Marketing Plan for Desklib

This document provides a marketing plan for Desklib, an online library for study material. It includes a macro level market analysis, business idea, weaknesses of the OCADO, and strategies to overcome those weaknesses. The document also discusses the importance of technology, customer service, and supply chain management in the business model.

Marketing Plan

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................3
Macro level market analysis........................................................................................................................4
Business Idea...............................................................................................................................................6
Weaknesses of the OCADO..........................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
John Mullin’s seven domain model is a technique used to assess the feasibility of startup
business. This model divides the venture into seven domains. First four domains focus on micro
and macro dimensions of respective market and industry and last three focuses on startup
workforce. The detail description of market domains are given below:-
Macro level market domain: This domain examined the market attractiveness from
large scale point of view. Entrepreneur is required to do analysis of entire market in terms of
numbers of prospective customers, profitability, demands and trends that going on in the market.
(McKeever, 2016).
Macro level industry domain: It refers assessment of the industry attractiveness and the
profitability in the country. This domain is concerned with the competition in the industry, threat
of new entrants, power of customers and supplier in influencing the profitability and threat of
cheap alternative.
Sector Market Benefits and Attractiveness: This domain focuses on the most
profitable sector that can mutually satisfy the objective of both customer and company. Firm is
required to identify the core competency of the product which attract customer of chosen
segment. Organization should monitors the trends running in the consumer segment.
Sustainable Advantage: In this domain, the company needs to examine the USP of their
product. USP stands for unique selling proposition. USP is defined as the quality that
differentiate firm brand from rivals brands. Organization looks into the competent advantage
every resource render to identify the sustainable advantage of each resource (Simón-Moya, and
Revuelto-Taboada, 2016).
Ability to Execute on Critical Success Factors: (The team consisting of valued
individuals with expertise in every aspect of e-commerce business determines the success of the
business. The connectedness test of John Mullish will be utilized to evaluate the excellence of
designated members of the team. The idea is to determine what each valued member has to bring
to the table and prepare further operations while taking the strength and opportunities into
account.)

Mission, Aspiration and Propensity for risk: It is a team domain which defines the
mission of startup. Every company works with a motive. Entrepreneur should be passionate
about their startup. Business owner is required to take essential risk.
Ability to implement critical success factors: Company has to find out the critical
success factors along with examining the ability of team. Firm should search the activities that
must be executed in right way in any case. Organization must implement those decisions and
activities in a cautious manner.
Macro level market analysis
PESTLE Analysis of UK
Political factors: Stability in political environment is a plus point for the country.
Entrepreneurs of online food aggregator service approach government to ease the immigration
laws so that company can seek expert chef overseas. Earlier European Union used to formulate
visa rules but after Britain exit from EU this rules had became stricter. UK government
encouraging entrepreneurs to adopt modern employment practices. Government also monitoring
the salary range of employees.
Economical factors: Britain exit from UK increase the employee turnover because they
currency of the country become weak and international trade also become complex which
discourage many employees to live in Britain.
Socio Cultural factors: Citizens of UK are turning health conscious. They prefer healthy
food over junk food therefore company needs to include healthy food in its menu.
Technological factors: As access to Internet and smart phone are increased to the
highest level therefore people are online ordering of food is a latest trend.
Legal factors: Legal framework of UK protects employees from exploitation therefore
firm cannot force workforce to work more than 48 hours in a week. Organization is required to
comply with all the rules and regulations imposed by government.

