Market Opportunities For Logan Together's Robotic Toys

Strengths and Weaknesses of Logan Together's Robotic Toy

Discuss about the Opportunity Analysis of Logan Together.

The purpose of this report to analyse the opportunities for a non-profit organisation of Australia, which is Logan Together as they are going to manufacture and sell a trending toy product (Logantogether.org.au, 2018). The product has been designed alike the mascot of their organisation, which is a baby duck. It is a special line of robotic toys manufactured and designed by professional team appointed by the Logan Together itself. The idea of producing such toys which could unbox itself, generated from the trending unboxing videos on YouTube. This report will elaborate the market opportunity of this toy brand as Logan Together has framed the plan to enrich their fund with the revenue from this newly developed toy product. The organisation is one of the leading NGOs in Australia, which work for arranging better education and lifestyle for native unprivileged children (Cox 2018). They have developed this unique product to attract the attention of the age group under 8 years. This report will shed light on the strengths and weakness as well as analyse the market threats and future opportunities of the above mentioned NGO. The following report will focus on the organisation’s every aspect of market opportunities.

The NGO Logan Together initiated the production of this robotic toy following the trend of unboxing videos on YouTube. As it is a non-profit organisation, they face financial hindrance while satisfying social needs. Considering the need to recover from this crisis the company has initiated a business venture, which is partly commercial though. They believe, the idea of selling a robotic toy maintaining the structure of Logan Together’s mascot is going to help them to raise the fund.  There are certain strengths and weakness of the company that will determine their success in the commercial platform.

In America, there are some toy companies, which have already developed these kind of products. The idea was officially started to occupy the toy manufacturer companies in the year of 2016 and for the sake of marketing; they took the help of advertisements on television, digital platforms and social networks. Since then, children are fond of playing with these type of kits. The toy is a robotic creature that would be able to hatch itself from an egg (Caleb-Solly et al. 2014 ). There will be additional accessories along with the toy with which children can dress them up like a doctor, nurse, police officer etc. In Australia, this concept is quite new and Logan Together is looking forward to gather a considerable amount of profit by introducing this unique product to the market. The toy will be sold through a network of their trusted distributer, various toy stores around Australia and via virtual shopping sites as well. The aim is to build the organisation so strong financially that they can be successful in their future attempts.

Opportunities and Threats for Logan Together's Robotic Toy

Following the contemporary market trend Logan Together has planned to promote their product. PESTEL analysis discusses the political, economic, socio-cultural and technological factors that may influence one industry while planning the business venture.

• Political factors- The political factors may have strong impact on the future prospective of a business organisation. The stability of the government, taxation policies of the certain country, foreign trade rules and the legal process of social welfare; all of these factors are considerable while assuming the profitability of the industry. Australian taxation policies are not than stubborn and the charge is comparatively low than other nations. Non-profit organisations face issues to implement their work due to lack of money most of the time. The Government often sanctions grant for them to receive public support generally. Here in order to serve the community needs, the Government has praised the initiative of this Australian NGO, and there is a hope of receiving a grant from their end.
• Economic factors- Due to the decline of global economic condition in Australia, the non-profit organisations are facing problems. The situation leads to a demand of raising the fund for these organisations around the country and this is a continuous challenge for them to receive the return against the invested amount. Moreover, as the rate of unemployment has increased, this is restricting the opportunity of this industry towards the universal financial imbalance (Arvidson and Lyon 2014). Considering the downturn in the market, the non-profit organisations are cutting their expenses and seeking for fundraising, yet the overall economic condition of the country is not allowing the entrepreneurs as well as the government to provide them monetary support (Luke and Chu 2013). On the other hand, the demand for community services has increased for the organisations who work for health and the welfare of children and young population mostly. In this scenario, the idea of self-financing in order to serve the society is really going to be helpful Logan Together. There is a tendency of maintaining a long-term relationship with the sponsors and supporters that can be seen among this kind of non-profit organisations (Cox, Statham and Olive 2018). The maintenance of relationship helps those NGOs to collect fund whenever emergency arises (Butler and Wilson 2015).
• Socio-cultural factors- This special line of robotic toys was launched just two years ago for the first time in America and within this short span of time; it has gained immense popularity not only among children but among the adults as well. Australian kids are familiar with those toys yet it can be easily assumed that something native and local will be more appealing to them. The organisation is expecting the same response from Australian market as well. Where there is popularity, market competition cannot be far behind. There are existing toy brands in Australia those can be the competitors of this robotic ducks. Simultaneously, other NGOs seeking for fundraising can be competitors of Logan Together though it is tough for non-profit organisations to invest as huge as they have done primarily based on business assumptions.
• Technological factors- As far as the current popularity of the robotic toys is concerned, this has established a positive brand image outside Australia. Every child of today’s age is more technologically advanced than the previous generation. The organisation has assumed that a robotic toy duck with unique features would satisfy a child’s imagination as well as help them to learn new facts about animals.
• Legal factors- Australia has a business friendly atmosphere as far as legal issues are concerned. Australian legislature system strictly protect consumers and their community. The system supports fair trading policies and competition. There are certain laws to govern business communications between the company, customers and suppliers. The laws protect the right of business owners in the case of any conflict.

The organisation has managed to gain success on their previous campaigns by following their own visionary management team. The management has framed all the strategies with a wise vision and they are expecting this unique concept will work really well to increase the revenue.

