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08013436 Page 1 of 84











Bradford School of Management
Strategic Marketing Plan
for InterviewBay
Balaji Bangalore Varadarajan
UB No. 08013436

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Statement of Authenticity

I have read the university regulations regarding plagiarism and certify that
this project is my own work and does not contain any
unacknowledged work from any other sources



WORD COUNT: 14591

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ABSTRACT
This is a real-time project done for InterviewBay, a start-up venture
specializing in MBA Admission consulting field (providing mock interview
services for top business schools). The aim is to create an effective and viable
strategic marketing plan to improve the revenue of this company.

Some of the well-known classical marketing theories of Jobber, McDonald and
Cohen have been used here to analyse and develop a new marketing template
that would fit InterviewBay appropriately. Even though these marketing plans
were framed few years ago, they are still appropriate to the contemporary
business environment through customisation.

Research has been carried on to determine cost-effective means of
advertisements for InterviewBay. The author has collected primary and
secondary data. Primary data was collected through personal interviews as well
as by conducting online survey to get feedback from aspiring MBA students.
This information has been used for setting up pricing strategy as well as to
understand the need of these students from the Admission Consultants. The
secondary data was sourced from various b-schools and Admission consulting
websites. Based on the research results, the author has identified the main market
segments that the business can focus on.

Financial forecast (Break-even analysis, Revenue and Cost Projections) for next
3 years of operation has been performed. Suggestion about strategic alliances has
also been provided to capture business across the globe.

The author has also provided more recommendations in terms of the pricing,
promotions, website development, appointment of an exclusive marketing
personnel etc. for the growth of organization


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STRATEGIC MARKETING PLANNING FOR
INTERVIEWBAY

By
Balaji Bangalore Varadarajan
(UB No. 08013436)


Management Project submitted to the Bradford University School of
Management
in partial fulfilment of the requirements
for the degree of
Master of Business Administration


2009

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PREFACE
With an inner desire to start my own venture in the nearest future, my interests for the
past few years has been to understand the problems that a start-up venture would be
faced with and to prepare against those issues. My marketing modules in the MBA
programme created a major awareness about the need for an effective marketing plan. It
also highlighted the usefulness of the marketing plan in the business. Although a
marketing plan is required by large as well as small companies, since my interests were
towards starting up a venture, I was interested to do a strategic marketing plan for a
start-up venture. My MBA subjects and several readings about marketing literatures
imparted the knowledge about how a marketing plan can be of great support in the
success of a business growth. More than that, it taught me, how many companies have
failed due to lack of marketing plan. It also has taught me that writing a marketing plan
makes us think about many aspects of business including our strengths and weakness. It
forms a clear road map for every individual in the organization. In order to capitalize on
the gained theoretical knowledge, I proposed to do a strategic marketing plan for
InterviewBay, a start-up firm and a venture of my interest and develop my strategic
skills. Thus all these have led to the basis for me to do this project.
Acknowledgement
I would like to take this opportunity to thank some of the people who helped me to
complete this project successfully.
Firstly, I would like to thank Prof. Paul Webb and Prof. Steve Page for providing me
with splendid support and valuable feedback to produce a quality project.
Secondly, my sincere most thanks to Mr. Naveen Patha, Business Adviser of
InterviewBay for giving me a wonderful opportunity to work on this project for his
organization and also for his guidance and support.
Lastly, I would like to dedicate this project to my wife and all my family members who
helped me with moral support during tough times that I faced during this project.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 9
1.1 Project Objective: ...................................................................................................................... 9
1.2 Project Methodology: ................................................................................................................ 9
1.3 Company Background: ............................................................................................................ 10
1.4 Management Teams: ............................................................................................................... 11
2. Literature Review .............................................................................................................. 13
2.1 Admission Consulting Industry: ................................................................................. 13
2.2 Marketing Plan: ......................................................................................................... 21
2.2.1 Jobbers Marketing plan: ........................................................................................... 22
2.2.2 Cohens model: .......................................................................................................... 26
2.2.3 McDonalds model: .................................................................................................... 30
2.2.4 Recommendation: ...................................................................................................... 33
3. Research Methodology ...................................................................................................... 36
3.1 Introduction: ........................................................................................................................... 36
3.2 Research methods used in this project: .................................................................................... 36
3.3 Research Strategy: ................................................................................................................... 38
3.3.1 Exploratory Studies: .................................................................................................. 38
3.3.2 Online Survey: ........................................................................................................... 38
3.4 Data Collection: ....................................................................................................................... 39
3.4.1 Secondary Data: ......................................................................................................... 39
3.4.2 Primary Data: ............................................................................................................ 41
3.5 Validity and Reliability: ........................................................................................................... 42
3.6 Ethical Stance: ......................................................................................................................... 43
4. Strategic Marketing Plan .................................................................................................. 44
4.1 Business Mission: ..................................................................................................................... 44
4.2 Financial Performance of InterviewBay: .................................................................................. 44
4.3 Marketing Audit: ..................................................................................................................... 45
4.3.1 External Marketing Audit: ......................................................................................... 45
4.3.2 Internal Marketing Audit: ......................................................................................... 51
4.4 SWOT Analysis: ...................................................................................................................... 52

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4.5 Marketing Objectives: ............................................................................................................. 53
4.6 Target Segment: ...................................................................................................................... 57
4.7 Marketing Strategies: .............................................................................................................. 58
4.8 Budgeting: ............................................................................................................................... 62
4.9 Implementation and Control: .................................................................................................. 63
5. Recommendations & Conclusion: .................................................................................... 67
5.1 Recommendations: ......................................................................................................... 67
5.2 Project Conclusion: ........................................................................................................ 68
Appendix A: Project Proposal .................................................................................................. 70
Appendix B: Survey Results, 2009 ......................................................................................... 76
Appendix C: Online Survey Questions................................................................................... 77
References: ................................................................................................................................ 79



