Marketing Strategy atReport Markstra Introduc ction Initially the game of f Markstrat looked very s simple butwith w every

y pe eriod it beca ame more int teresting as complex. Our journey y as team I st tarted with two t main brands named d SIBI and SIR RO. After as well a making decisions in period 0, we w landed by y default in the segment of Others with SIBI an nd in the tofSingleswith w SIRI.For rthenexttw woperiods,we w heavilyinvestedinou urbrandsand dpoured segment alotofm moneyandtargeted t constantlytoSin nglesandOt thers.Sinceteam t U,Oan ndYwereplacedina much be etter position (by the de efault setting gs of Markstr rat)so our fir rm had a kin nd of disadva antage in competi ing with them m but in terms of stock priceour te eam maintained a steady y growth. Be ecause of that init tial advantag ge to other teams, they y started to eat the part of our ma arket share in every period. Inperiod0,wehada34 4.9%sharein nthesegmen ntofSinglesand36.5%s shareinthesegment rswhilewehad h morethan18%shar reinthetota alsalesinthe emarket.In period1we ehadthe ofOther market s share of 32.5% for Singles( a decrea ase of 2.4%) and 33.3%for f others fo or Others( a decrease of 4.2%) ). In period 2 we faced more m compe etition from our competitors and we e managed to t secure 30.8 % m market share for Singles s and 30.3% market share for Other rs while our stock price grew up steadily and reached to the figu ure of 1018. . At this moment, we fe elt an urge t o modify on ne of our i closer to the custom mers deman nds. For tha at purpose we sold all the old brand to position it inventor ries and cam me up with th he changes t to modify SIRO and wait ted to see th he results of f the first modifica ationstoour rbrand.

SituationAnalysis Compan ny I started out o slow, tak king a big hit t in period 3 when we accidentally u used introd duce new brand and remove ed our old brand b instead d of modify ying them. Our O share pr rice dropped d to 596. NigelQuah YuanxinGao ZilleHussnain

MarketingStrategy MarkstratReport From there, our R&D budget had fallen behind quite significantly, and we had to divert our very limited resources to advertising our very wellpositioned new product. We adopted very aggressive strategyofborrowingheavilyandbroughtourselvesbackintothegame,bringingupourstockprice. However, our line of credit was shortened significantly, and we were unable to enter the Vodite market.

Our firm, company I is currently the 4th largest in the market according to market capitalization. Overall, our retail sales currently stands at 134,000, making us the 3rd largest player in the Sonite market. We have been gaining market share at an average of 2% per period since period 3, and our products SIGN, SICK and SIBU are wellpositioned for consumer segments others, highearners, and buffs respectively. Specifically, we hold 67.7% of the Buffs market with only one other product SYBU coming close (25.9%). Similarly, SICK is the market leader with 38.3% of the High earners segment, edging out SAKI and SOFY at 29.1% and 23.5% each. Lastly, SIGN trails SAMA in the others segment, at 12.4% compared to 64.6% of SAMA. Therefore, we believe that with the rightamountofadvertisingandlittlemodification,ourpotentialforgrowthishumongous.

The current situation is that our company is focused on removing debt and positioning ourselves to be sold. We have good feasibility studies to enter Vodites and our current Sonite markets are doing well as cash cows. Our products are gaining market share and we have two clear cash cows: SIBU andSICK.WehavecomparativelylowinvestmentsinR&D,butourROIisverysignificant.Apartfrom our mistake, resource management has been very effective. Furthermore, our company has the lowest cost prices, and this means that our eventual return will be larger than that of competitors, and we can afford to engage in lengthy price wars, giving us a comparative advantage in the long term.

SWOTanalysis Strengths We have 3 very well positioned products with good market share. They can act as cash cows for further development of other products. We have also prepared feasibility studies to produce Vodite products, which are aimed at early adopters and followers. These products have low base cost and willbeabletowrestmarketsharefromotherconsumers

Weaknesses We have historically had very low capital. This has led to low R&D investments due to the pricey nature of the ventures. Our mistake, which consequently led us to use an aggressive borrowing strategy has also led to high debt and interest payments. Lastly, we have no products launched in theVoditemarket. NigelQuah YuanxinGao ZilleHussnain

MarketingStrategy MarkstratReport

Opportunities We have the opportunity to enter vodite market using our prepared feasibility study (thereby decreasing initial investment) with increased advertising to snatch market share. Furthermore, it is possible to continue modifying our Sonite products to gain even more market share and boost our cash cow status. It is also possible for us to improve our production level management in order to preventshortageofproducts,whichhasaffectedourrevenuelevelsinthepast.

