Reflection On Marketing Simulation

The common public goal of the marketing discourse is to attract attention from targeted audiences, in other words make the consumer buy, buy, and buy. In order to achieve these goals I have to execute different marketing strategies with the help of the staff and company executives. Together we brainstorm different marketing trends, design different kinds of ads; analyze social media for more effective ways of advertising and calculate risks based on customer insight. When all is done right the end goal will result an increase of sales revenue for the company, which will sharpen its image and name.

The primary competitor for Team Andrews (a Niche Cost Leader) during the simulation was Team Digby, a chip manufacturer with a broad differentiator strategy. Digby’s presences in all markets compared to Andrews focus on the Low End and Traditional Segments revealed a number of advantages and weaknesses to maintaining a broader strategy compared to Andrews focus on higher volume / lower overhead products. While both strategies eventually proved quite successful (Andrews and Digby were the only competitors to have cumulative profits in excess of $100 million,) the significantly different strategies of both teams points to some clear advantages for either strategy.

While working through the marketplace live simulations, we had thought from the beginning the best way to start out our company would be to first create a lower level computer which was a part of the group workhorse. Our workhorse was a very low scale computer, only giving the customer the basic necessities that would be needed. After creating our first product, it did not sell the way we wanted to see we needed to go into a new direction. As the simulation had progress on, we had turned our attention away from the workhorse brand and started to go for the better types of computers such as the traveler and Mercedes type computers. Once we started focusing more on these types of computers our profit was increasingly coming much larger than when we were only looking at the workhorse.

On the half way of the simulation, as we choose a balanced way to develop different segments. It is difficult to for Baldwin to decide to invest on which market segment.

I found this simulation to be very interesting. First of all, it was about motorcycles, and what guy doesn 't find that to be an interesting topic? Regarding the lessons it contained for marketing though, it was also interesting while still being entertaining as well. The situations it presented were realistic, while not being so overcomplicated that the material it was trying to present got lost. In the following paper I will discuss the situations from the simulation, the relationship between differentiation and positioning especially with regards to the product in the simulation, and the effect of the product life cycle on marketing again focusing on its relationship to the simulation product.

The second step in the simulation is to elect either launching a new product line or repositioning the Thorr brand. I chose to launch an entirely new product line. With the new product line, the pricing I chose will be $13,000 to $15,000 to target the younger crowd. Promotion will take place through Hollywood Films to target the younger generation. Place will be both the internet and the dealer showrooms. The services lineup will include dealer training, customization options, and financial services. I chose this market plan through analyzing the SWOTT analysis, and my choices were dead on with the simulation's optimal choices.

When dealing with several segments, a product can target one segment to specifically to exactly what

Our primary goal is to create free cash flow with a large growth rate, this objective will be accomplished via executives working together and strategic planning throughout the simulation. Our team has decided to start the product launch at quality 1 features 2. We have forecasted sales at the beginning of quarter 2 at quantity 370; doing so will provide us with a unit profit of $1.00 at a 9.8% margin. Our intention is to keep the WACC under 11%. Majority of the product will be produced on the current line inclusively maximizing overtime; in chorus 2 new employees will be hired to open a second shift with two new lines.

One of my biggest challenges was finding the right place to position my marketing and sales budget. My second round came turned out to be very successful. I believe this is because I had adjusted the price correctly and spent just the right amount in my sales and marketing. When I tried to replicate my success in the next round, it did not return the same results. From that point on, I struggled to find the best way to position my marketing and sales budget. I believe this also suffered due to lack of money I did not borrow in the beginning of the simulation.

It was evident from our performance that we struggled in the early portion of this simulation. At day 53 our average revenue per job began to slip below the maximum of $100o, it fell dramatically over the next several days until it reached zero at day 70, meaning that our delivery was so late during that period that all revenue was given back to the customer in the form of rebates. Average revenue per job remained at zero until day 83, at which point we began to recognize and address the bottlenecks in our production. We noticed at this point that although the machine(s) at station 1 were running

In this lab, students were asked to create a production line and act like a business. Each student was giving a position in the new simulated business to make valves. Student received orders and delivered the product to the customers. As the lab continued students were required to record the price of production and the profit they received throughout the lab. in the beginning, the business lost a lot of money but the next few days they started to again quarter of the money they lost in profit. the most important reason why the team was losing money was because they were not meeting the demand for the red valves compare to the blue valve which were easier to make. The team decided to fire few employees to reduce the production cost and assign few employees to start making the valves completely instead of using an assembly line which increased the production coast and reduced the quality of the product. We further fired more employees to maximize profit and reduce production coast. To make the customers happy, students must create valves with excellent quality and efficiency to keep the coast down and fulfill the customers demand. The flow chart below shows the plan and the process that the team used in this simulated business.

Performance of our group in simulation was well. It is about the price of the console, subsidizes of game titles and the percentage of royalty needs to changed keeping in mind other criteria to see the variations while entering different values. All the members in the team participated actively and coordination among the team members was excellent which led to the successful completion of this assignment and they come to know how to take decisions in the real world simulation. In this game we achieved the profit of 4.6B and ranked in top among entire class.

During the last 12 simulation days we considered developing a plan to minimize our inventory at the end of the simulation. However, we were not sure how to calculate this, and the costs associated with running of inventory was too high to risk making a mistake.

Looking at the data from the simulation, my ending position makes a lot of sense. At the very beginning, I had spent $5,162,500 on advertising compared to my year’s net profit of -$723,500. These marketing expenditures would prove to improve sales, however, as eventually I would become the market leader in my industry. This explains the slow rise of profit and units sold. People began purchasing more and more of my bags, and eventually the costs of production would be less than my revenue. This upward trend of sales and net profit, unfortunately, took me two years to ignite, leaving me behind other competitors. I am very surprised I sold so many bags, because at the beginning, I had flat lined at one hundred and thirty-three bags per quarter

As members of Chester F73524, we see ourselves as the biggest player in the low-tech industry. This is a direct result of the competitive advantage that we possess. By making heavy investments in fixed assets early in the simulation, we have been able to create a low tech product to be reckoned with; one that is characterized by sizeable contribution margins, high accessibility and awareness, and a premium price. As a result, we have achieved an industry-high contribution margin of 45.3%. Furthermore, through our investments in the TQM module and automation, we have been able to greatly reduce the production costs associated with producing our low tech product, Cake. Decreasing the R&D cycle time has allowed us to have our product in the ideal position for a longer time. We believe our competitive advantage is sustainable for the rest of the simulation, as we plan on keeping our low tech product for the entire length of the game. Thus, we will capitalize on the benefits of having low labour costs as a result of our high level of automation, and on the benefits of having low material, overhead, and administrative costs, resulting from our investments in TQM.