Lenovo- Thinkpad. Business & Marketing Research Paper
Writing Intensive Statement
MKTG 471: Fall 2020
This course has been approved by the Faculty Senate Writing Across the Curriculum Committee to fulfill the Writing Intensive Requirement in the Marketing major. It does so through the completion by an individual student of a Marketing strategy/Marketing plan project that will be completed in two sections or phases – Part 1 is 1,000-words (minimum) and Part 2 is the revision and resubmission of Part 1 along with an additional 2,500 words for a total of 3,500 words for the total market plan. excluding appendices.
Prerequisite to starting the market plan, students need to submit the product(s) or brands or categories, the name of the firm and overall industry that will be researched for approval. Students receive points for the timely submission of the product and/or service, etc. for the plan.
Part 1 of the Marketing Strategy/Marketing Plan project will be completed through a draft/feedback/revision process. After approval of the product, firm and industry and the subsequent submission of Part 1, students will receive commentary on the sections for Part 1 and a grade on content and writing related dimensions.
The final plan will include the part 1 revised submission in combination with Part 2 and is submitted in the last week of the class. Both Part 1 and Part 2 require citations in text and a Works Cited or Bibliography using APA format. In the final paper the Works Cited is a consolidated and alphabetized list that is integrated for the entire paper.
Due dates are in the class schedule section of this syllabus. A description of the Marketing Strategy/Marketing Plan project and its fulfillment of the Writing Intensive requirement in the Marketing major follow:
Marketing Plan Topics (adapted from Ferrell and Hartline, (2014) Marketing Strategy, Cengage.)
1. Executive Summary: A synopsis of the overall plan and this should be written upon completion of the paper.
2. Background or Current Situation: A discussion of how the current product, service, etc., is currently being marketed, e.g. defines the “as is?” What is the current marketing strategy with respect to the product, pricing, distribution and promotion. Which of the elements are working and which are not? Describe the current performance of the product or service, e.g. sales volume, market share, profitability, awareness of the product, brand preference, compared to the competition and in the industry as a whole. Is the performance of the industry as a whole improving or declining and why? See demand and market research in Chapter 3 of the text for additional information. This should include the industry size in revenue and units; current and five-year forecast, performance improving or declining, competitors, along with supporting charts/trend analysis in appendix.
3. Customer Environment: This is the current segmentation, targeting and positioning of the product for the customers, either business or consumer. A description of the important identifying characteristics of the current and potential customers with respect to demographics, geographic location, psychographic profiles, values and lifestyles, and/or product usage characteristics (heavy vs. light users). How well is the product and firm meeting the needs of the target market and customers today. See Chapter 4 of the text, review Blue Ocean Strategy and canvas analysis, apply marketing tools associated with STP processes, etc.
4. Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability: Does the product, service, brand or firm have CSR and Sustainability initiatives. If so, what are they and what is their impact on the product or firm’s performance and/or brand image?
5. SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats Analysis): Identify and focus on the internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (opportunities and threats) derived from the preceding situation analysis that give advantages and disadvantages to the product and firm. At the conclusion of the SWOT, the focus of the marketing plan is to address the strategic focus and competitive advantages to be leveraged in the strategy. Match the strengths with market opportunities to create value for the customers identified in the STP processes.
6. Marketing Goals and Objectives: Marketing goals and objectives are formal statements of the desired and expected outcomes resulting from the marketing plan. Goals are broad, simple statements of what will be accomplished through the marketing strategy. The goals guide the development of objectives and provide direction for resource allocation decisions. Marketing objectives are specific and are stated in quantitative terms that permit precise measurement. This section should set the performance targets that the firm seeks to achieve and how the progress will be measured. The section is strengthened with forecasts for the short and long-term (5 years) generally with graphs or tables in the appendix. Examples of goals during different stages of the PLC are in Chapter 9, others are in Chapter 11, and throughout the text relative to various market growth, penetration, profitability, and many other approaches.