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List of Figures:
Figure 1: Growth of Consultants. 13
Figure 2: US B-Schools Admission Details.. 14
Figure 3: Top Admission Consultants 15
Figure 4: Gordons Attributes and Dimension Map.. 16
Figure 5: Details of GMAT Applicants 18
Figure 6: Male-Female GMAT applicants details 20
Figure 7: GMAT Applicants Age Details.. 21
Figure 8: SWOT Conversion Strategy 24
Figure 9: Ansoffs Matrix.. 25
Figure 10: BCG Matrix 26
Figure 11: Cohens Marketing Plan . 27
Figure 12: McDonalds Marketing Model 30
Figure 13: Marketing Plan Template for InterviewBay.. 35
Figure 14: The Research Process Onion.... 36
Figure 15: Operational Profit of InterviewBay. 44
Figure 16: Business Revenue % Split Up of InterviewBay. 45
Figure 17: Porters 5 forces analysis of InterviewBay 48
Figure 18: SWOT Analysis of InterviewBay.. 52
Figure 19: BCG Matrix for InterviewBay 53
Figure 20: Ansoffs Matrix for InterviewBay.. 54
Figure 21: Break-even Analysis of InterviewBay. 64
Figure 22: Projected Profit & Loss Statement of InterviewBay. 64
List of Tables:
Table 1: Fundamental Questions by J obber. 22
Table 2: Project Plan for implementing InterviewBays marketing strategies.. 63

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1. Introduction

1.1 Project Objective:
This project aims at creating a realistic strategic marketing plan for InterviewBay, a
company specialising in the field of Admission Consulting. Being a start-up venture,
this company has ambitious plans to nurture its business growth and is in the phase of
defining its business strategy to achieve its mission. The company expects a marketing
plan to attract investors.
The author is expected to analyse the existing business state, perform research on
effective advertising strategies and to identify strategic business partners in order to fuel
its growth. As a part of this exercise, the author defines the following as the scope of
this project after discussions with the stakeholders:
Study the existing business concept and develop a strategic marketing plan for
the next three years covering business growth & market positioning and to
improve the top line of the company
Identify strategic partners to tie-up for marketing InterviewBays products
3 Year detailed financial forecasts (Sales and Cost projections including the
break-even analysis)

1.2 Project Methodology:
This project starts with an introduction about the company InterviewBay, its
management team and a basic idea about the companys products. It is followed by a
literature review on the MBA Admission Consulting industry and three different reputed
marketing plans. Based on the analysis, a marketing plan template will be created by
customizing the marketing plan which fits closely to InterviewBays requirements.


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The project then focuses on the research methodology to show the kind of approach the
author has used in this project. It will be followed by the research design and will deal
with the methods through which the author has gathered data.

Using the marketing template and the results from the research, the strategic
marketing plan for InterviewBay will be created. Thus the author combines the
theoretical concept with the real-time need of an existing company. The final part
of the project will comprise of the recommendations by the author to
InterviewBay.

1.3 Company Background:
Founded in London, InterviewBay offers mock interviews to aspiring MBA students.
The companys methodology is unique. If an MBA applicant has an interview with
Harvard Business School (HBS) then the mock interview will be conducted by either a
current student or an alumnus of HBS. The company strongly believes that a current
student or alumnus knows best about their B-School. The interviewers include former
admissions officers from the worlds most elite MBA programs. Collectively, they have
interviewed hundreds of prospective MBA candidates. They are passionate about
helping clients gain entry into business schools of their choice, and the results have been
spectacular with InterviewBay clients receiving admission to the worlds top MBA
programs.

InterviewBay also offers mock interviews to aspiring Strategy Consultants, Bankers and
General Managers. Created by recruitment experts from London Business School (UK)
and Virginia Tech (USA), InterviewBay's methodology includes a verbal and written
review of the mock interview by a current employee or an alumnus of the client's target
Company, combined with proven strategies to approach the interview with confidence
and skill. For example, if a client has an interview with Goldman Sachs, the mock
interview will be conducted by a present or past employee of Goldman Sachs. Since its

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inception, InterviewBay has hired only the most talented and engaging interviewers,
each of whom graduated from a top business school. InterviewBay has consistently
maintained high interviewing standards and as a result, its clients receive the best
results.

InterviewBay is a late entrant for this business but has entered with a niche
strategy. Already this industry has considerable number of big and small time
players. The big players constitute a major market share and have built good
customer relationship over the years. InterviewBay faces tough competition from
these players. Hence it requires a strong and effective business strategy in place to
succeed in this business environment. This forms the basis for this project.

1.4 Management Teams:
InterviewBay was founded in the year 2008 by Mrs.Sarasavani Patha, a MBA graduate
from a reputed Indian business school. She holds 100% stake in the business and she is
the CEO of the organization. With a solid background in the Human Resources function
including consulting and recruiting divisions, she has built a strong network of resources
all over the world which is crucial for InterviewBays growth. The company is
registered and based out of London. It has a Board comprising of four directors
including Mrs.Sarasavani Patha. She is supported by a strong team of technical and
marketing personnel.
Name Role Responsibilities

Mrs. Sarasavani Patha
CEO, with 100% stake in
InterviewBay
Visionary and is
responsible for the
business strategy


Mr. Srikanth Yadha
Technical Adviser IT Infrastructure Design
and procurement


Mr. Waziri Garuba
Business Development
Manager
Developing business in
US markets


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Mr Naveen Patha Business Adviser Consultant to provide
guidance on business
strategies

Mr. Srikanth Yadha, a MBA graduate from Virginia Tech is the Technical Adviser of
InterviewBay. He possesses immense experience in building e-commerce related
products and services. He heads the responsibility of designing and maintaining the
InterviewBays website fulfilling the needs of the clients with required information.
Mr. Waziri Garuba, a MBA graduate from Columbia Business School and with a rich
experience in Investment Banking from Goldman Sachs is responsible for developing
marketing network in US for InterviewBay.
Mr. Naveen Patha, a MBA graduate from London Business School works as a Business
Adviser for InterviewBay. His responsibilities include suggesting business strategies for
InterviewBay. His experience includes working for private equity sector which focuses
on real estate investments in Central and Eastern Europe. He has also worked for top
multinationals like Oracle Corporation and Accenture.


