Marketing Strategy Report: Houzit's Performance and Future Plans

This report provides a comprehensive marketing analysis of Houzit, a market-leading retail brand in homewares. It begins with an organizational overview, including Houzit's vision, mission, strategic objectives, and current size and capabilities. The report identifies the company's strengths, such as skilled staff and efficient retail spaces, alongside weaknesses like a limited marketing budget. It explores potential opportunities like joint ventures, franchising, and digital marketing, recommending demographic-focused strategies and global market expansion. The report outlines a marketing mix strategy encompassing product, price, place, and promotion. It aligns recommended strategies with organizational goals, justifying the selection of TV and online advertisement. Finally, the report details a marketing performance review strategy using competitive analysis and a life cycle model to assess Houzit's performance against its marketing objectives, including customer satisfaction and market share.

Organizational overview
Houzit is considered as a market leading and national recognized retail brand in
home ware. The following marketing strategy has been recommended after careful
analyzing the companies past year’s performances, market shares, and customers’
base. In order to expand the company and coupe with its latest operational and
marketing plan
Vision
‘Houzit will be a national retrial brand, catering to their needs of home makers with a
range of unique, high quality homewares made accessible to all through our easy to
manage payment plan.’
Mission statement
‘By 2020, Houzit will have a significant retail presence in homewares in every
Australian capital city, starting with 15 stores in the greater Brisbane area and
growing to 100 Australian wide.’
Strategic direction and objectives
Their strategic direction and objectives are:
 Increase sales from $15 million per year to $20 million per year in the next
three years
 Expand numbers of retail stores in every Australian capital city
 Increase our loyalty customers list from 10, 000 to 15,000
 Establish brand recognition in Brisbane so that at least 1 in 3 people
recognise their brand in a random survey taken in 18 months time.
 Expand to over 100 stores by 2020
Current size
Currently have 15 stores spread across their greater Brisbane area
Currently the typical Houzit store includes:
 Location – A commercial, suburban neighbourhood urban retail district
 Design – bright and functional
 Size – 1 000 – 1 500 m2
 Employees – 15 – 20 full time, plus several casuals
 Types of transactions – 60% cash, 40% on long-term repayment plan
Capabilities and resource of the organization
 Human resources
Houzit has the valuable assets, which is human resources, 15-20 fulltime employees
along with number of casual workers. Staffs work are excellent with highly skilled
and knowledgeable about home wares.

 Physical resources
Especially for a commercial urban district Houzit possesses a great retail
space that is bright, functional and efficient
• Loyal skilled and experienced employees
Strength and Weakness
Strengths
 Excellent staff who are highly
skilled and knowledgeable about
home wares.
 Great retail space that is bright,
functional and efficient for a
commercial urban district
 High customer loyalty among
repeat customers
 Assortment of offering that
exceeds competitors’ offering in
quality, range and accessibility.
Weaknesses
 A limited marketing budget to
develop brand awareness due to
the lack of a critical mass and
store cover
 The struggle to continually fund
the growing long-term
repayment plans taken out by
the customers.
Gap between the objectives, and current capabilities and resources
The organization currently have limited marketing budget that could fund the
marketing activities in order to enable the organization to reach its objectives. Hence
their current capabilities are limiting them in achieving their objectives within the
desired timeline. In addition to create brand recognition within limited time, it has to
focus on promotion or endorsement of product. the company also has to focus on
the quality of products and services and competition from local independent
retailers.
Opportunities
a) opportunities suggested:
Joint Venture
A joint venture is a common way of combining resources and expertise of two
otherwise unrelated companies. There are many benefits to this type of partnership,
but it is not without risks - arrangements of this sort can be highly complex.
This partnership can happen between goliaths in an industry. It can also occur
between two small businesses that believe partnering will help them successfully
fight their bigger competitors.
b) The risk
 access to new markets and distribution networks
 increased capacity
 sharing of risks and costs with a partner

 access to greater resources, including specialised staff, technology and
finance
c) Benefits
 he objectives of the venture are not 100 per cent clear and communicated to
everyone involved
 the partners have different objectives for the joint venture
 there is an imbalance in levels of expertise, investment or assets brought into
the venture by the different partners
 different cultures and management styles result in poor integration and
cooperation
 the partners don't provide sufficient leadership and support in the early
stages
Franchise
Franchising is based on a marketing concept which can be adopted by an
organization as a strategy for business expansion. Where implemented, a franchisor
licenses its know-how, procedures, intellectual property, use of its business model,
brand, and rights to sell its branded products and services to a franchisee
The risk
 Business expansion without investing heavy capital
 Malpractices and affect the whole brand image
 Get royalty in return
 It is considerably difficult to keep an eye on each and every aspect of the
product and services offered by franchisee
Benefits
 he objectives of the venture are not 100 per cent clear and communicated to
everyone involved
 the partners have different objectives for the joint venture
 there is an imbalance in levels of expertise, investment or assets brought into
the venture by the different partners
 different cultures and management styles result in poor integration and
cooperation
 the partners don't provide sufficient leadership and support in the early
stages
Digital Marketing
An effective digital marketing strategy will help you take the right decisions to make
a company successful online. A strategy process model provides a framework that
gives a logical sequence to follow to ensure inclusion of all key activities of strategy
development and implementation. In addition, the company focuses on penetrative