Environmental factors: Climate and weather is very pleasant. Pollution is under control
by the government. Government is taking steps to save environment and promote environment
friendly production process (McKenzie, 2015)
Macro level industry attractiveness
Below the brief analysis of the industry and the terms and conditions of its stake holders
on the basis of Porter’s five Forces:
Threat of Entry: The health trend in the UK has seen continuous growth in 2019; thus,
increasing the demand for fresh food. With the increase number of consumers and the incessant
need for ease in purchasing as well as home delivery has attracted many opportunists towards the
industry. However, quality and trust remain the biggest concern of consumers giving an edge to
the high-quality service providers.
Supply Power: There are two situations when it comes to supplier and buyer relations.
On one hand some suppliers are paid a single market price called a market framework, on the
other hand the bargaining framework suggests that the terms and prices are negotiated bilaterally.
According to Supply Chain Practice Market Investigation Order 2009, retailers including major
supermarkets are obliged to have written terms and conditions with their major resellers. These
terms were prescribed by legislation. The imbalance in bargaining power was recognized
between the large supermarket chains and suppliers and the amendments were made in the
support (Kusumaningrum, and Hidayat, 2016).
Buyer Power: When it comes to market framework, buyer power is determined by the
retailer’s sales in relation to the total sales of the supplying industry. In bargaining framework,
the buyer’s power depends on the reliability of the supplier.
Threat Substitute: The online food retailing industry is relatively concentrated.
However, there are no questions for the substitute products to steal the market as highest quality
and valued service has been preferred over cheap and unreliable products and services.
Competitive Rivalry: The 4 big retailers (Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury and Morrison) hold
the national market share of 75% in the UK which helps them dominate and maintain loyal

relations with the suppliers. However, an increase in the competition is seen after 2004 making
the industry concentrated (Rosati, and Conti, 2016).
Business Idea
The business is an online platform which aggregates all the big grocery store in one
application. Customers can buy any food item from any grocery store. They can add different
food from different stores in their card and get them delivered in their doorstep. The name of the
Startup will be Foodangers. It is inspired from another food delivery service company Avocado.
The unique selling proposition of this company would be variety of products all at on platform. It
is intended to partner with different grocery stores available in the area to fulfill the Unique
selling proposition of the company. In more transparent language, Foodangers will not own any
physical store; it is just an online platform that connects the inventory of different grocery store
with the customers.
The key points of the business models would be:
1) A user friendly online platform that includes web application, mobile application and a
website. The online platform will include a high functioning content management system
and embedded third party payment options to make the functioning smoother.
2) An impeccable supply chain management with fast delivery service
3) Customer service management to adhere to the concerns of the customers.
In today’s era, comfort and ease are the two most important factors while developing a customer
oriented technology. Foodangers strikes on the very approach and offer a service which allows
customers to order grocery easily within the comforts of sitting at home.
Weaknesses of the OCADO
Another company with the similar concept has been operating that is OCADO which
describe itself as one of the largest online grocery retail throughout the world. They have various
competitors that can affect their operation and this is because all the retailing chain is entering
into online market. They also do not have any store and due to this they ensure that their goods
are delivered from their warehouse. It is important to analyze the weakness of the company so

that they can be overcomes as soon as possible for ensuring the success of the business (Pearce,
2020). The weaknesses of the OCADO are given below:
 The operations of the company are dependent upon their credit facilities and debt which
is available to them and due to these they faces various issues of the availability of funds
in case they do not have any credit. This has direct impact on their payments and this
affects their relations with the suppliers.
 Exposure to Single Market as they have only been operating in UK and this keep their
market size small in comparison to other grocery retailer in the country.
 The organizational structure of OCADO is not compatible to the new and prevailing
business model for such organisation and this affects their expansion strategy in the
adjacent product segment.
 OCADO is not capable enough of dealing with the threat of the new entrant and due to
this they lost their market share in niche categories (Teece, 2017).
 The marketing strategy of the company is not effective due to which the product of the
company needs significant marketing strategy.
 In addition to the company has not made investment in any new technology recently due
to which they are expected to invest in the new technology for ensuring their business.
The company is planning to expand their business and for this they require huge funds so
that they can make such expansion possible.
 Inspite of the fact that OCADO is the leaders in this segment their success outside their
core business is very limited. This is because of the present culture it is not easily
possible for the companies to expand their business outside their core operations.
Identification of the weakness implies that the company needs to take necessary actions and
need to formulate various strategies with the help of which they can resolve various issues faced
by them. The strategies and tactics that can be adopted OCADO for reducing the impact of these
weaknesses is given below:
 For managing the issues related to the credit facilities and debt, the administration
department of the company need to play crucial role as they can negotiate on the better
interest rates with the lenders so that the dates of the payment can be delayed, along with
this the scheduling of the amortization must be negotiated as with this the values of the

