Strategic Marketing Planning: AIRDRI Case Study

This document provides an in-depth analysis of strategic marketing planning, focusing on the case of AIRDRI, a leading hand dryer company. It covers topics such as corporate strategy, marketing planning theories, and the marketing mix. The document also discusses AIRDRI's corporate objectives and their approach to market expansion and diversification. Overall, it offers valuable insights into the strategic marketing planning process.

Strategic Marketing
Planning

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................1
Company overview.................................................................................................................1
Corporate objectives...............................................................................................................1
Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of corporate strategy.........................................2
Strategic marketing planning theories....................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
References:.......................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Each and every business develop and guide their operational activities according to
established business plan which specifies the path to follow with specified priorities. Strategic
marketing planning is a managerial process which involves defining of goals and objectives,
product planning, keeping pace with change in external environment, implementation and
checking the progress of business performance. The prime objective of such planning is to take
the necessary steps whenever needed in order to survive and grow in a competitive world for
which it is imperative to be a visionary. AIRDRI majorly run its business operation in hand dryer
industry, founded in 1974, in Oxfordshire, UK, by two business partners Peter Philipps and
Peter Allen. The below mentioned report covers a detailed knowledge of corporate strategy and
evaluation of strategic marketing planning theories.
Main Body
Company overview
AIRDRI Limited was founded in the year 1974 by two experienced and entrepreneurial
electrical engineers, named Peter Allen and Peter Phillips, in Oxfordshire. At the time of
advancement in hand dryer industry, there was a lack of reliable and energy efficient hand dryer,
from here AIRDRI realised the need to built a durable, resilient and high speed dryers to meet
the needs of buys wash rooms. Since then, the company has evolved and set the standards in an
industry with their low noise and energy consumption hand dryers.
Corporate objectives
Due to the strike of Covid-19, people are becoming health conscious and heading towards the
use of sustainable products. According to the recent report, the hand dryers are unlikely to spread
the virus in wash rooms which have increased the demand of AIRDRI hand dryers (Yaghin,
2020).
 AIRDRI have introduced a hand and air sanitiser which is capable of eliminating harmful
bacteria and virus up to 98%.
 The AIRDRI quantum model runs at only 0.2kw, which is the lowest wattage hand dryer
in world.
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 Excess use of electricity in day to day activities have lead to the emission of green houses
gases, keeping in mind AIRDRI has a long commitment to deliver a energy efficient hand
dryers.
Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of corporate strategy
Corporate strategy is considered as one of the top strategic plans designed to define
AIRDRI's overall goals and objective and describe the best way to achieve them to provide a
best value to the customers (Schiavone and Simoni, 2019). It is a unique framework that is long
term in nature, which is designed in order to have a competitive edge over other rivalries in a
market. The strategic plans determines the overall of a company, state company's goals and
objective and encourage employees to work towards them. AIRDRI business activities are
directed in saving environment and provide a sustainable hand dyer which uses automatic
sensors to reduce the use of electricity when not needed leading to the saving in energy and cost.
Each and every business aspire to grow and succeed in a market environment and in
order to do so AIRDRI adopt different approaches that lead them to the heights of glory and help
them in a survival and expansion of business operations. The various methods are mentioned
below :
 Expansion by product or market development : AIRDRI aims to grow and succeed in
a market by means of new product development or expansion of market with the help of
current offerings. This method sometimes also referred as market development.
Business firms like AIRDRI adopts this approach when they have already acquired a
local market and wants to increase the sales revenue and market share by expansion.
One of the main reason behind this approach is AIRDRI is providing hand dryer which
is cost effective and beneficial as compared to paper towels, which costs $1460 per year
to supply a busy wash room. AIRDRI's automatic sensor inbuilt hand dryer helps to
reduce cost and energy up to 95%.
 Diversification : Another approach that is beneficial for AIRDRI is diversifying the
product portfolio by offering new products and services to the entirely new market
segment (Anagblah, 2019). However, this method sometimes results costly with a high
amount of risk associated with this. As diversification is concerned with coming up with
a new products and it is imperative for AIRDRI to conduct a detailed research and
strong planning to ensure that their offerings meets the desired results. Apparently,
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AIRDRI core business area is providing a energy efficient hand dryers but recently in
2020 AIRDRI have launched a “SteraSpace” which is best-in-class air and hand
sanitisers which are effective in eliminating harmful bacteria and virus up to 98%.
AIRDRI have known for actively responding to the market challenges and come up with
a new innovative ideas which meets need and wants of customer which add value to