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2. Literature Review
There are two dimensions while working on a project the academic and the practical
part. The academic part focuses more on the theoretical concepts of marketing plans
and also about the evolution and growth of Admission Consulting industry. The
practical part focuses on constructing a strategic marketing plan based on our
research and analysis pertaining to environment, competitors and the companys
objectives and strategies. In this section, different marketing theories are analysed
and evaluated to identify the suitable marketing plan for InterviewBay.
2.1 Admission Consulting Industry:

2.1.1 Introduction:
The admission consulting industry began almost 30 years ago (Baron, 2008). It started
as an industry practiced only by a few dozen experts with an in-depth knowledge in the
field of boarding school world. But this industry underwent a major transformation
fifteen years ago, when consultants began to offer their services for top college
admissions also. Sklarow in his interview with Baron (2008) claims that the number of
consultants has almost tripled from 2000 to 5000 in a span of 5 years catering to
different educational programs like MBA, law, medicine etc (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Growth of Consultants (Source: Sklarow (2008))
0
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2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
2004 2009
Growth Of Consultants between 2004 and 2009
Growth Of Consultants

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However, in her interview to BusinessWeek (2007), the Director of Admissions for
Fuqua School of Business, Liz Riley expresses that she is not thrilled about the
Admission Consulting industry. She strongly emphasises that if someone else does the
work of another, it is like admitting a fraud to the Business School.
Currently there is significant number of reputed business schools in US, UK and some
in Europe among the worlds top 30 (FT.com, 2009). Admissions411 (2009) have
collected information for some of the top US b-schools about the MBA programs and
the admission details (Figure 2).

Figure 2: US B-Schools Admission Details (Source: Admissions411 website)
Similarly, it has done a research (2009) to obtain the number of interviews conducted by
the top Admission Consultants per intake (Figure 3).
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Figure 3: Top Admission Consultants (Source: Admissions411)
2.1.2 Current MBA Admission strategy:
Every University sets up an Admission Committee which is a group of professionals
who are responsible for selecting the prospective students to MBA programs. These
professionals are required to understand the Universitys admission criteria extensively,
should review the candidates credentials without reservations and are entrusted with the
responsibility of selecting prospective students in line with the Universitys mission (b-
school-apply, U.D). Thus, it needs to be emphasized that every business school has its
own selection criteria and hence the candidate needs to prepare in three different ways if
she or he applies for three business schools.
The Admission committee checks for specific set of attributes in all the applications that
they review. For example, academic performance is critical with cut-off points for
admission and denial (b-school-apply, U.D). Apart from this, there are other selection
criteria like the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) score and the
admissions essay.
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No. of interviews conducted

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Figure 4: Gordons Attributes and Dimension Map (representing the main dimensions
for essay writing)
The essays also play a crucial role as they are the spectacles through which the
Admission Committee members will be able to analyze and gauge the candidate.
Gordon (2005) mentions that good application and good essays generally carries many
of twenty attributes mentioned in the figure 4 spreading across all the four dimensions in
the application thus providing a necessary balance to the profile.
They also review their resumes, references and the recommendation letters. It is quite
difficult for the candidates to understand this process for every top school. Above all,
the admission committee conducts a personal interview as a part of the last round in
order to select the candidates (b-school-apply, U.D).

2.1.3 What is MBA Admission consulting industry about?
With the consulting services available in the educational fields like law and medicine
(AdmissionConsultants, 2009), this industry started to focus towards the high-valued
MBA program. Eight years back, there were only a very few MBA Admission
consultants but today there are significant number of consultants in this industry

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(GeekMBA360, 2009). These consultants target the candidates who dream of joining the
top business schools in the world especially in US, UK and Europe.
As mentioned in GeekMBA360 (2009), generally these MBA admission consultants are:
Former Admission Officers from top MBA programs
Graduates from MBA programs who were part of their schools admission
committee
Entrepreneurial MBAs who want to do their own business
As these consultants know about the b-schools admission process very well, they use
their extensive knowledge to groom the candidates. Generally, following are the
services provided by a MBA Admission Consultant (ClearAdmit, 2009):
Constructs an initial strategic plan about the schools that the candidate desires
for
Reviews their resume and make appropriate changes to suit the respective b-
schools requirements
Reviews their essays and fine tune them in order for the candidate to market
themselves well
Conducts mock interviews before the actual interviews, identify their strengths
and weaknesses and provide tips to convert their weakness to strength
Feedback reports

2.1.4 How consulting industry has changed
Heiser (2006) comments the enrolment of international graduate students to US
institutions has increased significantly during the 2006. He also notices that the major
shift has happened from the countries India (32%) and China (20%) with 10%
increase to the business schools.
Research by Gardner and Witherell (2007) has shown that there has been a strong
increase in the number of applicants from India (up by 10%), China (up by 8%)

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and Korea (by 6%). GMATs exam data reveals that the number of students
undertaking exams has increased in India and China tremendously by 251% and
108% between 2000 and 2007. Similarly the number of GMAT applicants from Asian
continent has grown by 63% (figure 5) overall between 2000 and 2007 (GMAT website,
2008).
Apart from these countries, signs of increasing trend are spotted from the Middle East
Countries, Vietnam, Taiwan and Thailand (figure 5). Karen (2007) claims that the
dynamism, diversity and excellence in US higher education system has paved the way
for the increase in the international students applying for US institutions.

Figure 5: Details of GMAT Applicants (Source: GMAC website, 2008)
Thus the Admission consulting business is not only confined to US and Europe but
also broadening across the globe, in particular, to Asia-Pacific region.
Sklarow (2008) mentions that the educational consultants are not considered as
intermediaries any more. They act as guides and advisors to support the students in
deciding their future business schools. They provide them with services starting from
the scratch, which includes the list of top business schools that the candidate can focus
on based on the candidates credentials.

