Executive Summary
This report utilised Wizard Carpet Cleaning as the model company to review their present marketing, innovations and business strategies and how they dealt with current situations. From the report, the background of the study, its aims and scope were then identified, how they worked and their effectiveness in dealing with current situations was ascertained. This paper also assumed that the current marketing approach of the Wizard Carpet Cleaning is in good stance but the need to innovate and assessment of marketing strategies that would enhance their market effectiveness is needed because of changes in the market brought by technological advancement and increasing competition. The paper then moved on to assess these business strategies with regard the current situations. Basically, this paper illustrates the Blueprint/FlowChart of business operation of Wizard Carpet Cleaning. Moreover, dendrograms, SWOT Analysis and Market Segments were also illustrated to identify the current stance of the company. The report justified that the advertising approach of Wizard Carpet Cleaning is not really a big problem. Instead, the company only needs alter their business operations through innovativeness because of the stiff competition and demands of the current era.
1.0 Introduction
1.1Background
The rapid growth of technological advancement in the society has brought people ease in all the things that they do (Hamel & Skarzynski 2001). Part of this technological advancement is the emergence of the innovative activities for each and every organisation. Evidence of innovation is spread thinly in the business population, as most profess that innovation brought out excellent performance for the company in terms of profit and resource maximisation (Jonash, 2000). Management of innovation is often regarded as the unquestioned cornerstone towards competitiveness in the 21st century (Mendelson & Ziegler1999). These technological advancements have brought people, especially those in the business world, to utilise a strategy that would be helpful in enhancing the business value of any organisation. Furthermore, this development has made changes and development with regards to the plans and strategies of the management of Wizard Carpet Cleaning, notably those in the marketing environment.
Within the market place, one of the most important things to consider is to establish a strategy that will be useful for different activities of Wizard Carpet Cleaning and enhance the value of the business as a whole. Part of the changes brought by the competition of these industries are the new economics, new market structure, new marketing strategy as well as the new structures of each and every industry within this field. In line with this, more and more organisations including Wizard Carpet Cleaning are trying to impose and implement different innovative activities that will further make their business more competent and to have a competitive position in the market place.
Home cleaning services are becoming the trend of the current era. The busy environment is now developing excellent market for home cleaning services. Basically, with increasing competition characterised by technological innovation capable of removing product differentiation almost overnight, companies and organisations not providing excellent customer service as their value-added differentiating attribute will be left behind. While product quality is important, it is nothing compared to market advantage (Shelton & Davila 2005 and Sull 2003). One way market advantage can be achieved is having excellent service quality. As most companies would aim for the excellent customer service goal, companies must innovate and pioneering to make their service stand out in the market place. Customer satisfaction need not be limited to the external customers or those final buyers of the company’s services. Top management must consider the bigger picture- that the customer is the benefactor of one’s services.
1.2 Aims
The aim of this paper is to evaluate the current stance of the marketing practices of Wizard Carpet Cleaning. It attempts to synthesize the marketing approach of the organisation and determine its effectiveness.
1.3 Scope
This report will only cover the marketing approaches of Wizard Carpet Cleaning. Details of information will only come from the website of Wizard Carpet Cleaning (i.e. http://www.wizardcarpetcleaning.com.au), marketing journals, books and other online materials.
2.0 Assumptions
With this paper, it is assumed that the current marketing approach of the Wizard Carpet Cleaning is in good stance. However, due to the changes in the market brought by technological advancement and increasing competition, the company needs to have an assessment of their marketing strategies and suggests strategies that would enhance their market effectiveness.
3.0 Main Body
3.1 Overview
The contemporary business environment of Wizard Carpet Cleaning is in a state of transformation with the prevalence of rapid technological innovation, markets, diverse consumer preferences, and rigid competition among home cleaning service companies. Technology and marketing approaches pave the way for goods and services to flow in different parts of the country without restriction making it possible for the nation’s population to gain access to diverse services from all points of the country. Thus, the major concern in the modern business arena particularly for Wizard Carpet Cleaning is the ability to deliver diversified services to the clients in the most prompt and convenient manner to maintain competitive edge. The failure to fulfil this basic business requirement signals the slow demise of the business firm.
