Please address professor’s comments and questions to Strategic Marketing Plan Part 1
1 attachments
Slide 1 of 1
attachment_1
attachment_1
UNFORMATTED ATTACHMENT PREVIEW
Running head: STRATEGIC MARKETING PLAN Baidu Inc. Strategic Marketing Plan Tiara McCray MRKT Strategic Marketing Management Professor Richman 6/22/2019 1 2 STRATEGIC MARKETING PLAN Table of Contents SECTION 1: Company mission/vision/values or other indicators of a market-driven organization ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 3 SECTION 2: Current marketing situation ………………………………………………………………………….. 3 Internal factors…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 3 Analysis of the company’s current offerings ………………………………………………………………… 3 Analysis of financial results ………………………………………………………………………………………. 4 Analysis of key business relationships ………………………………………………………………………… 4 Analysis of core competencies …………………………………………………………………………………… 4 Analysis of current customers ……………………………………………………………………………………. 5 Competitive Analysis ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5 External factors …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 6 Political-Legal/Regulatory Trends ……………………………………………………………………………… 6 Economic Trends ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 6 Social-Cultural Trends ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 7 Technological Trends ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 7 Environmental Trends ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 7 Demographics Trends ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 8 SWOT Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 8 SUMMARY OF CURRENT SITUATION …………………………………………………………………….. 9 SECTION 3: TARGET MARKET ……………………………………………………………………………………. 9 SECTION 4: STRATEGIC MARKETING PLAN OBJECTIVES………………………………………. 10 REFERENCES …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 11 3 STRATEGIC MARKETING PLAN SECTION 1: Company mission/vision/values or other indicators of a market-driven organization Baidu Inc. is a technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products and artificial intelligence services. Its headquarters are in Haidian, Beijing. The company’s mission statement and provided on its website is stated as “To provide the best way for people to find information. From this mission statement, it is evident that the company’s focus is to provide users with varieties of products about search engines to satisfy their needs. Though not provided on the company’s website, it is believed that Baidu Inc. vision statement is to make sure the company achieves its mission statement. Like other organizations, Baidu Inc. has values that it identifies with. The two key values that the company recognizes is the value of reliability and the value of simplicity. Simplicity and reliability are about how the company interacts with one another; how they treat their customers; and how they build their products. SECTION 2: Current marketing situation Internal factors Analysis of the company’s current offerings Being an Internet-based company; Baidu Inc. current offering includes products that are concentrated into the web search category. In addition to this, the company also offers other searches. They include image search, news, and video search, as well as dictionary and web directory. Community-based platforms such as PostBar and Space are also among the current offering by Baidu Inc (Baidu, 2017). In a nutshell, Baidu Inc. current product offering can be categorized into Baidu PostBar, Baidu Knows, Baidu education, Baidu Encyclopedia, mobile assistance, Baidu wallet, Baidu consumer credit, Baidu wealth management, Baidu maps, and Baidu Cloud drive. STRATEGIC MARKETING PLAN 4 Analysis of financial results According to Baidu (2017), Baidu Inc. makes money in two ways: online marketing services and provision of products. As of 2017, the company made about $11.24 billion from online marketing services and about $1.8 billion in revenues from other products. The $1.8 billion was 93.6% increase from 2016. In 2016, revenues from other products (excluding online marketing services) were reported at 0.9 billion. This increment in revenue over such a short period is highly attributed to the growth of membership services of iQIYI and financial services. Analysis of key business relationships Baidu Inc. business relationships are based on four categories: users, customers, Customers for iQIYI, Baidu union members, and Content providers. The company enables its users to be connected to relevant information online. Using artificial intelligence, Baidu Inc. aims at enhancing user experience (Baidu, 2017). The company also has a business relationship with a customer base of about 775,000 active online marketing customers. This customer base includes SMEs, large domestic businesses, and multinational companies. Union members are third-party web content, software, and mobile application providers that partner with the company to meet its objectives. The last business relationship is with content providers, including video copyright holders, publishers, and app owners. Analysis of core competencies Baidu Inc. core competencies revolve around quality products and services and a strong brand. The company ensures that its products are inspired by innovation and that they can be of significant value to the users. In this