Strategic Marketing Report: Digital Sense UK Market Expansion

This report presents a strategic marketing analysis for Digital Sense, a technology company offering data-related services. The report begins with an executive summary and then delves into a detailed analysis of the customer, competitors, market, and the external environment using PESTLE and SWOT analyses. It identifies key competitors like Amazon, CISCO, and DELL, and examines the UK market's attractiveness for technology companies. The analysis includes internal strategic assets and competencies, leading to the definition of strategic objectives. The execution strategy outlines creating an advantage, value positioning, brand equity management, and new business opportunities. A budget and timeline are also included. The report provides insights into market trends like AI, multi-cloud systems, and hybrid cloud approaches, emphasizing the importance of data security and management in the UK market. Appendices include segmentation tables, competitor analyses, Porter's Five Forces model, and customer feedback, providing comprehensive support for the strategic recommendations.

Service Marketing -
Service Audit

Table of Contents
1.0 Executive summary....................................................................................................................3
2.0 Analysis......................................................................................................................................4
2.1 Customer Analysis............................................................................................................4
2.2 Competitor Analysis.........................................................................................................4
2.3 Market Analysis................................................................................................................5
2.4 Environmental Analysis...................................................................................................5
2.5 SWOT Analysis ...............................................................................................................7
2.6 Internal Strategic assets and competencies.......................................................................8
2.7 Strategic objectives...........................................................................................................9
3.0 Execution Strategy ..................................................................................................................10
3.1 Creating advantage.........................................................................................................10
3.2 Value Positioning...........................................................................................................12
3.3 Building and managing the brand equity and relationship.............................................13
3.4 Energizing and leveraging the business.........................................................................13
3.5 Creating new business....................................................................................................14
4.0 Budget and Timeline ...............................................................................................................15
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................16
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................17
APPENDIX 1 : SEGMENTATION TABLE................................................................................22
APPENDIX 2 : COMPETITOR ANASLYSIS.............................................................................22
APPENDIX 3: PORTER'S FIVE FORCES MODEL...................................................................23
APPENDIX : PESTLE ANALYSIS..............................................................................................24
APPENDIX : INTERNAL STRATEGIC ASSETS AND COMPETENCIES.............................25
APPENDIX 6 : CUSTOMER RATING (POSITIVE & NEGATIVE).........................................25
APPENDIX 7 : GOOGLE Ads .....................................................................................................26
APPENDIX 8 : GROUP MEETING ............................................................................................26

1.0 Executive summary
The Digital Sense is a technology company which offers services related to data strategy,
data serve and data support to the customers. Services which are offered by the company
includes consultancy services, automation and machine learning, application and integration etc.
In this strategic marketing report various strategies will be identified which can be undertaken by
the company in the period of 2020 to 2024 (Abou-Shouk, Lim and Megicks, 2013). Such
strategies includes various tactics which can be used by the company, objectives which they have
to achieve during that period (Rogers, 2016). All these are based upon the analysis of the market
environment and the existing strategies of Digital Sense. For preparing a strategic marketing
report the strategic marketing process need to be undertaken.
In this project Digital Sense is chosen which was found in 2006 and supports other
organisations with secure and robust solutions. It mainly deals in provision of services such as
consulting, data analytics, automation, application and integration, mobility with managed
workspace, identity management, networks and connectivity, security and so on (Services of
Digital Sense, 2019). The top management of this entity has proposed to carry out expansion
within the confines of United Kingdom. The report consists of external as well as internal
analysis of new market environment with a view to feasibly gain access into the nation. Also, it
consists of execution strategy that would be implemented by corporation for ease of expansion in
new market place. The project consists of models such as SWOT, SMART objectives,
competitor analysis, Porter's Generic strategies and positioning map. Lastly, budgets is discussed
for execution of proposed market expansion.