Business organisations today continue to adopt specific marketing strategies that would help them gain access to the newest technology, produce services based on what the consumers prefer, and then distribute these services to suffice the needs of consumers in every national location (Palus & Horth 2004). An effective marketing approach is necessary for the firm to successfully attain and ensure its place in Australian market.
3.2 Blueprinting/FlowCharting
Figure 1. Business Operation Blueprint
Figure 1 illustrates the flow of operation in Wizard Carpet Cleaning. As seen in the blueprint, the flow of business starts with the customers. These customers are normally from different segments. These customers could be from residential clients, commercial clients, strata management, wet floor remediation and real estate agencies. Their inquiries regarding their cleaning concern pass to the database and system of the company. These inquires are classified into three categories i.e. website inquiries, telephone inquiries and walk-in inquiries. After these inquires were verified, the company will now give an appropriate service regarding request of the customer. The services could be carpet cleaning, tile & grout, upholstery, leather cleaning, rugs, vinyl & lino, wet floors and vehicle upholstery.
3.3 Dendrograms
The company are now catching a lot of clients from different sectors. Their advertising strategies are quite effective. Their television commercials, billboards and poster ads, and website marketing are contributing to the popularity of their excellent services. The following figure represents the dendrogram of Wizard Carpet Cleaning in accordance to the advantage of choosing their services.
Figure 2. Dendrogram of Wizard Carpet Cleaning
As seen in Figure 2, there are several factors that contribute to the excellent business operation of the company. Their excellent pricing approach, service value, technological advantage and security are essentials of their success. In order to completely evaluate the stance of the company in terms of their advantages and disadvantages SWOT analysis should be considered. Here is the SWOT of Wizard Carpet Cleaning.
Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats & Opportunities (SWOT) This section addresses key strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities for Wizard Carpet Cleaning establishment in Sydney.Strengths:
Weaknesses:
-
Basis for strong management team
-
Possibility to evolve into range of offerings
-
Transparent pricing strategy
-
Location is highly suitable
-
Very focused management/staff
-
Well-rounded and managed business
-
Innovativeness
-
Focus maybe too narrow
-
Lack of awareness amongst prospective customers
-
Potential need for larger premises
-
Absence of strong sales/marketing expertise
Threats:
Opportunities:
-
Major player may enter targeted market segment
-
Economic slowdown could reduce demand of services
-
Market may become price sensitive
-
Market segment's growth could attract major competition
-
Market segment is poised for rapid growth
-
New markets offer great potential
-
Marketing channels seeking new services
-
Potential to diversify into related market segments
Basically, firms are competing to achieve above normal return, but being monopoly is not the only way to achieve it (Burke, 2003). Firms can differentiate themselves with others through innovation: competing to be different. Although the innovation itself maybe profitable, the innovating firm itself may not profit from it. Therefore it is important to establish complementary assets alongside firm’s innovative capability to capitalise majority of the gain. From the given SWOT analysis and dendrograms, it shows that Wizard Carpet Cleaning is most likely concentrated to business operation particularly to their marketing and innovation process. When the knowledge of an innovation is spill over across firms, it is expected that appropriability will fall during the life cycle of a technology as the cumulated search efforts and the fraction of agents knowing the code increase. However, this long-term trend may be counteracted by a number of strategies designed to limit or to compensate the fall in appropriability.
The most promising way of achieving competitive advantage through innovation is to continuously innovate, and innovate in a way that competitors are unable to catch up through their incremental innovation and unmotivated for radical innovation. An interesting case would be Wizard Carpet Cleaning, a company constantly improves the cleaning services that suits to the needs of the current era.
