The Essay Explores Stakeholders' Role In Relation To The Business Model.

Situational Analysis Recap

Discuss about the Role Of Stakeholders In Relation To Business Model.

Marketing plan is one of the most significant documents for a company as it helps to develop awareness about its products in the market place. Each and every organization needs to create a marketing plan when it thinks to bring new products and services in the market place. Before preparing this, the company conducts a situational analysis that evaluates all the external and internal factors which affect its growth and success (Hollensen, 2015).

The major aim of this report is to prepare a marketing plan for Ingogo Organization which specializes in online taxi bookings and payments. The report includes different marketing aspects like segmentation, targeting and positioning statement in relation to Ingogo organization. The report comprises of both marketing and financial objectives of the company which it aims to attain in the timeframe of next 3 years. A detailed analysis about company’s marketing mix strategies are provided that is used by Ingogo to promote its services in the market. After establishment in the year 2011, the organization is becoming very famous due to its advanced technology services. It has established an effective mission and vision so that it can attain its objectives in transportation industry.

Ingogo is an Australian based organization that specializes online taxi bookings and payments. Taxi drivers process the fare by using the android smartphones and mobile applications. Currently, it offers its services in Brisbane, Adelaide, Sydney and Perth. Ingogo has its GPS enabled booking system that allows any nearby cab service to pick a fare irrespective of that taxi service they work for (Bloomberg, 2018). Ingogo was one of the oldest transportation service organizations in Australia that provides riders with the fixed fares. This fare includes all the charges, tolls and no surge pricing due to traffic jams. The system of Ingogo enables the users to book a taxi up to 2 days in advance.

The situational analysis of Ingogo indicates that Australia provides a favorable environment to the company. The political environment is very stable that shows that political factors have great impact on this transportation company. The rise of Ingogo has had disruptive impact on the business of traditional taxi services. The organization needs to take the license from government and it has to comply with different rules and regulation of transportation. Moreover, the economy of the country is very strong among developed nations. There is low risk of operating business in Australian economy as it claims continuously strong growth of GDP. Online taxi booking is an effective innovation for the people who are tech savvy. The behavior of taxi drivers has a huge impact on customer satisfaction. In Australia, the people are increasingly using smart phones and advanced technologies that may have positive impact on the business of Ingogo in the country. The situational analysis of the company shows that Ingogo is able to establish strong brand awareness in the major cities of Australia (Bitsch, Brochstedt, Holm & Knudsen, 2017). However, the organization faces intense competition from traditional taxis and international players like Uber, Safertaxi, Moovit etc. Furthermore, the analysis recommends that Ingogo Company has the opportunities to expand its business in other emerging market because it has profitable business in existing market. It can improve business by installing automatic vehicles in its business operations. Considering this situational analysis, it can be stated that Ingogo Company can operate its business as a leading player in Australian taxi industry (Sharma & Shah, 2017).

Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning Approach (STP)

In today’s environment, segmentation, targeting and positioning is a very important strategic approach in modern marketing process. It is one of the mostly applied marketing tools in the business. When an organization introduces its new products and services in the market, it identifies its targeted people and creates an impactful positioning statement that assists the organization to grab the attention of people. The services of Ingogo are developed considering the needs and preferences of the Australian customers. It is targeting the people analyzing these needs (Thorson & Moore, 2013). The STP approach for Ingogo Company is given below:

Market segmentation is one of the most important approaches through which a company targets its specific customers. Ingogo Company is targeting its customers considering different segmentation characteristics of targeted population. These characteristics are such as demographic, geographic and psychographic characteristics (Liu, Liao, Huang & Liao, 2018). Different bases of market segmentation are given below:

It is one of the most important segmentation variables that are used by Ingogo Company. Demographic characteristics are such as age, income, occupation, education, religion etc. Under this market segmentation, the company targets its customers on the basis of age and income of people. It considers the customers from the age group of 16 to 60 years old who prefer to travel by private taxis (Percy, 2014). In addition to this, it targets the millennial and Gen Z people because they are tech savvy. They prefer to use online taxi booking rather than traditional taxis. It provides the rides on modest prices which is affordable for medium level people. It does not use surge pricing due to traffic jams.

Under psychographic segmentation, Ingogo Company targets the people from millennial group and Gen Z due to their lifestyle choices, spending and habits. Moreover, it focuses on the people from working class as they need to travel regularly. Nowadays, Ingogo is very trendier than hiring a regular cab so young business professionals and millennial enjoy using the services of Ingogo.

Furthermore, Ingogo offers its products considering the behavioral characteristics of its targeted population like benefits sought, loyalty, user status etc. This firm looks at the benefit responses based on the economy, brand image and resale value of the transportation services (Thorson & Moore, 2013). It is focused on the regular customers like business professionals who prefer to take online rides rather than taxi rides. People are showing brand loyalty towards the services of Ingogo Company.

Positioning Statement

Thus, the above market segmentation approach indicates that Ingogo targets the people considering their transportation needs and income status. The target market for Ingogo Company is regular travellers, millennial and tech savvy people in Australia. It offers its services to the people who do not have their own cars and travel by private taxis. From the above analysis, it can be stated that the organization is targeting the business and working people who are very conscious about the fare. All the marketing strategies and efforts of Ingogo are completely focused on its targeted population (Cross, Belich & Rudelius, 2015).

In order to place itself among its targeted population, Ingogo Company uses an attractive statement that helps the firm to capture the attention of targeted customers. For its online ride booking and payment services, Ingogo uses multi-segment type of positioning as it targets many customer segments like business professionals, millennial etc. It positions its mobile application as the most convenient, transparent and user-friendly so that user can access this easily. In the beginning, it has positioned itself by using the tagline i.e. “The free taxi app booking service”. With the help of this tagline, it aims to attract the cost-conscious people in Australia (Rosenbaum-Elliott, Percy & Pervan, 2015).