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Earlier, the business schools never appreciated the consultants role as they felt that they
are tampering the business schools admission process. But now, days have changed.
Sklarow (2008) says that the number of colleges that do not desire to work with
consultants have reduced drastically. Rather they look at these consulting firms as a
means to find suitable candidates, thereby, increasing the retention and improving the
students success growth.
Haas Admission-Director J ohnson (2009) in his interview mentions that there are
reputable consultants who provide services by helping the candidates think through the
admission process better. By working with such consultants, the candidates sharpen
their own set of goals and how they present themselves
2.1.5 Where is it heading to?
In his article, William (2006) claims that the MBA Admission Consulting is a booming
industry but, at the same time alarms that this industry is highly unregulated. Porter
(2007) says that more and more MBA Applicants are paying huge money to these
consultants in order to prepare themselves with all the required criteria to get into their
dream business schools. She also mentions that applicants from Asian regions have
started getting these services more, simply to get an admission in the top business
schools.
Since the criteria to start this business is very simple, any MBA alumni or admission
officer is able to start the business making the industry unstructured. In order to bring
regulations in the industry, the top MBA Admission consultants have started an
association called AIGAC (Porter, 2007). AIGAC has been started with the mission to
maintain the highest standards of integrity and competence in dealing with Association,
other members, clients and third parties. It has designed the policies to suit the needs of
the clients and mainly with the b-schools, to follow highest ethical practices in graduate
admission services (AIGAC, 2009).

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According to AIGAC (2009), every admission consultant should get registered with the
association and follow its ethical rules. By doing this, AIGAC is trying to build a
relationship between the Admission Consultants and the B-Schools and to bring in
confidence about the Admission Consultants in the Admission process.
The consulting industry also sees a major change in the sex ratio applying for b-schools.
Dan Bauer in his interview with Gherghe (U.D) has mentioned that there has been a
steady increase in the number of women applying for MBA schools. The top b-schools
also have been marketing aggressively to improve the women applicants in their MBA
programs. Schweitzer (2009) mentions that women are motivated by the factors like
gaining core knowledge and networking aspects and it provides them the opportunities
to move into senior positions. Thus the customer base of the Admission consulting
industry has widened to include the female gender also.
GMAC (2009) has released details about the men and women ratio applying for GMAT.
Over the past 10 years, although the number of applicants in both the genders has
increased consistently, the male-female ratio has hovering around 1.5 (Figure 6)

Figure 6: Male-Female GMAT applicants details (Source: GMAC website, 2009)

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Another important attribute that a business should focus on while preparing the
marketing plan is the age group of its clients. This helps the organization to target the
right segment for its products and services. GMAC (2009) provides the trend about the
age group of the students who are applying for GMAT to get into a top b-school (Figure
7).

Figure 7: GMAT Applicants Age Details (Source: GMAC website, 2009)
It can be noted from the figure 7 that there has been an increasing trend in the number of
applicants in the age group 24-30 and in particular, younger than 24 years. This provides
the business with the vital information about identifying the right target segment.
2.2 Marketing Plan:
In the present world, many scholars have designed their own marketing plans for
large and small businesses. In order to arrive at an appropriate marketing template
for InterviewBay, a literature review about some of the famous authors marketing
plans is conducted here. The merits and demerits of these models would be studied.

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Criticisms as well as the positives of the plan will be understood based on which the
appropriate model would be selected.
Here the objective is to find a marketing plan which will discuss extensively about the
marketing objectives and strategies. Here, we are considering the models of J obber
(2007), Cohen (2005) and McDonald (2002).
Interestingly, Cohen (2005), in his marketing plan emphasises the use of Executive
Summary and makes it mandatory in his plan which the other two scholars have not
insisted upon. J obbers (2007) marketing model follows a fixed structure. However
Piercy et al (1989) challenges the need for sequential steps in a marketing plan and
raised questions about their usefulness and validity.
2.2.1 Jobbers Marketing plan:
J obber (2007) defines marketing planning as a process by which the businesses study
the marketing environment and their capabilities, decide upon courses of marketing
action and implement those decisions.
He (2007) starts his marketing planning with five questions (Table 1). These questions
would allow us to think about the progress that we have made in our business so far and
also help us to look forward

Table 1: Fundamental Questions by J obber (Source: J obber (2007))

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J obber has outlined a nine-step framework model for the marketing planning process. It
demonstrates a clear plan from generating a business mission to implementing and
controlling the resultant plans. McDonald (2002) uses a ten step model while Cohen
(2005) has an eight step marketing plan.
Business Mission:
Ackoff defines business mission as A broadly defined enduring statement of purpose
that distinguishes a business from others of its type (Routi, 2007). J obber shows
interest in the two important components in the statement - enduring and specific to
individual organization. It raises two fundamental questions about the business that we
are in and the business that we want to proceed with. Answering these questions would
result in defining the scope and activities of the company. But Abell (1980) suggests
that the business mission may include about market, needs and technology. The term
market would reflect the customer groups that are being served, needs refer the customer
satisfaction and the technology would depict its usage for developing customer
satisfaction.
Marketing Audit:
This is used to examine the businesss marketing environments, their objectives and
related strategies systematically with the main focus to identify the threats and
opportunities (J obber, 2007). This task is so powerful that it provides answers to half of
J obbers fundamental questions for marketing process
Where are we now?
How did we get here?
Where are we heading?
McDonald (2002) also supports the view on marketing audit by preparing answers for
these questions. They both have similar views on the structure of the marketing audit.
They have classified marketing audit into internal and external audits.

