Marketing Strategy and Data Analysis for Eco-Fone Consumer Electronics

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report analyzes Eco-Fone's marketing data and strategies.

Marketing Analysing Information and Data for
Problem Solving
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Task 1.....................................................................................................................................3
Task 2.....................................................................................................................................4
Task 3.....................................................................................................................................5
Task 4.....................................................................................................................................6
Task 5.....................................................................................................................................6
Task 6.....................................................................................................................................7
Task 7.....................................................................................................................................8
Task 8.....................................................................................................................................8
Task 10...................................................................................................................................9
Appendix..............................................................................................................................10
Task 9: References...............................................................................................................11
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Introduction
This report deals with the business operations of Eco-Fone, that deals with the sale of
consumer electronics. The two outlets in Putney and Richmond sell smartphones and other
accessories. The company experiences steady growth every year since its inception in 2014.
This report deals with the analysis of recent trends in the smartphone market in the UK and
provides information about the product. The report also deals with the study of the types of
customers involved in the market and the financial information of the company. At the end of
the product, recommendations have been made that would benefit Eco-Fone in expanding
their business and satisfying customer demands by a greater degree.
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Task 1
The active workforce in the UK consists of about 32 million people. Research conducted by
Deloitte (2017) surveyed the population about their smartphone usage. It was found out that
more than half of the respondents in the workforce use their smartphones for work-related
activities. The percentage of smartphone users that used their smartphones in the workplace
should be considerably higher because the primary purpose of smartphones to these people
was to solve work-related issues. According to the results of the survey, the most popular
usage of smartphones was to send and receive emails. 44% of the population used the email
application of their smartphone the most. 34% of the individuals in the community used their
smartphones mostly for voice calls, whereas 23% of the people preferred using the calendar
management application the most frequently. The least used function of smartphones includes
reporting systems and legacy information, because of their complexity.
The workforce in the population has also been found to be using specific unofficial
applications in their smartphones. Some of these include instant messaging, navigation and
photo sharing applications. 43% of the individuals admitted to using WhatsApp at least once
daily. All the apps that the individuals use – be it official or unofficial are explicitly
optimised for better performance in smartphones (youtube.com, 2018). The popularity of
smartphones in the UK market over PCs and tablets is because of their efficiency. Workers
admitted that it is easier to use smartphones in jobs that require the worker to travel a lot. For
such workers, using a PC or a tablet is unnecessary (Derks et al., 2016).
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Task 2
The following table has been obtained from the information provided by Deloitte (2017)
regarding PC, Smartphone and Tablet usage for the years 2012 to 2017, and forecasts for the
year 2018 and 2019 has been made using the forecast function in an Excel Spreadsheet:
Table 1: PC, Smartphone and Tablet usage
PC Usage Smartphone Usage Tablet Usage
2012 73% 2012 52% 2012 16%
2013 76% 2013 62% 2013 36%
2014 75% 2014 70% 2014 50%
2015 79% 2015 76% 2015 60%
2016 76% 2016 81% 2016 63%
2017 78% 2017 85% 2017 68%
2018 78% 2018 87% 2018 66%
2019 77% 2019 91% 2019 69%
(Source: Deloitte)
Using the table provided above, a line chart has been created that diagrammatically presents
the historical records and forecasts for the year 20108 and 2019.
Table 2: Line Chart depicting usage of electronic devices
(Source: Created by Author)
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2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
UK Market penetration of PC, Smartphone and Tablets
Series2 Series4 Series6

In the above diagram, the blue line represents PCs, the orange line represents smartphones,
and the grey line represents tablets. It can be seen that smartphone usage has seen the highest
growth over the years, and the trend will continue in the years 2018-19 as well.
An extended forecast would not work in this case because the historical records present do
not follow a constant degree of change (Abedinia and Amjady, 2015). For example, PC usage
increased by 3% in 2013 but decreased by 1% in 2014. This is followed by an increase of 4%
in 2015 and a fall of 3% in the following year. In these kinds of inconsistent advancements of
records, the moving averages model of forecasting proves to be the most effective (Kwon et
al., 2017).