Threats Newentrantsinourexistingdominantmarkets.Shiftingconsumertastesarealsoathreat,giventhe high number of products surrounding each customer segment at the moment. The shift may favour other products and decrease our dominance in the market segment. Lastly, the possible further decrease of the market size of customer segments that we are dominant in. This is currently a small trendinthesegmentofBuffs.

StrategicMarketPlan Sinceweborrowedalotofmoneyinperiod4and5,wecouldntgrowfastbyhighinterestdebtand limited budget. However by period 8, we can pay all our debt back, therefore we have money to focusonthe R&Dandadvertising. Sowedecideto havearealaggressivemarketplan.Basically,we wantmoveourSIGNforOtherstotheStarspartandkeepour2cashcawscontinuouslybringmoney for us. At the same time, we will launch our R&D product VIVI (which is already done with the feasibility study) to Vodite market to seize the opportunities in the high growth rate market . EnteringinVoditemarket isa mustfor us, notonly becausewearetheonlyfirmwhohavent been there, but we need to have more stars . It is impossible for us to have more in crowded Sonite market, as the Buffs and High earners are decreasing, in the long run we will loss the advantages taken by SIBU and SICK. Whats more, now the Vodite market is more mature and stable, its easier for us to invest in the R&D fit for our targets ( more references database on competitors and ideal valuesevolutiononconsumers).

NigelQuah YuanxinGao ZilleHussnain

Marketing Strategy atReport Markstra Ourgrow wthsharematrix m inSonitemarketpe eriod7

In order r to reach th hese goals, we will use 4 Ps of marketing conc cept to have e a clear clu ue in our strategic cmarketplan. Brandm mapinSonite emarketper riod7

Product t As we c can see in th he brand ma ap in period d 7, we have e 3 wellpositioned prod ductsSIBU ta arget for Buffs, SI ICK target fo or High earne ers and SIGN N target for Others. Wedecide to co ontinue mod dify them with po ower and design d (whic ch are both h important t to custom mers, accord ding to Idea a Values ImportanceofChara acteristic6and4)inth henextperio odsandguaranteeourc closestpositionsnear ey in the R& &D for SICK,cause c we fee el threatene ed by our all our targets. Firstly, we will put our mone itor SAKI ( SA AKI was laun nched in per riod 5 and no ow it has mo ore purchase e intentions fro High competi NigelQuah YuanxinGao ZilleHussnain

MarketingStrategy MarkstratReport earners than SICK ). We afraid that SAKI will snatch our market share quickly with its continuous increasing brand awareness. (from the Units Market SharesSonite MarketSegment High earners, we loss some market shares in period 67 because of the highly increased market share by SAKI). Then, we decide to modify SICK with its power from 49 to 51( 60 for SAKI, however in Semantic Scales Ideal Value evolution map , High earners want lower power than before. ) and decrease our base cost in order to earn more money. Second step, we will launch our R&D of VIVI for Vodite markettargetontheearlieradopterstoseizethemarketsharewhenitsnottoolate.Lastly,wewill increase the design to 6 for SIGN to compete with SAMA, as the design is more important than before and Others want more design in the last periods, we should be the leader to invest in this characteristic. Promotion When we see the brand characteristics , we can find out that we have the same design with SAKI. However, in the brand map with design and price, our design is far from what the High earners expectpointwhereSAKIperfectlylocatedin.ForSIBU,itsthesamesituation,ourdesignisthesame withSUSI,whileinthebrandmap,SUSIsdesignisclosertoBuffsexpectation. Therefore,our mainproblemaboutourdecreasing purchaseintentiontoSICK and the disadvantage with SIBU is the consumer perceptions, so when we do the R&D for SICK , we will do the advertising more accurately at the same time. We will continuously invest in advertising research to keep the quality of our promotion. For SIGN, we should keep investing in the advertising to earn the brand awareness competing with SAMA who has been in the market from the beginning. For sales force, we did a great job and will keep this advantage by calculate the numbers in every segment refer to ConsumerSurveyShoppingHabitsandourrealdistributions.OurmainstrategyforSalesForceisto increaselittlebylittletodecreasetheriskthatwehavetofiresome. As conclusion for promotion, the most important mission for us now, is the perceptual objectives in semanticscales,wewillfocusondesign,powerandpricetogettherightcognationfromourtargets match with our real products qualities. Only in this way we can have the most efficient profit returnsbymarketing. Price We didnt have a good price strategy at first, because we only want the lowest price compared to our competitors to survive in the crowded market. It was a shortterm benefit for us, for the long term it is difficult to us to keep the pricing flexibility because we cant decrease them anymore and its also risky to increase them. Also, we cant get high revenue because of the lowest price and not so good base cost, it is part of the reason we always with low budget. So, for the next periods, we willkeepthepricereasonablefitforourtargetsandashighaspossibleforanewproductinorderto adjustitlater. NigelQuah YuanxinGao ZilleHussnain

