Marketing Management Report: Massimo's Market Position Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive marketing analysis of Massimo, a Malaysian bakery chain. It begins with an introduction to marketing management and then presents an overview of Massimo's current market position, highlighting its history, mission, product offerings, competitive advantages, and key competitors like Gardenia. The report then delves into internal factors such as the company's value system, mission and vision, organizational structure, human resources, and brand image. Following this, the report explores external factors, including both micro and macro environmental elements. Micro factors discussed are suppliers, customers, marketing intermediaries, and competitors. Macro factors include political, economic, social, technological, and legal factors. The analysis considers how these factors create opportunities and threats for Massimo. Finally, the report concludes with recommendations for marketing actions aimed at improving Massimo's position in the Malaysian market, considering the challenges of increasing competition and changing consumer preferences. The report uses the provided assignment brief and focuses on strategies to enhance the company's performance.

RUNNING HEAD: MARKETING MANAGEMENT
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Marketing Management

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Introduction
Marketing management is considered as the process that includes planning, controlling and
organizing activities related to marketing policies, programs, tactics and strategies with the
motive of satisfying the needs and demands of customers by offering products and services of
the firm on an acceptable profit (Baker and Saren, 2016). The marketing strategies or tactics
are formulated by analyzing the internal and external factors in which an organization
operates. In order to understand the concept of marketing management, an organization has
been selected that is “Massimo”.
Massimo is a small and mid-size company in Malaysia that operates in the bakery segment.
This report highlights the external factors and internal factors that impact on the operations of
Massimo. Further, opportunities and threats for the company in the bakery industry are
identified considering the current position; future strategies are formulated in order to
improve the current position of the company. Further, the internal factors that are explained
below are the value system followed by the company, mission, and vision, organization
structure and resources. The external factors highlighted in this report are macro factors and
micro factors. At last conclusions and recommendations are given to improve the position of
the company in the Malaysian market.
Current market position
Massimo is a Malaysian bakery chain that was founded in 2011 and owned by Italian bakery
Sdn Bhd. The company offers bread and buns across Malaysia and invested MYR120 for
setting up of an automatic bakery plant in Island (Massimo, 2020). The company produces
24,000 buns and 16,000 loaves on a daily basis, its bread packed in three colors as it indicates

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the Italian flag. Massimo's mission is to provide “wholesome goodness maximum
satisfaction” (Barbieri et.al,2018).
The company main focus is on providing whole-wheat products to its customers and this
helps the company to maintain its competitive position in the market. The key competitors in
the bakery industry for Massimo are Gardenia and Silver group bird Berhad and due to
increasing competition in the industry sales of Massimo dropped by 6.12% in 2018. In 2019,
the revenue generated by the company was RM155 million. The revenues of the company
decreased by RM 0.2 billion because of the higher operating cost of bakeries (Harman, 2018).
At present, Massimo is struggling to compete in the baker segment because of increasing
competition, higher operating costs, and changing the business environment. Massimo gains
an advantage at present in terms of its quality as most people chose Massimo bread over
gardenia bread and products due to quality factors. Currently, the main focus of this company
is on bread, Massimo bread is famous and preferred by most people in Malaysia. The
company at present has a wide variety of products such as sausages bun, bread, cream rolls
series, fine wholemeal and wheat loaves. Massimo's competitive advantage or USP is its
quality of bread and its promotion and pricing strategies. The company offers products at
low prices as compare to its competitors Gardenia (Dangelico et.al,2019).
Internal Factors
Internal factors in the business environment are those that affect the business immediately.
Some of the internal factors that have a direct impact on Massimo operations are human
resources, technology, value system, mission and vision, and organization structure. In order
to survive in the market, it is important to balance internal factors according to external forces
(Dolnicar et.al,2018).

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Value system
Massimo denotes prestige and luxury and embedded traditional values in its system with
modern techniques or design. The company adopted the Italian approach in processing and
manufacturing of its products. Massimo is dedicated and passionate about using fresh
ingredients in order to ensure healthy and wholesome products. Their values include using
fresh ingredients, sustainability and ensuring a healthy lifestyle to its customers. This
indicates a company’s commitment to customer, integrity, and passion for providing quality
products (Priem et.al,2018).
Mission & objectives
The mission statement of Massimo is “to strengthen the leadership position in core businesses
in Malaysia, expand regionally for growth and investing in activities with the motive of
increasing shareholder value, in a socially and environmentally responsible manner through
management excellence” (Massimo, 2020).
The vision statement of Massimo is “to be a leader in the market in its core businesses by
providing sustainable quality products to its customers”.
From the mission and vision statement, it is analyzed that the company works as per the
organization direction as it provides healthy products to its target customers, meet the
demand of its customer using sustainable practices and policies. Sometimes, it can be said
that Massimo will be a market leader in the bakery segment and especially for bread and buns
(Massimo, 2020).
Organization structure
Massimo mainly produces bread and buns and for that, the company uses technologies in
order to stay ahead in terms of competition. The company has a functional structure that