In order to promote its transportation services, Ingogo Company sets some marketing goals that it desires to attain in the timeframe of next three years (Percy, 2014). Taxi app and online payment services provider is a new concept in the market so it will determine its marketing goals accordingly. For the taxi services of Ingogo are stated below:

• To create the biggest taxi network in the world, connecting the travellers with reliable, safe and convenient transportation providers at different price points in Australian cities.
• To entice more people by establishing strong brand image in online transportation and payment industry.
• To increase the customer awareness towards the online taxi booking services of Ingogo.

The company has established its objectives which are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound. The objectives are totally related to the organization’s operations and services. They are very realistic and attainable as there is nothing that cannot be attained by Ingogo (Jain, & Haley, 2009). It can measure the effectiveness of objectives by looking at the customer base, number of rides per day, number of log in on application etc.

In addition to marketing objectives, Ingogo will establish its financial objectives which can be measured in the monetary terms. These financial objectives assist the organization to attain overall growth in the industry. The financial objectives of Ingogo Company are given below:

• To increase its revenues and profits by a significant percentage i.e. 15%.
• To enhance the market share by 20% in next three years.
• To attain financial sustainability in competitive online taxi industry in Australia.

Considering the above objectives, Ingogo is developing strategies and tactics which will assist it to attain the above-mentioned objectives. Achievement of above objectives can be ensured by measuring the growth and customer base of this taxi app company (Carpenter, Curtis & Keshav, 2014).

To attain the above-mentioned objectives, Ingogo Company should develop effective marketing strategies and tactics so that it can attract more customers towards its services. By using these marketing strategies, the company will be able to position itself in the market (Abril & Rodriguez-Cánovas, 2016). These marketing strategies can be developed under marketing mix framework that is given below:

Ingogo Company provides the customers with an alternative to ride on taxis which can be booked using the mobile application. The company has made the transportation services more comfortable and easily accessible. Moreover, the fares are processed by using the application on smartphones. The mobile application allows the drivers to know the location of rider when they book a ride from any location (Ingogo, 2018). However, the organization has adopted an effective product strategy but still it should enhance its operations. Ingogo should provide the Wi-Fi enabled taxicabs and car-pooling so that it can provide a great riding experience to the travellers (Davari, & Strutton, 2014). One of the best things of its services is that it allows the people to book a ride up to 2 days in advance.

Pricing strategy plays an important role in the popularity of a taxi service provider company. Considering this fact, Ingogo is offering the comfortable rides at the lowest prices possible. It is the first online taxi booking organization that provides services with fixed fares that include all the charges and fares. In addition to this, there is no surge pricing policy due to heavy traffic. At Ingogo, there are not administration charges so people can save 20% of travelling cost by using Ingogo’s services. It should provide some benefits to its riders like it can provide cash back and referral offers (Wallsten, 2015). It should distribute the promo codes to its regular travellers so they can have cost-effective rides.

Currently, Ingogo is offering its services in major Australian cities like Brisbane, Perth, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. This is the major reason that company does not have more popularity. It should expand its business in other developing and developed nations so it can enhance its brand presence worldwide. Ingogo, being an android phone application can be downloaded by the users any time. It should create its website that can enable the users to book their ride (Steenkamp, 2017). There should be Ingogo help desks and booking stations at different centers like shopping malls and Airports. In this way, the company should try to establish an extensive distribution network in Australia and worldwide.

Promotion strategy is one of the most significant strategies that can be used by the organization to attract customers towards its new products and services. Ingogo is using effective mode for promoting its services among its targeted customers. Currently, Ingogo is totally relied on the word-of-mouth promotion to capture market share. The spending on advertising and marketing is very low so it does not have much popularity all over the popularity. The company should use more effective methods than free and discounted rides and referral bonus. It should promote its services on social media platforms so people can be aware about its services (Cawsey & Rowley, 2016). It should give advertisement in newspaper and magazines so that it can approach a large population. It should tie up with different online food and payment service applications so that they can display accessibility of their taxis on maps. Moreover, offering pricing benefits can also attract more customers towards its payment and online booking services (Pan & Chiou, 2011).

Ingogo Company will implement the above strategies by developing the objectives and action plan to attain them. By using these promotional mix elements, the company aims to enhance its brand awareness among a large population. The company has the objective to attract more customers though different promotional media and discounted offers (Del Giudice, Della Peruta, & Maggioni, 2015). The implementation plan for Ingogo’s marketing strategies is given below:

In this way, Ingogo can implement its marketing strategies by using the above implementation plan.

Ingogo will develop a budget for its promotion mix elements according to the above given objectives. The company has estimated the budget of $110000 for the promotional mix strategy (Shimp, 2008). This figure is divided into different advertising and promotional media and elements. By using this promotional ix budget, Ingogo will be able to attain its objective to increase its customer base all over the world. The promotional mix budget for Ingogo is given below:

Conclusion

Thus, it is hereby concluded that Ingogo is the first transportation company in Australia but still it does not have huge brand presence in Australia and worldwide. To enhance its business, the company needs to implement more effective strategies to deal with this issue. The above report includes different marketing aspects in context of Ingogo Company that provides online taxi booking and payment services in Australia. To gain more competitive advantage, the company should implement the above mentioned marketing strategies. It can be found that Ingogo Company can increase its market share and awareness by the implementation of different strategies. These strategies will enable the organization to attain above marketing and financial objectives.

References

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