Marketing Strategy: Mission, Vision, Goals, and Objectives with Simulation Insights

Announcements

• Final Project Company Name: If not already published, please publish the name for your final project company on the discussion board.
• Special Topic One-Pager: Due by October $8$.
• Waxman Medical Center Session: For those who missed the second session, it will be this Friday at $2$PM.
• No Class on October $15$: This is due to Fall Break (Thursday and Friday of that week), which is also an exam week. This aligns with the syllabus and is a reminder to avoid surprises, allowing students to enjoy the break.
• Instructor's Travel: The instructor will be traveling to London during Fall Break for her children's Irish dance competition.
  • Personal Anecdote: She lives in Dublin, Ohio, where Irish dance is prevalent, particularly due to a studio owned by a Russian ballerina whose husband is from Riverdance.
  • London Memories: This will be her first time back in London since the $2012$ Olympic Games, which were a "very tough business experience" for her, leaving her with mixed memories.

Feedback and Upcoming Work

• Slides Published: Slides are now accessible.
• Feedback Provided: Feedback for the Pestel and Five Forces analyses has been published. Students should check for comments.
• Upcoming Feedback: The instructor plans to work on feedback for the Five C's and SWOT analyses tomorrow (Friday), aiming for prompt delivery.

Marketing Objectives and Strategy Formation

• Importance of Goals and Objectives: While seemingly obvious, many students make mistakes in defining goals and objectives in final projects or simulations, highlighting the need for this review.
• Progression from Situation Analysis: The class is moving from situation analysis (first step, using frameworks like SWOT as the final analytical step) to goals and objectives.
• Business Mission and Vision (Prerequisite): Before discussing marketing goals, it's crucial to understand the business mission and vision.

Aligning Strategies

• Corporate, Business, and Marketing Alignment: Marketing strategy must align with broader business and corporate strategies.
  • Every business function, including marketing, should connect to corporate and business strategy.
  • Marketers' decisions (e.g., pricing, communications) must align with these broader strategic goals.
• Marketer Involvement (Ideal vs. Reality): Ideally, marketers should be involved in developing business and corporate strategy; however, this often does not happen in the real world.
  • Practical Advice: If asked to help with a marketing strategy, the first question should be for the company's business and corporate strategy.
  • Real-world Obstacle: Smaller companies often lack formally defined business or corporate strategies.
• Hierarchical Strategy Layers (Ideal World):
  1. Corporate Level: Decides which businesses to compete in.
  2. Business Level: Identifies specific products and markets within those businesses/industries.
  3. Marketing Level: Allocates resources and activities to achieve marketing goals for identified markets.

Business Vision and Mission

• Terminology: Companies use various terms (vision, mission, values; mission, vision, core values, etc.). The specific title is less important than the underlying concept.
• Definition:
  • Vision: "What do we want to accomplish?" - Focus on tomorrow, future aspirations, often uses "to achieve."
  • Mission: "What do we accomplish, how do we accomplish this goal?" - Focus on today, describes current activities, defines the means.
• Order of Development: Vision should come first to define the end goal, then the Mission outlines how to get there.
• Common Practice: Many companies today may only have one statement, or it might be integrated into other communications.

Qualities of a Good Mission/Vision Statement

• Focus: Limited number of goals.
• Values: Stresses major policies and values.
• Scope: Defines major competitive areas.
• Time Horizon: Long-term orientation.
• Form: Short, memorable, and as meaningful as possible (most important).

Examples of Mission Statements

• Tesla: "To accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy."
• Amazon: "To be Earth's most customer-centric company."

Why are Mission and Vision Important?

• Internal Audience:
  • Facilitates employee buy-in.
  • Helps employees feel part of something bigger, finding meaning and purpose in their work.
  • Ensures all employees are aligned.
  • Can be an important internal marketing function.
• External Audience:
  • Can be used for external communication (even if not always explicitly labeled).
  • Helps build the "why" for the company (as per Simon Sinek's concept).

Classroom Experiment: Recalling Company Mission/Vision

• Task: Students were asked to write down their company's mission/vision statement without external help.
• Observations from Student Examples:
  • CoverMyMeds: "We help patients get medication they need to live healthier lives." (Memorable due to frequent communication and display, employee of $7.5$ years remembered it easily, but could not recall previous employer's statement).
  • Med Center: "To provide world class care to every patient every time." (CEO frequently says it, displayed on walls).
  • Meta (Facebook): "To build the next step of human interaction and help humans and build social networks and interaction with anyone and anywhere in the world." (Communicated via swag/notebooks on day one, not ongoing).
  • The James: Vision: "To build a cancer free world." Mission: "To kinda create personalized patient care for every cancer patient." (Remembered due to past involvement, less exposed in satellite locations).
  • PepsiCo: "To create more smiles with every sip and every bite." (Memorable, integrated into recognition programs "Smiles," "PepsiCo Way" behaviors centered on consumer-centricity).
  • Honda: "Benefit to society" (written on desk items, also includes "dreams, joy, passion, challenging spirit, respect"). Student wasn't fully aware of its meaning until prompted.
• Key Conclusions from Experiment:
  • Companies use diverse methods for communication.
  • It's challenging to communicate effectively, especially with remote work.
  • Memorability: Short and memorable statements are recalled immediately.
  • Company Responsibility: It's the company's responsibility to effectively communicate its mission/vision to ensure employee alignment.
  • Leadership Role: Leaders should keep mission/vision statements simple, basic, and easy to remember to foster alignment.