pricing strategies. This could help to increase the market share by selling the
products and service comparatively at low price
The risk
 Higher transparency of pricing and increased price competition
 Security, privacy issues
 Worldwide competition through globalisation
 Maintenance costs due to a constantly evolving environment
Benefits
 Reduction in costs through automation and use of electronic mediathe
partners have different objectives for the joint venture
 Faster response to both marketers and the end userdifferent cultures and
management styles result in poor integration and cooperation
 Increased ability to measure and collect data
 Increased exposure of products and services
d) The opportunity that best address the organizational objective:
The organization Houzit could emphasize on demography. This means while
designing the product and services, they could focus on life style of people, their age,
income, family rituals and other demography. Thus, the customers could stratify
their needs buying those products that are designed based on their life. In addition,
to increase the sales volumes, the company could also pay attention to lead the
business in global market. By developing a high quality of products and services, the
company could enter into global market. In such a case, the initial phase of
implementing this opportunity is to focus on digital marketing.
e) Marketing Mix Strategy

The 4Ps of marketing strategy are the ingredients that combine to capture and
promote a brand or product’s unique selling points, those that differentiate it from
it’s competitors. This proposed classification has been used by marketing companies,
branding agencies and web design companies throughout the world
Product mix strategy
Houzit provides bathroom fittings, bedroom fittings, mirrors and decorative items,
targeting at homemakers. The organization only sells premium and high quality
products to the market.
Price
In order to increase the market share, the Houzit should set low price for products
and services. The company could design the products effectively and sell them at low
price. However, while running the business in global marketing, they should follow
and implement the pricing laws imposed in each country.
Place
At the moment the organization has stores based in Brisbane and greater areas of
Brisbane of up to 15 stores. However the organization is seeking to expand Australia
wide to over 100 stores.
Promotion
Promotion includes advertising, public relations, and promotional strategy. This ties
into the other three Ps of the marketing mix as promoting a product shows
consumers why they need it and should pay a certain price for it.
f) Describe how your strategies align with the strategic direction of the
organisation, and give justifications for your selection
TV Advertisement
TV will be most effective at times when you know your current numbers (cost
per lead, cost per acquisition, customer lifetime value, etc.) and have a solid

mousetrap built to capture attention. Numbers will help identify whether
using this channel will be worth it, so before making any decisions
Online advertisement
Online advertisement is one of the most inexpensive ways of promoting
products. Globally more than 1 billion people are using direct types of social
sites, so it will help business to spread the world at the least cost
The above-recommended strategies are aligned with organizational goals
and objectives. The strategy of entering into the global market is aligned with
the strategy of increasing sales volumes. By running the business in global
market, the company could create brand recognition, which in turn could
help to attract the customers towards the products and services.
Detail a marketing performance review strategy using an appropriate tool
(competitive analysis, life cycle model, value chain analysis, etc.) to review the
performance of the organization against marketing objectives.
Competitive analysis:
As the company is running its business over long period, they have multiple
marketing opportunities to grow the business. Similarly, the organization has
to deal with some major challenges.
 Houzit tends to differentiate its products and service from competitors.
The company increases brand-store promotion to maximize product
visibility as well as brad awareness.
 “Market Share”-The major competitor of Houzit is with the IKEA. Houzit
has a national presence and increased number of customers. It is
identified that Ikea has a large presence in the market as they vast
product category. Conversely, Houzit deals with a small market; the
operation of Houzit is only across Brisbane city. However, Houzit gains
reputation due to its high quality of products and services.
Life Cycle model:
Life cycle assessment is a technique for assessing the environmental aspects
associated with a product over its life cycle. The most important applications
are these:
• analysis of the contribution of the life cycle stages to the overall
environmental load, usually with the aim to prioritize improvements on
products or processes

• comparison between products for internal use
The business life cycle model is consisting of seven different stages including
the initial stage of business to ultimate stage of business.
Seed: This is the first stage of life cycle model. Hence, the organization Houzit
could focus on matching the marketing opportunity with goals and
objectives.
Start up- In this stage, the organization tend to overestimate the monetary
requirement and time to market. Hence, the main challenge is not to burn
through the amount of capita it has.
Growth: In this stage, the greatest challenge the company faces is the
tendency of dealing with constant series of issues bidding for monetary and
time. Hence, the company implements an effective management to build the
necessary business plan.
Established: In this particular stage, Houzit has to deal with a relentless and
competitive market. In addition, the company faces other risks such as
competitors, economy and dynamic nature of environment.
Expansion: Hence, the company thinks of moving into ne market opening
new stores in the existing market. Hence, the Houzit also has to deal with
external marketing threats such as pricing strategy of competitors
Mature: in this stage, the business faces the challenges such as dropping of
sales and profits. However, the organization looks for the new opportunity
for business such as joint venture.
Exit: This is the final stage of business life cycle, which is about getting proper
valuation. Here, the organization looks at its business operation,
management and competitive barriers.
Value chain analysis
Value chain analysis (VCA) is a process where a firm identifies its primary and
support activities that add value to its final product and then analyze these activities