regard, its products are of high quality, with most of them tailor-made for the situations or customers in need of them. STRATEGIC MARKETING PLAN 5 Analysis of current customers The company has a diverse mix of online marketing customers (Baidu, 2017). This mix comprises of corporations of all kind. However, according to Einhorn (2010), it is noted that that the customer base of Baidu is predominantly dominated by small and medium-sized business firms. The company has customers throughout China that are spread across different industries. It is also noted that other than China, the company’s customers come from the coastal regions. Its customers are from ranges across different demographics but more importantly is that most of the company’s customers are Chinese speaking people from all over the world. Competitive Analysis Baidu faces stiff competition with different search providers including Google, Yahoo, Ask.com, Yandex, and Bing. It also faces competition from companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, Sohu, and Qihoo. All of these are Internet companies based in China. In the iQIYI, Baidu faces competition from companies that operate online video websites. An example of such a company is Youku-Tudou (Fong & Wong, 2012). By the fact that the primary aim of any company is to reign supreme in their respective industries by maximizing profit, Baidu Inc. does not focus on the competition when planning to become successful in the market (Fong & Wong, 2012). To achieve dominance, the market focuses on product, customers rather than the competition. Its focus is on products and services that meet customers demand, preference, and convenience. Through market analysis, Baidu Inc. finds customers specific pain points: what they use most in a product and make their plans based on this. STRATEGIC MARKETING PLAN 6 External factors Political-Legal/Regulatory Trends The political climate in the Asian continent and specifically China, in this case, has been stable for the past couple of years hence explaining the economic success of the country. The state has no volatile political situations, so there is confidence in investing in the country. Moreover, the government attitude towards an international brand of environmentally friendly cosmetic products is a positive one. Legal factors, in this case, involve the laws that the business will have to cope with once they tap into this market. This would include legislative issues such as consumer protection, health and safety laws, labor, environment, taxes, licensing regulations (Eikeland, & Skjærseth, 286). These laws determine how profitable business will be in an environment. In China, the focus is mostly on quality and safety that these foreign products present with their products. Economic Trends Economic factors are the most important for a business because that is why a company enters a market in the first place. After the 2008 economic recession, most Asian countries, including China, have begun the restoration and revival of their economies. China has been performing quite well since the restoration started. However, changes in the inflation rate, the foreign exchange rate, the interest rate are the most significant concern to Baidu Inc. These changes affect the aggregate demand and invest and the business climate. As a result, they impact the company’s profitability. STRATEGIC MARKETING PLAN 7 Social-Cultural Trends The brands with the freshest and the trendiest products have a positive effect on the market, but at the same time, the business should be aware of the social image that it has in the country that they are going to venture into. Sociocultural trends that affect Baidu Inc. include the Chinese customs, lifestyles, and social values that promote unity and cohesion (Xie, 2009). Other cultural trends include aesthetics, growing literacy levels, diversity in language, and diverse material culture and attitudes. Social trends include changing family roles, changing gender roles where women are seeking equality in society. Maintaining the right social image is essential because it galvanizes the popularity of the products and would improve the company’s business in the nation (Fong & Wong, 2012). Technological Trends Customer convenience and safety are the most critical aspects of the Internet industry. With technological advancement across the globe, companies around the globe are using the latest technologies to create products that are relative to higher quality that is environmentfriendly, safe, and efficient. Environmental Trends In the 21st century, environmental factors have grown in importance for business. Companies are investing highly in products with the least environmental impact if not zero impact on the environment. Eco-friendly products have grown in popularity. China being a country which is pro-environment will be interested in these kinds of products. The products offered by the division would attract a lot of customers in the market in China and all over the STRATEGIC MARKETING PLAN 8 world. These products also create a positive business image for improving the popularity of the business in the nation hence increasing market size and ultimately profits from sales. Demographic Trends According to Yu (2013), China’s population is aging more quickly. There are also more females than males. The number of males who are