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This is the second step in J obbers model (2007) and Cohens (2005) but third step in
McDonalds (2002). At this stage, McDonald discusses about the corporate objectives.
However he does not explore much and leaves it to the organizations to decide how they
want to follow it.
All the three scholars share the same idea about the external and internal audit. The
external audit will cover the macroenvironment and the microenvironment.
Macroenvironment deals with the Political/Legal, Social, economic, ecological and
technological forces that might have an impact on the business whereas
microenvironment focuses on the Market, Customers, Competitors, Suppliers etc. The
internal audit helps to evaluate the performance and the activities of business in the light
of environmental changes.
SWOT Analysis:
Kotler (2001) defined SWOT analysis as a methodical and a practical approach to
evaluate the strategic position of a business by exploring its strengths, weakness,
opportunities and threats. It is a simple way to synthesise the marketing audit results.
Piercy (2002) insists that only those capabilities or resources that are valued by
customers should be considered while evaluating the internal strengths and weaknesses
of the business. Similarly, the threats and opportunities are ones that are outside the
business and that impacts its performance.
The powerful SWOT analysis can be used by the businesses to ponder about converting
the weakness to strengths and threats into opportunities. This process called as
conversion strategies (refer figure 8) are very useful for the success of the business
(J obber, 2007)

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Figure 8: SWOT Conversion Strategy (Source: J obber, 2007)
Marketing Objectives:
Businesses need to concentrate much on this section as it determines the products to be
concentrated on as well as the strategy that needs to be implemented to make the
product successful (Hiebing et al, 1990). J obber (2007) classifies marketing objectives
as Strategic thrust and Strategic Objectives.
Strategic thrust deals with setting the objectives in terms of, which products to sell in
which market. Ansoffs matrix is a very useful way to look at the growth opportunities
(Figure 9). It provides a useful framework to determine the product strategy for the
organization

Figure 9: Ansoffs Matrix (Source: J obber (2007))

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J obber (2007) advocates the usage of tools like BCG matrix, the General Electric
Market Attractiveness Model to determine the strategic objectives of every product. A
model of the BCG Matrix is shown in the figure 10

Figure 10: BCG Matrix (Source: J obber, 2007)
Implementation and Control:
Drucker (1993) mentions no marketing plan will succeed unless it degenerates into
work. J obber (2007) also emphasizes that the business should design an organization
that has the capability of implementing the plan. He discusses about the final stage of
control which is to evaluate the results of the marketing plan so that correction actions
can be taken if the defined objectives does not produce the desired results for the
company.
2.2.2 Cohens model:
Cohen (2005) suggests that a marketing plan is very important for every business
operation and for efficient and effective marketing of any product or service. He
believes that it is true for new business venture or even for a new product or service
within a company.

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Cohens marketing plan (2005) includes an executive summary (Figure 11) and explains
that the corporate executives and the venture capitalist get interested in funding a
business based on the attractiveness of information in the executive summary. Ward
(2009) emphasizes that the executive summary provides the readers with an overview
about the marketing plan and creates interest in their marketing plan.
Cohens model focuses on the Situation Analysis which is divided into four categories:
situational environs, neutral, competitor and company. Green et al (1996) claims that the
situational analysis is the foundation of marketing plan and lack of information about
the business and its competitors may result in short-sighted plans.

Figure 11: Cohens Marketing Plan (Source: Cohen, 2005)
Situational Analysis:
Situational environs deals with the demand and the demand trends for the product or
service. It identifies the customer group who purchase the product. This analyses how,

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when, where, what and why do these potential customers purchase the product. It also
considers the social and the cultural factors the demographics of consumers. It
analyses the economic conditions during the period covered by the marketing plan. It
also analyses about the technology and how it affects the product life cycle.
Neutral environ is concerned with the influence of government on the companys new
project. It checks whether the governments new legislation on the state, federal or local
level would affect the products demand in the market. PESTLE analysis can be used to
understand the macro environmental impacts on the business. Green et al (1996) claims
that a successful marketer would be totally aware of the environmental changes and
capitalize on the opportunities provided by these impending changes. This model
focuses on media whether the current method of promotion and publicity makes a
difference in the success of the product in the market.
Cohen suggests that competitor environ is the most critical one that a business need to
focus on as these are the forces which compete against the business. These forces will
act intentionally against the interests of the business and hence need to be provided more
importance. Swain (1993) suggests that companies should set benchmarks for its
strategies and operations against best-in-class companies, thereby identifying and
adopting the best practices to improve the performance of the business. Hooley et al
(1998) cautions that, in a medium-term plan, a business can remain focused on
competitors within the same strategic group, but in a long term, the company should
identify its indirect competitors in order to avoid new entrants at a later stage.
The company environ allows the organization to understand their position with the
customers or potential customers. Piercy (2002) recommends that the company performs
its SWOT analysis to understand its strengths and weaknesses and at the same time, to
know about the threats and opportunities. Hooley et al (1998) argues that by doing this
process, it would help the company to identify its core competencies and utilize the
strengths to its maximum level.
Target Market:

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Hardcastle et al (2004) defines target market as the part of public that a marketer wants
to make an exchange. Cohen (2005) focuses on targeting the right customers for the
product, their buying capability, their frequency of buying and the reason for buying the
product. He feels that the business should be confident about the selected target
segment. Cohen suggests that the target market can be defined using demographics (e.g.
age, income), geography, psychographics (i.e. how the customers think) and their
lifestyle. The size of the market also needs to be considered.
Problems and Opportunities:
This section is to deal with the main points that have been already covered in the earlier
sections. While putting the plan together using the situational analysis and the target
market, it is highly possible that the problems and opportunities are implicitly covered.
But Cohen (2005) insists that they should be explicitly restated in this section with
opportunities first followed by the problems. Some thought process over these
opportunities and problems would help the company to take advantage of the
opportunities while the business can plan to handle the problem. Neither J obber (2007)
nor McDonald (2002) has insisted on such a task in their marketing planning.
Marketing goals, objectives & strategies:
Cohen (2005) claims that the marketing goals and objectives are accomplishments that
the business needs to achieve with the help of their marketing plan. It should be ensured
that the goals and objectives fit together. This can be done by adjusting goals and
objectives after having completed the financial portions of the plan.
Marketing strategy focuses about the tasks that need to be performed to reach the
business objectives and goals. But J obber (2007) mentions that this important part of the
plan is frequently left out by many businesses. And he also claims that the businesses
which use this part gain a competitive edge over their competitors and take advantage of
the opportunities created, solve problems and avoid serious threats.
Implementation and Control:

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In this section, the breakeven point and forecast of other information would be
performed. This would help to control the project after it has been implemented. Sales
revenue and cash flow on a monthly basis needs to be computed. Thus, when the budget
is exceeded, it raises an alert for the business to rework on the resources. Cohen (2005)
focuses much on these financial aspects which J obber (2007) had missed out.
2.2.3 McDonalds model:
McDonald (2002) defined marketing planning as a series of activities that leads to
setting up of marketing objectives and formulation of plans for achieving them. In small
and undiversified company, this process is very informal whereas in larger companies,
they follow a very formal methodology in order to design a marketing plan (McDonald,
2002). Carson et al (1989) strengthens McDonalds suggestion by arguing that the
marketing process in small companies is different from a large company.
McDonald (2002) demonstrates that a formalized marketing planning procedure
generally leads to better profitability and stability in the long term for the organization.
It also helps in reducing the operational difficulties within the organization.