INTRODUCTION
In the field of management, strategic management as well as strategic audit plays an
important role for performing business operations effectively for the purpose of long time
survival in market place. Strategic management refers to the process of formulation and
implementation of strategies and goals that are considered by the top management of a company
in order to plan for future. For this, a company develops a clear vision by developing long term
strategies as it helps in ascertaining essential procedures as well as resource allocations for
achieving specified goal (West, Ford and Ibrahim, 2015). In this, many kinds of strategies are
formulated such as business, corporate as well as functional which helps in managing operational
activities of an organisation. In addition to this, strategic audit refers to the detailed assessment
for knowing the company's actual position and determining whether a firm is meeting its
objectives effectively and efficiently or not. In other words, strategic audit means reviewing
business plan as well as strategies in order to identify the weaknesses or shortcomings and
execute the successful development of company.
2.0 Analysis
2.1 Customer Analysis
There are 5 types of customers which are found to be prevalent within the IT industry.
These are duly acknowledged to be transformational, heterogeneous, security conscious, price
conscious and slow & steady customers (Baker and Saren, 2016). In this relation, looking upon
the secured offerings of Digital Sense, the management has decided to target the customer
segment comprising of security conscious clients as the entity ensures security and safety of
systems and services at all times. In this relation, it is important for the firm to make sure that the
entity serves the customers of new market, namely, United Kingdom in an effective manner by
creating awareness among them about the secured IT services provided by company.
2.2 Competitor Analysis
The competition in global market place has grown over the period of time because of
which most of the companies consider to carry out expansion of their business operations at an
international scale so as to facilitate quick growth and development. In this regard, Digital Sense
is expanding within United Kingdom looking upon the lucrative infrastructural and other
facilities provided in this market place (Al Zaidi and Ahmad, 2019). Over the course of time, the

entity has gained extensive goodwill within the confines of Australia and thus the management
looks forward to experience the same brand image in new country. Digital Sense offers effective
and features for beating the large extent of rivalry prevailing within the global market place and
better serving the needs of international customers regarding the data services or centres. With
the expansion within UK, the entity intends to earn huge profitability as well as revenues
(Chernev, 2018). For this purpose, the management of Digital Sense is conducting competitor
analysis. As a result of this, the entity has inferred that the key market players or the direct
competitors within the IT industry of United Kingdom are Amazon, CISCO and DELL etc. as
these are globally renowned firms. Furthermore, the indirect competitors are identified to be
Octal IT Solution, Ballard Chalmers, Sunflower Lab, Rackspace and many more. In this relation,
it is required for Digital Sense to ensure that it incorporates innovation in its offerings to
significantly appeal to the population of UK and position its services among them in an effective
manner.
2.3 Market Analysis
Digital Sense is gaining access into the market of United Kingdom. This is an excellent
market for companies who intend to invest in technology industry. This owes to the booming
phase of this sector at present time. Post the European Union Referendum passed in the year
2016, tech industry in Britain has grown around 17.6%, in contrast to the overall growth of 5.5 %
for the economy as a whole (Technology is a bright spot for British economy, 2019). The success
of this sector owes to flexible labour market situations, world class universities and huge extent
of investor capital. Further, the diverse working population of UK also facilitates companies to
grow by leveraging the views and opinions put forward by individuals pertaining to different
cultural as well as national backgrounds. In addition to this, the success of tech industry is also
because of the support provided by state. In this relation, it is inferred that output delivered in
terms of computer programming on an hourly basis got raised by 16% between the years 2013
and 2018, opposed to 4% increase in overall economy (Overview of the UK's IT industry, 2019).
This implies that Digital Sense has a huge scope while entering this lucrative market. The
respective firm can offer high quality tech services to clients within the new nation and thereby
enhance its overall market share and brand value (Chaffey and Smith, 2017). The IT industry
within United Kingdom will continue to grow at a rapid pace in the next 5 years. The trends like
AI capabilities, multi-cloud systems, edge computing, hybrid cloud approach, extensive cloud

