Introduction
With the growth of the economy, there comes also with other needs associated with security investigations. For example, growth of the economy comes with the growth of businesses and with growth, ethical issues arise which necessitates for the corporate companies to hire private detectives to streamline arising ethical issues. The rationale for expanding the investigations services in Hong Kong is due to the rising cases of employees’ misconduct, business acquisitions, workplace incidents among other contemporary issues which makes corporates to seek such services. With growth and expansion of businesses, services such as undercover operatives, asset tracking, fraud investigations, surveillance and GPS vehicle are services that these organizations are outsourcing to streamline their operations while at the same time maintaining accommodating technological changes (Meerts, 2016). With increased infidelity and marriage arising trust issues in Hong Kong, many people are seeking matrimonial investigations to ascertain if their partners are engaging in extramarital affairs (Tseng et al., 2020). Due to these developments, there is need to expand into the Hong Kong private investigations service market in order to offer solutions in these areas. There is also a shortage of people and agencies offering these services and thus, expansion into this market will guarantee Intime Investigations higher returns while at the same offering solutions.
Environmental analysis
Taking a look at the Intime Investigations internal analysis, we will look at the organization culture the human resource and the physical resources. The organizational culture of Intime Investigations is favorable to the service delivery of the company because there is less bureaucracy when administering and delivering investigations (Bulis & Skapars, 2012). The officers who are on the field do not need to consult their bosses when they are in the field and when leaving for assigned duties, they only report to their senior boss directly which eases diction making. We have the best trained detectives and this brings efficiency during various operations. Some of the officers that we have, have worked for the Federal Investigations Department which makes them bring vast experience to the investigation industry (Bulis & Skapars, 2012). The firm has latest technology to undertake asset tracking, uncovering matrimonial infidelity as their mobile phones are tapped easily any communication in and out of their mobile phones detected (Bulis & Skapars, 2012). Despite all these, some of our detectives may compromise their loyalty to our mission and deployments and collude with people under investigations which might affect the quality of services.
Although there is stiff competition from other private investigations firms in Hong Kong like Suzzess limited, Intime Investigations can leverage on the external environmental factors to be competitive. Intime Investigations company is leveraging on customers and its suppliers to improve efficiency of service delivery and improve the financial performance (Bulis & Skapars, 2012). With increased infidelity in Hong Kong in the recent past, the company is targeting the people of Hong Kong to also increase seeking these services to unravel the infidelity of their partners. Corporates also are working with undercover agents to identify employees that are untrustworthy and through fraud investigations identify incidences of fraud by unscrupulous employees (Bulis & Skapars, 2012). Suppliers of Intime Investigations have state of the art facilities that eases the work being done by our detectives, thus, the firm is banking on its suppliers to deliver world class services. Despite all of the above opportunities for the firm, there are some threats to the performance of the firm. One of them is government policy on private data. As the firm tries to investigate and find solutions for its clients, it is faced by tough private data policy on the people they are investigating (Bulis & Skapars, 2012). Looking at the SWOT analysis concept, the strengths of the firm are state of the art facilities, organization culture, and experienced detectives. Weaknesses include unscrupulous detectives while opportunities are the increased infidelity both at home at work which necessitates the need for hiring private detectives. Threats are the government policies on private data which might affect how our team operates.
Consumer behavioral observations
Intime Investigations will serve two types of client in Hong Kong. The first is the private citizen and the second client is the corporate client. The private citizen client is seeking these services because of the increased trust issues with their partners (Solomon et al., 2017). Most of these clients want to catch their cheating partners by contracting us to tap their mobile phones and follow them privately without their knowledge to see who they are meeting and what they are doing. They also want to have a good knowledge of the people their partners are cheating with (Solomon et al., 2017). They want to know the kind of jobs they do, their close friends whether they have other partners or just their spouses, the kind of vehicles they drive in, and how often their spouses meet with them. Private clients want to be guaranteed of positive and helpful results before they contract detectives to give them assurance that their resources do not go to waste.