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includes different departments according to the functions performed to sell and manufactures
the products. Massimo has different segments for each process such as dough mixing,
rounding, and molding. This section is handled by the production manager, sales and
marketing segment is handled by the marketing manager and so on. A hierarchical system is
followed in which information is communicated from top to bottom or from bottom to top or
from superior to subordinate (Gleim et.al,2019).
Human resources
The company has a strong and talented workforce for baking, marketing and selling products
to customers. The company has a strength of 3500 workers across all its units. Further, top
management and executives are skilled and have the ability to compete in the market with its
main competitors by focusing on marketing strategies. Human resources are considered as an
asset of an organization that helps to get a competitive advantage in the market as these
resources cannot be imitated or copied by any organization (Petrick, 2017).
Brand or company image
The company image in the market is positive and strong; Massimo is famous for its soft, tasty
and quality bread and buns. The brand image of Massimo is developed because of its strong
place strategies and promotion strategies. On the other side, the company is able to compete
with Gardenia on the basis of price. The promotion strategy used by the company in order to
make people aware and build positive goodwill of the product in the market is advertising
and internet marketing (Lucas and Verry, 2016). The company uses tagline “wholesome
goodness, maximum satisfaction” in order to aware customers of their products. The brand
image directly impacts the operations of a business as a positive brand image leads to more
demand for the product.

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Other factors
Innovation and Research & Development nowadays are considered an important factor in any
organization in order to compete and attract a large customer base. Massimo invested a huge
amount in its automatic bakery plant that is the strength of the company as research &
development and innovating products help to attract more customers and to grow in the
market. There are many other factors that impact the organization's operations such as
quality of infrastructure, decision-making process, and financial performance. Massimo has
strong infrastructure, and skilled managers to take decisions but the company is lacking in
terms of financial performance because of a decrease in revenues and sales of the company
due to increasing operating costs and competition (Massimo,2020).
External Factors
External factors are divided into two categories that are micro factors and macro-level
factors. Microenvironment factors are those that are connected with the organization directly
such as suppliers, customers, competitors, and market intermediaries.
Micro Factors
Suppliers: Suppliers are also considered as the important factor that impacts on the business
operations mainly in manufacturing units. Massimo also depends on its supplier as for raw
material like sugar and wheat. Any change in suppliers affects the whole supply chain of
Massimo. The bargaining power of suppliers in this industry is higher as they have the
power to control prices of raw material as shift by the company to another supplier is time-
consuming and might affect the price and product quality (Mahadin et.al,2017).

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Customers: Massimo targets low to medium income group who mainly focus on quality and
convenience factors while making a purchasing decision. Any change in habits or demand of
customers directly impacts on Massimo operations. Massimo covers the peninsula Malaysia
and West Malaysia with its product. However, the company has a presence across Malaysia
(Kumar and Reinartz,2016).
Marketing intermediaries: Massimo uses a level distribution channel due to that there is
only one intermediary between the company and customers that is the retailer. For instance,
Massimo in order to offer products at a low price choose one intermediary channel that starts
with the manufacturer, retailer and then consumers. Market intermediary affects the company
because it is considered as the source by which the company is able to distribute its products
to customers on time. Retailers for Massimo are supermarkets, hypermarket and foods and
grocery stores (PPB,2018).
Competitors: The competitors are the ones who affect business operations to a greater
extent. Massimo competes with Gardenia and five stars in the bakery segment. Gardenia is
the biggest competitor of Massimo in terms of products and prices. Gardenia covers 62.9% of
share in Malaysia market and Massimo covers remaining share. Any changes in the strategy
of competitor’s impact on Massimo marketing strategy as in order to compete and grow
companies need to focus on its competitor strategy. For instance any change in prices of
bread by Gardenia impacts on sales of Massimo.
Employees: Employees are the strength of any organization as the success and growth of any
firm depend on human factors. Massimo focuses on conducting various activities for skill
development of its employees and to boost creativity and innovation. Any changes in
employees lead to change in the organization structure, working pattern, and goals of an
organization (PPB,2018).

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Macro Factors
Macro environment factors are those that indirectly impact business operations. These factors
are political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors (Armstrong
et.al, 2018). These factors vary according to industry and the scale of operations of an
organization. Massimo operates in the bakery industry in Malaysia and the factors that impact
on Massimo are:
Political Factors: The political factors include political stability, laws, rules and regulations
and taxation policies. In the context of the bakery industry, the Malaysian government
reduces the subsidy on sugar because of the increasing number of diabetes patients in the
country. This will impact the cost of production for Massimo as it directly leads to an
increase in price in order to maintain a profit margin (Sahin et.al,2019).
Economic Factors: Economic factors that can impact on the bakery industry are the
purchasing power of people, standard of living, and consumer price index. Massimo bread
targets high class and medium-class income group. If any changes happen in the purchasing
power and growth of the economy it impacts the operations of Italian bakers. Due to that
demand for Massimo bread can decrease and people the company needs to lower its prices in
order to attract more customers.
Social Factor: The social factors are related to the habits and lifestyle of people as any
changes in the mindset of people and their habit impact on the company operations. Some of
the social factors that create opportunities for Massimo bread are the adoption of western
lifestyle all across the world, increasing working-class people and reduced time for cooking.
Due to that, there are chances that the demand for bread and bakery product will increase in
the near future.

