Strategic Marketing Plan Evaluation for Sampath Bank: Detailed Report

This report presents a comprehensive analysis of Sampath Bank's strategic marketing plan within the competitive Sri Lankan financial industry. It examines the role of strategic marketing, processes involved, and its alignment with corporate strategy. The report utilizes various strategic marketing models, including Porter's Five Forces, PESTLE, SWOT, and 4Ps, to evaluate the bank's micro and macro environments, strengths, weaknesses, and marketing tactics. It also explores appropriate marketing techniques, such as Ansoff's matrix, to identify growth opportunities and defines SMART marketing objectives. The report further assesses the impact of external environmental changes and identifies key emerging themes in marketing strategy, concluding with an evaluation of the overall plan's effectiveness. Secondary data from business journals and books are used to support the analysis, offering insights into the bank's positioning, product portfolio, pricing strategies, and promotional activities.

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Strategic marketing plan for Sampath Bank

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Table of Contents
Executive summary ....................................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3
1.1 Role of the strategic marketing in the organization ............................................................................... 3
1.2 Processes involves in strategic marketing .............................................................................................. 3
1.3 Strategic marketing and corporate strategy ........................................................................................... 4
2.1 Models used in strategic marketing planning ......................................................................................... 4
2.2 Strategic positioning and marketing tactics ............................................................................................ 5
3.1 Appropriate marketing techniques to ascertain growth opportunities in the market........................... 6
3.2 Strategic marketing objectives for a market. .......................................................................................... 6
4.1 Impact of changes in the external environment on a marketing strategy ............................................. 7
4.2 Strength and weakness of the marketing strategy ................................................................................. 8
4.3 Key emerging themes in marketing strategy .......................................................................................... 8
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................... 8
References .................................................................................................................................................... 9

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Executive summary
Sri Lankan financial industry is highly competitive since there are more than 20 commercial banks
and more than 50 financial institutes operate in Sri Lanka. Sampath bank is one of leading
commercial bank among them which operate since 1986. The purpose of this report is to
comprehensively analysis the strategic marketing plan of Sampath bank. Secondary data such
as business journal, magazine and subject related books have been referred to conduct this
study. Further strategic marketing tools such as PESTLE, marketing mix, Ansoff’s matrix, 4Ps
have been used for this study.
Introduction
Sampath Bank is one of leading commercial banks in Sri Lanka which has more than 230
branches all over the Sri Lanka. Sampath bank has product range covering personal banking,
corporate banking, international banking, project financing, treasury and many banking sectors
targeting different customer segments. Strategic marketing management use to implement
company mission through focused processes to get the best out of current market plan. Strategic
marketing can be defined as the process of creating superior customer value that create a great
shareholder value and competitive advantage. The purpose of this report is to critically evaluate
the strategic marketing plan of Sampath Bank.
1.1 Role of the strategic marketing in the organization
Strategic marketing is a role of strategic level in the organization. Strategic marketing is directly
linked to the overall business direction and market and portfolio decisions. Further investment
decisions, new product development and the overall competitive positioning are based on the
strategic marketing. A strategic marketing support to identify the potential markets, define
business objectives and also develop the growth strategies and execution programs (Kotler and
Keller, 2008). Further it support to reduce the threats from competitors and reduce the
uncertainties in dynamic external environments. Strategic marketing plan is used to improve the
company’s capabilities by allocating resources and developing core competencies to achieve the
competitive advantage. It establish a framework to function, monitor, control and integrate all the
efforts of the company.
1.2 Processes involves in strategic marketing
Main thing that management keep in mind is strategic management plan need to be aligned with
vision, mission and values of the business. Further management need to define the corporate
long term goals. Then company need to conduct environmental analysis. Company need to
conduct internal and external marketing audit. PESTEL analysis can be used for external
environment analysis. Competitor analysis is also come under external environmental analysis.
Porter’s five forces and competitor analysis can be conducted to perform task environment