security would be dominating the market place by the year 2024 facilitating Digital Sense to
incorporate the same within organisational operations.
2.4 Environmental Analysis
Analysis of the external factors is important for the company as it has major influence on
the operations of the company. For Digital Sense the PESTLE analysis is done which will help
them to understand the impact of macro factors. As per the research the impact of various factors
are analysed which is given below:
 Political Factors: The political factors have impact on the decisions of the company as
the government of UK imposed various regulations on the companies with the aim to
protect the interest of the company (ALZahrani, 2016). Digital Sense provides services
related to data storage, data strategy, data support etc. due to which the government has
imposed various regulations for the issues of inadequate transparency, lack of
understanding among the clients and the users. The implication of the data protection by
the EU put pressure on the Digital Sense to publish transparent data and to make the data
protection policies accessible. All such implications will affect the company’s operations
as they have to change their way of doing business.
 Economic Factors: The data is present in the large volume with the company which
requires careful analysis of the data to get the proper insights. The general data protection
regulation of EU imposes various penalties on the Digital Sense company if they does not
meet up with any of the compliances (Amiri and Woodside, 2017). The another economic
impact on the company is to determine the balance between access and cost. This induces
the company to apply all the basic elements of the data strategy while estimating the cost.
It will have a positive impact on the Digital Sense as they can identify their exact cost.
 Social Factors: When the company deals with the data of the individuals and of the
companies then they have to be more conscious of the privacy and security concerns. The
Digital Sense offers clouding services to the customers due to which they have to more
transparent with them about the data centres and the authority to access to the centres etc.
This is because of growing concerns of the people in UK which is further expected to
grow in future with the growing awareness (Basu, 2016). It will bring transparency in the
operations of the business which will improve the trust of the customers on the company.

 Technological Factors: This is the most important factor which is to be considered by
the company as their services belong to the technological and innovation segment. The
impact of various connecting services and devices becomes a hurdle for the company as
the level of connecting services in UK has not yet reached the level of maturity. Further
the data management and the data aggregation is another issue in UK which has impact
on the operations as they have various other industries as their clients and they do not
have efficient data management applications (Beckett, 2017).
 Legal Factors: The companies in this industry are highly affected by the imposition of
various laws as the company are engaged with the data of the companies and the
individual itself. To protect the customer’s sentiments various impositions such as legal
framework for data protection reform has been imposed by EU. This implies that the
company has to follow various wide standards which are provided by the regulatory
bodies this limits the flexibility of the company (Bordonaba-Juste, Lucia-Palacios and
Polo-Redondo, 2012). Due to such imposition the Digital Sense has to consider various
laws so that they can satisfy their customers.
 Environmental Factors: The company is operating with technology products and
services which is they require high connectivity among the servers and the clients. The
climate and the weather has impact upon the operations as it affects the connectively. The
impact of this factor on Digital Sense is high but it cannot be determine when it can affect
as change in the climate cannot be determined (Calderón Ramírez and et. al, 2019).
All the factors will have impact on the operation of the company in the period for which the
research is being done as they all have long term impact. To cope up with such impact Digital
Sense need to undertake various steps such as formulation of specific strategies an their effective
implementation.
2.5 SWOT Analysis
To analyse the position the company in the industry, the analysis need to be done of the
strengths and weaknesses of the company in relation to the threats and opportunities they may
face. For this SWOT analysis will be done in context of Digital Sense :
Strengths Weaknesses
The company is a digital and technology When the company operates in such a dynamic