Children are always enthusiastic about toys irrespective of countries. There are hardly any variations in the matter of toys. Segmentations are done according to the gender mostly. In this situation, the demand for this kind robotic toy is extremely high in United States just after its debut and Australian kids are also interested and familiar with this via internet. The organisation initially has announced the toy would be appealing for girls between the age group of 6 to 8 but after a detail market research, the result is showing that the interest has grown among boys and adults as well. According to a recent study, the use of these robotic toys has been proven beneficial for the skill development of autistic children (Qidwai, Shakir and Connor 2013). As Logan Together works for children and the young population mostly, it will be a good marketing strategy for the product to get into the market of Australia. It is a noble chance for Australians to contribute in the welfare of unprivileged children by buying this product ( Pinho, Rodrigues and Dibb 2014). Therefore, the target market for this line of toys would be growing children. They are expecting a good amount of profit out of it as the product is unique in features and it is introducing itself in Australian market with a noble cause.

• Strengths – Strengths are defined as the strong points of a business organisation depending on which dimensions the company frames its future possibilities. In this case, it has been observed that robotic toys have a contemporary appeal over the children and the popularity is extensive among the youth population. There is no doubt that their brand name would help them to promote themselves in Australian market. At the same time, the popularity would make this toy product acceptable. The product comes with an entire different and creative concept that will attract the additional audiences beyond the target market. The accessories they are going provide, it seems that children find it interesting to have an elaborated kit to play. Simultaneously, its exceptional nature attracts the attention of the market from conventional toys. It will be acceptable in Australia as well not because of its brand image and popularity, the urge of serving the community will enhance its acceptability too.
• Weakness- As the product has been created considering the demand of an unconventional and creative toy material, it is obvious that in order to do that a large amount of capital has been invested while manufacturing. As a result of it the price of those toys will be too high to be sold in a country like Australia where people are facing issues of global economic crisis. Logan Together is seeking for fundraising. Presently hardly any investor in the market except the Government and some local supporters are financing their noble purpose (Anheier 2014). In this financial crisis, Australian market can accept this expensive product or not that is questionable.
• Opportunities- Opportunity is understood as the future possibilities of the organisation under the current business environment. At the time of developing the concept of the toy, the company focused on skill enhancement of the children along with their refreshment (Stephen, Stevenson, and Adey 2013). These days’ parents emphasize on their children’s studies more than any other activities (Hembree-Kigin, and McNeil 2013). This unique concept is making them invest in toys which demonstrate themselves as beneficial to increase knowledge of small children (McPake, Plowman and Stephen 2013). In a situation of economic distress there is a high demand of social welfare, there is an opportunity of Logan Together to raise fund by receiving the grant from government and native entrepreneurs.
• Threats- The initiative of this Australian NGO can influence other Australian toy companies to invest or to support such NGOs for better exposure in the market as well as in the environment of financial imbalance, there are existing NGOs other than Logan Together, they can be the choice of investors as well. However, managing the expense for a non-profit organisation can be the greatest threat.

Conclusion

The conclusion can be drawn after evaluating all the parameters, that the key issues, Logan Together is going to face in order to introduce their own toy brand, are linked with the global economic crisis. There is a high demand of NGOs in a society due to the disturbed social environment. The initiative can bring high opportunity for a non-profit organisation like Logan Together to be financially strong. It will be certainly beneficial for Logan Together to collect fund and execute social needs. The amount of investment on manufacturing, designing and recruiting professionals for this venture might be higher than the planned budget in future. As an ultimate result the organisation might suffer from overall lose.However, the future marketing plan and strategy should be based on the opportunity analysis because both commercial and social benefit will occur if proper vision and promotional techniques are implemented.

References

Anheier, H.K., 2014. Nonprofit organizations: Theory, management, policy. Routledge.

Arvidson, M. and Lyon, F., 2014. Social impact measurement and non-profit organisations: compliance, resistance, and promotion. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 25(4), pp.869-886.

Butler, R. and Wilson, D.C., 2015. Managing voluntary and non-profit organizations: Strategy and structure. Routledge.

Caleb-Solly, P., Dogramadzi, S., Ellender, D., Fear, T. and Heuvel, H.V.D., 2014, March. A mixed-method approach to evoke creative and holistic thinking about robots in a home environment. In Proceedings of the 2014 ACM/IEEE international conference on Human-robot interaction (pp. 374-381). ACM.

Carlos Pinho, J., Paula Rodrigues, A. and Dibb, S., 2014. The role of corporate culture, market orientation and organisational commitment in organisational performance: the case of non-profit organisations. Journal of Management Development, 33(4), pp.374-398.

Cox, M. (2018). Logan Together: how working across sectors for our kids is the answer to everything. International Journal of Integrated Care, 18(s1), p.62.

Cox, M., Statham, M. and Olive, G. 2018. The complexity of partnering across sectors and community, a case example of Logan Together. International Journal of Integrated Care, 18(s1), p.103.

Hembree-Kigin, T.L. and McNeil, C.B., 2013. Parent—child interaction therapy. Springer Science & Business Media.

Luke, B. and Chu, V., 2013. Social enterprise versus social entrepreneurship: An examination of the ‘why’and ‘how’in pursuing social change. International Small Business Journal, 31(7), pp.764-784.

McPake, J., Plowman, L. and Stephen, C., 2013. Pre?school children creating and communicating with digital technologies in the home. British Journal of Educational Technology, 44(3), pp.421-431.

Qidwai, U., Shakir, M. and Connor, O.B., 2013, November. Robotic toys for autistic children: innovative tools for teaching and treatment. In GCC Conference and Exhibition (GCC), 2013 7th IEEE (pp. 188-192). IEEE.

Stephen, C., Stevenson, O. and Adey, C., 2013. Young children engaging with technologies at home: The influence of family context. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 11(2), pp.149-164.

Logantogether.org.au, 2018 Logan Together available at https://logantogether.org.au/ [Accessed on: 02.07.2018]