on a different region, demography, population, geography and many more which boosts the identification of the targeted consumers for the company. Financial risk is another important risk for the automobile company during the pandemic and proper planning of budget with the help of horizon scanning may boost the financial security of the future. 

It may be argued that all foresight may not be fruitful for the future of the business due to lack of accuracy whereas maximum scanning provides useful results for the business. In the age of competition, among various geo-political tensions, the company needs to follow or adopt horizon scanning because it may help to retain the unique position by achieving desirable profit in the future.

Future Marketing/Technology/Consumer trends in marketing practice

Analysing the horizon scanning it is found that Aston Martin needs to be more focused on current market trends or else the company will not be able to gain competitive advantages in the existing market. The company also uses multiple innovative technologies such as AI, blockchain and many more which helps the company to execute proper foresight planning for the company. It may be argued that there is a huge requirement for horizon scanning as it is useful in understanding the future marketing practice of the company. Additionally, after Covid-19 the company has changed the marketing plan even though the company needs to be more focused on using digital marketing channels to attract customers. A digital marketing channel is extremely important in this modern era as it has the credibility to impact the purchasing decision of customers (Azzam and Mizeed, 2021). The existing marketing is suitable for the company, however, Aston Martin needs to execute a more customer-centric approach to target a huge customer base. The company needs to do regular posts on social media and is also required to use a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy to enhance the interaction with customers in social media applications. It is proved that if a company will be able to increase the engagement level with customers then the company will be able to achieve sales conversion fruitfully. 

The Supply chain issue is one of the main issues which are faced by the company during Covid-19 as it has created a negative impact on the lakes of the company. According to horizon scanning, the company needs to take advantage of new technological trends in the supply chain which will ensure the delivery of cars to customers at the right time. Industry 4.0 is the new trend in supply chain management which is immensely useful in increasing the supply chain capabilities of a company (Queiroz et al., 2019). Moreover, if Aston Martin will face any kind of uncertain scenario in the future then the use of Industry 4.0 will help the company to maintain the effectiveness of the supply chain network. Along with that, for the improvement of the entire supply chain network modern companies follow sustainable supply chain trends which are based on big data, industry 4.0, closed-loop supply chains and many more (Tsai et al., 2021). According to modern trends, social media is also useful for properly interacting and communicating with the stakeholders of the company. The company already has a social media marketing strategy, however, this strategy needs to be properly monitored and needs to be improved which helps the business partners (internal stakeholders) of the company to understand the business goals and objectives of Aston Martin. 

According to the furniture trends, every customer may focus on purchasing personalised and customised cars, as a result in the future the company needs to deliver personalised cars according to the demand of customers. From Horizon scanning, it is found that in the future the market will be based on e-commerce, for that reason the company has to provide more focus on moving the business to e-commerce websites. In the future robotics and automation will also play a crucial role as it is useful in enhancing the production speed of an automobile production company. The future of automobile manufacturing will be based on robot-assist sensing and controlling as it will surely provide a great competitive advantage to all automobile manufacturing companies (Smys and Ranganathan, 2019). Moreover, the management of Aston Martin also needs to follow these trends to be more competitive and financially stable in the existing market which will satisfy the stakeholders of the company as well. The demand of customers is also changing day by day as if the company will is able to follow the future trends then it will easily attract a huge customer base and ensure the competitiveness of the company. Research also states that new knowledge and ideas always help a company to be more innovative in a competitive environment (Distanont and Khongmalai, 2020). 

Research Implications and Recommendations

Being one of the reputed automobile manufacturing companies, Aston Martin needs to provide more focus on mitigating the current challenges or else it may affect the brand image of the company. Horizon scanning has played a crucial role in identifying the business environment of the company as the company needs to analyse these issues to generate leads in the existing market. In addition to that, horizon scanning is not enough to understand the existing issues of the company even though it may provide a brief analysis of the current marketing practice of the company. Here are some recommendations which should be followed by Aston Martin to gain a proper competitive advantage in the global environment. 

