Impact of Global Economy on Bread Talk's Marketing Strategies

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Bread Talk Group's marketing strategies within the context of the global economic environment. It begins with an introduction to the company, followed by an examination of its competitive advantages, including differentiation, focus, and cost leadership strategies. The report then delves into the market segmentation process, highlighting behavioral, geographical, demographic, and psychographic segmentation approaches. It also explores consumer decision-making processes, including need recognition, information search, and evaluation of alternatives. Furthermore, the Ansoff Matrix is applied to evaluate potential growth opportunities for the company. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and their implications for the Bread Talk Group's future marketing efforts, emphasizing the importance of adapting to the dynamic global economic landscape. The report also highlights the company's efforts to leverage technology and intellectual property for sustainable competitive advantage. This report is available on Desklib.

Running head: GLOBAL ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT AND MARKETING
GLOBAL ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT AND MARKETING
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

1GLOBAL ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT AND MARKETING
Table of Contents
Introduction........................................................................................................................2
About the Bread Talk Group..............................................................................................2
Competitive Advantage......................................................................................................3
Market Segmentation Process..........................................................................................4
Consumer Decision making...............................................................................................5
Ansoff’s Matrix (within MARCO: PESTLE)........................................................................7
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................8
References.........................................................................................................................9

2GLOBAL ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT AND MARKETING
Introduction
The report focuses on the ways in which the changes within the global economy
impacts upon the marketing strategies of the Bread Talk Group. The global economic
environment has direct relationship with marketing since the global factors including the
cultural or social factors, demographics, political factors and legal issues impacts the
marketing procedure of the company (Terpstra, Foley & Sarathy, 2012). The influence
of this organization’s present and future strategies for sustainable competitive
advantage, branding and its segmentation process is also critically evaluated in this
study. It has been well known fact that consumers play the vital role in the business as
they are ones that influences the marketing strategies in business. Applying this same
economic scenario, the potential affect of the enterprise marketing strategies on the
customer’s decision making is also discussed in this report. In the last section, the
Ansoff Matrix (within MARCO: PESTLE) is also explained in this study for evaluating the
possible growth opportunities of the Bread Talk Group. The Ansoff matrix refers to the
strategic planning tool, which provides the framework to facilitate the marketers as well
as managers devise strategies for the future growth. Furthermore, the opportunities for
growth within this enterprise’s MACRO environments are also highlighted in this report.
About the Bread Talk Group
The Bread Talk Group Limited is the multinational food and beverage enterprise
that is headquartered in Singapore. This organization has organized its units of
business based on goods and services. It has mainly three operational segments that
involve- food court segment, restaurant segment and bakery segment. Their bakery
segment is basically engaged in business of production as well as retailing of bakery
and other confectionary products involving franchising (BreadTalk Group – Home,
2018). The restaurant segment is mainly involved in business operation of food as well
as drink outlets and eating restaurants. The food court segment is majorly involved in
operation as well as management of the food courts. Its subsidiaries involve Bread Talk
Pte Ltd that is a producer, baker and dealer in bread. Over the last few years, the Bread
Talk Group has expanded increasingly to become distinguished household brand
owner. The group basically operates in more than 850 bakeries and 26 globally
acclaimed restaurants across Singapore. Their vision is to institute this company as the
brand and being reputed for innovative and trend setting producer of bread. Their main
purpose is to establish this company as familiar brands globally (Kotler, 2015). This firm
primarily concentrates on the customer’s preferences and their level of satisfaction. In
fact, their main target markets are the high income or middle income people and young
working group. The mina competitors of this enterprise are Four Leaves, My Bread and
so on. One of the vital factors which differentiate this enterprise from other traditional
bakeries is their meaningful and specific names to all types of bread. This strategy

3GLOBAL ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT AND MARKETING
adopted by the company mainly attracts the younger generations the most. Over the
years, this company has constructed universal reputation to provide renowned products
as well as loftier service to their customers. At present, this firm has been trying to
expand its business and also open more outlets in the existing market. Additionally, they
have been looking forward to broaden their commodity development practice and gratify
the desires of their customers for improving their position in the market and attain larger
market share.
Competitive Advantage
A firm can attain competitive advantage by offering their customers higher value
as compared to the rivalries such as- offering discount or low price product and
providing good quality products. Creating competitive advantage is one of the most vital
goals of Bread Talk Group as it permits it to attain higher returns for their shareholders
(Wagner III & Hollenbeck, 2014). Bread Talk Group uses three strategies for gaining
competitive advantage over the competitors, which includes- differentiation strategy,
focus approach and cost leadership approach. Their differentiation strategy involves
production of good quality products, innovation of new products, innovation in food
culture and price differentiation approach. This company’s focused approach involves
acquiring as well as holding of intellectual property rights. In addition, this approach
also helps them to narrow their product lines and customer segments. Their cost
leadership approach involves manufacturing of products at low cost by adopting new
technologies. Furthermore, adoption of these strategies through which this enterprise
attains competitive advantage is explained below:
Quality of product- Controlling quality of the products is the major priority of Bread
Talk Group. Their R&D( research and development) team tries to innovate new
products by blending local culture with good quality ingredients. They mainly strategizes
to source globally for selecting natural ingredients, which are further prepared from raw
state to create fillings of the bread. The manufactured products are further checked as
well as qualified by the food technologists. This however ensures them greater control
on food quality of finished products. In fact, their breads are also baked fresh at every
outlet in regular basis and is then packed as well as indicated with ‘best before’ date.
Thus, adoption of this strategy for producing quality products helps to satisfy their
customers and attain their trust.
Price leadership- As the standard of living of the individuals is increasing at the present
years and economic environment becoming better relative to last years, this
organization has adopted “price differentiation” strategy in marketing their products. The
prices of their bakery products are near about 20-25% more expensive in comparison
with other traditional bakeries. However, high product price level helps the marketing