company which is why it is important for them
to introducing innovative services time to time.
The strengths of Digital Sense is that the
workplace technology of the company has
been updated in the recent year (Chang, Fang
and Tseng, 2012). Also they have highly
skilled, competent and innovative IT team
which can bring innovation efficiently.
environment they faces various weaknesses
which becomes hurdle in the digital
transformation strategy of the company. The
major weakness with the company is that the
employee has to navigate between number of
apps at the workplace throughout their day.
Opportunities Threats
The opportunities comes from the external
environment which has influence on the
business. Digital Sense has already moved to
software-as-a-service applications so they
have opportunity of consolidating multiple
applications in one technological stack.
The threats has impact on the businesses of the
company as with this the digital transformation
of the company becomes difficult. The threat
which can affect the operations of the Digital
Sense is new data security regulations (Christie
and Hepworth, 2014). Also the dependency of
the company on the gig economy affects the
prediction of the company of the future office
space requirement.
2.6 Internal Strategic assets and competencies
The internal assets of the company has to be aligned with the competencies in order to achieve
the goals and objectives of the company. For Digital Sense, the company need to analyse various
assets with the help of which they utilises their competencies etc. The perspectives which are to
be considered for analysing the strategic assets and the competencies of the company are:
 Financial Perspectives: The Digital Sense is using finance from various sources such as
the capital which is being invested in the company by the investors and along with this
they have been using other sources for financing (Combe, 2012). The company can
further procure funds by way of long term loans as they have plan of expansion further
they can use lease financing and hire purchase financing. The Digital Sense can easily
procure finance from these sources.

 Customer Perspective: The market share of the company is not exactly defined but still
the company has a significant position in the market. With the help of such share they can
expand their business in UK (Costa and et. al, 2013). As the company is operating in
Australia so they can be recognised by the people their but in UK they need to develop a
strong promotion campaign which will help them to make their brand recognisable. With
the help of such perspectives of the customers it will be easy for the company to expand
their business in UK.
 Internal Process Perspectives: The operations of the company are simple and
convenient which makes it easy to use by the customers as well. They provides their
services through their applications and even through their official websites. Digital Sense
supports various transactions and accepts payments in multi currency which helps the
company to operates in any country (Davis and Chaudhri, 2012).
 Learning and growth Perspective: As the company is operating at a very large scale so
their employees are also limited to a number of 50. Digital Sense provides various
trainings to them which makes their employees competent to adapt changes in the
technology such as web development, changes in the coding languages etc. All these
motivates an employee to learn new as they are provided ample opportunities to grow.
With such employees the company can easily expand their business in any country or
location (Delener, 2012).
2.7 Strategic objectives
The objective of the company is to increase their market share by 10% which will
further help them to increase their profitability by 15% within a period of 3 years. Such objective
can be achieved by the company by expanding their organisation in UK (Donnelly and et. al,
2012). The strategic objectives of the company are:
Strategic Objective: To increase the market share of the company:
Specific The company aims to expand their business in UK this will help them to increase
their total market share by 10% as initially it will not be possible for them to
target a lot of people than this (El-Gohary and Eid, 2012).
Measurable Such objectives can easily be measured by the company as this can measured in
terms of increasing number of customers of the company and an increase in the

numbers of user of their services.
Achievable The objectives can be achieved by the company with the help of various
promotional campaign. Also it can be achieved through loyalty programs of the
company which includes gaining customers trust and engagement (Énalan and
Soteriades, 2012).
Realistic The services so offered by Digital Sense are innovative which will help them to
attract more of customers. In addition to this various discounts, coupon codes will
be offered to the customers, along with this the strategy which will work is that of
customers satisfaction which can be done by analysing their perspective (Gomes
and et. al, 2014).
Timely The objectives is to be achieved within 3 years.
3.0 Execution Strategy
3.1 Creating advantage
To take sustainable competitive advantage it is important for the companies to adapt
strategic thinking. This will help them to cater the needs of the customers efficiently by adjusting
the strategies more quickly than the competitors. Such analysis can be done with the help of
Porter's generic model and by formulating various strategies by way of various tactics such as
marketing mix (Gonetecki Oliveira and Machado Toaldo, 2015).
With the help of Porter's generic model, the Digital Sense can chose a strategy which will
help them to take the competitive advantage. The competitive advantage can be defined as the
greater value to the customers than the competitors, this can be by providing the products at the
lower cost or by providing the differentiated products to the customers. The model of Porter's
suggest five forces which helps the company to adopt one out of them which helps them to take
the advantage (Grayson, Leiserson and Waikar, 2017). For Digital sense all the strategies are
taken into consideration and on the basis of this the most suitable one will be identified for the
company. The four strategies are:
 Cost leadership: Cost leadership is a strategy in which the aim of the organisation is to
provide the products to the customers at the lower cost. This can be done with the help of