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analysis. Portfolio analysis and value chain analysis need to be conducted to perform internal
analysis. Further SWOT and TOWS need to be performed to conduct situational analysis. Based
on all these analysis, gap need to be analyzed between current status and desired outcomes
(Kotler, 1996). Key issues need to be identified based on the gap analysis. Then company need
to develop financial and marketing objectives to fill the gaps. Further management need to identify
the critical success factors to achieve these objectives.
Then strategic direction need to be defined. Bank need to conduct the market segmentation which
bank to identify the different customer categories. Bank need to allocate resources requirements
to serve the different customers’ segment well. Different growth strategies need to use for different
customers’ segments to achieve the competitive advantages. Strategic marketing plan need to
do divide different marketing tactics and need to implement them. Further strategic marketing plan
need to monitor time to time. Key performance indicators need to be developed to monitor the
performance. Further methods such as benchmarking and balance scorecard can be used to
monitor the performances.
1.3 Strategic marketing and corporate strategy
Sampath bank’s vision is to be the growing force of in Sri Lankan financial services. And bank
mission is to create large pool of customer base by providing personalized, professional and
secured service with cutting edge quality and standards. Bank will delight their customers and
make them life time advocates of the business.
Corporate strategy of the bank is to decide the overall business direction. According to Sampath
bank vision, bank follows market and product development as growth strategies. Strategic
marketing helps to achieve the corporate strategy of the company through marketing mix
decisions to develop new products and new markets. Mainly strategic marketing focus on
customer segmentation, targeting and product positioning.
2.1 Models used in strategic marketing planning
Different models are used in various stage of the strategic marketing planning. Following models
are used to conduct the marketing audit.
Porter’s five forces analysis – this mode is used to comprehensively analysis the micro
environment of the business. Factors such as bargaining power of the customers, bargaining
power of the suppliers, threats of the rivalry, threats of new entrance and threats of substitutes
are considered in this model (Porter, 2005). According Porter’s five forces model, it can be
identified that industry competition is considerably high in Sri Lankan banking industry.
PESTLE analysis – PESTLE analysis is evaluated the macro environment of the analysis. This
analysis gives broad view of the whole environment in six different angle such as political,
economical, social, technological, environmental and legal. All these aspects are highly important
to any business in any industry. This analysis represent important part of the strategic
management more than just understanding the market.

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SWOT analysis – SWOT analysis is technique which use to identify the strengths, weaknesses,
opportunity and threats that bank face. Strengths and weaknesses are internal aspects and
opportunity and threats are external aspects.
Customer analysis – currently customers have many option in the banking sectors. Following
factors can be identified as important factors in the banking sector.
 Level of security.
 Reputation of the bank
 Service and accuracy of the service.
 Service quality and convenience.
Cristal success factors – below factors have been identified as critical success factors which helps
higher business growth.
 Proper customer engagement.
 Visionary leadership.
 Technological leadership
 Operational excellence
 Strong marketing and promotion arms
2.2 Strategic positioning and marketing tactics
Positioning drives marketing strategy since it create the target audience. Positioning outline the
product according to the requirements of the customers. Marketing tactics need to be developed
according to the overall strategic positioning. 4Ps model can be used to identify the marketing
tactics (Kotler, 2009).
Products – sampath bank has many products which cover different customer segments such as
personal banking, corporate banking, development banking, credit card, debit card and e banking
facilities. Following table shows the main products offering by the bank.
Table – 01 product portfolio of Sampath bank
Personal
banking
Corporate
banking
Development
banking
E banking Credit card and
debit card
Saving accounts Corporate credit Sampath bank
micro finance
program
Sampath net Visa credit card
Current
accounts
Commercial
credit
SME
development
loans
PAYEASY SET card
Children account
and teenage
accounts
Corporate
finance
E- wallet SET plus
Leasing Trade services SMS banking SET family cards
Housing loans Sampath
treasury
Tele banking

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Price – pricing of the product need to be decided based on the target market. Value based pricing
strategy us used in the bank to identify the needs of the different target markets. Bank has different
products to cover different customer segments such as children, youth, professionals and etc.
different pricing strategies need to be used for these different customer segments.
Place – products of sampath bank has been positioned in different customer segments all over
the Sri Lanka. Therefore bank network is highly important to the bank. Currently bank has more
than 230 branches all over the Sri Lanka. Further in current business environment, bank need to
take every possible steps towards enhancing the convenience digital marketing channels. Further
bank need to develop the facilities of website to improve the online banking capabilities.
Promotion – Mainly ATL (Above the line) and BTL (Below the line) promotional techniques are
used for marketing. ATL promotions such as TV, press and radio advertising can use to cover the
all the customer segments. Further social media can also use to promote the product among
young customers. On the other hand, BTL promotion such as sales promotions, direct marketing
and public relations also can use to target different customers’ segments.
3.1 Appropriate marketing techniques to ascertain growth
opportunities in the market
Ansoff’s matrix can be used to understand the growth strategies of Sampath Bank. The bank
currently follow market penetration, market development and product development strategies. In
market penetration strategy, bank need to increase the usage of existing loyal customers. Bank
need to mainly introduce strong loyalty scheme. Interesting sales promotion such as gift item,
special offers can be targeted existing customers. Sampath bank should consider more attention
to loyal and more profitable customers. Well target direct marketing method such as emails,
phone calls and personal selling can be used to promote existing products in existing markets.
Further bank need to promote new channels such as online banking and e banking. Further bank
improve their coverage year to year. In 2017 bank has opened 4 new branches.
New product development support to bank to expand into new market segments and diversify the
target customer range. Sampath bank recently introduce three new products called ladies first,
sampath my bank and visa paywave. Ladies first account is personal account which introduce to
empower the women. My bank account was introduced to provide convenient banking solutions
in rural and suburban areas. TV, radio and press advertisement can be used to improve the
product awareness.
3.2 Strategic marketing objectives for a market.
Proper marketing objectives should be SMART and refer the qualities such as specific,
measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound. Marketing objectives need to be developed to
help the corporate objectives (Graham, 2008). These objectives are mainly concerned about
market and products. Currently mainly bank consider to develop the digital banking and few
objectives are related to digital banking.