both customers and organisation itself.
Strategic marketing planning theories
Strategic marketing planning is a continuous process in which a company creates a
marketing strategies, which is long term and far-sighted approach, used by business firms to have
a competitive edge over other by understanding the needs and wants of potential customers
(Anfer and Wamba, 2019). Strategic planning involves an analysis of current position of
company prior to its formulation, identifying available promotional opportunities and evaluating
these opportunities on a regular basis to identify the potential target market. The process
constitute majorly three steps ;
 Segmentation of market and customers,
 Profiling of a market segmentation; and
 Development of actual marketing strategy.
Marketing mix: Marketing mix can be defined as set of actions and tools used by company to
promote its products and services in a market with the help of 7 p's that are; product, price,
place,promotion, people, process and physical evidence. Product : Product represent the current offering of a company which is designed to met
the needs and wants of customer. AIRDRI is providing hand dryer services to the most
busy wash rooms for example at Airports, service stations and fast food restaurants. Price :The price of a product is the ability of a potential customer to pay for that product.
AIRDRI offers one of the most reliable and energy efficient hand dryer and the price of
the product is decided by considering cost incurred on R&D, manufacturing, marketing
and distribution (Galli and et. al., 2021).
 Place :This aspect of marketing mix deals with the availability of products to the
customers. AIRDRI ensures that their hand dryers are easily accessible to the customers
via online and offline stores.
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 Promotion : Success of each marketing activities rely partly on this aspect as it is
concerned with making customer aware about the company's product and services by
advertisement, word of mouth, sales promotion, public relations and personal selling. The
role Marketing manager in AIRDRI is to craft a captivating and meaningful message
including the minute details of the product covering all the other three P's mentioned
above (Farinloye and et. al., 2020). People : People in a business is referred to a manpower working in an organisation. Its
their effort which take the company to the new height with their knowledge and
expertise. With the help of in house engineering expertise, AIRDRI have been able to
explore the new possibilities which have helped them to grow and survive in a
competitive world. Process : Process can be defined as the way the company deliver its offerings to the
customer or the way consumption is made by delivering the best customer value.
AIRDRI provides hand dryer in busy wash rooms, at Airports, service stations and food
restaurants. Apart from this the company have also introduced a hand and air sanitiser
which is effective in eliminating harmful bacteria up to 98%.
 Physical evidence : Physical evidence all those tangible aspects through which a
customer come across while interacting with business activities of AIRDRI. The design
of a hand dryer, its branding and packaging are a part of physical evidence.
Segmentation : The main and prime objective of designing a product or services is to cater the
needs and wants of the customer. However, needs and demands of every market vary as the
geographic, demographic, psycho graphic and behaviour aspects of customers vary. This aspects
deals with segregating the potential customers on the basis of their common interests and choices
(Khudair, Abd and Fahmi, 2019). AIRDRI adopts a segmentation approach so that they could
design and developed their offering according to the specified needs and wants of target market.
Segmentation helps AIRDRI in addressing the potential market to develop and grow their
business activities.
CONCLUSION
From the above stated information it is understood that corporate strategy in a business
organisation helps in determining the goals and objective in align with optimum utilization of
resources, including human capital, organisational structure, portfolio management etc. so that
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the operational activities are in a direction of achieving company's mission. These strategies are
developed by considering external factors, that have a significant impact on business
performance, by analysing the factors and current trends company develops a strong plan so as to
prosper, survive and remain competitive in a market.
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References:
Books and Journals
Anagblah, D.A., 2019. Strategic marketing plan for Hill View Guest Centre, Abokobi.
Anfer, O. and Wamba, S.F., 2019, April. Big data analytics and strategic marketing capabilities:
impact on firm performance. In World conference on information systems and
technologies (pp. 633-640). Springer, Cham.
Farinloye, T., and et. al., 2020. Social media for universities’ strategic communication. Strategic
marketing of higher education in Africa. London: Routledge.
Galli, B.J., and et. al., 2021. A Critical Literature Analysis of the Relationships of Marketing and
Strategic Planning Under Project Environments. International Journal of Service
Science, Management, Engineering, and Technology (IJSSMET). 12(2) pp.1-24.
Khudair, A.H., Abd, K.M.A. and Fahmi, A.M., 2019. Impact of Strategic Planning Practices on
Academic Marketing in Iraqi Higher Education. Academy of Strategic Management
Journal. 18(2).pp.1-8.
Schiavone, F. and Simoni, M., 2019. Strategic marketing approaches for the diffusion of
innovation in highly regulated industrial markets: the value of market access. Journal of
Business & Industrial Marketing.
Yaghin, R.G., 2020. Enhancing supply chain production-marketing planning with geometric
multivariate demand function (a case study of textile industry). Computers & Industrial
Engineering. 140. p.106220.
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