assets will not reduce and thus will facilitate them to manage value of their assets (Fernie,
2020).
 OCADO Group Plc needs to formulate various policies for improving their internal
business such as they must design and develop a internal mechanism for obtaining
feedbacks directly from the sales team. This will enable them to identify the challenges
and to counter on them by improving their services and by managing their supply chain.
 For improving the organizational structure it will becoming time consuming but adopting
new business mode will facilitate the OCADO in managing their operations. The new
model must includes various aspects as per the changing pattern of the business such as it
must includes managing the customers service, effective communication among each and
every member of the organisation, availability must be ensured to each and every location
in the area where they serve, the customer must be made aware of their services etc.
 For dealing with the new entrant out of various competition strategies one must be
ensured by the company such as cost leadership, differentiation, cost focus and leadership
focus (Liu, 2017). The strategy of differentiation will provide them competitive
advantage as the people in UK are more conscious of the quality of the services instead
of the prices and due to their with innovation in the services they must adopt
differentiation strategy. With this strategy it will not be possible for the new entrant to
compete so very easily as with this the customer loyalty can also be ensured.
 The marketing is crucial for each and every business and as they are operating online
then for them it is very easy to attract more customers. They must focus upon direct
marketing and social media marketing as with the help of this they can efficiently create
awareness for their products among their target market. In addition to this various the
sales team of the company must lay emphasis on drive up-sells and cross-sells as with the
help of their relations in the market. This enables them to directly improve their revenues.
 Technological advancement is crucial to take the competitive advantage and to ensure
this the OCADO must focus upon this. They must provide their each and every employee
a tablet with the help of which they can manage the orders efficiently. With this they can
reduce the delivery time for the customer and this will enhance their sales and thus their
profitability.

 The company to ensure significant growth of their business must focus upon the
corporate strategy as with this they can ensure their expansion. Instead of expanding their
operation directly they must merge with other company operating in the same segment
for some period. This will enable their management to create their hold and then they can
further plan their isolated expansion with diversification strategy (Mason, 2016).
With the help of these strategies OCADO can efficiently meet up and overcome with their
weaknesses. Along with this it will enable them to manage their existing operations efficiently as
well as meeting up with future expectations.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Kusumaningrum, I. and Hidayat, H., 2016. Learning Outcomes in Vocational Education: A
Business Plan Development by Production-Based Learning Model
Approach. International Journal of Environmental and Science Education. 11(18).
pp.11917-11930.
McKeever, M., 2016. How to write a business plan. Nolo.
McKenzie, D., 2015. Identifying and spurring high-growth entrepreneurship: Experimental
evidence from a business plan competition. The World Bank.
Rosati, U. and Conti, S., 2016. What is a smart city project? An urban model or a corporate
business plan?. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences. 223. pp.968-973.
Simón-Moya, V. and Revuelto-Taboada, L., 2016. Revising the predictive capability of business
plan quality for new firm survival using qualitative comparative analysis. Journal of
Business Research. 69(4). pp.1351-1356.
Mason, R.O., Dickel, K.E. and Snyder, N., 2016. Strategic management: A methodological
approach. Addison-Wesley.
Pearce, J.A., Robinson, R.B. and Subramanian, R., 2020. Strategic management: Formulation,
implementation, and control. Columbus, OH: Irwin/McGraw-Hill.
Teece, D.J., Pisano, G. and Shuen, A., 2017. Dynamic capabilities and strategic
management. Strategic management journal. 18(7). pp.509-533.
Fernie, J., Burt, S. and Davies, K., 2020. From the retail brand to the retail‐er as a brand: themes
and issues in retail branding research. International Journal of Retail & Distribution
Management.
Liu, K., 2017. Unfolding the post‐transition era: the landscape and mindscape of China's retail
industry after 2014. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics.