Introduction
In the current assignment we have taken the UK based JANUARY FURNITURE SHOW (JFS) into consideration. It brings some of the most ambitious global home decors business organizations to discuss regarding the art of creating a beautiful and comfortable home. It is one of UK’s largest exhibitions conducted for print industry with a heritage of 180 years of experience. It provides the world class decor and infrastructure solutions for almost all size of offices and homes. It provides a global platform for the manufacturers to show their unique creations. The JFS is held in January every year and is a three days event. The event attracts home decor solutions from across the world and is attended by close to 20,000 visitors and 400+ exhibitors (januaryfurnitureshow.com 2018). The event covers a display of all types of furniture starting from coffee table, dining table, glass table lamp etc.
The event had been a major hit in UK ever since inception. The event not only supports business houses but provides improved infrastructure for homes. The world class home decor technology and solutions are offered at nominal prices to newly set up offices. Recently the organisers have been attempting to take the event to a new international market. The new international marketing domain selected by the company was Spain whereas the targeted marketing niche was Barcelona.
The event is presided by a number of quality furniture producers such as ABrito, ACID Llimited, A’ design home product Inc.(ipex.org 2018). It had also been supported by a number of media partners such as the Guardian Media Group, Chelsea Magazine Company.
SWOT analysis of the event
The SWOT analysis of the event helps in the identification of the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities. Some of these have been further analysed for better understanding.
Strength Weakness
- Long heritage value associated with the event
- International reputation possessed by event (furniturenews.net 2018)
- Single platform depicting an array of home decor solutions to power business and homes ·Poor online presence
- High costs associated with the three days event often makes getting sponsorship difficult (Geldres-Weiss et al. 2016)
Opportunities Threats
- Increased international distribution (Varadarajan 2014)
- Supports education program though philanthropic activities
- Increased awareness regarding workplace ergonomics · Changing taste of customers
- Protection of the ownership of the newly conceived ideas
- Security concerns of the attendees
- Increased environmental concerns owing to emission of carbon particles
Therefore, based upon the above points success of the event could be predicted. In this case, the long heritage value associated with the event can give the event a competitive advantage (Howells et al. 2016). Based upon the reputation of the event, investors are attracted from across the world. As mentioned by Oumlil et al. (2015), reputation of an event can be used to build strategic partnerships. One of the weaknesses associated with the event is its poor online presence. As mentioned by Geldres-Weiss et al. (2016), the lack of an effective online presence can result in failure to attract a huge investor base. Integration of the business objectives with social media can help in attracting more customers. The event is frequented by a huge number of global leaders which can help in tying up with more number of distribution channels and partners. The new age home decor technology and solutions can make office work more comfortable. However as argued by Kalafsky and Sonnichsen (2015), there are threat concerns owing to the changing taste of customers and increase in the rate of carbon footprint emissions.
Relevance to target audience
The relevance of the event to the target audience to the event could be analysed with the help of socio-demographic data. The Hofstede’s cultural dimension could be broken down into a number of parameters which could be used to analyse the target market. Some of these are power distance index (PDI), individualism versus collectivism (IDV), masculinity versus feminity (MAS), uncertainty avoidance index (UAI), pragmatic versus normative, indulgence versus restraint.
The Spain market has been seen to be dominated by high PDI where there are mostly centralized organizations with complex hierarchies (Fromm et al. 2015). Therefore, pitching the products across the organizations would have been difficult owing to huge number of layers which has to be passed before the product makes a connection with the business objectives (Valverde et al. 2015). The Spain home decor market puts more emphasis upon comfort living. Therefore, promotion of a product across a developing segment of the market would result in high profitability (Weller et al. 2015). In high UAI, the fear of failure is high, which prevents one from adopting a more flexible attitude. This can make the small scale business organizations apprehensive before purchasing the new designs olutions.
On the other hand, a pragmatist view adopted by the business organizations would allow them to critically analyse the benefits and perks associated with a new product. As mentioned by Lyman (2017), the indulgence is further dependent upon the disposable economy of the country.
Communication styles:
The communication styles adopted are extremely important for the success of the business event. From the business perspective the communication style could be further divided into three types such as ethos, pathos and logos. The most adopted mode of communication by the business organizations is logos, as it will help the JFS organisers to present the facts and stats to the audiences (Deresky 2017).
Details of the theme and design of the event
The designing of the theme is very important to the success of an event which has to be done with the respect to the location. In this respect, the JFS organisers want to conduct a furniture trade show in the Barcelona city of Spain later in the year during the October-November sessions. Reports have shown that 74% of the people who visit the trade fair are looking to buy the new and revolutionised designs for their homes and office (januaryfurnitureshow.com 2018). Additionally, it provides some of the decor solutions at nominal prices for start ups. For the event, a memorandum of understanding has been signed with a number of Spain based companies.
However, detailing the event is very important for making the event successful. The theme chosen for the JFS event for the Spain based event later in the year is –“World-class innovation...to make everyday living comfortable for you”. Since the event is a grand affair it is going to host companies from worldwide. Therefore, the JFS organizers ensure that the guests are given the best of accommodation facilities. Throughout the day time in the conferences there will be an arrangement for snacks as well as beverages. At night a grand dinner will be hosted in the Renaissance Barcelona hotel where the event will be hosted though the day. The catering will be done by some of the best local chefs and hotel groups. The event will host interesting program such as musical nights and interesting debates on home decor solutions. The event will display the wide range of new age design which will occupy comparatively less office spaces (januaryfurnitureshow.com 2018). This has been undertaken as a move to preserve the green and reduce the emissions of carbon in the environment
Marketing plan for launch of event
The marketing plan for the event could be designed with the help of a 7p model. The 7p here stands for product, place, price and promotion.
Attributes effect
Product Home decor and furniture for offices
place Spain based home decor and furniture markets
Price ·Starting @ 200 british pounds
- Offering of services at cost –effective prices
Promotion For the promotion objectives the organizers will be using print and social media
People The products will be designed for Spain based industries as well as small scale offices along with homes (januaryfurnitureshow.com 2018).
process The products could be ordered online as well as dispatched physically through additional distribution channels (januaryfurnitureshow.com 2018)
Physical evidence The physical evidence will be provided in the form of warranty extension certificates which will help the business organizations receive free of cost services and easy exchanges in case of faulty furniture delivered.
Analysis of barriers
Cultural barriers often possess a huge number of barriers to the success of a business event. As mentioned by Van Der Aalst et al. (2016), the cultural values, beliefs and faiths possessed by an individual often affects the business processes. In this respect, the event will be attended by large number of global leaders from different countries, cultures and language (furniturenews.net 2018). Hence, they may not agree regarding the same product or services. Additionally, the cross cultural differences in an organization can influence the different degrees of absorption and the utilisation of the products and services.
Conclusion
It has been seen that 50% of the furniture choices are done based upon comfort design rather than creative design. Globally 75% of the offices have been seen to pick furniture designs with easy makeshift arrangements. The beliefs possessed by an individual further shape their purchase behaviour (Stark 2015).In here some countries may focus more upon the technology whereas few may focus more upon the cost effective services. Therefore, coming to mutual terms regarding the provision of both technologically advanced and cost effective services can help in resolving the difference in cultures.
References
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