inclined to the Tech industry is high compared to females. Few individuals are relatively wealthy. The gap between the poor and rich is relatively wide in the last two decades has widened. Most of the Chinese population is middle class. SWOT Analysis Having effective leadership and management is a strength that the company boasts of. Having Robin Li as the CEO is something that enables the company to climb to higher heights. His qualifications, experience, and proven excellent managerial skills are of importance in the formulation and evaluation of strategic plans. Other strengths include the presence of highly qualified and skilled staff is and presence of robust distribution channels that will help the division have a vast national as well as global presence across the world, diverse product mix, continuous R & D and strong integrated marketing communication (Fong & Wong, 2012). The main weakness of Baidu Inc. is the fact that its online searches are predominantly in the Chinese language. Its competitors allow search with different languages. The first opportunity for the company is the market potential. The company has the potential to expand its business model to include other search languages. Product mix expansion is the other opportunity. It can venture in other industries, such as computer software, computer hardware, and advertising. And lastly, the STRATEGIC MARKETING PLAN 9 potential for partnership and acquisitions of other businesses with other companies to pool up resources is a big opportunity the company must enable it to have a vast market base. SUMMARY OF CURRENT SITUATION SECTION 3: TARGET MARKET The target markets of Baidu Inc. are users of computers software and hardware services. The company is committed to serving this market with quality services and products. Through market analysis, Baidu Inc. is aware of the demand for computer software and hardware products and services from all over the world. In this regard, the company will seek to operate in this market niche. Baidu Inc. will work so hard to win and dominate the market in so many ways, and because of this, it will be taking nothing to chance. A well-developed position statement will help in attracting more customers in a bid to gain a competitive edge. The positioning statement is not only meant to spread the word about what we are doing, but it also meant to create a perception to customers on who the organization seeks to become (Menon et Al., 2015). Baidu Inc. positioning statement is going to take the company into the next stage by showing the value that we have on their customers. The positioning statement for Baidu Inc. is; “For customers in the larger China area who value quality computer software and computer hardware products and services. Baidu Inc. computer software and hardware products and services are affordable, and a mark of quality, and unlike our competitors, our products satisfies all the needs of a customer. Baidu Inc. is committed to be the market leader, committed to extensive research to ensure that we continue offering quality products for our different segments. Our competitors are only focused on a single market segment while for us, the aim is to disrupt and explore different industries by offering breakthrough products and services which are customer centered. The STRATEGIC MARKETING PLAN 10 business model for Baidu Inc. commits a lot of resources to research and development, showing the value that we put on providing quality products and solutions.” SECTION 4: STRATEGIC MARKETING PLAN OBJECTIVES Goal 4 To ensure the company achieves and maintains and grows adequate levels of profitability to about 2.08 billion yuan and raise its revenues to above 27.2 billion yuan: ideally, the main reason why the company is in existence is to make profits. It is the core goal of the company to run a profitable operation (Fong & Wong, 2012). This typically means increasing revenue while limiting expense. The company will focus on cutting costs so as the revenue base will grow. Any operating or activity that is not generating revenue for the company will be ignored. To attract additional 500 employees by seeking to be an employer of choice by attracting and retaining the highest caliber of staff with the human resource is the most valuable asset that the company can boast of. In the highly competitive industry like the Internet industry, the key to success for the company will highly rely on the performance of the human resource. The company, therefore, needs to serve employees need to bid to enhance productivity. 11 STRATEGIC MARKETING PLAN REFERENCES Baidu, Its Services and Its Competitors. (2017). Baidu SEO,1-11. doi:10.1002/9781119368755.ch1 Einhorn, B. (2010). Google stays in China. And Baidu keeps on winning. TECHNOLOGY, 11, 01AM. Methodology of a Baidu SEO Campaign. (2017). Baidu SEO,75-95. doi:10.1002/9781119368755.ch5 Steve Fong, C. C., & Wong, J. (2012). Competitor analysis and accounting of social networking site service companies in China. Journal of Technology Management in China, 7(3), 243254. Xie, L. (2009). Case Comment: Yahoo and Baidu Search Engine Liability in China. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1358453 Yu, K. (2013, October). Large-scale deep learning at baidu. In Proceedings of the 22nd ACM international conference on Information & Knowledge Management (pp. 2211-2212). ACM.