3.4 Market Segmentations
As seen in the previous information, the target market of Wizard Carpet Cleaning are divided in different segments i.e. Residential Clients, Commercial Clients, Strata Management, Wet Floor Remediation and Real Estate Agencies.
v Residential Clients
These clients are characterised by individuals who have problems in cleaning their household properties. This could be from different types of people. It could be a mother looking for help to remove stains from carpets, a father that needs help to clean bathroom tiles, or a teenager that need upholstery of his car seats.
v Commercial Clients
These clients are mostly from business organisation that needs help in maintaining their office and work site carpets and furniture.
v Strata Management
These clients are simply the shared responsibility of owners in grouped dwellings coming together and agreeing on matters concerning common property.
v Wet Floor Remediation
These are clients that need an urgent help regarding wet floor. The service of Wizard Carpet Cleaning is not simply a matter of extracting the surface water and leaving the floor to dry, they also have procedures and specialised equipment and solutions for the restoration of wet floors.
v Real Estate Agencies
These clients are mostly from Real Estate Agencies that needs help in maintaining their properties as requested by their tenants and home owners.
3.5 Synthesis
The 21st century has become the era of adopting innovation as a premise for doing business. The higher echelon of management in organisations is now driven towards innovative strategies designed to provide a competitive edge in the marketplace. As Wizard Carpet Cleaning gravitates towards a great scale, they find themselves faced with the challenge of producing new and better services at reduced cost and market price. Daft (2003) pointed out that innovation as a ground for doing business in the 21st century will be the consistent tugging force that the organisation must either strive to adopt or suffer the consequences of being left behind by competitors.
As revealed in the business blueprint and dendrograms of Wizard Carpet Cleaning it seems that different mixture of technology and strategy is needed to meet the unique needs of their clients. But it is not enough that the organisation adopts an innovative process, it is also essential that they have an innovative culture (Oden 1997). A coordinated effort from the members of the organisation is the key to the successful implementation of the innovation process within the company. According to Brunning, Cole & Huffington (1997, p. 36), ‘the organisation's culture and the values, climate, and managerial behaviour associated with that culture will exert a major influence on its achievement of excellence. This culture must therefore be managed, which means that organisational values may need to be changed or reinforced’. An innovative culture, therefore, is the main catalyst that triggers innovations in business. Black (1992, p. 4) further stressed that ‘Creating the right culture is the real key to the future, a point that has been emphasised by management gurus such as John Harvey-Jones, Tom Peters and Charles Hampden-Turner’.
Conclusion
All of the discussions above attest to the fact that in the contemporary economy, the greatest rewards go to companies that create new business models--ideas that spark new sources of revenue based on changing technology, demographics and consumer habits. Basically, the advertising approach of Wizard Carpet Cleaning is not an issue of their business processes since it show excellent responses from their clients. However, the company still needs to alter their business operations through innovativeness because of the stiff competition and demands of the current era. Wizard Carpet Cleaning can sustain profitability and trigger growth by creating breakthroughs with their products, performance, and customers. Growth through breakthrough product innovation requires solutions achieved in multidisciplinary ways. Wizard Carpet Cleaning should illustrate the necessity of multidisciplinary innovation to create new value at multiple points on the value chain. Wizard Carpet Cleaning’s commitment to R&D could arguably one of the most potent forces moving economies and nations into the information age. Consistent breakthrough innovation rewards all of an organisation's shareholders. As a result, the company is more valuable. Customers, employees, and business partners benefit, too. Customers are more excited and more satisfied. The innovator's improved performance and value leadership strengthen customer relationships and open new ones. Market share and brand equity grow as customer loyalty builds. By definition, new business models destroy old ones, which is why creating new wealth is a threat to every traditional, unimaginative business. Never before have strategy life cycles been shorter and has market leadership counted for less. Call it the First Law of the Innovation Economy: Companies that are not constantly pursuing innovation will soon be overwhelmed by it. Innovation is the only way to deal with discontinuous--and disruptive--change.
