The Essay Explores Marketing Concept, Marketing Mix, Communication Mix, Competitive Advantage.

Identify and explain the marketing concept, the marketing mix and the components of the marketing communications mix.

Explain the relationship between the marketing environment, its impact upon organisational decision making and consumer behaviour.

Discuss the factors that determine competitive advantage within organisations

Explain key theories, concepts and models underpinning business communication to create effective communications.

Examine and discuss organisational issues and challenges that impact on the effectiveness of business communication through the use of pre-defined criteria to assist in improving communication within the organisation.

Demonstrate an application of concepts and techniques related to business communication processes used within the workplace.

John Griffin established Addison Lee in the year 1975; the company is in the hire service sector and has recently gone through a number of changes to meet the changing demand of the industry.  Previously the company extended the service to only the business to business sector but recently it has also expanded in the consumer industry. The consumer industry is mostly focused on the mobile application that the company have on both IOS and android platforms. The organisation has over the span of 40 years of operation gathered goodwill among the stakeholders by offering premium quality consumer focused service. The policies of the company and the added features that are offered by the company are all consumer centric. All the cars are driven by well experienced drivers, have internet connectivity as well as mobile phone charger option (addisonlee.com 2017).

• To provide the customers with premium quality services with the help of innovation and creativity
• To increase the revenue of the company
• To encourage sustainable growth and expansion of the business
  

Production: Addison Lee is a company based in UK, London, which functions in the service sector. The company was previously focused on the business to business market and has recently shifted the gears towards the consumer market with the help of their mobile application. The website and the application are used for booking and the service is provided through private jets, minicabs, coaches and taxybikes.

Product: The service that is offered by the company is in the transportation sector, couriers, airport transfers etc. The consumer has the liberty to choose the type of service that they want form the company’s website or application and book the vehicle. The service offers diversified range of items like executive service, travel agents, same day or next day courier service etc (Armstrong et al. 2014).  

Selling: In order to sell the service the company has come up with several upgraded features like no surge chargers during the peak hours, internet connectivity in all vehicles, 3 months advance booking facility, financial flexibility etc  are some of the selling points of the service.

Market orientation: To improve the service the company focuses on the requirement of the clients and improves according to the feedbacks. The company heirs experienced and responsible drivers only to avoid complains and mishaps (addisonlee.com 2017).

The first orientation that is developed by the company is based on consumer needs is the launch of the mobile application. The company recognizes the changes that technology has brought around the industry and how important mobile phone and internet connectivity has become. The organisation used the launch of the application as an opportunity as well to expand in the consumer industry from focusing to being a Business to business service.

Another orientation is the additional features that the company has developed to improve the experience of the consumers. Prompt pick up time, no surge charges during the peak hours, internet connections etc are some of the additional features. The company also ensures that the requirement of the customers demand is met hence has increased the number of vehicles. The divers who are employed by the company go through a test and then skill development process before servicing the clients, the focus of this test is on navigation, city driving skills and customer service (Lee and Kotler 2015).

Evolution of Marketing

Every organisation operates in a market environment that directly or indirectly impacts the operations of the business on a daily basis, while the internal business environment is under the control of the company the external environment are not.

Political: The Administration of the government in which the company operates impacts the operation of business. Addison Lee has to abide by the rules and guidelines laid by the respective authoritative units (Gupta 2013).   

Economic: The purchasing power of the people is a direct reflection of the economy in which the company is operating. Rates of inflation or depression also impact the business.

Social: the service that the company provides is an example of an elevated lifestyle and standard of living lead by the society and hence the change in the society impacts the operation of business.  

Technological: Both the modes of operation of business in technology based the website and the Application (Gupta 2013).  

As mentioned above the purchasing power of the target market is one of the most important economic factors that affect the business. Based on the market segmentation the company should price the service and demographic of the market segmentation process includes the income of the people (Armstrong et al. 2014).   

The society plays a large role the sector of service that Addison Lee operates in as the mindset of the people would ensure the kind of response the service would get from the target market. The usage and the application of internet are significant in the process of business operation of Addison Lee. For instance, if the people would consider technology as unimportant then the operation of the company would have been different (Lee and Kotler 2015).

Market segmentation is a step that is included in the strategic management process. This method ensures that the company is focused on the target market. The target market is the portion of the population who have the potential to avail the service or product that is offered by the company. The market of segmented in four categories: demographic, behavioral, physiographic and geographic. It is important for Addison Lee to concentrate on the market segmentation to make sure that the strategies that are implemented by the company are efficient and are being able to meet the objective set by the organisation (Lee and Kotler 2015).  