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Technological Factor: Technological factors in this modernization effect on each and every
industry and for bakery industry technological factor includes the use of the internet, and
automation in the production process in order to bring standard in products offered. Massimo
settled an automatic factory plant in order to compete with other players in the country in
terms of quality and accessibility in its operations (Sulaiman and Sabri,2017).
Legal Factors: The legal factors that affect the bakery industry in Malaysia are standards that
the companies need to follow in order to meet the quality aspect. Some of the legal factors are
licensing food hygiene and food labeling. Further, the poor governance activities are followed
by the company also impact on the operations of Massimo (Nawawi et.al,2018).
Environment Factor: Environment factors are sustainable agriculture practices, waste
reduction and activities related to the production process. The company also needs to follow
sustainability reporting in order to reduce the impact of its operations or activities on the
environment (Galli and Brunori,2017).
Opportunities and Threats
From the above analysis of internal and external factors the threats and opportunities that are
identified are;
Threats: Massimo bread facing stiff competition from Gardenia as the company compete in
terms of price and quality with Massimo and due to that stiff competition is a threat for
Massimo. Another threat that is identified from the above analysis is changing political
factors. The change in policies and tariff rates and subsidies by the Malaysian government
impact on the pricing strategy of Massimo bread due to that price will go up as a cost of
production will increase (Lau, 2019). Hence, from the analysis of the current market in
Malaysia, it is identified that increasing competition, the introduction of new products by

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bakeries and changing political situation are some threats that impact on Massimo. So the
company needs to focus on political factors, competition, and economic factors.
Opportunity: The opportunities that are identified from the above analysis for Massimo are
changing social factors and increasing professional class people due to that it can be
estimated that demand for bread in near future will increase and Massimo can focus on to
increase its market share in the near future by identifying in advance demand and requirement
of people in Malaysia. Further, the strengths of Massimo such as innovation, R&D and
value system of the company helps to take advantage of these opportunities (Massimo,2020).
The problems that the company might face is in organization structure as in order to compete
in the market and with Gardenia organization structure need to be updated and can opt for
matrix structure for manufacturing bread and bun in a heavy lots as the company has quality,
can compete in terms of price so all these strengths help Massimo to gain share in the market
by formulating marketing strategies as per the opportunities identified.
Recommendations to improve marketing action
It is recommended that threats that the company is facing can be overcome by focusing on
formulating strategies to increase market share. In order to do so, Massimo can change its
distribution channel and include wholesalers such as by attracting outlets like Subway and
McDonalds. Massimo can sell their breads to them in bulk this helps the company to increase
its market share and this also increases its sales and revenue.
On the other side, to compete with its competitors Italian Bakers need to boost its advertising
campaign as the brand awareness in the market is not that high. Most people still prefer
Gardenia because of the positive image of the brand in the market and awareness level
amongst the target customers. In order to attract more customers, Massimo also needs to

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change its promotion strategy and should opt for television advertising, internet marketing,
and sales promotion. The company can use pop link advertising and a Youtube channel that
give detail to customers about each and every range of the company’s product.
Price strategy and product strategy of Massimo bread are strong so there is no need for any
improvement in these two strategies as the company offers quality and taste both in its
product and at less than price to its competitors. On the other side, the company can improve
its place strategy by offering its product to various stores such as supermarkets and
hypermarkets. So that it can be available to customers whenever demanded. Hence, in the
above discussion, the company should focus on place strategy and promotion strategy in
order to overcome threats that the company is facing and to gain competitive advantage by
taking benefit from opportunities identified.
Conclusion
It is concluded from the analysis that Italian Bakers Sdn Bhd is a leading brand under that
Massimo bread is famous. The company operates in Malaysia and targets high and medium
class, income groups. From the above report, some internal and external factors have
identified that impact the Massimo operations such as political, legal, economic,
technological and environmental factors and other internal factors are human resource, value
system, organization structure and so on. Massimo bread might face challenges because of
subsidy reduced on sugar and because of increasing competition from Gardenia and Five
stars. The opportunities that the company gets are from the changing lifestyle of people
demand for baked products will increase and Massimo can increase its market share from this
opportunity. Further, considering the threats and opportunities it is recommended that
Massimo should change its place strategy and promotion strategy and its price and product
strategy can remain be same.

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