Recommendations
An innovative environment can be consciously created if a company is willing to abandon old rules, shed old habits and upend cherished conventions. The key is recognising that past achievement militates against future adaptability, by creating well-worn ways of doing things that cause a company to undervalue or ignore rule-breaking insights. Yesterday's laser-like focus becomes today's set of blinders, narrowing an enterprise's field of vision from what it truly new to what it already knows. Glimmers of great ideas are evident in most organisations; the problem is that in direct proportion to the degree those great ideas are different, the part of the challenge is demystifying innovation, by breaking it down to its constituent parts. Wizard Carpet Cleaning must recognise that innovation doesn't follow a schedule. Most companies are so boxed in and bounded by existing orthodoxies that have hardened around yesterday's business model that they think they can schedule strategic insight the way an executive records a reminder in his day-planner. But the truly innovative bursts of insight that trigger new ideas don't obey the corporate planning calendar.
Additionally, Wizard Carpet Cleaning could start new conversations. New ideas don't obey an organisational chart. Companies that want to get serious about innovation need to break the ‘strategy monopoly’ that closes off the executive suite from new ideas percolating in other corners of the company. Innovation-minded companies spark new conversations by bringing together executives with employees of all ranks to question corporate orthodoxies and search for new ways to do business. They should also seek new perspectives. If Wizard Carpet Cleaning wants to do a better job of envisioning the future, they should ask the people who will get to the future first: their youngest employees.
Further, Wizard Carpet Cleaning must avoid the ‘strategy monopoly’. Even though the company is far from becoming a monopoly, they still need to avoid it. In any company, a hierarchy of organisation dominates a hierarchy of ideas. The antidote: To encourage innovation, unlock ideas from across the company. Bring together a cross-section of employees at all levels, to share the new perspectives that may just contain the kernel of a bold new idea. Realise that every company promotes success as defined by today's reigning strategy; the question is how to promote new ideas that may have nothing to do with that strategy--or may even cut against it. Furthermore, they would need to institutionalise innovation by building a safe place for people to think new thoughts. In some companies, new ideas are in short supply--stifled by a corporate climate that cuts off intellectual oxygen, discourages change and demands conformity. At other companies, ideas abound--and the challenge takes a different shape: Creating the conceptual conveyor belt that moves from ideas to action.
References:
Black, S. (1992). Innovate to Survive. Chemistry and Industry, 18 August issue.
Brunning, H., Cole, C. & Huffington, C. (1997). A Manual of Organisational Development: The Psychology of Change. London: Karnac Books.
Burke, R. (2003). Project Management: Planning and Control Techniques. (4th ed.). West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons.
Daft, R. (2003). Management. 6th Ed. Cincinnati, Ohio: Thomson South-Western.
Hamel, G. & Skarzynski, P. (2001). Innovation: The New Route to Wealth Schwab, Sony and Turner Did It. Can You? Journal of Accountancy, 192(5), pp. 65+.
Jonash, R. (2000). Product Innovation: Staying Ahead of the Competition. USA Today, 128(2656), p. 24.
Mendelson, H. & Ziegler, J. (1999). Survival of the Smartest: Managing Information for Rapid Action and World-Class Performance. Canada: John Wiley & Sons.
Oden, H. (1997). Managing Corporate Culture: Innovation and Intrapreneurship. Connecticut: Quorum Books.
Palus, C.J. & Horth, D.M. (2004). "Exploration for Development." In C.D. McCauley & E. Van Velsor (eds.), The Center for Creative Leadership Handbook of Leadership Development (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 438-464.
Shelton, R. & Davila, T. (2005). The Seven Rules of Innovation. Optimise Magazine, 46, 01 August.]
Sull, D. (2003). Revival of the Fittest: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Managers Remake Them. Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Publishing.
Wizard Carpet Cleaning (2008). Company Profile. Accessed: Sept. 01, 2008, Available at:< http://www.wizardcarpetcleaning.com.au>
0 comments:
Post a Comment