The recommendations are as follows:-

1. The company should properly use the social media platform to target the audience effectively which may enhance the sales of the company
2. It should be recommended that the needs use digital marketing strategies  to promote the cars of the company which will deliberately attract a huge customer base
3. Aston Martin needs need to use innovative technologies such as AI, robotics and automation to develop the model of cars according to the preferences of customers
4. The company should use several environmental analysis tools such as PESTLE, SWOT, Horizon scanning and nay more to analyse the condition of the internal and external business environment

Conclusion

It may be concluded that the RACE model and Horizontal scanning models have helped Aston Martin in developing an effective marketing plan for the future scope of increasing sales in the global market. The company may also be beneficial in analysing the future trends among consumers to deliver optimised products through an effective marketing plan formulated.

References

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Astonmartin.com. 2022. Aston Martin | Iconic Luxury British Sports Cars | Aston Martin. [online] Available at: <https://www.astonmartin.com/en/> [Accessed 17 August 2022].

Astonmartin.com. 2022. Aston Martin takes off into new era with brand repositioning and new iconic wings logo | Aston Martin. [online] Available at: <https://www.astonmartin.com/en/our-world/news/2022/7/19/aston-martin-takes-off-into-new-era-with-brand-repositioning-and-new-iconic-wings-logo> [Accessed 17 August 2022].

Automotive News Europe. 2022. Aston Martin sees its finances improving as supply chain problems ease. [online] Available at: <https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/aston-martin-sees-its-finances-improving-supply-chain-problems-ease> [Accessed 17 August 2022].

Bilgin, Y., 2018. The Effect Of Social Media Marketing Activities On Brand Awareness. Brand Image And Brand Loyalty, BMIJ,(2018), 6(1), pp.128-148.

Champion, A.R., Lewis, S., Davies, S. and Hughes, D.A., 2021. Managing access to advanced therapy medicinal products: Challenges for NHS Wales. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 87(6), pp.2444-2449.

Cuhls, K.E., 2020. Horizon Scanning in Foresight–Why Horizon Scanning is only a part of the game. Futures & Foresight Science, 2(1), p.e23.

Distanont, A. and Khongmalai, O., 2020. The role of innovation in creating a competitive advantage. Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences, 41(1), pp.15-21.

Kostin, K.B., 2018. Foresight of the global digital trends. Strategic Management-International Journal of Strategic Management and Decision Support Systems in Strategic Management, 23(1).

Lin, Y., 2021, December. Analysis of Digital Marketing of China’s Automobile Manufacturing Industry During Pandemic Time. In 2021 3rd International Conference on Economic Management and Cultural Industry (ICEMCI 2021) (pp. 281-284). Atlantis Press.

National Academies of Sciences, a. (2022). HORIZON SCANNING AND FORESIGHT METHODS. Retrieved 17 August 2022, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK556423/#:~:text=Horizon%20scanning%20helps%20in%20assessing,identifying%20important%20needs%20or%20gaps.

Queiroz, M.M., Pereira, S.C.F., Telles, R. and Machado, M.C., 2019. Industry 4.0 and digital supply chain capabilities: A framework for understanding digitalisation challenges and opportunities. Benchmarking: an international journal.

Reddy, P.M., 2021.  Integrated Marketing Communication Case Study Report.

Rowe, E., Wright, G. and Derbyshire, J., 2017. Enhancing horizon scanning by utilizing pre-developed scenarios: Analysis of current practice and specification of a process improvement to aid the identification of important ‘weak signals’. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 125, pp.224-235.

Smys, S. and Ranganathan, G., 2019. Robot assisted sensing control and manufacture in automobile industry. Journal of ISMAC, 1(03), pp.180-187.

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The Guardian. 2022. Aston Martin optimistic after sales surge and slashed losses in 2021. [online] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/23/aston-martin-optimistic-after-sales-surge-and-slashed-losses-in-2021> [Accessed 17 August 2022].

Tsai, F.M., Bui, T.D., Tseng, M.L., Ali, M.H., Lim, M.K. and Chiu, A.S., 2021. Sustainable supply chain management trends in world regions: A data-driven analysis. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 167, p.105421.

Vecchiato, R., Favato, G., Di Maddaloni, F. and Do, H., 2020. Foresight, cognition, and long‐term performance: Insights from the automotive industry and opportunities for future research. Futures & Foresight Science, 2(1), p.e25.

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