Executive Summary
Preliminarily, it is inherent to state that, prior to making a marketing plan for an organization; it is extremely important that we begin by assessing the current nature of operations, their nature of profitability and the challenges being faced. It is only by having knowledge of such that we will be able to construct a circumspect plan able to deal with past, present and future prospects of the organization (Teece et al., 1997). In the bid to make a fitting plan, there are several marketing dynamics at WhiteKnights that need to be assessed. Such factors include productivity, profits, growth, turnover, stability and cohesion. These measures of effectiveness may vary depending on the company, its mission, environmental context, nature of work, type of product or service and customer demands. It is based on the above viewpoints, among many other issues that this Marketing plan for WhiteKnights EVS is proposed.
Company Description and Problem Statement
According to their two official websites (Whiteknights.org.uk and bloodrun.co.uk), WhiteKnights EVS is an emergency, yet free-of-charge, small transportation company that offers voluntary transportation services to hospital mainly located at North and West Yorkshire—with special focus on Teesside (Hartlepool), Calderdale, Huddersfield and York/Hull. The company was reportedly founded by Vic Siswick, a recuperating cancer patient, who wanted to use the company as a way of showing gratitude to hospitals that helped saved his life. Since it is a voluntary company, WhiteKnights is essentially staffed by volunteers. Ever since its establishment in June 2008, WhiteKnights has been able to make considerable progress in terms of getting media coverage, owning more motorcycles (which are their main mode of transportation) and receiving support/funding from various supporters.
For example, as of 2011, the company is reported by their two websites to have received donations amounting to $28,000 and 313 emergency phone calls from the concerned areas. In terms of media coverage, the company has been featured on BBC Radio Leeds and BBC Look North while also featuring on Honda Channel 4 2011. In spite of witnessing remarkable success and progress in its endeavors, this small—yet useful—company still requires a lot of funding and sponsorship in order to achieve its targeted goals. In addition, the company intends to recruit and train new volunteer riders who can help them dispatch support to their targeted areas. All these needs call for the resourcing of more support and funding from various quarters (Anshutz, 2006). It is with this in mind that the entrepreneurial marketing plan below is formulated. In doing so, principal focus is going to be on analyzing goals, aims, objectives of the marketing plan, strategic actions of the plan, situational analysis, risk analysis, feasibility study of the plan, budgetary estimate, stakeholder analysis and potential benefits among many other macroeconomic facets. It is only by viably assessing these salient facets that the entrepreneurial marketing plan will be able to lay down a concrete foundation on which the current and future endeavors of WhiteKnights can be furthered.
Strategic Focus and Plan
Vision and Mission
WhiteKnights has the vision of being an influential force in the world of health—especially in regard to the saving of lives by offering emergency volunteer transport facilities. In doing this; the company prospects to transform from its current size to a larger emergency transport house that can serve thousands of people in different regions all at the same time with ease. Additionally, the company envisions opening more branches while cooperating with other like-minded companies and individuals so as to help save more lives by offering emergency transport services.
Mission
Essentially, WhiteKnight’s main mission is to achieve a multifaceted success in terms of saving life through free-of-charge emergency transport services that help in saving NHS money. Essentially, this calls for delivery of quality and timely emergency transport services to its highly esteemed patients. Moreover, the management is also charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the volunteering staffs are well trained and duly treated with respect irrespective of the fact that they are volunteering. Of course this policy, just like respect, is a two-way traffic. Consequently, the staffs in the company are compelled to ensure that the management, as well as each of their emergency patients, is individually treated with utmost professionalism and respect. By observing these salient statutes, the company’s mission not only ensures that the primary role of saving lives is achieved; but it also makes certain that everyone associated to the company has a sense of purpose towards the well-being of the company and to one another (Helfat & Peteraf, 2009).
Goals, Aims and Objectives
- To grow the emergency services into other areas such as Leeds and Bedford
- To get funding that can help them replace their old motorcycles.
- To source additional resources that can be used to support more hospitals
- To train and recruit new volunteers to offer more support to the company.
- To delineate problems being faced in the organization (with regards to its marketing endeavors and grope for ways of forging ahead while intermittently outsmarting these problems/challenges
Strategies and Action Plan to Achieve the Objectives and Avoid Risks
In order to ensure more help is given to emergency patients, we plan to introduce train more volunteer riders while purchasing more motorcycles. As for the aspect of getting more clients and accommodating them; we plan to do robust advertisements while branching out more outlets in future. Finally, to avoid unnecessary competition with other companies, we plan to collaborate with them. This will give our companies substantial leverage; on top of the fact that the overall performance of our partnership will give us dominance and a more respected name in the market (He & Balmer, 2006).
Marketing Analysis
Financial Analysis
Despite enjoying relatively good financial support over the recent past; WhiteKnights still requires some hefty amount of investment to be injected so as to make it possible for the effectuation of its marketing plans. In order to satiate this need, the company has already started making appeals via various outlets like BBC Radio Leeds and BBC Look North while bidding in organizations like the January 2012 bid done in Natwest charity funding. This will greatly help in raising more funds for the extra costs needed for more marketing. On top of that, the good relationship between the management and other financially empowered people promises good tidings in terms of financial support for the company (Johnson et al., 2008). However, WhiteKnights is not entirely banking on such people as its ultimate source of funding. It is for this reason that other viable money-getting schemes are being sourced (Lynch, 2006).
Human Resource (HR) analysis
As was glimpsed earlier, the company’s management plans to roll out new branches. If that is to be done, then plans have to be put in place regarding how these new branches will operate. To this regard, the HR departments in the new branches will, essentially, be in the same format like that of the current branch with a few positions and provisions being created for joint meetings. The similarity of operations in the HR department simply means continuity to the already existing HR precepts thus increasing efficiency (Delmendo, 2009; and Castledine, 2007). The only slight variation will be that, overall decisions will be made by the CEO, Vic Siswick. When it comes to the issue of employment regarding the new volunteering positions that are bound to come by based on the proliferated marketing ventures; additional trainings will have to be done.
Target Market
A keen assessment by market analysts indicates that WhiteKnights already has a substantial amount of patients. The plan of opening of new branches and venturing into other places like Leeds/Bradford will therefore be a welcomed idea by most patients who already know the nature of services offered by these WhiteKnights. Similarly, the target market/patients will also have to be made aware of the operations of WhiteKnights and its various branches. These will go a long way in reaching the targeted markets in a better way (Harris, 2011; Helfat & Balmer, 2006). In essence, the market being mainly targeted by our plans are emergency patients.
Stakeholder Analysis
Stakeholders play a very important role in any organization and in WhiteKnights, the situation is no different (Johnson et al., 2008). As a matter of fact, expansive consultations have been constantly made so as to know their take on this marketing plan. So far, they have been in full support. Nonetheless, more consultations are yet to be made since this marketing plan is still at its baby-stages and thus does not entail so much input from the stakeholders of our company.
Sustainable Competitive Advantage Assessment (SWOT analysis)
An assessment of the sustainable competitive advantage of the plan based on the business principle of SWOT analysis is briefly done below.
Strengths
The strengths of our prospected plan include the following. Firstly, WhiteKnights has been in the emergency health transport industry long enough to know the red and green lights of its operations. This first-hand experience gives it immense advantage over other market players. Secondly, WhiteKnights has professional strategists and planners who have successfully planned and successfully done other projects. This project is, therefore, bound to be a success story just like the other projects they have performed. Thirdly and lastly, WhiteKnights’s brand name is highly respected in UK and a couple of other places as well thus laying a firm foundation for the marketing plan. Based on these strengths, funding or supporting the WhiteKnights would be a worthwhile endeavor.
Weaknesses
Some of the weaknesses, or rather the challenges, of our plan may include the following. To begin with, in spite of the market research projections prospecting a good reception for this plan, there is no surety as to whether people will respond in the same positive way as we hope. The presence of many charitable and volunteering organizations of our kind may provide a tougher competition than we anticipate. In addition, several fake or fraudulent organizations have come up over the recent times. Convincing people to believe in us and our services by supporting us will thus be difficult. As a final weakness, in spite of having some funds for the plan; we are still not utterly sure regarding getting the remaining funds for the fulfillment of our plans.
Opportunities
The opportunities here include: the expansion of our customer bases. The expansion may also bring more clients thus paving the way for the opening of more branches thus actualizing the vision of us serving more and more clients. Finally, the new marketing endeavors, the supporting/funding efforts of our company and the volunteering positions will offer volunteering opportunities to several people.