7. Marketing Strategy: This section outlines how the firm will achieve its marketing objectives. Selecting and analyzing target markets and creating and maintaining an appropriate marketing program (product, distribution, promotion, and price) to satisfy the needs of those target markets. It is at this level where the firm will define how it will gain a competitive advantage by doing something better than the competition: Its products must be of higher quality than competitive offerings, its prices must be consistent with the level of quality (value), its distribution methods must be as efficient as possible, and its promotions must be more effective in communication with target customers.
8. Marketing Implementation: This section describes how the program will be executed. It answers what specific marketing activities will be undertaken? How and when they will be performed? Who will manage and monitor them? What is the cost and budget? It could be a summary timeline in the appendix with a brief summary in the body of the paper.
9. Evaluation and Control: The final section of the marketing plan details how the results of the marketing program will be evaluated and controlled. The standards and metrics should be tied to the objectives stated in the Goals and Objectives section.
Matrix
The following matrix provides an outline of the sections of the market plan and topics (excluding the Executive Summary that will be done and added at the end) and the number of words for Parts 1 and 2:
Marketing strategy/Marketing plan project
Part 1 Submission Minimum Words
Item 1. Executive Summary added when the final paper is complete
Items 2. Background/Current Situation. Item 3. Customer Environment and
Item 4. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) plus include Works Cited
1000 words
Revised Part 1 & Part 2 Final Combined Submission & Pa
Item 5. SWOT, Item 6. Marketing Goals and Objectives, Item 7. Marketing Strategy, Item 8. Marketing Implementation and Item 9. Evaluation and Control
2500 words
Total 3500 words*• This does not include the appendices. Students need to synthesize and write the paper in such a manner that it contains the important information without being wordy.Sources of InformationOur market research should come from our library databases. Good plans will not use sources that professionally write plans either for sale or free on the internet. Some examples but not limited to these, are Bahasian, MBASkol, Fort….University, and others. Please reference our academic integrity website or ask me, if you have questions regarding these questionable types of references and sources.There are videos done by our business librarian, Jo Ann Henson, posted in the Market Plan course folder, that highlight the Infoguides that have been developed to assist students enrolled in this course. They point out good sources for public and private firms, current articles, and firm performance metrics, etc. Using these databases and synthesizing the information will give you experience that you will use as you evolve in your marketing careers. The information is also of good quality. Quality of WritingA rubric to highlight the factors that are considered in the writing of excellent papers in the School of Business is included in this Market Plan section of the course. Assurance of Learning Second Submission of PaperPlease post a second copy of your final Market Plan in Bb for our accreditation processes with AACSB, a premier global accreditation for our school. The documentation of the extent to which this course is responsible for adding to your competence in the discipline of marketing is a central goal for the School of Business. The overall measures used to determine the extent to which this course is accomplishing assurance of learning are quizzes/exams, composing an integrated marketing plan, in-class exercises, case study analyses, and class participation. The assurance of learning is part of our ongoing accreditation processes.
Lenovo Think-Pad
Student Name
Institution Affiliation
Lenovo Think-Pad
Executive Summary
Lenovo is an international technology company worth $21 Billion that is located in China. The company’s other operational headquarters are in North Carolina, Morrisville, U.S and Singapore. The company produces and sells different types of computers, smartphones, servers, work stations and electronic storage devices. The company has experienced massive growth and succeeded in making a global footprint in the past decade. Lenovo is a dominant market leader in China with more than a 30% market share and is growing rapidly in all parts of the world. Lenovo’s business is built around product innovation, an efficient global chain and strong strategic execution. The company develops, manufactures and sells quality products that are safe and user-friendly for customers who want technology that will do the job. The company aspires to be the leading technology company in the world by focusing on three areas. These are: Firstly, producing high quality and dependable personal computers. Secondly, Lenovo plans to lead the industry with a network of eco-system devices. The essay focuses on the Y Series and ThinkPad as the main products sold to university students. In the article, the current situation at Lenovo will be analyzed, the customer environment along with the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility. Additionally, it will further highlight the SWOT analysis, marketing, goals, objectives, strategy and implementation. The article will also provide market control measures.
Background or Current Situation
Lack of Innovation
Lenovo has become too dependent on the ThinkPad brand and market since its acquisition of IBM's PC division. The amount of money needed to keep the ThinkPad innovated has limited the development of consumer notebooks. As the consumer market grew rapidly, Lenovo was unable to come up with a consumer product. When the notebook market grew in 2007, Lenovo's notebook sales grew at the slowest rate of any of the world's top four PC makers (Fern Fort University, 2020). Then, when the crisis hit in 2008, Lenovo fell the most. The lack of innovation in the development of consumer machines has greatly reduced the competitiveness of Lenovo.
No Clear Notebook Market Positioning
Generally, Lenovo notebook products are ThinkPad series, IdeaPad series and Lenovo's independent brands. Customers are clearly divided into individual families, small and medium enterprises, political education and large enterprises. But at the low, middle and high end of the market the line is not clear. On the one hand, customers are confused about what kind of computers the IdeaPad and ThinkPad are. To buy a computer, you need to choose which series and which machine (Magzter.com, 2020). On the other hand, it leads to a serious waste of resources in many regions with unclear positioning and fails to achieve the optimal market effect.
No Obvious Price Difference Level of Consumer Machine
Middle and low-end consumer machine market is the most robust purchasing power of a segment of the market. In this market segment, Lenovo needs to achieve the following goals: occupy leading market share, expand brand awareness, and enable the company and channels to obtain expected profits, thus driving the development of the whole line of products to meet the needs of the vast number of different customers, there appears to be some lack of capacity. As for the price, Lenovo cannot compete with Shenzhou with low price and high configuration. In terms of configuration, Lenovo cannot compete with Dell and Acer (Businessnewsdaily, 2020). In terms of recognition, it can’t defeat HP. Therefore, to forcefully occupy the entire exuberant consumer machine market, Lenovo should pull apart the price level, giving customers the choice at will.
Traditional Channels Cannot Meet the Personalized Needs of Students Customers
Lenovo Company in the market aims for big clients, mainly including finance, telecommunication, government, education and energy industry. The growth of enterprises and government organizations has transformed the driving forces of the entire industry in China. Enterprises, government and other big customers on the product safety, reliability, stability and other requirements are increasingly high. More importantly, they need to contact manufacturers directly to discuss solutions and customize products in batches (Indusbusinessjournal.com, 2020). Meanwhile, with the development of Chinese people, university students have more money to buy the Y series and Thinkpad notebook. Lenovo's traditional channels lack the ability to provide customized solutions for the students.
Personnel sales are not active
Lenovo's notebook employees fall into three broad categories: Employees who have been in the company for less than half a year, older employees who have been in the company for more than half a year, and sales managers and other management sales personnel. The characteristics of retail terminal employees in IT industry are high mobility (Journal of Global Business Management, 2020). In the increasingly fierce notebook market, new employees are not familiar with the business, squeezed by old employees, and their sales enthusiasm is frustrated. Because of the long time spent in the company, the old employees have a lazy working attitude, then the formulated strategy cannot be communicated to the sales staff. Overall sales enthusiasm needs to be improved.
Customer Environment
With social progress, user demand continues to heat up, the market grows rapidly on a large scale, the growth rate gradually slows down, and the computer market gradually becomes mature. Nowadays, the computer has already become the main melody of college students' spare time life. Buying their own laptop has become the trend of college life for Chinese university students. With the development of the economy, the market of colleges and universities presents a growing trend. The computer market has a huge capacity, with a millions of new computers purchased every year, forming a consumer group that cannot be ignored. Scientific students, especially computer department students have more than half of the computer ownership rate (Journal of Global Business Management, 2020). Liberal arts departments have relatively few computers, but they are on the rise.
