Prepared for: Ms. Kit Philip, Chief Executive Officer
Submitted 10 March 2023
Prepared by: Patricia Duffy
Student 0061105557
MGT3303 – The Equipped Graduate
Semester 1, 2023
| The Context | The Ipswich Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and Industry help to support businesses within the Ipswich Region. The ICC helps to connect local businesses with other businesses, provides support to help them grow and advocates on their behalf to enhance business and community development. Over 300 local businesses are currently members of the Ipswich Chamber of Commerce. Membership to join is based on business size and billed annually. The membership can be standard or premium and includes such services to members like networking events, keeping members informed on local and business information and access to a database to help grow business contacts and promote to other members. The Covid19 pandemic presented various challenges and shifted the current landscape for businesses through the rise of online information and network services. This disruption to the landscape has caused many businesses to adapt and evolve. The ICC is looking to do just this and adapt and evolve their service offering for its customers as well as leverage opportunities that may arise through the rapid growth happening within the Ipswich region. |
| Aims/Outcomes | Ipswich Chamber of Commerce is looking aiming to do the following: Better understanding if the current product/service offering is meeting the needs of its customers and if they still find value within the product. Discover ways to grow membership and retain current customers for longer. Understand their position within the market compared to competitors and how they are different to competitors. Undertake an analysis of their internal environment and external environment to understand their strengths and weaknesses and assess them against what threats or opportunities might be posed by internal or external factors to inform what activities should be focused on and prioritised. Do a review of the current Ipswich Chamber of Commerce activities that align with their objectives of Connect, Inform, Advocate and recommendations to be provided on if these objectives need to be further developed upon or adapt its services to better suit its customers. Outline a list of success measures and strategies on how these can be tracked and evaluated to showcase the effectiveness of the changes recommended. The outcome of this engagement with the Ipswich Chamber of Commerce is to provide a strategic plan addressing their goals and provide recommendations on a course of action for the business. |
| Data/Information Required | To provide the desired outcome, an answer to the following questions will help us to provide you with a robust strategic plan to help you reach your goals. Plan What timeframes are you looking at to deliver this plan? For example, are you looking for a 1-year strategic plan or a 4-year plan? What is the budget allocated to be used for activities in this plan? Customers and market: What do you know about your target market? What activities are you currently undertaking to monitor customer satisfaction? Have you recently undertaken any market testing activities to understand your position within the market or market value? How are you collecting data from your clients to determine how to lobby and advocate for them to policy and decision-makers? What do you see is your biggest value add to your customers? Competitors Who are your main competitors and how are you monitoring their offerings to compare to yours? Product/Service Offering What is your best-sold membership level? How often are users purchasing the platinum option? Is there any data on customers who have purchased the platinum option and if they have continued to repurchase this subscription, drop back to the standard subscription level or not resubscribed at all? What is the current up-take on the additional 24/7 services offered in the platinum membership option? Are you offering any online services for clients? Such as webinars, and business document templates repository? Promotion How are you promoting your products (direct selling, digital media, print media etc.) and what kind promotion channels do you find most effective? |
| Planned Deliverables | We plan to provide you with a strategic plan to address your goals and help to transform your business to align with the current business landscape. This plan will include a situation analysis which will include three components, an internal analysis, and a customer analysis. The internal analysis is undertaken to understand the business’s ability to operate and compete effectively, while an external analysis will be using a PESTLE analysis to see how external factors may impact the business and the market (Ferrell et al. 2022, [no pagination]). The situation analysis will also include an assessment of the target market to determine consumer behaviours and market value. The information from the situation analysis will be used to conduct a SWOT analysis to examine the strengths (S) and weaknesses (W) of the internal environment and opportunities (O) and threats (T) of the external environment (Lamb et al. 2018, p.18). A SWOT analysis will help us to determine what to focus on and prioritise to enhance its competitive advantage (Lamb et al. 2018, p.18). A competitor analysis will be undertaken to evaluate your market share and provide information on how you compare to others in the market. Then equipped with this information we can provide a recommendation on a set of implementation activities to achieve your goals and a set of controls to evaluate the success of these activities. |
References:
Ferrell, O.C., Hartline, M.D. and Hochstein., B.W. (2022) Marketing strategy, Cengage Reader. Boston, MA: South-Western College Publishing. Available at: https://ebooks.cenreader.com/#!/reader/1037d918-0969-4a5d-95ee-319b39cf90af/page/758a39896cdf87baf7a6aadddffd418f (Accessed: March 7, 2023).
Lamb, CW, Hair, JF, McDaniel, C, Summers J & Gardner, M 2018, MKTG4, Cengage Learning, Australia.