to reduce costs or increase differentiation. It represents the internal activities a firm
engages in when transforming inputs into outputs.
Marketing performance measurement
Customer Satisfaction
If customers are not satisfied with an organisation, they will eventually find another
organisation that meets their needs making customer satisfaction vitally important
to an organisation. Poor customer satisfaction is usually an indicator of future
decline, even if the current situation is positive
Market Share
Market share refers to the organisation’s revenues as a portion of the total revenue
generated for that market. Market share can be determined by comparing total sales
of the organisation to total sales across the industry, or by identifying the
organisation’s respective share of usage by customers
𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑒 (%) = 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑦𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑢𝑒 ($)
𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑑𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑡 ($)
Brand Equity

This is the intangible value added to a product because of the brand it bears. This
may be acquired through effective marketing, to the extent that the brand becomes
synonymous with the product. Brand equity may be determined on three levels: the
organisational level, product level and customer level. At the organisational level,
the value of the brand as an intangible asset is determined by:
firm value− ሺtangible assets+′ measurable′ intangible assestsሻ= brand equity
The second level is product. This may be determined by comparing the prices of
equivalent branded and ‘no-name’ products, assuming that all other variables are
controlled. Revenue should also be considered, to better understand the value of
brand equity at product level.
The third level to consider when determining brand equity is that of the consumer.
At the consumer level, you should consider the organisation’s ‘mind-share’, i.e. how
aware consumers are of the organisation’s brand.
𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑢𝑛𝑎𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑤𝑟𝑎𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠
𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑠 = 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑒 (%)
Tactics
1. Detail the tactics necessary to implement the strategy you have outlined,
including:
• Scheduling/ time lines /milestones
• Costing /budget
• Roles and responsibilities
• Monitoring plan including KPIs

Scheduling of
activities to enact
the strategy
TIMEFRA
ME
Costing Roles
and
responsibi
lities
COORDINATI
ON &
MONITORIN
G
KPIs
Research target
groups
3 months $500 Marketing
assistants
Marketing
manager &
team to do
the research
Sales
increase
Identify suitable
areas/suburbs
3 months $500 Managem
ent team
Finance &
marketing
team to plan
the new
store
Sales
increase
Introduce online
shopping
1 months $500 Marketing
assistants
Marketing
manager &
team to do
the research
Customer
increse
Come up with
competition
games for online
promotion
1 months $200 Marketing
assistants
Marketing
manager &
team to do
the research
The
amount of
people
entering
the
competiti
on
Create content
for online
advertising/prom
otion
2 months $2500 Art
creative
personnel
/team
Marketing
manager &
team to do
the research
The
amount of
people
entering
into
Houzit
website
during the
campaign.
Implement the
activity
1 months $5000 Marketing
team
Marketing
manager &
team to do
the research
The
amount of
people
entering
into
Houzit
website
Monitoring
results
1 months $1000 Marketing
manager
Marketing
manager &
team to
estimate the
result
Customer
satisfactio
n
Implement stores 6 months $100 00 Managem Finance & Sales

expansion ent team marketing
team to
implement
stores
increase
Hire new staff for
expansion
training
1 months $10000 HR team HR to do the
hiring and
find the
most
suitable
candidates
Sales
increase
KRA KPI
Sales Sales increase %
Promotion success The amount of people entering
the competition
Marketing performance The amount of people entering
into Houzit website during the
campaign.
Legal and ethical requirements
The Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) (the Corporations Act, or CA 2001) is an Act
of the Commonwealth of Australia which sets out the laws dealing with business
entities in Australia at federal and interstate level. It deals primarily with companies,
although it also deals with other entities, such as partnerships and managed
investment schemes. The Act is the primary basis of Australian corporations law
The ACMA is responsible for enforcing the Spam Act 2003, which prohibits
the sending of ‘unsolicited commercial electronic messages’ (known as spam) with
an 'Australian link'. A message has an Australian link if it originates or was
commissioned in Australia, or originates overseas but was sent to an address
accessed in Australia.
Anti-discrimination legislation - In Australia, it is unlawful to discriminate on
the basis of a number of protected attributes including age, disability, race, sex,
intersex status, gender identity and sexual orientation in certain areas of public life,
including education and employment.
Occupational health and safety (OHS) laws require employers and all other
workplace parties to consult and cooperate in the management of workplace risks, in
order to protect the health and safety of workers and others who might be at risk
from the work

The copyright law of Australia defines the legally enforceable rights of
creators of creative and artistic works under Australian law. ... Designs may be
covered by the Copyright Act as well as by the Design Act.
How tactics fits within the identified organizational resources and capabilities
The tactic fits the resources and capabilities of the organization as the tactics
are low in budget in relation to marketing budget, which align with the information
provided that the organization currently have low budget abilities to support
marketing activities.