Task 3
Research conducted by bbc.com (2019), suggests that 71% of the people in the age group of
55-75 years own and use smartphones. The study was done on a population of 1,163 people
in the age mentioned above group to know the reason for their mobile usage. The results
showed that the elderly mobile users used their smartphones mainly because of the following
reasons:
 To pay for parking meters via online payment gateways, which is highly optimised for
smartphones
 To book taxis in the city. The population of individuals felt that booking a taxi in the
old, conventional ways was much more difficult than booking a taxi online
 Screen size. The smartphones of the current generation have comfortably large
screens which make it easier for older people to read content
 The ease of using the operating system interface has attracted the older generation
towards smartphones
 Older individuals widely favour facial recognition as an authentication process. It also
makes it easier for people to unlock their smartphones by just looking at them
(Robertson and Burton, 2016). Physical input of pins and passwords is a complex
process, and the older generation prefers ignoring it.
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Task 4
Table 3: Pros and Cons method
Should we expand our business to Kingston?
Pros Score/10 Cons Score/10
Increasing resources 7 Cash shortage 8
Generate more revenue 10 Loss of control 5
Reach more consumer base 8 Initial capital investment 9
Build on the competition 8 Increased labour turnover 8
Increase in Brand Exposure 9 Increase in logistical issues 6
Influence market price 8
Total Pros 50 Total Cons 36
Average Pros 8.33 Average Cons 7.2
(Source: Created by Author)
From the table above, it is clear that the average pros outweigh the average cons and
therefore, Eco-Fone should consider expanding the business to Kingston. Despite the issues
of capital shortage, high amount of initial investment, distribution of control and many others,
the management of the company lays more importance on generating more revenue and
building a brand name of the company. The weight given to each advantage exceeds the
weight to each, and therefore, the company must consider expanding its business.
Task 5
Table 4: Mortgage repayment
Principal 3,50,000
Rate 7
Months 180
0.0058333
2.8489467
0.0089883
£ 3,145.90
(Source: Created by Author)
a. The repayment mortgage of the sum of £350,000 has been presented in the table
above, where the rate of interest is 7% and the instalment if of 15 years (or 180
months). Therefore, Eco-Fone can purchase the new building at Kingston for business
expansion, by a monthly payment of £3,145.90.
b. Charleston is one of the most popular commercial mortgage lenders in the UK. It has
numerous mortgage policies that prove to be helpful for small and developing
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business concerns. Charleston provides mortgages at interest rates that begin from as
low as 1.9% (Shanks, 2017). The logo of Charleston, one of the leading mortgage
lenders in the UK, has been given below:
Table 5: Charleston Mortgages
(Source: Charleston.com)
Task 6
From the sample of 40 net daily takings, the first shop had a mean taking of £100. This means
that the average sales of the first shop amount to £4,000. Mean is derived by dividing the
total amount of takings by the number of observations in the sample. However, the standard
deviation represents the deviation of different variables in the sample observation. It is used
to describe the amount of variation of the comments in quantitative terms (Quan et al., 2018).
The standard deviation of £20 represents the variance of the 40 observations. In the second
shop, the mean taking of £90 means that the total amount of sales amounts to £3,600. In this
regards, it can be pointed out that the difference between the takings of the two shops is £400.
Therefore, the first shop is more profitable than the second one. The standard deviation of the
second shop is £40, and it means that the variance amongst the revenue of each of the 40
sales operation is £40. It can be seen that the sales in the first shopper unit varies by just £20,
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whereas the variance in the sales per unit of the second shop is £40. This indifference is
because of the price differences in the second shop. Therefore, it can be concluded that the
net taking of the two shops is not the same.
Task 7
Table 6: Questionnaire report
1. When was the last time you purchased a product from us?
Between 6 months and one year
2. How long have you used our products/services?
Between 3 and five years
3. Please rate us on the following
Customer Service 3
Product Quality 4
Sales staff 3
Product price 2
4. How would you rate your overall satisfaction with us?
Satisfied
5. How likely are you to continue doing business with us?
Very likely
6. How likely are you to recommend our products to others?
Very likely
(Source: Created by Author)
The table shown above considers the answers to the above questions provided by a particular
set of customers and represents the answers from a single individual. The responses have
been added and divided with the total number of participants in the survey to arrive at an
average response. The table has been prepared in an Excel spreadsheet. The report suggests
that an average customer of Eco-Fone last purchased a product from them within one year.
The company has been able to maintain high customer retention since the majority of the
customers have been with the company since the year of its incorporation. The customers
also rate the company highly in the fields of customer service and product quality. However,
the customers think that the products are a little overpriced. An average customer remains
satisfied with the outcome of the company, and they are very likely to continue doing
business with the company (Hill, 2017). The average customers have also reported that they
are very likely to recommend the company to others, thereby depicting that the company
maintains customer satisfaction.
