Executive summary
In the current world, various forces, including technological, economic, customer demand, and competition, have been observed in the field of business which forces products and services to change for the efficiency of services to customers. As Bergson states, “to exist is to evolve, mature and to continue creating one self infinitely” (Anderson, 2021). Products and services evolve to meet the ever-changing consumer needs. Therefore, new products like reusable straws have been developed to show the new version of the original and creative integration in the current world. Even though straws already exist in the market, the current reusable straws give users long services. In addition, it protects the environment in which the users live as the user is constantly aware that they have to keep it clean and safe for future use. This is in contrast to the old version of the straw, whose usage does not protect the environment as the users unconsciously dump them anywhere after use.
However, considering that the product is new in the market, the firm is more likely to face various challenges, including the need for more resources for marketing it globally and stiff competition from the already existing straw companies. However, with various marketing strategies, including product pricing, differentiation, and advertisement, the new firm will market its brand effectively, attract its target audience and give it competitive advantages. Also, as the firm embraces various social media sites, including Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, as marketing platforms (Silvia, 2019), the current digitalized customers will be easier to find and interact with effectively, enabling the creation of an online business environment.
Introduction
With consumers’ embracement of creative and innovative products, organizations have fully dedicated their time and resources to utilize new, brainstormed, and creative ideas in their operations to developing new products that will help solve modern problems. Over decades, plastic companies have faced such poor environmental conservation issues as waste mismanagement which has led to environmental pollution and the death of animals living in water, resulting in penalties (Kumar et al., 2021). However, with the increased demand for drinking products by consumers, plastic companies have been left with no options but to come up with new and improved products, such as reusable straws, that will enable their operations to continue without legal charges. Also, the product’s consumers have been argued to conserve their environment by observing waste disposal protocols. The reusable straw firm specifically deals with the manufacturing and selling of modern straws that can be reused. The company, having been launched two years ago, has been targeting drinks and beverages companies as its marketing agents by providing new and improved straw products which are reusable and environmentally friendly. By doing so, the firm helps these companies show the government and the whole world how it is dedicated to saving the environment.
In addition, the company’s success has been enhanced by focusing on various customer segmentation strategies, including age, interest, and spending habits which have acted as its marketing plans. For instance, the company has been focusing on the young members of society, specific youths aged 35 years and below. This is because this category has identified the importance of embracing and using new and improved products for creativity support, environmental conservation measures, and the importance of finance saving. Additionally, the mentioned age group has been characterized by the embracement of fashion and classy styles and possession of nature exploration habits (Muposhi & Chuchu, 2022), which always leads to them carrying something unique to use for refreshment. Thus, this makes them a target audience for the company’s brand. This article helps to show the development of the new reusable straw firm and its product, factors that could negatively and positively affect its survival, and possible measures that will help manage the product’s performance and quality improvement.
Developing the product idea
The new product, reusable straw, has been developed to show the new version of the original and the integration of creativity in the current world. Even though a former version exists, the new one possesses various high creativity features, including a durable and smooth stainless steel structure for cleaning and storage. The materials are stain-free, scratch proof and rust-proof. In addition, the materials are non-toxic to the environment and 100% recyclable, enabling the user to save the environment and their extra money for future use.
With the availability of similar companies worldwide, the new reusable straw firm may possess some resources that will enable it to have competitive advantages. The SWOT analysis of the company’s available resources will give it an effective framework that can be used to evaluate its marketing position and develop strategic planning that will enable it to stand strong in the competitive market. For instance, the company possesses various strengths including unique technology, a strong brand, and excellent customer service that will help it stand out in the market. The brainstorming of ideas by the company’s team enabled it to come up with a new version of re-usable straw, with high technology of blending materials to come up with a stainless-steel structure that is durable and smooth for cleaning and storage. The strong brand possesses a steel coating that is rust-proof and non-toxic to the environment.
However, various factors, including lack of enough capital, shortage of skilled labor, company needing to be well known, and poor supply chain management, may form weaknesses facing the firm, which hinders the brand from performing at its optimum level. For instance, considering the company is new in the market, there is the need to gather enough resources for marketing the brand worldwide, which needs improvement. Therefore, the company is not able, at a fast rate, to reach most of its targeted customers to market its brand and gain competitive advantages. Additionally, poor supply chain management practices, such as inadequate training of employees and mismanaged implementation of strategies, may harm the firm by blocking it from performing at its best (Carter, 2020). Since the company is new, the working teams require constant training to enable them to integrate the new complex systems of organizational activities into a working chain. Thus, the company may face costly mistakes and more employee turnover due to the lack of enough resources for training programs, resulting in huge losses.
Nevertheless, various favorable external factors, including technological development, new market opportunities, governmental support, and social networking marketing sites, could give the firm an opportunity boost and competitive advantages. For instance, the current technological development enhances the firm to streamline production processes, reduce costs, and present high-quality products to its customers. Also, new market opportunities, such as ideas from other industries and pain points, will allow the firm to expand, reach more customers, and increase its sales. Additionally, the governmental financial support and sponsorship of organizational practices such as training will boost the firm to a greater level by ensuring it has enough capital for its operations and expansion (Gopakumar et al., 2022). Besides, the consumers’ embracement of social networking sites as a marketing platform will enable the firm to market its brand at a lower price and interact efficiently with customers, creating a convenient online business environment.
Nonetheless, various factors, including rising materials costs, increased competition, and covid 19 pandemic globalization, pose a threat that may harm the firm’s profitable activities. The increased inflation, cost of energy, and shortage of raw materials have led to a rise in the cost of materials (Igan et al., 2022). Therefore, this poses a threat to the firm’s operations, such as marketing, as it competes for scarce internal resources hindering it from tapping into new markets. Considering the brand is new in the market, it faces stiff competition from the available similar companies which are well established. The company may need more investors, who usually go for well-established companies due to fear of losses. This is a threat as the company may need more financial support for its marketing and expansion. Also, the rise of the covid-19 pandemic has led to the government formulating such policies as lockdowns, working from home, and restricted movement (Chung, Heejung, et al. 2020), which hinders the firm’s team from moving freely to market the brand worldwide.
Despite that, the company may compete effectively and remain afloat in the market by understanding its target customers and their needs. The various consumer trends, including consumer behavior, loyalty, and engagement, will help analyze the firms’ target audience and interact with them, enabling a smooth business flow (Manyiwa & Crawford, 2012). For instance, with the ever-changing market, new and improved creative products act as a driver which affects consumers purchasing behavior. They quickly embrace the use of new and improved creative products. Thus, continuous production of modern reusable straws will help to attract them and make them potential customers. Also, consumers’ increased use of social media sites as a marketing platform will enable smooth and efficient engagement between the firm and customers, creating an efficient online business environment. Besides, a customer relationship management system in the firm will help the firm listen, understand, and respond to customers’ current and future needs regarding the product and its services, thereby building trust and loyalty, which is a vital strategy for customer retention.
In the ever-changing market environment, such external market factors as increased competition, product pricing, and globalization, which have been known to be profitable, may positively or negatively affect product survival (Matyusz, Demeter & Szigetvári, 2012). Typically, competition in business has been known to be important as it leads to higher quality goods and services and more innovation. However, the same competition has been observed to result in various negative results in the market, including forcing lower prices to stay competitive and a decrease in profit margin for sales and services, especially in flooded markets. Secondly, product pricing has been well known to act as a customer attraction strategy whereby the initial price of products is reduced, attracting more customers, brand awareness, and increased profits. On the other hand, the strategy may bring negative effects as it makes it hard for the constant price of the product to be set and scalability, which slowly leads to customers running away after raising it, resulting in low profits. Notably, the globalization of the brand, aimed at enabling the company to find cheaper ways to produce its product, has been known to enhance healthy global competition, which results in the creation of more significant varieties of products. Yet, the strategy can negatively affect the new product’s survival by resulting in unequal economic growth and potential global recessions. This may lead to a lack of enough financial resources to sustain the firm.
However, since the firm’s main aim is for the brand to grow and expand worldwide, such marketing strategies as product promotion, packaging, pricing, positioning, segmentation, and target customers may be integrated by the firm to ensure and enable its survival. For instance, the product can be well promoted through various social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, creating awareness of its brand and usage. Also, through the various types of packaging, including primary, secondary, and tertiary packaging, the firm will ensure the product’s safety during shipment (Grundey, 2010). This will allow the customer to receive the product as safely as it was from the firm, creating reliability and efficiency for the firm by the customers. Also, the firm may select an initial reasonable price for the product and raise it slowly by adding other improvements, which come with an additional fee. By doing so, customers will not see as if the company’s initial aim was to attract them, but they will see how it is fighting hard to add value to the product.
Besides, since the firm’s target audience includes members of the society aged 35 years and below, the firm may choose various positioning strategies, including lifestyle-based and quality-based positioning, which will enable its survival in the market (Massara, Porcheddu & Melara, 2019). For instance, lifestyle-based positioning will help the firm sell the product and its brand and image. The firm will specifically, through lifestyle positioning, will enhance its marketing by connecting the product brand to something the target customers already feel emotionally connected to, such as fashion and styles, and also tours and travels. Lastly, the firm may decide to embrace a product segmentation strategy, which will allow it to modify the brand into other products to attract customers with different tastes. For instance, the firm may choose to develop products with different colors and sizes, which will attract different customers. By doing so, the firm is assured of increased sales and consecutively product survival.
Most importantly, with strong organizational management, various strategy execution plans, including resource management, strategy definition and communication, and funding, may be used to ensure that the above strategies have been achieved (Yang, 2019). For instance, through proper resource management, the firm is assured of a sustainable, longer product pricing strategy that will attract customers for a longer time without making losses. Also, with proper communication skills and channels, the firm can define profitable marketing strategies for its workforce and communicate in efficient and modern execution. Through social networking sites, the firm is assured of an efficient and cheaper way of communicating and marketing its brand to the target customers whose lifestyle has been based on the online platform. Additionally, by sourcing funds from the government and banks, the firm will be assured of a reliable mainstream of funds, which will help it integrate various marketing strategies such as product packaging, advertisement, and segmentation.
External environmental forces
With the increased industrialization, globalization, and ever-changing market forces, the firm being new in the market, may face major uncontrollable external forces that may influence its current and future decisions which in turn affect its effective performance. However, since the major firm’s aim is for its brand to survive and gain competitive advantages, it has to determine its competitive intensity and attractiveness by identifying the external environmental forces that may affect its performance. The firm, for instance, using PESTEL analysis, will be able to know where its power lies by grouping the external factors into various categories, including political, economic, social, technological, ecological, and legal factors. This is because the model helps identify key drivers of market change (Buye, 2021).
To begin, the firm will analyze the various political factors, including the state’s role in the market, taxation, government policies, and society’s exposure to the current world (Buye, 2021). For instance, the firm will get to know if the state has owned a market in a certain nation. Therefore, it will have to understand that the government controls the prices, taxes, and supply of products in such a market. Thus, the firm will have to liaise with the state’s rules to operate there. Also, the firm will understand the exposure of a given community to the current digital marketing world. By doing so, the firm will understand how to market its product through various digital marketing sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
Secondly, the firm will analyze and understand such economic factors as interest rates, exchange rates, and unemployment rates of its target market (Buye, 2021). For instance, if the firm’s target market has been faced with high interest and exchange rates, it will understand that the market could demand so much to the point that that nation’s economy will tip into a recession. Higher interest rates will result in a higher debt cost and difficulty borrowing money for business expansion. In addition, unemployment will rise, people will spend less, and that nation’s economy will slow down, making the firm make huge losses.
Thirdly, social factors such as income distribution and changes in culture and fashion will influence the firm’s decision on whether to tap into certain markets. For instance, if a target market composes of an evenly distributed income, the firm will be assured that if it sets various branches, its products will be marketed and sold effectively generating much profit. Consequently, if the target market comprises of societies who quickly embrace new culture and fashion, the firm will be assured that its new and improved product will attract them, leading to an increase in sales and profits.
Additionally, such technological factors as new discovery and technological development of a given society will determine its suitability for the firm to venture into it. If the society is characterized by frequent innovation and high technological development, the firm will be assured that it will acquire skilled and innovative workforce who will lead to development of new versions of its products which will attract many customers.
Most importantly, the firm will get to analyze and understand such ecological factors as environmental conservation issues as environmental protection regulation and waste disposal methods of a given market that will determine its venturing. Since the firm’s main product is non-toxic and re-usable, it will focus on taping into such markets which embraces the production and marketing of products that are non-toxic to the environment.
Lastly, the firm will analyze and understand such legal factors as competition and taxation requirements of a given market so as to determine its suitability for investing in Buye, 2021). For instance, if a given market is less competitive, the firm will choose to venture into it since it will face less pressure that will enable it set the profitable price of its product. Also, if a given target market involves less taxation of upcoming and foreign firms, the firm will consider investing in it. This is because the firm will be assured of saving a lot of money for other profitable practices such as marketing of its brand.
Methods of Sustained Business Success
Various strategies should be embraced by the firm to manage its performance, quality and process improvement so as to effectively compete and ensure its product survival. For instance, the firm should adopt cost leadership strategy that will allow it to produce its brand at a cheaper cost and consecutively sell them at a lower price than its competitors. The firm, through such cost leadership strategies as economy of scale and lowering input cost, is assured of attracting an increased number of customers, which will enable it to gain competitive advantages and more profits.
Secondly, the firm should adopt various product differentiation strategies including unique product features and customer relationship which will enable its brand to be a better alternative to consumers. For instance, the firm should be constantly creative so as to come up with different version of its product. By doing so, the firm will attract an increased number of consumers who are creativity driven. Also, the firm should enhance effective customer relationship by providing free customer services and responsiveness. By doing so, the customers current and future needs will be understood and responded leading to attracting and retaining more of them and creation of a loyal business environment.
Thirdly, the firm should adopt focus strategy by tailoring its brand to the needs of specific segments so as to be unique from others. Such focus strategies as differentiation, will enable it to come up with policies as ecological cleaning and environmental conservation that will enhance it create awareness of the importance of environmental conservation to the society.
In addition, the firm should embrace such marketing strategies as product pricing which will enable it to sell its products at a cheaper price than its competitor. Even though its main aim is to make a profit, the firm should incorporate value addition and extra services such as delivery which will be charged without tampering with the set price of the products.
Lastly, the firm should adopt the modern methods of advertisement, such as the use of social networking sites as a marketing platform. Since advertisements has been known to be expensive, the firm, through adoption of various social networking sites as Facebook and Twitter, is assured of a cheaper and convenient way of interacting with customers and marketing its products. Therefore, by doing so, the firm will save a lot of money that will help it invest in other activities.
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