Figure 12: McDonalds Marketing Model (Source: McDonald, 2002)

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In many situations where a marketing planning has failed, it could have been due to over
emphasis on the procedures, rather than generating useful information to the
management (McDonald, 1989).
McDonald uses a 10 step process to arrive at a marketing plan splitting them into four
different phases (Figure 12).
Marketing Audit & SWOT analysis:
McDonald (2002) defines audit as a systematic, critical and unbiased review and
appraisal of the environment and of the companys operations. He suggests that audit
is the way by which the following three fundamental questions of a company can be
answered.
Where is the company now?
Where does the company want to go?
How should the company organize its resource to get here?
Hooley et al (1998) supports McDonalds views about the marketing audit by raising
similar questions for the success of marketing plan thereby indicating the similarity in
the thoughts about marketing audit by different scholars.
Audits can be classified as external and internal audits (McDonald, 2002). External
audits are concerned with the external variables like environmental, market and
competitiveness and companies do not have any control over these variables. The
purpose of internal audit is to evaluate the resources of the internal organization and
hence the companies have control over these audits. Tools like PESTEL analysis and
Porters five forces (J obber, 2007) are used in external audits.
McDonald agrees with Kotler (2001) and Piercy (2002) views about the SWOT
analysis. He insists to include SWOT analysis in the marketing plan to understand the
internal strengths and weaknesses and also the external threats and opportunities.
Marketing objectives and Strategies:

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McDonald (1989) says that an objective is what the business wants to achieve while
strategy is the way to achieve it. Marketing objectives deal with products and markets
only. Thus he insists that it should not be confused here with other objectives like sales
promotion, pricing and advertising. McDonald (2002) follows similar model like
J obbers (2007) to identify the nature of the products and markets in which the company
should focus on for its future growth.
Thus, based on the marketing audit and the SWOT analysis, the business needs to
identify its future strategy in terms of the product and the market.
Marketing strategy are the means to achieve the marketing objectives of the business. It
is generally concerned with 4Ps product, price, place and promotion. Kumar (2004)
cites that Booms and Bitner has extended the marketing strategy to 7Ps by including
People, Process and Physical Evidence and claims that this model is more useful in the
services industry. Even though these scholars have extended the traditional marketing
strategy, the marketing plan still does not address the issues of corporate branding,
image and reputation.
Marketing budget:
McDonald (2002) comments setting up a companys marketing budget is much easier if
it is performed by all the functional departments and not just by a single department.
Zahorsky (2009) insists that a low-budget marketing plan is a must for small businesses.
Newman (2007) claims that marketing budget is not an expense but an investment and
mentions that it allows the business to understand the limit to which they can stretch
their expenses. Marketing budget allows building a hierarchy of objectives so that
budgeted expenditure can be directly related back to corporate financial objectives.
Financial Projections:
When preparing a marketing plan, managers are expected to submit their financial
projections for the upcoming three full-year period as per the organizations costing
specifications.

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McDonald (2002) suggests that the business should develop a tactical one-year plan
which will contain specific sub-objectives for the products with the respective strategies
to achieve them. Budget and targets must be included with a consolidated budget. These
should reflect the marketing objectives and strategies. In this section, the business
should prepare the sales and cost projections to predict the revenue generation for the
company.
2.2.4 Recommendation:
The analysis of the three marketing plans shows that they are common in many of the
areas. J obbers model (2007) is very generic in nature but does not involve financial
related information in its plan. J obbers model is more of fixed structure in nature.
McDonalds model (2002) fits well for business but it is a 10-step approach with four
phases. However, McDonald has insisted on using different marketing templates for
small and large organizations emphasizing the fact that it might be too early for the
small companies to provide many of the information. He advocates the idea of
customizing the template for smaller companies. For a start-up company, the marketing
plan template needs to be simple and flexible. Cohens model is a loosely arranged
structure and involves data which a start-up company may not be able to provide
proving it to be exhaustive for start-ups.
McDonald has discussed about the corporate objective but for some reason, he has not
explained them in detail. J obber and Cohen do not specifically insist on a separate
corporate objective. The author believes that it makes sense to define corporate
objectives for large companies but for start-up ventures, it would be too early as well as
makes it complex to define corporate objectives.
In the rapidly changing world, when things are bound to change, J obber and Cohen have
recommended to develop marketing plans with a long-term vision of 5 years. But
McDonald, considering the pace of the changing business scenario has strongly
recommended developing plans for 3 years even though he has discussed about 5 year
plans in his model. The author strongly agrees with McDonalds views for a 3 year plan,

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particularly for start-up ventures. This is apt for Admission Consulting industry as it is
already in the maturing phase.
One of the crucial aspects involved in running a business is defining a budget and have
an absolute control over the financial expenses. Many companies have run out of
business due to the simple but a powerful reason that they do not focus on their cash
flow activities. But J obber has not touched upon this subject in-depth in his marketing
model. As a mark of showing the need for budgeting, McDonald and Cohen have
included this in their marketing plan. In particular, McDonald has discussed about the
budgeting in detail by allocating a separate section.
For a company to perform well in the market, it requires niche skills which are not
present with its competitors or at least not easily available to its rivals (J ohnson et al,
2008). Mauboussin et al (2007) claims the competitive advantage determines the
companys ability to maximize its return on the capital employed and generates better
returns for the shareholders. J obber and McDonald have shown considerable interest to
emphasize the need for a firm to build its competitive advantage. But Cohens model
has missed out on dealing with the competitive advantage.
A well-written marketing plan becomes highly effective only when it is implemented.
During the implementation period, there might be changes to the plan and hence it
should be flexible enough to accommodate the new changes (Sliva, 2009). J obber and
Cohen have spent considerable effort on explaining how to control the marketing plan
whereas McDonald has not dealt much about it.
After analysis, the author believes that all the three models has its own merits but also
gaps. But to find the model which would fit appropriate for a start-up venture like
InterviewBay, the author feels none of the three models can be directly used as a
template. Every model requires customization to design an effective marketing plan. But
looking at the level of customization required to fit for start-up ventures, McDonalds
model proves to be proper fit. Due to the simplicity and flexibility of McDonalds model
and also its structure to accommodate the financial aspects to run a business effectively,