Except for the students, to win over consumers, Lenovo needs to differentiate consumers' demands for computers, not only pursuing configuration and price, but also making products that meet their needs according to different requirements. That is to say, it should treat the consumer as center. All products and marketing activities should be focused on customers. Y series and Thinkpad is very welcome among the students.
Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability
Lenovo’s commitment to social responsibility and sustainability is seen in the following: First and foremost, the company has an Environmentally Conscious Products Program which supports the reduction of potential health hazards by enhancing the use of environmentally friendly materials where applicable. Secondly, Lenovo is an industry leader when it comes to utilizing energy efficient products and environmentally preferred materials in packaging products. Secondly, the company PCs have energy efficient tools and eco-friendly features like the Power Manager which saves up to 69% of the energy consumed in every desktop (Lenovo.com, 2020). Thirdly, Lenovo servers have inbuilt energy saving tools like the Smart Grid which helps the users to keep track of and manage power consumption levels. Fourthly, the company stopped over a thousand tons of package consumption by weight through optimizing and refining designs in all company shipments. Last but not least, the company uses global shipping methods like ocean and rail which are environmentally friendly.
SWOT Analysis
Lenovo is a company that achieved fast growth within a short time. Apart from the company’s impressive market share growth in market share, Lenovo also has a fast revenue growth. The following are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats faced by the company.
Strengths
As one of the leading PC companies, Lenovo has numerous strengths that enable it to dominate the market. The first strength is a large product portfolio. This strength gives the company a competitive advantage. Instead of depending on a one source of income, the company has expanded its product portfolio. The company’s business is divided into two operational segments. In 2019, the company reorganized its operations by combining the two leading segments which are PCSD and the mobile business group to form Intelligent Devices group. The company’s product portfolio entails products that are not only affordable but also premium (Fern Fort University, 2020). Secondly, Lenovo’s brand equity is also strength. The company’s focus on producing quality products has led to brand equity growth. The rising sales indicate growing customer trust. With the increasing competition in the computer industry, the spike in the revenue of Lenovo in various corners in the world including Latin America and China highlights a strong brand.
Thirdly, the company is the fastest growing PC maker. Although the company is young, it has been able to increase its shares in the PC industry fast.
Graph 1
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The main factors behind the growth are quality and affordability. Research has shown that, between the years 2018 to 2019, the company was among the fastest growing PC companies with a 23.4% market share. Fourthly, the company’s product quality is also strength. Lenovo’s focus upon product quality is also intense. This is also the reason behind the growing popularity Lenovo products globally. The company solely focuses on product quality through its integrated quality management system. This strategy guarantee quality management is at the core of every business strategy. Sixthly, the company also focuses on supply chain management (Fern Fort University, 2020). Lenovo’s adopted policies and procedures ensure the company suppliers provide only high quality raw materials. Only suppliers who are committed to product safety and quality are allowed to be part of Lenovo’s supply chain. Sixthly, the company has a high level of customer satisfaction through maintain good customer relations and strong brand equity.
Weaknesses
Weaknesses are the various areas deter the company from achieving maximum profitability. Lenovo can improve upon. These are: First and foremost, the company is not good at forecasting product demand thus leading to a lot of missed opportunities. One of the main reasons why Lenovo’s inventory is high when compared to its competitors is that due to the company’s inability to forecast demand, it ends up keeping a higher in-house and in-channel inventory (Bhasin, 2020). Secondly, the company’s investment in Research and Development is below is below the major players in the industry. Although the company is currently spending more than the industry average on Research and Development, it is still unable to compete with the industry leaders in terms of innovation. Lenovo is a mature company that wants to bring out products based on tested market features. Thirdly, the company lacks an efficient financial planning feature. The current liquid and asset ratio suggest the company can use the cash more efficiently compared to what is currently being done.
Graph 2
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