mass production as it reduces the per unit cost of the products. It leads to little
differentiation among the products than the competitors (Grewal and Lilien, 2012).
Digital Sense can use this strategy by way of providing data services at a large scale such
as many user at one data centre will reduce the cost for and thus it will improve their
profitability level.
 Cost focus: In this strategy the company aims to take lower cost advantage but only for a
small number of market segment. This can be adopted by the Digital sense by providing
various services to the customers which are provided by other at higher prices. It will
make their customers feel delighted as they will provide data services at comparatively
lower cost but the services are similar to what other are providing at higher prices
(Guarda, Augusto and Silva, 2012).
 Differentiation leadership: This is a strategy in which organisations aims to provide
services which can be differentiated from that of the competitors. Such differentiation
can be in context of quality, features, benefits, durability etc (Janevski, 2012). Digital
Sense can efficiently adopt this strategy as it will help them to satisfy their customers
with unique services as the data which the customers stores with them are very important
which requires safety and security with innovation. But the prices which are charged by
the customers are high.
 Differentiation focus: In this strategy the company aims to provided differentiated
products and services only to the small number of specific market segment. With the
help of this strategy the need and requirements of the specific customers are considered.
The Digital sense can use this strategy which will help them to satisfy their specific
clients which are crucial for them by providing either customised or differentiated
services (Janom, Zakaria and Ariffin, 2012).
The most suitable strategy that can provide competitive advantage to Digital Sense is
Differentiation Focus in which they can initially provide unique services to their specific clients
while to other clients they can provide services with cost leadership strategy. This will facilitate
the company to take the advantage by serving different type of customers which will help them
to increase their market share gradually (Ji-ying, 2015).
Marketing tactics are the strategic methods and actions which facilitate the companies to
promote their goods and services which helps them to maximise their sales and to achieve their

goals. These marketing tactics will facilitate the company in achieving their long term vision by
keeping the employees and the organisation focussed (West, Ford and Ibrahim, 2015). Various
tactics can be adopted by the Digital Sense to achieve their business objectives such as:
The Digital Sense can use marketing mix tactics efficiently which will help them to
formulate strategies specifically such as:
 Product: The services which are offered by the company are related to data strategies
and solutions to various complex problems such as data serve, security and
protection, also they provide a pathway to cloud (Joseph, 2019). In the coming years
the coming to need to focus on these services as the technology is predominantly
shifting towards it.
 Price: In the coming years the coming need to expand their business which can be
done by them by moving to other economies. So while entering into new economy
they must enter with the competitive pricing strategy which will ensure their survival
in the new economy (Jupp and Bentley, 2014).
 Place: They provide their services through online medium that is with the help of
their website, further also they can use the same. But they need to have their persons
in fields that can represent the company before the customers (Kandulapati and
Shekhar Bellamkonda, 2014).
 Promotion: The promotional strategy is crucial from the company’s point of view as
they need to create awareness about their services to the customers which can be done
through advertising (Kotler, 2012). Their services can effectively be advertised online
through digital platform and even through magazines which contain innovative and
technological concerns.
The Digital Sense need to focus upon the strategic marketing which suggests various
tools and strategy.
 The tools which can be used by them are building the corporate identity, improving and
updating the websites so that the customer will get to know more about the company. The
focus need to be on the customers acquisition which can be done through direct mailing,
email marketing, online advertising etc (Lazaris and Vrechopoulos, 2014).
 The strategy which Digital Sense has to adopt is competitive position which can be
gained with the help of extensive marketing (Lee and Kao, 2015). They also need to