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the author has decided to proceed with the McDonalds model and customize it to fit
InterviewBays requirements (Figure 13).
One of the important areas that a start-up venture generally looks for to grow its
business is the strategic alliances. But none of these models focuses on this area. In the


current business scenario, this is an important aspect and moreover InterviewBay is very
keen to have joint ventures to grow its business. Hence, the author plans to cover this
topic under Marketing Strategy in McDonalds marketing plan.



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3. Research Methodology

3.1 Introduction:
Ghauri et al (2005) defined research as a process of planning, executing and
investigating in order to find answers to our specific questions. In order to get reliable
answers, we need to do this investigation in a systematic manner, so that it is easier for
others to understand the logic of and believe in our report.
Thus the purpose of doing research are multiple such as to describe, explain, understand,
foresee, criticize and/or analyse already existing knowledge or phenomena in social
sciences. White (2002) mentions the role of a researcher is that of an observer. But each
observation is prone to error. Hence the researcher needs to go out and research to find
the truth.
3.2 Research methods used in this project:
Saunders et al (2003) explains the research process by using their research onion model
(Figure 14). They argue that the researcher has to determine the research philosophy to
solve the research problem, identify the approach and strategies that they would be
follow in this research.

Figure 14: The Research Process Onion (Source: Saunders et al, 2003)

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There are two main research approaches namely Inductive and the Deductive. Trochim
(2006) explains that in inductive approach, general conclusions are drawn from
empirical observations while in deductive, conclusions are drawn through logical
reasoning. Bryman et al (2003) mention that the deductive process is associated with the
quantitative approach and the induction process follows qualitative method.
Distinguished authors (Cavaye, 1996; Hussey and Hussey, 1997) have commented about
the differences between qualitative and quantitative research in the research
Kelly (2005) mentions that the secondary data can be collected from the external
sources such as magazines, newspapers, television etc while the primary information
can be collected through surveys, interviews and focus groups, which show the direct
relationship between potential customers and the companies.
Ghauri et al (2005) mentions that the secondary data are available relatively easily and
quickly when compared to primary data. They are also inexpensive to obtain. With
advancements in internet technology, the researchers are able to source the secondary
data without much hassle. But he (2005) also highlights that the secondary data relates
to the past and the accuracy of the data for the present situation might be unsatisfactory,
whereas, the primary data, even though it consumes significant time and money to
gather information, is the latest information and also has been gathered specifically for
the project purpose. Secondary data, sometimes, may not accommodate the needs and
requirements of the organization but primary data can be customized to meet up the
objective of the resource of this project.
With the research question focused on the interests of MBA aspirants about MBA
Admission Consulting, its services and its usefulness and the ways to improve them, the
author of this research intends to use both the research approaches in this research with
main emphasis on the deductive approach using online surveys and also inductive
approach through qualitative interviews. The authors views are well supported by
Cavaye (1996) and Perry (2001) about the use of both the research approaches by saying
that both research approaches can be used in the same study

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3.3 Research Strategy:
Saunders et al (2003) have considered eight different research strategies. They are
experiment, survey, case study, grounded theory, ethnography, action research, cross-
sectional and longitudinal studies and exploratory, descriptive & explanatory studies.
3.3.1 Exploratory Studies:
Robson (2002) describes exploration studies as a means to find out what is happening;
to seek new insights; to ask questions and to assess phenomena in a new light.
Saunders (2003) mentions three principal ways to conduct exploratory research. They
are search of literature, talking to experts in the subject and conducting focus group
interviews. Saunders (2003) refers Adams and Schvaneveldt (1991) for accepting that
this method is flexible and adaptable to change but also argues that the flexibility does
not mean the absence of direction to the enquiry.
The author intends to use the exploratory studies as one of the research strategies in this
project. With the advertising strategy being one of the core interests of the company in
this project, the author needs to search on various literatures about the different
advertising modes and their details. As there are very less literature about MBA
Admission consulting, to understand more about the industry, the author feels that it
would be an effective way by talking to the industry experts and gain more insights.
3.3.2 Online Survey:
Couper (2000) claims that Electronic surveys provide the facility of capturing large
scale data. Sheehan et al (1999) adds to Coupers claim by supporting that the growth in
technology has provided an inexpensive way to gather information through online
surveys. Andrews et al (2003) supports Sohns (2001) claim that electronic surveys have
distinctive technological, demographic and response rate characteristics that affect how
they should be designed, when they can be used and how they can be implemented.
Web-based surveys have the advantage of low cost and distribution. Moreover, the data

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can be easily transferred to a database eliminating transcription error and preventing any
alterations by the survey respondent (Andrews, 2003).

The Admission Consulting business model can cater to MBA aspirants globally from a
single location thanks to the growth of internet technology. Since the target customers
are present across the globe and with the intention of capturing information using
inexpensive method, the author intends to use the Online Survey method in this project.
Research conducted to analyse the effectiveness of online surveys have proved to be
better than the conventional postal surveys (Lazar and Preece, 1999) Thus, this method
would be used to capture the perspectives of the students worldwide by designing an
online questionnaire and gather the information by distributing the web link in suitable
websites.