Goals and Objectives

• Relationship:
  • Goal: Your destination (e.g., "To maintain a strong value proposition").
  • Objective: Measurable steps, how you track progress to reach the goal (e.g., "Increase the number of repeat customers by $15\%$ within three years").
• SMART Principle:
  • Goals do not have to be SMART.
  • Objectives must be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable ($Actionable$), Relevant, and Time-bound.
• Examples:
  • Goal: Maintain a strong value proposition.
    • Objective: Increase repeat customers by $15\%$ within three years.
  • Goal: Leverage relationships with major manufacturers.
    • Objective: Achieve a $10\%$ increase in relationships with Top $20$ manufacturers within five years.

Pharma Simulation Goals and Objectives

• Assignment: An optional assignment at the end of the class (or weekly) is to set goals and objectives for the Pharmacy simulation.
• Weighted Score Parameters: The simulation score is based on three parameters:
  • $30\%$ Stock Price (visible on the top right, but don't overreact).
  • Manufacturer Sales.
  • Net Income.

BCG Matrix (Boston Consulting Group Matrix)

• Purpose: A tool to analyze a portfolio of business units, product lines, individual products, or brands.
• Dimensions:
  • Market Growth Rate (vertical axis: low/high).
  • Relative Market Share (horizontal axis: low/high).
• Four Quadrants/Categories:
  1. Stars: High market share, high market growth. Require significant investment to maintain growth but generate high returns. (Goal: Invest to move to Cash Cow).
  2. Cash Cows: High market share, low market growth. Generate more cash than they consume, typically mature, profitable products. (Goal: Maintain, fund other products).
  3. Question Marks (Problem Children): Low market share, high market growth. Have potential but require heavy investment to grow share, risky. (Goal: Invest to become Star, or Divest).
  4. Dogs: Low market share, low market growth. Generate low profit or even losses, often divested or phased out.
• Strategic Implication: Helps identify growth opportunities and balance the product portfolio across different life cycles (e.g., iPods moved from cash cow to dog and then out).
• Apple Product Practice (Class Activity):
  • Question Marks: Services/subscriptions (Apple TV/Music due to competitive market and uncertain market share), AirTags (mixed student opinion, some saw as rising), VisionPro (new, high price).
  • Stars: MacBook Pro (professional market, annual improvements/investment), Apple Watch (ongoing development, strong market presence).
  • Cash Cows: iPhone (huge market share, but market growth for smartphones is slowing), AirPods (high market share, steady product, less innovation than phones). iPad (debated between question mark and dog, depends on innovation/usage).
  • Dogs: iPod (phased out), Apple TV (less needed with smart TVs/streaming apps), old lightning cables/wired chargers (superseded by USB-C and wireless charging).

Ansoff Matrix

• Purpose: A tool to conceptualize objectives and identify growth strategies based on products and markets.
• Dimensions:
  • Product: Current Product / New Product
  • Market: Current Market / New Market
• Four Strategies (from lowest to highest risk):
  1. Market Penetration (Current Product, Current Market): Increasing sales to existing customers in existing markets (e.g., loyalty programs, increased advertising).
  2. Product Development (New Product, Current Market): Introducing new products to existing customers in existing markets (e.g., new iPhone model).
  3. Market Development (Current Product, New Market): Selling existing products to new customers or in new geographical markets (e.g., expanding into a new country).
  4. Diversification (New Product, New Market): Developing new products for new markets. This carries the highest risk.
• Relevance: These frameworks are helpful tools depending on business goals and will be further discussed with the "Four P's" of marketing.

Pharma Simulation - Decision 1 Specifics

• Timeline: Decisions are due by Sunday each week, but class time is allocated for team work.
• Final Presentation Tip: Start collecting key decisions for each round now (e.g., pricing changes, new product launches) to integrate into the final presentation. Avoid overwhelming screenshots; focus on key decisions.
• Key Recommendations:
  • Long-Term Planning: Focus on where the company will be at Round $6$, not just Round $1$ or $2$. Avoid overreacting to initial results. A good plan can be adjusted but not completely changed.
  • Data & Reports: Understand the numbers and data available in the reports. Marketing involves both numbers and soft skills.
  • Teamwork: Underscore the importance of teamwork and organization.
  • Technical Issues: Email the instructor or support for any technical problems.
  • Dedicated Team Time: $10-15$ minutes will be provided at the end of class weekly for team decisions.
  • COVID Integration: While the case doesn't explicitly discuss COVID, it's acceptable to integrate it into analysis if relevant.
  • Budget: A new budget is provided each decision year based on performance. Special decisions might not immediately show a budget line, which is normal.
  • Overcapacity Message: An "overcapacity" message will appear around Round $2$ or $3$; this is normal and not necessarily a bad thing.
  • Resources: Refer to the Q&A document about the Pharma simulation available in the modules.
  • Learning Curve: The simulation may seem annoying in the first two rounds but becomes enjoyable by rounds $3$ and $4$.

Conclusion

• Top Hat: A Top Hat quiz (code $1940$) was conducted to check understanding of mission, vision, goals, objectives, and supporting tools.
• Final Instructions: Students were given time to work on their decisions in breakout rooms or stay for questions.