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Question1:
A port has just developed a new storage system that is featured with multiple warehouses, temperature control, security monitoring system, access to multimodal transport and up-to-date warehouse cargo facilities. The port management plans to market the new warehousing service to the exporting businesses in its precincts and those in its hinterland.Suppose the port’s strategic goals are:
• ‘Premium quality facilities and services’
• ‘Integration of the port with international logistics systems’
Discuss how the port’s management can apply the Value Proposition to develop a marketing plan for its new service. Requirement: Your discussion must consider: the nature of the new services, target customers and the port’s strategic goals mentioned above. Make assumptions if necessary.
Answer1: Value Proposition
Introduction
The port is planning to market its new facility that has brought in various features. The sub-sections ahead in this question are trying to understand the new service aspects of the port that has been developed. Moreover, the target audience of the port will also be assessed on various parameters. The strategic goals of the port have been discussed. The port seems to be has some value proposition that will be disseminated to the customers using the marketing plan. In the end, the complete discussion has been concluded.
New Service Aspects
The port has developed the storage system facility. The new storage facility has multiple warehouses, and facility to control the temperature as per the requirements of the product. Moreover, the storage system facility has been made secure by installing the security monitoring facility. The security monitoring facility has various elements such as the installation of night vision camera on various corners of the port and within the storage facility. Along with that, the storage facility will allow the users in having easy access to the multimodal transport and up to date cargo facilities. The cargo facilities will be brought in using the external parties so that the specialized service can be provided to the individual users or entities. The new service is expected to attract more customers and increase the profitability. It has been expected that the provision for security aspects at the storage facility along with the presence of temperature control functionality will attract the customers who look for facilities that provide right environment and security for their products. There are various elements that get down from the ships that are temperature sensitive and are costly. These costly products attract uncalled for attention of unethical individuals in the locality. Therefore, the presence of security will ensure that the product stays safe till it is in the storage.
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Target Customers
The target customers of the port are users from the precincts and those in its hinterland (Li et al, 2016). The target users are the local and non-local individuals who prefer to supply products using the port. The storage facility on the port will be used to store their products. The major focus will be on the exporting businesses who prefer storing their products at the port few days earlier to the export due date. Moreover, the importing businesses can also be taken into consideration that brings products from other countries or location (Hafiz, 2016). It would be a preferable choice for them to use the port’s storage facility. The storage facility will be functioning during all times and, therefore, the businesses that need to receive the products or goods in the middle of the night will also not face major challenges.
The target customers, as stated earlier are all the exporters preferably from the precincts and hinterland. Along with that, the importers have also been kept on the list in case there are businesses that prefer to look for storage facility that are brought in rather than sent out.
Port’s Strategic Goals
The strategic goals for the port has been identified that will ensure that the port facility is moving in the right direction while attracting its target customers. Mentioned below are the two strategic goals identified for the port:
1. Premium Quality Facilities and Services
The initial goal of the port is to ensure that the storage services that have been installed on the port are of premium quality so that it can attract all type of businesses to store their goods. The port has ensured that the quality of the services and facilities are of international standard. The port has placed inspectors who will be assessing the quality of the storage facility on regular intervals to ensure that the storage facility maintenance is being done as per the developed policies and the strategic goals. The businesses that are huge in size and of good reputation would preferably look for the storage facility that provides right environment for their products. Therefore, the focus on the premium quality facilities and services has been considered as the initial strategic goal of the port management.
2. Integration of the Port with International Logistics System
The port management will focus on integrating the port with the international logistics system to give it further global exposure. The integration will ensure that the storage facility is used more as the demand of the same will rise due to increment in the traffic. The major purpose behind this strategic goal is to attract more businesses to use the improved storage facility. It is expected that the integration of the port with the international logistics system will improve the reputation among the various international businesses. The increase in reputation is likely to attract more businesses towards the facility being provided by the port.
Value Proposition
The value proposition of the port is based on the three aspects, namely, the offering of the port, the offerings present in the marketplace, the need of the customers, and the value that is being proposed by the port to these customers. The image given below cleverly shows the four aspects in an appreciable manner:
As stated earlier, the offering of the company is good storage management facility for the goods exporting businesses. At present, there are various ports that are trying to attract the businesses with their state of the art facilities in every aspect. This port is also trying to do the same with the extension in the storage management facility. Most of the port in the vicinity does not provide the facility of temperature control. This is an added advantage of this port which is likely to attract more customers at this port. Moreover, there are customers who procure or export products that prefer to be kept in controlled environment and therefore those customers would prefer this port rather than others. Moreover, the customers who prefer both, the right level of goods security and the temperature control are most likely to choose this port’s storage facility than others.
The port has proposed this value to the various customers and the use of marketing plan given in the next section will ensure that the right individuals come to know about this facility.
Marketing Plan
The marketing plan has been developed to ensure that the value proposition of the company reaches the customers and increment in the storage facility is witnessed (Hollensen, 2015). There are various aspects of the marketing plan that need to be considered. The initial aspect is segmentation, targeting, and positioning (Hawkes, 2013). The segmentation and targeting has already been done in the previous section. The major focus of this section will be on positioning the storage service of the port among the target customers.
As the target customers of the storage facility are the businesses. Therefore, only those mediums will be used to attract these customers where the owner or management of these businesses can be found easily. Some of the preferred channels of communication are business newspapers, business magazines, and business news channels. Moreover, the large size banners can also be used at the major port area to ensure that the individual visiting the port come to know about the service available out there.