Task 8
Poisson distributions are used to identify the dispersal of rare and uncommon items in a large
population (Collins et al., 2015). Since the number of invoices that the company sends out
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per month exceeds 10,000, it is complicated to identify different events. Therefore, in the
large population of 10,000 invoices, it is appropriate to use the Poisson distribution method to
recognise the invoices that are returned with an error (Land and Nagin, 2017).
Since the average number of invoices returned with an error is 2 per month, which is less than
the guidelines laid out by the quality assurance, it can be said that the quality maintenance
procedures of Eco-Fone have been met.
Task 10
In this report, it has been found out that Eco-Fone has used penetrative pricing strategies to
control the smartphone market in the UK. The company has built on the broad consumer base
of the workers in the country that mainly use their smartphones to solve work-related
problems. The company has also used the popularity of smartphones amongst the elderly in
the country and provided them with smartphones that are easy for them to use. It has also
been found out in the report that the smartphone usage in the country will continue to grow in
the year 2018-19, following the trend in the previous years. The report has found out that it
would be beneficial to the company to expand to Kingston. The cost of purchasing a new
building in Kingston and its monthly mortgage repayment has been calculated with the help
of an excel spreadsheet. This information will enable the company to decide whether it wants
to lease the asset or purchase it.
A ‘pros and cons method' table has been created that lists and weighs the advantages and
disadvantages of a particular project. With the use of mean and standard deviation, it has also
been discovered that the first shop yields more profit for E-Fone than the second shop. Lastly,
the survey questionnaire has been analysed with the responses of a sample population, and
the average response of the customers have been recorded to gain information about the
consumer's viewpoint of the company. The management of the company can use this
information to increase the effectiveness of the company in the long run.
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Appendix
The formula used to calculate mortgage repayment in excel:
Cell A4: =B2/1200
Cell A5: =(1+A4)^B3
Cell A6: =(A4*A5)/(A5-1)
Cell A7: =A6*B1
Forecasting UK smartphone penetration:
To forecast the usage of PC, smartphone and tablet in the Excel spreadsheet, the ‘forecast
function’ has been used for the years 2018-19, with a confidence level of 95%.
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Task 9: References
Abedinia, O. and Amjady, N., 2015. Day-ahead price forecasting of electricity markets by a
new hybrid forecast method. Modeling and Simulation in Electrical and Electronics
Engineering, 1(1), pp.1-7.
BBC News. (2019). Smartphone sales boom with over-55s. [online] Available at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41319684 [Accessed 25 Feb. 2019].
Charleston Trust. (2019). Charleston | Home of The Bloomsbury Group in Sussex, Firle near
Lewes UK. [online] Available at: https://www.charleston.org.uk/ [Accessed 25 Feb. 2019].
Collins, D.J., Neild, A., Liu, A.Q. and Ai, Y., 2015. The Poisson distribution and beyond:
methods for microfluidic droplet production and single cell encapsulation. Lab on a
Chip, 15(17), pp.3439-3459.
Deloitte global mobile consumer survey, 2017
Derks, D., Bakker, A.B., Peters, P. and van Wingerden, P., 2016. Work-related smartphone
use, work–family conflict and family role performance: The role of segmentation
preference. Human Relations, 69(5), pp.1045-1068.
Hill, N. and Brierley, J., 2017. How to measure customer satisfaction. Routledge.
Kwon, Y.S., Naeem, K., Jeon, M.Y. and Kwon, I.B., 2017, April. Effect of parameters in
moving average method for event detection enhancement using phase sensitive OTDR.
In 2017 25th Optical Fiber Sensors Conference (OFS) (pp. 1-4). IEEE.
Land, K.C. and Nagin, D.S., 2017. Semiparametric Mixed Poisson Regression Models, with
Empirical Applications. Quantitative Methods in Criminology, p.387.
Quan, H., Zhang, J., Zhou, D. and Dukovic, D., 2018. Estimation of Standard Deviation for a
Log-Transformed Variable Based on Summary Statistics in the Original Scale. Statistics in
Biopharmaceutical Research, 10(1), pp.30-38.
Robertson, D.J. and Burton, A.M., 2016. Unfamiliar face recognition: Security, surveillance
and smartphones. The Journal of the Homeland Defense and Security Information Analysis
Center, pp.14-21.
Shanks, M.M., 2017. United Bankshares Inc. Charleston, West Virginia. Fed. Res. Bull., 103,
p.66.
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