Marketing Strategy atReport Markstra Place Inventor ryHoldingCo ostinAllmarkets

Asweca anseeinthe einventoryholding h costm map,wedidagoodman nagementab boutproduct tionunits especially for latest periods, and d also for the e distribution manageme ent. We will keep this ad dvantage with calculating sal les volume of all produ ucts sold to o our target ts times our r product consumer intentionpercentagetohavetheproduction ndecisioninordertodecreasetheh holdingcost.Also,we calculate the e numbers in n every segm ment refer to o ConsumerSurvey S Shop pping Habits s and our should c salesfor rcetodecide ethedistribu utionofeach hchannel.

Perform manceTimelineandAlloc cationofMa arketingBud dget Inviewo ofourplansandtherem movalofdebt tfromourcompanyacco ount,wefee elthatourco ompanyI has in fa act been giv ven a renewa al of capital and is relat tively wellsu uited to ente er new mark kets with security in revenues s and marke et share. Sho ould our com mpany be bo ought over (o our we could use an tal will enabl le us to putour feasibilit ty studies to o use and aggressive credit line), the injection of capit ur two vodite e products in nto the mark ket. The prod ducts havebeen b designe ed to fit theneeds of bring ou early ad dopters and followers; the two segm ments with the largest market size and growth h. In this sense,w wrestingmar rketshareof fthesetwos segmentsare eimportant.Takingthes seintoconsid deration, we have e decided to o adopt the following ac ctions and allocate our marketing m bu udget for th he next 3 periodsinthismann ner: ndofperiod7; Startingfromtheen NigelQuah YuanxinGao ZilleHussnain

MarketingStrategy MarkstratReport Period 8 Complete R&D projects for Vodite product PVIVI aimed at the early adopters segment of Vodites. Increase marketing budget for SIGN and SIBU, whilst preparing to make modifications to SICK if necessary in order to maintain our market leader position for segment High earners. We estimate that we will require approximately 7 million in loans or capital injection. We expect retail sales to increase as well, as companies will start to pull Sonite products in order to cut losses (e.g. SYBU,SYCA,SUSI).Weexpectlittlechangeinourstockprice

Period 9 Launch Vodite Product VIVI, redirect marketing budgets from Sonite products into the Vodite market so as to increase awareness and attempt to gain market share. Modifications to SICK should be done as well in order to maintain our market leader position for Highearners. Depending on whether product lines from other companies have been pulled, we would decide to raise prices to increase revenues, or remain with the status quo. We estimate that we will require no additional capital in the form of loans or capital injections. With the launch of VIVI, we expect our stock price andmarketcapitalizationtoincreasesignificantly,allowingusacorrespondingincreaseinbudgetfor the next period to consider launching another Vodite. To this end, we might consider conducting anotherfeasibilitystudysoastopositionourselvestoenteranewsegmentoftheVoditemarket.

Period 10 Depending on the performance of product VIVI, we will decide whether to reduce the advertisingbudgetoremploymoreaggressiveadvertisingtopromotebrandawareness.Wewillalso publishmodifiedSICKandadvertiseheavilyin thatarea.Similar considerationswillbegivento price increases in order to boost revenues as during period 9. Modifications to other Sonite products will alsobeconsideredatthisstagetocementourmarketposition.Ifperformanceseemsrelativelygood and we have no more pressing matters, we will start to complete a second R&D project for the Vodite market. We expect our stock price and market capitalization to remain similar for the next period. Conclusion CompanyIispositionedfairlywellintheSonitemarket,andthestepswehavetaken,andarewilling totakeinthefuturetodefendthatpositionhasbeenclearlyoutlinedinthereport.Furthermore,we have conducted feasibility studies that facilitate a speedy break into the Vodite markets. In this sense,wefeelthatcompanyIiswellpositionedtobecomeahighvalueandhighgrowthcompanyin theMarkstratworldifthegamewereallowedtocontinue. In retrospect, however, we feel that Markstrat has taught us much about classical marketing. While it is unfortunate that a misunderstanding of the mechanics of the game has caused us a severe disadvantage in capital in the very beginning of the game, it has allowed us to feel the difficulty of making hard decisions due to limited resources and the subsequent satisfaction of making the right choices. In the simplistic world of Markstrat, it is ever more important that one understands the impact of choices in marketing budget and positioning, amongst the myriad other theories that come into play here, such as the firstmover advantage. To this end, I believe that Markstrat has adequately forced us to understand the impact of classical marketing theories, and willbeusefulinthefuture. NigelQuah YuanxinGao ZilleHussnain