The use of technology will also be preferred in communicating with the business owners and the business managers who engage in exporting services. The professional social media like LinkedIn will be used to connect with the individuals who are looking for reliable storage services at the port (Mahajerani et al, 2015). Moreover, the agents will be used for the businesses that are huge in size and is expected to bring major profitability for the port in the longer run.
The marketing budget has been prepared considering the bottom-up approach and the port is ready to invest a substantial amount of capital, in the beginning, to reach out to its targeted customers. The adjustment in the budget will be based on the response from the customers.
Conclusion
It is expected that the port will be able to attract the target customers if the effective marketing plan is followed to convey its value proposition. The port has facilities that are found at few ports. Moreover, as the facility is new, therefore businesses might prefer to use it.
Question 2:
The following table provides information on a container terminal’s activities, immediate predecessor activities, and their expected duration. Activity Intermediate predecessor activity Expectedduration(days)Start - 0A Start 1B Start 3C A 1D A 4E C, D 5F D 1G B 3FINISH E, F, G 0Based on the information given above, answer the following questions. a Work out the path diagram. For each activity in the path diagram, show the Early Start(ES), Early Finish (EF), Late Start (LS), Late Finish (LF) and Duration (D), in the order as shown in the below table. ES= EF= Activity LS= D= LF.Identify the Critical Path for the above activities. Comment on the Critical Path.
Answer2: Critical Path Diagram
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a. The image below shows the information developed from the given data:
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b. The critical path identified is A, D, E. The critical path suggests that the activities are mandatory to be finished within the defined timeline else it will impact the duration of the whole project. It can be observed from the data above that the early finish, late finish, late start and early start of the three identified activities amount to zero slack that is there is no scope in the duration. Therefore, to finish the project on time, the duration defined on the critical path need to be followed (Frid and Sruk, 2014).
Question 4:
Net Present Value (NPV) is one of the key methods (criteria) used to evaluate the financial viability of port investment. Discuss the key issues associated with the application of this method to a small regional port and the implications for the port management, given the dual role of the port as a public asset and commercial entity.
Answer4: Net Present Value
Introduction to Net Present Value
The Net Present Value or NPV is used to understand the current worth of the investment that will be made over a time period (Chen and Reynolds, 2012). The net present value is helpful in understanding whether the investment is fruitful or it will result in loss. The overall incoming and outgoing of the money is understood using this concept. The calculation applied for the net present value is the difference between the present value of the future cash flow and the present value of the investment being made.
Application of NPV to Small Regional Port and Implication
The application of Net Present Value to the small regional port has many issues particularly if the port is a public asset and commercial entity as well. Mentioned below are the issues that have been identified in relation to the same:
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The port being the public asset, it is the liability of the port to ignore the expected return from the port earnings and investment in the infrastructure for the benefit for the public. However, such a thing is not financially viable and might impact the long term operation of the port.
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The next aspect of the port is that it is a commercial entity and, therefore, considering net present value becomes a default choice and making decisions that are financially sound and beneficial for the port. However, such decisions might shorten the facility that could have been brought in considering its public asset aspect.
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If the net present value has been applied to the port, then the management has to ensure that the expected return is brought within the defined duration (Leyman and Vanhoucke, 2017). Moreover, the management cannot make decisions that are financially unsound and impacts the future return.
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As the port is small and regional, therefore lesser customers can be expected at the port. This states that the port management cannot invest the amount that has lower or negative NPV as the return expected is less.
The Net Present Value assessment for the port investment is essential to understand whether the investment being made will be profitable in the days to come. The port management, in this case where the size of the small and expected traffic on the port is low, has to consider the net present value seriously. The reason behind the serious consideration is the thought that whether the right returns can be expected from the investment. However, as the port comes under dual boundary, that is, it is for the public and a commercial center at the same time, the investment consideration becomes challenging. The complete reliance on the assessment of investment will not be considered as an honest justification on the ground of public investment.
It can be suggested that as the port is small and expected traffic will be small, therefore focus should be on the public asset management rather than gathering commercial benefits.
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Li, D., Ruan, Y., Lv, Q., & Shang, L. (2016). SalesExplorer: Exploring sales opportunities from white-space customers in the enterprise market. Knowledge-Based Systems, 113, 51-60.
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Hafiz Muhammad, B. (2016). Supply Chain Management: importing football from Pakistan.
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Mohajerani, A., Baptista, J., & Nandhakumar, J. (2015). Exploring the role of social media in importing logics across social contexts: The case of IT SMEs in Iran. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 95, 16-31.
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Hollensen, S. (2015). Marketing management: A relationship approach. Pearson Education.
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Hawkes, K. (2013). First-principles in developing a Marketing plan. Food New Zealand, 13(6), 19.
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Frid, N., & Sruk, V. (2014, May). Critical path method based heuristics for mapping application software onto heterogeneous MPSoCs. In Information and Communication Technology, Electronics and Microelectronics (MIPRO), 2014 37th International Convention on (pp. 1030-1034). IEEE.
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Chen, C., Li, G., & Reynolds, A. (2012). Robust constrained optimization of short-and long-term net present value for closed-loop reservoir management. SPE Journal, 17(03), 849-864.
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Leyman, P., & Vanhoucke, M. (2017). Capital-and resource-constrained project scheduling with net present value optimization. European Journal of Operational Research, 256(3), 757-776.
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