4GLOBAL ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT AND MARKETING
manager to focus on the main source of custome (BreadTalk Group - Our Strategy.
2018)r. Their main strategy is to have stable customer base rather than having huge
one. Therefore, setting the product price higher than other bakery enterprise, stable
customer base helps them to attain higher revenue. Thus, this price differentiation
strategy facilitates Bread Talk group to attain leadership in price.
Integration of new technology-This enterprise has embarked into new technologies
and few initiatives of digital transformations for increasing productivity and reducing
wastage of food. This mainly involves roll out of e- production and e- scheduling, which
in turn improves total productivity by near about 3% and also reduce total wastage by
about 20%. As a result, the total cost of manufacturing the product also reduces and
thus this benefits the enterprise to maximize profit. Moreover, integration of modern
technologies aids the company to deliver innovative goods development efforts at low
cost (Musso, 2010). Furthermore, it also facilitates this enterprise to package the
product in creative way. Thus, implementation of this strategy helps this enterprise to
attract more customers and gain competitive advantage over their rivalries.
Intellectual property- This is mainly considered as the assets of the company, which
are mainly divided into two types- physical and intangible assets. Protection of
Intellectual property is vital for the business to foster innovation. The businesses as well
as individuals cannot attain full advantage of their inventions without shielding of the
ideas (De Beer, Fu & Wunsch-Vincent, 2013). The three methods by which this
company protects the intellectual property are – patents, copyrights and. Bread Talk
Group engages with Star Food Pte, BTG Vault Pte Ltrd and Inc Pte ltd for acquiring as
well as holding their intellectual property rights.
The strategies as well as actions adopted by this company for gaining
competitive advantage have been sustainable. Hence helps them to acquire perceived
benefit from these strategies.
Market Segmentation Process
Market segmentation refers to the procedure of classifying broad customers or
the business market, generally comprising of potential customers and sub-groups of
these customers depending on some kind of shared features (Weinstein, 2013). This
has huge significance in the business as it helps to exactly reach the customers with
particular requirements and wants. This process also helps the company to develop
niche strategies and stimulate innovation. Moreover, it also aids to build sustainable
relationship with their customers and communicate in better way. The market
segmentation of Bread Talk basically consists of up-scale suburb consumers. They
mainly targets young generations, working experts and high income households. By
increasing accessibility of market, they try to concentrate on their target customers.

5GLOBAL ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT AND MARKETING
Bread Talk Group market is generally segmented into different categories, which
includes- behavioral, psychographic, behavioral and geographical differences.
Behavioral- Presently, the demand in Asian market is mainly based on both freshness
and quality of product. In response to this, this enterprise has adopted effectual
marketing behavioral act. In fact, the product quality is thereby highly administered by
this company before delivering it to the customers (McDonald & Dunbar, 2012). In
addition, another behavioral practice adopted by this enterprise is inspiration of
consumer senses. However, by adopting this strategy all the commodities supplied
comes in attractive packages.
Geographical differences- This Company adjust their commodities according to
culture in response to different locations. Furthermore, they also provides mixture of
western as well as Asian tastes, which in turn results to near about 150 varied products.
They are controlling all these variables for satisfying the desires and needs of their
customers in different locations. However, they are aiming to gain large number of
customers through this market segmentation process.
Demographic-This enterprise is rapidly expanding its network of franchise over the
years. While serving all population of the Asian countries, this organization forges
partnership with several nations such as Thailand, Bahrain, Hong Kong, Kuwait etc.
Furthermore, the demography has also been intended to Mynamar, Sri Lanka, Qatar
and so on.
Psychographic- This enterprise has been supplying exceptional products around Asian
market and thus making it reputed brand. They focus on producing the product with high
quality and attractive packaging. This segmentation strategy helps them to abstract the
whole market in line with their business (Wedel & Kamakura, 2012). They aim to create
more than 500 outlets for expanding the business in the global market. Apart from this,
they also concentrate on launching more brands such as The Icing Room, Bread
Society. In contrast to this, they also offer several launch specials on Bread Talk Stores.
As this enterprise is health oriented, they forms iPad apps for enabling the customers
purchase coupons. Additionally, they also redeem this by exchanging their product,
which in turn attracts large number of customers.
Consumer Decision making
As the marketer plays a vital role in selling the products in the marketplace, it is
necessary for them to have knowledge regarding how their customers make purchasing
decision. The consumer decision making procedure thereby explains five stages
through which they make decision regarding purchase of product. The five stages are
discussed below:

6GLOBAL ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT AND MARKETING
Need Recognition- The consumers decision making procedure starts with the need
recognition. In this stage, the marketer first recognizes the requirement of customers
and thereby manufactures product accordingly for satisfying them (Sekhon, 2015).
Bread Talk group first recognizes the varied needs as well as changing preferences of
their customers and then produces varieties of breads, cakes according to their taste.
Besides this, they are constantly innovating new products for satisfying their consumers
changing preferences and tastes. Additionally, they introduce more than 10 products
every four months for increasing the purchasing options of consumers.
Search of information-At this stage, customers gather information regarding the
quality of product either though advertisements, sellers, dealers and close relatives.
Based on this information, the customers make the decision of buying the products.
Bread Talk Groups being a renowned bakery company, the information about their
products becomes easily available in internet, magazines etc. This in turn helps the
customers make decision regarding purchasing of goods.
Assessment of alternatives purchase- After acquiring the knowledge about the
goods, the customers evaluates different alternative products based on their needs,
quality, price and other features. As the products of Bread Talk are higher than their
competitors, the consumers sometimes evaluate other company’s products based on
their needs. In some cases, the customers switch over to other company’s product,
which in turn affects the profit margin of Bread Talk Group (Breadtalk Marketing Plan
2018).
Buying decision-In this stage, the customers buys the suitable product after assessing
the alternative products. But in some instances, the customers also postpone their
buying decision owing to some reasons. In this situation, the marketers analyze this
reason and try to solve it by providing proper information to their customers and giving
assurance regarding product quality. The marketers of Bread Talk Group analyze their
target customer’s behavior before giving them proper information about the product or
changing its features accordingly. Recent facts reflects that this strategy adopted by this
enterprise marketers leads to increase in their product sales.
Post purchase behavior-This stage reflects whether the customers are satisfied with
the company’s product. This however influences the sales and reputation of the
company. The customers of Bread Talk Group are usually satisfied with their products
because of its good quality. In case, if the customers become dissatisfied with their
products, their marketers tries to change the packaging of the product and adopts
different method of marketing it.

7GLOBAL ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT AND MARKETING
Ansoff’s Matrix (within MARCO: PESTLE)
Ansoff matrix is basically a communication tool that facilitates to overview
possible growth strategies for the enterprise. The four growth strategies of Ansoff matrix
is explained below:
Market Penetration-This strategy is adopted by the enterprise when existing product
requires growth strategy within the market. As the intention of Bread Talk Group is to
improve their brand image and attain good reputation in the market, they have started
innovating new products and their packaging style (Ansoff Matrix, 2018). In addition,
they have also adopted new promotional method for providing more information about
the product in order to increase sales.
Market Development-This strategy is mainly adopted when the company targets new
market with their existing products (West, Ford & Ibrahim, 2015). Bread Talk Groups
strategizes to launch their existing products in new market and to new customer base.
This helps them to expand their brand in global market.
Product development-This strategy is required when the enterprise has good
consumer base and thus the existing products market reached saturation point. Bread
Talk groups launches global store concept by incorporating baking artistry, natural
ingredients and emerging technology for aiming to deliver efforts of innovative product
development (Wheelwright & Clark, 2012).
Diversification-This strategy is used when the commodity is being launched in new
market. Although it is a risky strategy, it helps to gain competitive advantage over their
rivalries.
a) Backward integration-Bread Talk pursues backward integration strategy for
improving efficiency as well as cost savings. They strategize to lower production
cost for enhancing profit margin.
b) Forward integration- This strategy involves expansion of business activities
globally. In order to expand the business, Bread Talk is opening new outlets
across the global market.
c) Related integration- This strategy is adopted when the several products becomes
related to each other. Bread Talk tries to differentiate the packaging of product in
case it is related to each other.
d) Unrelated integration-This diversification refers to the form in which the
organization adds unrelated commodity lines and then penetrates into new
market. Bread Talk innovates new product and services before penetrating into
new market.

8GLOBAL ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT AND MARKETING
Conclusion
From the above study, it can be concluded that Bread Talk marketing strategies
has been effective as it increases their sales growth over the years. Although the
strategies adopted by them has been effective, the present revenue of this enterprise
highlights that the company is facing difficulty in maintaining good position in the market
owing to some of their declining products. However, it is recommended that the
company must focus on few areas in marketing process for enhancing sales growth.
These areas includes- advertisement through social media, banner etc, positive
business environment for customers and increment of total outlets. Moreover, the
Ansoff matrix reflects that this company has possibility of expanding and growing in
future.

9GLOBAL ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT AND MARKETING
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