The second client is the corporate client. This type of client seeks different services. They are fraud investigations, asset tracking, undercover operations in organizations, surveillance, GPS vehicle and executive close protection. The corporate clients want to be assured that whenever they contract an investigations firm, they will get their desired clients (Solomon et al., 2017). They want incidences of fraud detected and evidence provided so that those that are behind charged. Through undercover operations, employees that do not follow ethical guidelines are identified and fired because the client do not want to spend too much wage bill paying employees that are not performing (Gottschalk, 2016). Before the corporate clients hire private investigators, they want a proof of record that shows the investigations company has previously helped other clients get their desired results. The requirement is to guarantee them they are working with a firm that can be trusted and provide desired results.
Market segmentation
In offering investigations services to private clients, the target market at the initial introduction stage of the service are the people who are in a relationship or are already married. The market is segmented in different groups as the market segmentation theory states. The first group is the one still in a relationship but are not yet married. These type of clients want to know whether they can commit to such a partner before they enter into marriage. Thus they do everything possible to make sure they are marrying the right partner. The second group is the young couples who have entered into marriage but are still doubtful of their partners. The last group is the old couples who thinks that their partners are cheating with young people. For example, people aged above 50 years are the ones who are in this category. The corporate clients are segmented differently depending on the stage of operation an organization is at (Chernenko & Sunderam, 2012). They are the small enterprises, medium-sized enterprises, and large corporations which are multinational. They seek services like fraud investigations, asset tracking, surveillance, GPS vehicle, executive close protection especially the top level management and undercover operations inside their organizations. When tapping these groups, the organization seeks to use the best strategies in tapping new markets (Chernenko & Sunderam, 2012). For example, Intime Investigations can use marketing to popularize the company and can use advertisements that reach the target group especially by use of digital platforms
Proposed positioning strategies for the new service
In positioning strategies, Intime Investigations will employ two positioning strategies. Namely, pricing strategy and product process strategy. In this type of strategy, according to positioning theory, the higher the price, the higher the perceived level of service quality (Blankson & Crawford, 2012). Thus, by charging higher chargers, people tend to believe that your services are of higher quality. Although the price will not be that high, the prices will be relatively higher compared to other competitors that our targeted customers can see the value of the services that we are offering them. If we choose to charge a lower price, it will create an impression in the mind of the targeted customers that our services are of lower quality (Blankson & Crawford, 2012).
The second strategy that we are going to use is the product process strategy. We are going to use a celebrity who will associate with our services in order to create a large following who will want to be associated with that celebrity (Blankson & Crawford, 2012). In doing so, the number of targeted customers who will want to seek our services will be expected to increase as the positiong theory suggests. We are going to choose a celebrity who is associated with good morals so that people can tend to be more or less like him and thus, people will believe that by using our investigations services like knowing whether your spouse is cheating on you, you will be of good morals like the celebrity.
Conclusion
Entering in a new market is always associated with some challenges. Thus, there is a need to have a good entry plan to avoid making a company lose a lot of resources. There is need to carry out a good environmental analysis both internal and external to establish the strengths and weaknesses of a company by using the SWOT analysis. Observing consumer behavior helps in identifying the target market and makes it easy in knowing how to deal with your clients. Market segmentation is also equally important in knowing how to deal with clients. Lastly, positioning strategies are critical as they help in promoting a business during entry in a new market.
References
Meerts, C. (2016). A World Apart: Private Investigations in the Corporate Sector. Erasmus L. Rev., 9, 162.
Gottschalk, P. (2016). Knowledge management in private investigations of white-collar crime. Information Resources Management Journal (IRMJ), 29(1), 1-14.
Tseng, E., Bellini, R., McDonald, N., Danos, M., Greenstadt, R., McCoy, D., … & Ristenpart, T. (2020). The tools and tactics used in intimate partner surveillance: An analysis of online infidelity forums. In 29th {USENIX} Security Symposium ({USENIX} Security 20) (pp. 1893-1909).
Bulis, A., & Skapars, R. (2012). Competitiveness of European companies in China: a SWOT analysis. International Journal of Economics and Finance Studies, 4(2), 1-10.
Solomon, M. R., White, K., Dahl, D. W., Zaichkowsky, J. L., & Polegato, R. (2017). Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being. Boston, MA: Pearson.
Chernenko, S., & Sunderam, A. (2012). The real consequences of market segmentation. The Review of Financial Studies, 25(7), 2041-2069.
Blankson, C., & Crawford, J. C. (2012). Impact of positioning strategies on service firm performance. Journal of Business research, 65(3), 311-316.
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