Marketing Assignment: International Expansion Of Greensharecar Within New Zealand

Question

Task:
Write a marketing assignment illustrating the international marketing expansion of Greensharecar in the New Zealand market.

Answer

Introduction
According to the words of Summers (2019) outlined in the present context of marketing assignment, marketing seems to be the process based on interesting potential customers along with the clients within the services and the products. The process of marketing mainly involves promoting; researching; distributing and selling the products and the services. The main goal of marketing is known to generate much more conversion and leads along with increment within sales as well as improving the awareness and increasing the satisfaction of the customers as well. Hence, the present study evaluates the concept of marketing highlighting the organisation of Greensharecar expanding its services of self drive and tying up with the tourism industry within New Zealand.

Greensharecar seems to be a service that is based on membership along with offering the option for renting the cars through a day. The company has been positioned as green; economical as well as an easy alternative for the car ownership. It is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia and specialises in corporate car sharing; implementation of strata car sharing; along with commercial car sharing as well (Greensharecar, 2020). The vision of the respective organisation has been to provide mobility for the entire communities, by providing economic and social value along with the reduction of environmental impact which is comprised through excessive car ownership.

Value proposition of Greensharecar
Greensharecar has been considered as a service related to the ideas on shared value along with collaborative consumption. It has been evidenced that the concerned organisation has been a leading company of car rentals within Melbourne. The company has been found delivering online booked car within a particular location consisting of the insurance as well as petrol and the amount of parking. Thus, the value proposition of the company has been considered as the ease that is offered by the organisation along with a smartcard that tends to provide the availability of the vehicles for the customers (Morgan, Whitler, Feng & Chari, 2019). Apart from this, easy booking is also allowed to the customers to access the rental cars of the organisation along with a tracker system to find the vehicles near workplaces or rather homes. This eventually creates a brand value of the organisation.

It has been found that the customer base tends to build through the referral of membership along with a mouth to mouth advertising and similar others. The customer segment of the respective organisation is composed of the students and the office goers who have been aged within 21 to 45 years of age. On the other hand, the company also offers matching car types for every customer. The flexibility to offer a choice within various cars along with a traditional car sharing can provide the customers with the opportunity for choosing public transport whenever possible. Thus, the value proposition of the concerned organisation deals with the environment; its convenience; its flexibility; there is no ownership; its affordability along with the link with the public transport.

Identification of issues and objectives along with marketing logic for customer value
As stated by Zhu and Gao (2019), the delivery as well as creation of customer value seems to become the source for a competitive advantage through the means of business model innovation.

Business model innovation
This model consists of two roles related to innovation. Firstly, the business models are able to support a strategic marketing and commercialisation associated with the innovative processes; services and products as well. On the other hand, business models can also become a subject for innovation and can also be changed along with being innovative for providing the competitive advantage through changing the terms of the competition (Lee and Day, 2019). For instance, a sustainable business model innovation can be undertaken in the present situation which plays an effective role within the consumption and production of a technology. Thus, technological innovation within the respective organisational service has also taken place such as a tracking system and an easy booking system as well. Thus, the organisation has focused on creation of value for its customers through its services which results in their satisfaction and experience as well. A good customer experience can create value for the customers. For instance, the company has decided to provide an option of the service of self drive to the customers after expanding within the market of New Zealand (Eckhardt et al., 2019). After booking the car, waiting at a convenient location, within minimum distance, for the customers also helped the organisation for creating customer value.

However, certain issues are also known to take place while providing a good experience to the customers or creating value for them. For instance, serving multiple customers within a single time is not possible; a bigger discount cannot be offered; and similar others.

Critical evaluation of the business situation
Summary of Tows/Swot analysis
Tows and swot analysis has been conducted previously regarding the respective organisation of Greensharecar. It has revealed the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats along with deriving strategies through the same. As per the strength of the organisation, it has been known that the services and products of the organisation are generally designed through the choices of the customers (Reisman et al., 2019). Additional offers are also provided such as an amount for parking, petrol and insurance as well. On the other hand, there are not many executives of customer service for handling their queries along with having limited catering for the Australian customers. This has eventually concerned the weakness of the organisation. However, expansion within the market of New Zealand along with other international markets and tying up with the travel agents, hotels and offices can offer several opportunities for the company. Nevertheless, there is a major competition in the international market as well as leading to the growth of petrol cost which acts as a threat for the organisation.

Strategies have also been considered in the study according to the tows matrix with the consideration of swot analysis. According to Shareef, Mukerji, Dwivedi, Rana & Islam (2019), this has allowed the strength to combat its threat and grab opportunity along with converting the weakness into an opportunity and defending the threat as well. This has highlighted the strategies like expanding the recent business network within its services; increasing the branding and network through the recent offering for competing with the international competitors. However, providing self service and tying up with the tourism industry can also lead to an increased value of the customers along with limiting the Australian business for conducting the business of the company within the recent prices of petrol.

Segmentation, targeting and positioning
These are the significant steps for targeting a market. In this case, the respective analysis is important for the concerned company to study the market of New Zealand where the company is known to expand its services (Pracejus, Deng, Olsen & Messinger, 2020).

Figure 1: Segmentation; Targeting; Positioning
Source: (Kennedy, 2019)

Market segmentation: This is concerned with dividing a market within distinct groups related to buyers with various characteristics; needs and behaviours who need separate marketing mixes. The respective organisation mainly deals with the demographic and psychographic segmentation.

Market targeting: This deals with the evaluation of each segment of the market along with its attractiveness while selecting the market segments for entering. The concerned company targeted mainly the office goers and the students. The company has mainly targeted the young people. However, as opined by Wang, Malthouse, Calder & Uzunoglu (2019), it offers its services to the customers who are aged within 21 to 45 years of age. On the other hand, as per the psychographic segmentation, the company tends to attract independent; confident and powerful individuals who seem to love dynamics.

Market positioning: This is concerned with setting a competitive positioning for a product along with creating a detailed marketing mix. As per the brand positioning of the respective organisation, it keeps various options of car through which the customers can choose for themselves. It seems to be a unique service provider as it also offers an option of self drive along with the insurance and petrol as well.

Recommendation of appropriate marketing mix strategies
The marketing mix strategy is mainly concerned with the product; price; place and promotion (Stewart, 2019). This is considered to be the set of tactical and controllable tools of marketing that is used by the organisation for the production of desired response through the target market. This also comprises every necessary thing that is needed by the concerned company for influencing the demand for its services and business.

Product
The products of Greensharecar along with its services are found to be leading the ways while expanding within the international market of New Zealand. The state of art car-share technology has been both sustainable and innovative while ensuring that all the needs of the transport are covered well. The expertise of Greensharecar along with its innovation level for delivering the comprehensive suite based on the corporate car share products tend to remain unparalleled (AlAwadhi and Al-Daihani, 2019). The products of quick fleet; exclusive fleet and Strata fleet are known to be the benchmark while coming for the corporate solutions of car share. The organisation continuously improves its efficiency and services through which the business can always get the attention and care that is deserved by the company. Thus, the vehicles that are supplied within the market of New Zealand, can involve the operating expenses along with a simple monthly payment method. The services of the organisation might be designed in such a way which might have a great impact within the profitability of the organisation. As per the views of Fill (2019), these services can be designed for the elimination of the administrative tasks associated with the management of the vehicles and the fleet as well.

After the expansion, the organisation should have the ability to keep the customers within the centre of everything while relying on the commitment of the employees. Allowing Smartcards for ease of booking the cars as well as tracking the same, utilizing the GPS systems, so that the car nearest to the pick-up point can be availed, thus, reducing the waiting time would help the company to strengthen its brand position in the market, further. For instance, customers can be benefited through the convenience of the location along with the local service of pick up for taking the customers for a branch to collect their cars (King, 2019). This service can also be undertaken by the organisation as it can help the company to be different as compared to the other competitors.

Pricing
Pricing management along with demand planning has been considered as a significant function within most of these types of organisations. For the present company, it might be described as an active management of the revenue through forecasting the demand as well as controlling capacity or rather the inventory. However, at times, it might not be visible within the outside world. The pricing strategy of the respective organisation can be termed as a dynamic pricing. As put forward by Laczniak and Murphy (2019), the usage of this present pricing strategy has been forecast for the growth through 20% CAGR within the year of 2017 to 2021. However, it can also consider its strategy of using flat fee pricing or rather rule based pricing engine while expanding within the international market. These types of methods are known to be devoid based on intelligence through the data that the respective organisation has been capturing from the past years.

For instance, the rule based pricing engine can result in being adverse for any consumer who has been involved within the accident of five years ago however; it has also maintained a good behaviour to the customers (Ellram and Murfield, 2019). Nevertheless, the organisation can also consider higher rental prices within the tourist location after tying up with the tourist industry of New Zealand. This can be applied for major events; along with citing an increased demand rather than focusing on competitor prices or rather the weather data within that period. Hence, three of the major dynamic approach of pricing regarding the respective organisation has been mentioned below:

• Fixed capacity related to the number of available cars for the rent
• Various demand upon the factors such as day; location; season and similar others
• Willingness for paying with the early customers that is to be price sensitive

Thus, dynamic pricing strategy is to set the price with the use of customer data related to tailoring of services and products for a better experience (Kaleka and Morgan, 2019). Nevertheless, cost based pricing strategy can also be implemented which can help in making a specific percentage rather than the total cost production as well as manufacturing. These strategies can result in being value based pricing and can also be competitive as well.

Distribution
It has been evidenced that the managerial decisions tend to include the marketing channels which are considered to be the most critical which needs to be made by an organisation. The relationships within the intermediaries and manufacturers also comprise a great significance which involves the long term commitments that are difficult for change. However, to respond with the realities based on the market place, the concerned company should always be ready for adopting the practices of distribution under several uncertainties related to the longer term consequences (Vadana, Torkkeli, Kuivalainen & Saarenketo, 2019). Thus, for considering the distribution channel of the respective organisation within the market of New Zealand, there are several strategies which are mentioned below:

Search Engine Optimisation
SEO seems to be the digital marketing strategy which is strongest as the feature of a search engine is known to be a crawler which, in turn, collects information that has been concerning for all the content that is to be noticed within the web. This feature can ensure the concerned organisation has a higher chance of being visited through its target consumers and can also be listed higher within the results of the search engine.

Social media marketing
This has been the major component for marketing with the use of websites and social media for promoting and marketing any service or rather product. The company needs to create its content while sharing that within the networks of social media for achieving the goals of branding and marketing (Gregory, Ngo & Karavdic, 2019). The particular method of marketing involves several activities such as posting the image and texts; various contents which can lead to the engagement of the audience. However, the marketers tend to make use of social networking that can eventually increase the loyalty and recognition of the brand. This is an intensive marketing strategy where the company is able to sell maximum outlets.

The organisation can also consider the use of direct selling channels through the internet sales and the arrangements of personal contacts as well. On the other hand, indirect channels can also be present which emphasizes on selling through the intermediaries. Agents can be one of the strategies to become an indirect channel. However, a selective distribution strategy can also be considered which can eventually operate the exclusive and intensive distribution where the company can offer many services to the customers.

Promotion
This is also referred to as the advertisement strategy of the concerned company. The organisation is known not to practice any intensive advertising within television and consists of some short advertisements that results in being powerful, stylish and smooth (Frenken and Schor, 2019). This tends to present with all sorts of communications which might be used by the particular organisation within the marketplace. Promotion can consist of four elements within the international market such as point of sale; public relations and word of mouth. However, some of the promotional strategies that can be undertaken by the respective organisation are mentioned below:

Web advertising: This enables the company to create its own website and advertise on google along with the websites based on the travel agencies as well along with capturing the city information (ABS, 2020). Utilizing the social and digital media for promoting the offers, value propositions for the customers and the benefits for the same can be showcased, along with utilization of social-media influencers, as a web-advertising measure.

Promoting Greensharecar to be local:
This can help the local customers to know about the organisation and make use of the same as the local has more knowledge regarding the city.

Promoting the location of the company:
Here the organisation needs to promote its location to the customers with the use of visible assets which can result in attracting a huge base of customers.

Leading to tie up with the tourism industry:
This ensures the company to do partnership with the national travel agencies while formulating specific rates for making the rental car for being a part of the respective travel packaging. This also focuses on becoming the partners for the websites and magazines emphasized on the industry of tourism (GreenShareCar 2020). Apart from these, the organisation must provide the option of self drive along with the service to rent the car for outside the city.

As a recommendation, the organisation can make use of push vs. pull strategies. The push strategy can help in providing the services directly to the consumers with the internet whereas; the pull strategy can motivate the customers for overseeing the active process of the company.

Action programs
Action plan

Table 1: Gantt chart
Source: (Developed by the Learner)

As stated in the above table, the respective strategies might be practiced within the concerned organisation by the supervisors and the staff of the company to enhance its popularity and profit after expansion within the international market of New Zealand. However, the budget also needs to be considered while implementing the respective strategies and expanding the organisation as well (Choros and Dvorsky, 2020). Budget seems to be the process for preparation of the estimates while controlling the same. This has been a system to achieve the performance related to the budgets. The budget has been mentioned below:

Table 2: Budgetary control
Source: (Developed by the Learner)

Conclusion
To conclude, the present study has evaluated the concept of marketing highlighting the international expansion of the respective organisation of Greensharecar. The study has emphasized on the value proposition of the particular organisation along with its services which has also been considered to create customer value in the international market of New Zealand. Segmentation; targeting and positioning framework for the concerned organisation has also been mentioned in the present discussion along with highlighting the marketing mix strategies for the company. The product attributes and strategies along with pricing strategies have been emphasized. Nevertheless, promotional and distribution strategies have also been considered.

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