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Excel Dynamics Marketing Plan
The business firms around the world are adapting fast to the needs of streamlining provided by the continuous advent of IT facilities where clients, stakeholders, employees, suppliers and the management can get any required accessible data for their informative purpose. Such needs are growing at an unimaginably faster rate where quick decision making is required on part of every related firm or individuals which is possible only when data are available and accessible using any device on a single click. Excel Dynamics provides its several business clients exactly the same with their integrated and quality networking IT services. Excel Dynamics now needs to look forward as it aims to increase its client base by more than 25% in the next quarter. The challenge for the firm lies in sustaining its market under a strong competitive scenario along with maintaining a sufficient level of growth to reach its target. The firm’s marketing plan consists of a mixture of strategy and business ideas to achieve its goals and objectives based on the perfect analysis of its strengths and weaknesses (Larkin, 2014).
After its inception in 2004 with small software businesses providing accounting data software to a wide range of companies, the firm has witnessed tremendous growth through technological innovation to position itself as one of the major enterprise system suppliers in the current IT network service supplier market. Its products are designed to meet the current IT requirements of various businesses all over the world to help them streamline their data for access by any concerned party maintaining the smooth flow of data without compromising the security requirements. The company faces tough competition from other U.S based enterprise system providers (Dawson, 2015).
Competitive Forces: Since the company provides ERP system and Enterprise system solutions to every business around the world its competitors are also top global players spread across countries. In the USA it faces tough competition from ORACLE and SAP whereas in Australia it faces competition from giants like MYOB and QuickBook. The competition from MYOB and QuickBook is in the segment of small and medium business enterprises whereas with CISCO and SAP it is involved in the competition to grab large scale enterprises either using Enterprise System or contemplating Enterprise System from their ERP system.
Economic forces: Currently, this industry is on the rise in every part of the world with continuous rapid advancement in Information Technology. Technology is always developed or upgraded to make human life easier and recent continuous up-gradation of technologies specific to information technology is mostly business-oriented. The Enterprise System used by large businesses is a result of a gradual transformation from a simple accounting system to the ERP system to the present Enterprise System. To remain ahead of competitors more and more companies are considering the use of software to provide the best experience to its clients, stakeholders, etc. because of which the market for Excel Dynamics looks stronger than ever. Companies are in the future, expected more to adopt the Integrated System for their work (Thomas, 2004).
Political forces: Since the US always encourages healthy trade relations with other countries it is expected that there would not be any political forces anywhere across the world obstructing the company’s prospect. Of course, there would be pro-Russian socialist forces trying to create an obstruction. Never the less with the dominant of IT all over the world and the quality of software product and service provided by the company the firm is expected to overcome the resistance which may come in its path.
Legal factors: The legal factor is not going to have much of an impact, unlike manufacturing ventures where lots of ifs and buts come into play. Only some basic law related to technological innovation and IT may come into play which can be easily handled.
Technological forces: The firm has to keep upgrading its available program to keep itself in line with the new technological device coming almost daily into the market so that people can view the company’s data resources from those devices.
For a firm which is looking to increase its already strong client base with a target of 25%, concentrating on the market which has reached a point of saturation in terms of client base cannot be a good idea as this type of business is easily not penetrable into those businesses which other firms have already occupied. Generally, clients develop loyalty with their service provider in this sector because of which promoting products and services in the same business territory is not a good idea. The firm should look for expansion into other prospective markets and concentrate on building awareness in that market. For this purpose, they need to introspect all the prospective markets across the world and find out the best possible destination where their products and services can have an impact on business organizations. Countries like India where every organization is adopting and taking IT as an important means of business development can be a good prospect for the firm. In India, recently there is a trend of digitalization where firms are upgrading their available technological resources and looking for integration of their business processes. The company should also look into those firms which are considering up-gradation of their available system from ERP to Enterprise System must be approached presented with packages which can force them to consider products of Excel Dynamics. Moreover, some smaller-scale enterprises running on the old accounting system can also be seen as good prospects. Firms in India and other similar countries where the concept of integration is still new (Pride, 2010).
Excel Dynamics provides its clients with a wide range of products that enable them to avail of all the relevant business suite required for the proper integration of business data. The variety of purposes served include management of its supply chain, efficient customer relationship, procurement from its suppliers. The firm also provides production companies with special software that helps it to access all relevant information related to product development. All these are provided under different packages with different price tags. Excel Dynamics places its range of products to its clients mentioning qualities such as lengthy product life cycle with a specific focus on the exact requirements of industry the client belongs to. Other qualities such as high customization and throughout maintenance are guaranteed to its customers which helps it in building efficient client loyalty. Through efficient market research, Excel Dynamics segments its targeted clients into various categories and finds out almost precisely which of its wide range of products need to be targeted to whom and accordingly plans its targeting strategy. Excel Dynamics SME customers form an important part of its total revenue generation and although the sale of its products to them does not assure huge returns for Excel Dynamics overall greater Sales Volume to a wide range of clients ends up generating good revenue and profits. Large scale production or service companies also form an important part of its revenue generation as they subscribe to its core products known in the market for its efficiency. This selling of core products per unit guarantees a larger profit per unit sales.
Total assets: The total assets of the company stand at 16.68 billion dollars which is the fifth-largest among IT network services providing firm as of the financial year 2014-2015
Profit and Revenue or Sales: Profit of Excel Dynamics stands at 1.2 billion million-dollar and revenue generated in the same year 6.17 billion dollars.
Expected Return on Investment: Method of calculation of return on investment for enterprise software companies is a difficult task to execute if figures are not readily available (which is the case here). There are several factors such as determination of cost of consulting fees, licensing fees, cost of modification and implementation and modification (Marketing, 2006-2016). Then the maintenance fee for a period determined earlier needs to be added to determine the total ownership cost for the period. The following steps are more complicated which involves estimation of expected benefits making it all the more difficult.
Market share: Excel Dynamics is the fifth largest integration software provider in the USA and its total market share stands at 5%.
Market potential: Excel Dynamics has a very strong market potential ahead as over the years it has been performing way above expectation level. With the objective to increase the cliental base by 25% in the next quarter, it is expected that the firm would perform to its full potential and draw itself closer to its nearest rival Extech which occupies 5.8 % of the total market share.
Fixed and Variable Cost: This is another area that is difficult to assume or calculate as without specifically determined cost of factors included in the ROI section and without specific product costing is a very difficult task to execute.
Contribution per unit sales: Excel Dynamics makes around 30% profit on per unit sales to large scale production companies whereas in case of SME sales its per unit contribution comes down to 20% as the sale to small and medium enterprises is delivered at minimum profit and the company relies largely on huge volume sales to make considerable profit.
Cash flow requirements: The cash flow requirements of Excel Dynamics as per the new plan is around 7 billion dollars which the firm have to generate either through stakeholders’ investment or divestment of its equity.
Break-Even: To obtain a break-even point, out of a new investment the company has to sell around 60% of its product produced under product development.
Strength: The strength of the firm lies in its exclusive packages providing integration of processes to its business clients. The firm has built a strong client base in two major software market destinations U.S and Australia. The firm has a good internal working environment where all its employees at various level of management hierarchy work in collaboration with each other to make it a success in integration software market industry. The firms’ cross-cultural environment enables techies from various parts of the world to get acquainted to the working atmosphere of the firm where employees quickly adapt to the requirements and start delivering. The firm employs techies from top U.S colleges to ensure that quality is not compromised which lays the basic foundation of its quality product and services. Alongside, the firm has built a strong loyalty among its existing customer via providing 24/7 service to its client. The firm has built its reputation in a short period of time since its inception in 2004 from a service provider of solely SME’s to a service provider of both SME’s and larger companies. Its market occupancy of 5% in around 12 years depicts its incredible growth which is exceptional when compared with other software companies. The newly established company’s vision of increasing its client base by 25% in the next quarter shows confidence and self-belief on part of its CEO.
Weakness: The firm is still not a major force in the industry and its research and development work to upgrade its product quality lags far behind in comparison to the top two network service provider in the market. It’s reliance on SME’s to generate maximum part of its revenue shows its lack of market penetration among larger companies. The firm in the past has not been able to maximize and capitalize its advantages generated which needs to be addressed.
Opportunities: Most of the enterprise is now considering to subscribe two software solutions for business purpose to avoid and nullify the disadvantages of network failure which comes with the system occasionally. This is the area where Excel Dynamics can capitalize on and market its product aggressively to penetrate among those larger firms which gives maximum value per unit.
Threat: The threat for Excel Dynamics in the fact that it may soon reach a saturation point where further growth may become difficult. This is mostly due to its over-reliance on SME’s where the return per unit sales is much less. The company may be solely known as software provider of SME’s if this issue is not looked into and may eventually be wiped out from the large industry.
Based on the above findings and keeping in mind the future vision of the company where it wants to establish itself as a major player in the software industry, the company’s aggressive short term policy of increasing client base by 25% in the next quarter must be achieved. If the client base is increased the firm can concentrate on further growth through the generation of capital required to invest in research and developmental project. To achieve the initial objective of acquiring 25% more clients it has to invest aggressively on the promotion of its product and services for which the need is to create awareness for the requirement of integrated networking among business firms. The manufacturing firm such as agricultural product firm, cement manufacturing firm, and dairy firm should be the target market for Excel Dynamics. The company should look for further market penetration to acquire both SME’s and larger companies in those countries and the scope for penetration among manufacturing firms are much more as the manufacturing companies in many countries like India has not yet adopted integration. Among service industries, it needs to target those industries like airlines, railways, and banking sector.
The marketing mix for Excel Dynamics is as follows
Product: The networking product of Excel Dynamics is designed for modern-day businesses for the purpose of the integration of data which can be accessed any-time, anywhere by clients, stakeholders, and employees. Excel Dynamics provides services to its wide range of businesses from SME’s to Larger Production and service-based companies to integrate their data network and be always client-ready. The service of Excel Dynamics is unique in features with no security threat recorded or noticed so far. We use the qualifications of highly educated and trained tech professionals to give you the best in the class experience of data networking and integration of your important business functions. With Excel, Dynamics networking was never easier (Business Case Studies, 1995-2016).
Price: The price of the product and services should remain in line with the average networking prices all over the world so as not to invite criticism on quality compromise. The pricing can vary with a variety of packages subscribed by the consumers. Long term and integrated packages can come at a relatively low price to encourage business consumers to subscribe for the long term. The service and maintenance charge should be included beforehand. Package coming with high maintenance and servicing are to be charged higher in order to manage the servicing and maintenance cost later on (Stewart, 2014).
Place: Excel Dynamics can provide services and guaranteed delivery in any part of the world because it believes networking is universal and present everywhere. Across the continents from Australia to America to Asia including America, it is present everywhere, anytime to serve your business no matter wherever you are.
Promotion: Various promotional tools to be used ranging from print media to electronic and broadcasting media. Social media and other networking sites should be used simultaneously and for effective social media marketing analyst to be consulted for a proper appearance on important business walls. Print media web pages should also contain advertising links so that the message of networking is conveyed to generate publicity. Important business events conducted by top business communities should be approached for publicity so that broad organizational reach is obtained (Cristina, 2015).
The market for the agricultural product in the new territory should be segmented accordingly to find out the SME and Large scale business status. Likewise, other sectors to be targeted like Cement Production, Textile production needs to be properly segmented for effective targeting to be followed by product positioning. After segmentation, proper targeting plans should be in place and using promotional methods effectively holds the key to grab the client’s attention.
After every part of segmentation is completed successfully, the products and services of Excel Dynamics need to be taken to the targeted client where the actual communication and transaction takes place. The impact created in the mind of business clients through promotional tools needs to be capitalized here. For the purpose, the extraction of important attributes of client’s business must be done and studied thoroughly so that any queries can be addressed properly. The product has to be positioned to the targeted client through proper analysis of his/her business requirements which assists in effective persuasion (Rao, 2013).
Proper and effective business networking is the need of current day businesses which if done properly using quality networking services can go a long way to serve the purpose of business organizations. Organizations spread across the continents are considering integration of their business network more than ever. The need for mobility and accessibility round the clock to meet every specific requirement of clients immediately is continuously pushing the business of Networking Services higher and taking the concept of Integrated Networking to every part of the world. The entry of more players in the sector of networking business has left the sector open to price revision in the future (Silva, 2014). The concept is still new and spreading its wing at a faster rate. The security issues although are the main concern of IT networking but its overall benefit and simplicity along with compulsion has made it the necessity of modern time.
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