Threats/ Risks
The most basic threat of this plan is the incapability to raise funds which might thwart everything that many people have tirelessly toiled for. On top of that, the current rigid and bureaucratic regulations regarding marketing and advertisements may drag the implementation of our plans. The rather dynamic and unpredictable nature of our emergency endeavors may also greatly inhibit the WhiteKnights from achieving its full potentiality in terms of treating as many patients as possible.
As a rejoinder for the various points that come up in the SWOT analysis, it is noteworthy to state that the management of WhiteKnights has several contingencies in place to mitigate the abovementioned weaknesses and threats while augmenting the strengths and opportunities. Several workers have also affirmed that they are interested and committed towards furthering the company’s plans. So, in spite of the expected hiccups, we can boldly say that the plan is bound to offer sustainable competitive advantage and succeed as planned (Porter, 1998).
Marketing Plan Budget
Much of what is entailed in the budget to be used in achieving the objectives of this project are yet to be representatively disclosed by the finance experts to the relevant parties. Remarkably, the budget is highly confidential for obvious reasons such like the need to protect our investment ideas. This high confidentiality is, essentially, the reason it will only be sent to the relevant leadership in the company—as well as to those people who have affirmed their interest in participating in soliciting funds for this project. A highly detailed and informative budget will be sent or hand-delivered by our financial personnel to such people. Nonetheless, a rough estimate of $1 Million (for the entire year’s expenditure)—is humbly required from supporters to add onto the amount that has already been saved or pledged.
Marketing/Advertisement/Promotional Tools to be used in the Marketing Plan
In today’s world, the use of technologies in conducting public relations campaigns is greatly pronounced and preferred by most audiences. It is for this reason that online promotional tools will be used. More specifically, social media campaigns (through social forums like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) will be conducted with messages specifically tailored to meet our aims and objectives. Other than the use of social forums, promotional or advertisement materials will also be placed in selective newspapers and magazines in form of banners and short captivating messages to target people who love print media messages (Paraskevas, 2006).
In addition, marketing messages will also be spread through popular radio and televisions networks in the targeted regions. Finally, the use of road shows and word of mouth advertisement campaigns will be relevantly used. By combining all these tools, a good blend of information spread is bound to happen to the targeted audiences.
PESTEL Analysis
The PESTEL is an analytic business tool that is normally used to assess the viability of a project. In essence, it is an acronym that stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal factors that should considered when engaging in any business venture. In our current situation, the PESTEL analysis would be applicable as follows. Politically, UK is known for its relatively calm and stable political environment. This would be very amiable for the institutionalization of new branches. Much of what is entailed economically has been analyzed in the previous parts and the same applies to the environmental and legal factors.
In terms of the social aspect, UK is famed for their great hospitality for both indigenous people as well as those touring from other place. This, combined with their humaneness, prospects a good environment for our emergency services. Finally, in terms of technology, UK is said to be among the top contenders of the most technologically advanced areas in the world thus prospecting good environment for our emergency services.
Monitor and Evaluation
Just like any business venture, our marketing plan may result in success or failure. It is for this reason that this plan calls for everyone involved to ardently play his/her part. It is only by doing this that; we can have some assurance that our plans will be foolproof of the usual market hiccups and the never ending unforeseen economic challenges (Ward, 2003). Remarkably, a few minor adjustments may be made depending on the assessment and approval of this project by the relevant authorities. Nonetheless, most of the points and projections stipulated here will remain constant.
List of References
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Delmendo, A 2009. The successful business development manager, Web.
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Helfat, C. E. & Peteraf, M. A 2009, ‘Understanding dynamic capabilities: progress along a developmental path’, Strategic Organization. vol. 7 no. 1, pp. 91-102
Johnson, G., Scholes, K. & Whittington, R 2008, Exploring corporate strategy 7th edn, FT Prentice Hall, London.
Lynch, R 2006, Corporate strategy 4th edn, Financial Times Prentice Hall, Harlow
Paraskevas, A 2006, ‘Crisis management or crisis response system: a complexity science approach to organizational crises’, Management Decision, vol. 44 no. 7, pp. 892-907.
Porter, M. E 1998, Competitive strategy: techniques for analysing industries and competitors, Free Press, New York.
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Ward, B 2003, Planning as doing: accelerating the business planning process, Web.