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 decrease the overall customer churn rate by 15% at the end of 2018
 improve the revenue generated from digital banking services by 40% within next two years
 improve the customer retention by 15% within next two years
 increase the advertising expenses by 20% for digital banking
 Increase the market share by 10% within next two years
4.1 Impact of changes in the external environment on a marketing
strategy
Macro environment refer the main external and uncontrollable factors that could impact to the
organization strategy (McDonald, 2008). Management need to highly consider the macro
environmental changes before make any strategic decision. PESTLE analysis can be used to
evaluate the external environment.
Table 02 – Macro environment analysis
Macro factor Implication
Political and legal
Increase of financial services VAT will impact to the profitability.
Banking services are expanding to the northern and eastern
province due to peaceful environment.
Economic
Instability of the share price due to downturn of share market.
Recent steady interest rate cause to encourage the investment.
Instability of the financial policy of the government has negatively
impact to the investment decision.
Sri Lankan rupee has been depreciated significantly
Social and cultural
IT knowledge of the people has been considerably improved and
people quickly move to e- banking from traditional banking. Further
busy life style of the people also cause to shift to the e- banking.
Increase the migration
Technological
E- Banking can be further developed due to availability of new
software.
Smart phone penetration has been increased significantly.
Ecological Customers are willing to work with environmental friendly
companies.
All these factors impact to marketing strategy of the bank and management need to change the
marketing strategies according to these environmental factors. Sri Lankan rupee is depreciated
against main currencies and therefore it would encourage outward remittance and discourage
outward remittance. Further mitigation also cause to increase the inward remittance.

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4.2 Strength and weakness of the marketing strategy
Below strengths and weaknesses can be identified in the marketing strategy.
Strength
 Focus on development of infrastructure, technology and people.
 Strong brand positioning.
 Having rich and broad customer base.
 Management recruits employees from different fields not only banking sector due to there
will be different kind of perspective.
 Ability to mitigate the threats of competitors and uncertainties.
Weaknesses
 Regular IT malfunction could be increase the customer satisfaction
 Lack of control due to some functions has been outsourced.
 Lack of consistent marketing strategy for digital marketing
 Too much analysis and planning but lack of execution
4.3 Key emerging themes in marketing strategy
Marketing strategy of Sampath bank highly consider on apply the new technology to the operation.
Digital baking is one of the main aspect of the strategy of the bank. According to BCG matrix,
digital marketing is a question mark which relatively market is low and market growth rate is high.
Therefore bank has taken new steps to enhance more digital channels. Web side need to be
improved with new features to make online banking much easier and effective. Further interface
of the website need to be user friendly and it should available with main three languages.
On the other hand, call center activities should be reorganized more effective way to provide
better service to customers. Digital marketing tools can also be used to effectively engage with
young generation.
Conclusion
Strategic marketing plan has been specifically focused on being growing force of the Sri Lankan
banking industry. Macro and micro factors were comprehensively analyzed to identify the gaps
between current situations to desired outcomes. Few important issues of Sampath bank
marketing strategy also have been identified and marketing tactic for growth strategies also have
been discussed here. Clear marketing objectives should be there in line with vision of the bank.
Therefore in this report has been identified marketing objectives which has SMART
characteristics.

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References
Kotler, P. and Keller, K. (2006) Marketing management. 12th edition. Prentice Hall.
Johnson G, Scholes K, (2008)-Exploring corporate strategy – Text & Cases – 6th Edition,Prentice
Hall
Kotler, P. et al (1996) Principles of marketing. 2nd edition. Prentice Hall.
Porter E M, (2005), What is strategy?, Harvard business review (July-August)
Kotler, P.et al (2009) Marketing management 13th edition. India, Dorling Kindersley Pvt. Ltd
Graham, H.J. et al (2008), Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning, 4th edition,Prentice
Hall
Doyle,P and Stern (2006) Marketing management and strategy 4th edition. England, Prentice Hall