Previously Addison Lee was known to be a company that caters only to the business requirements. The company has recently ventured in to the consumer sector and has immediately gained good reputation form the customers. The company is now more focused on working on the areas of weakness, as discussed; one of the major disadvantages is that the price list of the company is not on the affordable side. In the case provided the demographic segmentation of the strategy in terms of the age group has been stated as 16 – 25-year olds. The other two market segmentation approaches involved in this case are behavioral and psychographic.

Behavioral: The company states that the idea is to target the young people and hence the behavioral pattern that can be analyzed is a group which is mostly dependent on someone else for finance and then there is a group which has just started earning therefore their spending habits’ will be restricted hence the low price point. The behavioral pattern of the people should have a pattern of spending on items which may not be always necessary (Cross et al. 2015).

Two orientations adopted by Addison Lee

Psychographic: The groups of people that will be targeted by this strategy want the service to be swift and prompt. Young people are less patient hence the 10 minutes gap should be reduced to 8. Another psychographic segmentation includes people who are willing to spend on a private cab hire service than take the public transport in order to save the cash (Fleisher and Bensoussan 2015).

Product: Addison lee is a company that functions in the service sector, hire along with courier are some the services provided by the company. The mode of transport that is available at the disposal of the company is Minicabs, taxi bikes, coaches and private jets. Addison lee is a consumer centric organisation that formulates all the policies keeping in mind the consumers of the organisation(Lee and Kotler 2015).

Price: The position of the company is exclusive business class and hence the price point of the service is also on the higher end, but Addison Lee is also venturing in a budget friendly option targeting the younger group of people.

Place: Addison lee is a UK based organisation that mainly focuses the service in and around London along with other cities of UK (Khan 2014).

Promotion: The Company has recently developed a promotional campaign, most of the focus is on the digital marketing medium, and the selection of the medium is based on the service operation mode that they provide. Customized services for regular users are a promotional tactics that is also used by the company (Lee and Kotler 2015).

Physical evidence: In the service sector the aspects associated with the experience are the physical evidence, the cars used; the mobile application interface and the official website of the company are some of the physical evidence of the service. The Company has also recently rebranded to a black and yellow color scheme which adds value to the service (Fleisher and Bensoussan 2015).

People: The stakeholders of the company are the employees who deal with the clients, the divers who are basically the face of the organisation, the management of the organisation and the most important stakeholder are the consumers.

Process: The process of operation of business is very simple for the ones who are used to a Smartphone as 50 percent of the business progresses with the help of the application. Another process is by accessing the official website (Lee and Kotler 2015).

Conclusion 

Addison lee is a company that has resources and right objectives to grow and expand the business instead of increasing the geographical reach the company is focusing on increasing the consumers in order to create and improve valuable customer relation. The company is motivated to work with the requirement of the consumers and hence build a valuable relation. The focus on the quality is one of the major strengths, whereas the price is the weakness and the company recognizes the importance of both the situations. The company is also in favor of sustainable development and is working towards reducing carbon footprint.

References

addisonlee.com. 2017. About. [online] Available at: https://www.addisonlee.com/services/about/ [Accessed 12 DEC. 2017].

Ali, T., Alam, A. and Ali, J., 2015. Market structure analysis of health and wellness food products in India. British Food Journal, 117(7), pp.1859-1871.

Armstrong, G., Adam, S., Denize, S. and Kotler, P., 2014. Principles of marketing. Pearson Australia. 

Cross, J.C., Belich, T.J. and Rudelius, W., 2015. How marketing managers use market segmentation: An exploratory study. In Proceedings of the 1990 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 531-536). Springer, Cham.

Daellenbach, U., 2014. Competitor Analysis. Wiley Encyclopedia of Management.

Fleisher, C.S. and Bensoussan, B.E., 2015. Business and competitive analysis: effective application of new and classic methods. FT Press.

Gupta, A., 2013. Environmental and pest analysis: An approach to external business environment. Merit Research Journal of Art, Social Science and Humanities, 1(2), pp.13-17.

Jin, J., Ji, P. and Gu, R., 2016. Identifying comparative customer requirements from product online reviews for competitor analysis. Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, 49, pp.61-73.

Khan, M.T., 2014. The concept of'marketing mix'and its elements (a conceptual review paper). International journal of information, business and management, 6(2), p.95.

Lee, N.R. and Kotler, P., 2015. Social marketing: Changing behaviors for good. Sage Publications.

Zugno, M., Morales, J.M., Pinson, P. and Madsen, H., 2013. A bilevel model for electricity retailers' participation in a demand response market environment. Energy Economics, 36, pp.182-197.