3.4 Data Collection:
Businesses, generally, require both the primary and secondary data for making effective
decisions. In this project, we would be gathering both the primary and the secondary
data. These data would be collected from their respective data sources. First we need to
gather the secondary information even before trying to collect the primary data (Ghauri,
2005)
3.4.1 Secondary Data:

Online Questionnaire:
With the prime objective of the research being to understand the perspectives of
MBA aspirants about the MBA Admission consulting services and also to assess
the need of these services, an online questionnaire has been carefully designed
based on the research question to capture the maximum details using the right
set of questions and by taking very less time of the respondent (Appendix C).
Andrews et al (2003) has mentioned Yun and Trumbos (2000) suggestion that
the online survey must be designed to (1) prevent multiple submissions (2)

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collect both quantitative as well as narrative answers. (3) Provide feedback
thank you upon completion of survey. The author has taken into consideration
all the suggestions of the scholars and incorporated them in the online survey.

The author has used the survey website www.survs.com for hosting the
questionnaire and has posted the links in websites extensively used by MBA
aspirants to share their information. Some of the websites used are
beatthegmat.com and pagalguy.com. This has been done keeping in mind to
collect feedback globally. The author has received 83% of the expected number
of respondents.

Information about Admission Consulting industry and about InterviewBay:
In order to understand better about InterviewBay and their current strategies, the
author has researched and gained an in-depth knowledge about the industry that
they are operating in and also about their competition in the market. The author
has used e-books and many interesting websites (Refer Literature Review) to
obtain this information. As a measure to know about the company, the author
has used the companys website to gather details about their business, how do
they co-ordinate between the interviewers and the interviewees etc. The author
also used the master document maintained by InterviewBay to understand more
about the organization and their strategies.

Information about Advertising Strategies:
One of the main requirements of this project is to determine the best and cost-
effective advertising strategy for InterviewBay. In order to find that, first the
need was to understand the various modes of available advertisements. Smith et
al (2008) has described in detail about the different advertisement options
available for a business. Smith has also suggested the cost effective advertising
strategies. They have referred to an Accenture report which made them argue
strongly that the adults interest in television advertisements have changed

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drastically for the worse in the past 20 years and advocates that for small
companies, advertising in television media proves to be very costly and
ineffective.

Brassington et al (2007) refers to the BMRBs survey which reveals that only
20% of internet users are interested in the web advertisements and feel that it is
entertaining. But Brassington has counteracted by citing Tiltman (2005) that the
online advertisements have grown rapidly and was worth 490m by 2010.

Research conducted by IABUK (2004) has revealed that internet usage by adults
in the age group of 20-34 years for information has been consistently increasing.
This is an interesting fact as the targeted customer segment for the MBA
Admission consulting falls in the same age group. It also has exposed that the
time spent on Internet by this age group is considerably ahead of the time spent
on newspapers and magazines (IAUBK, 2004).

Moreover, there are many websites offering e-books which describe the latest
available modes of cost-effective advertising. eMarketing (U.D) explains in
detail about the available advertising modes like Email marketing, Online
Advertising and Affiliate Marketing. Using the Exploratory method of research,
the author had contacted different media like newspapers, online advertisers to
collect information.

3.4.2 Primary Data:
Conducting Interview with Management Staff:

With the knowledge gained from the secondary data about the admission
consulting industry, the competition and also some basic knowledge about the
company, a personal interview was scheduled with the Founder of the company
in order to gain insights about the Admission consulting business and its
competitive environment. Before this, the author had prepared an informal

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questionnaire with the necessary questions related to the nature of the business,
its current organization structure, its current marketing strategy and their
advertising modes. During this interview, the author learnt about the companys
target segment and the countries that they were focusing on. Some of the
questions asked during the interview with the founder of the company:
o The background for starting up the organization
o Mission of the organization
o Explain more about their product and services
o Current stakeholders of the company
o Investment pattern
o Management Team
o Competitors for InterviewBay
o Current Advertising & marketing Strategy
o Current Pricing and their strategy
o Number of interviews conducted
o Number of clients who successfully got an Admit to respective b-schools
o Substitutes for their product
o Roles played by the interviewers and InterviewBays level of
dependency on them
o Competitive Advantage
o Target segment
This method of capturing information proved to be very useful as it fuelled the thought
process of both the author and the management to build effective strategies for the
business growth.
3.5 Validity and Reliability:
The author has gathered information and conducted interviews and the online survey
without any bias. In order to uphold the highest level of validity and reliability, he has
been objective as much as possible. In terms of validity, the author has used proven

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online survey websites for gathering the MBA aspirants feedback. Moreover, in order
to avoid bias, the author has managed to collect information around the globe by posting
it in reliable international websites. Limited time frame for the project has attributed to a
smaller sample size.
The author had conducted research on different survey websites and has arrived at the
selected one for its statistical friendliness. The website provides means to measure
users feedback and display useful statistical graphs. In terms of reliability, since it is a
third party website, no one including the author has access to modify the users data as it
is stored directly in the survey companys server. Thus the author assures the highest
level of reliability in this project.
3.6 Ethical Stance:
Online Survey has been conducted keeping in mind the ethics of research. Feedback
from users has been received with their total consent. Due to the acceptance of
anonymity with the feedback providers, the author has used their valuable feedback only
for his analysis and to understand about the need of the MBA aspirants based on which
InterviewBay plans to provide better customer services to achieve its business mission.
In compliance with that, the author has not disclosed the information about them here.


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4. Strategic Marketing Plan

4.1 Business Mission:
The company aims to provide a quality mock interview service to top b-school
aspirants and top consulting, financial and general management job-seekers. Our goal is
to strive for the success of our clients, provide the highest level of customer satisfaction
and create value to our shareholders. This mission statement clearly indicates
InterviewBays focus on customers as well as to keep their shareholders satisfied.
4.2 Financial Performance of InterviewBay:
InterviewBay is a start-up company and has been in the business for almost less than a
year now. Like any start-up venture, it too has faced ups and downs during this 10
month period. But it has managed to reach an overall operational profit of 35% in its
first 10 months by deploying effective cost reduction methods (Figure 15).

It is evident from the figure 16 that InterviewBay has been getting its major revenues
from Admission Consulting Business. The second source of revenue is from the mock
interview services for Strategy Consultants. Even though InterviewBay has not received
any business towards the interview services for the Investment Bankers, it is highly
optimistic about its growth as soon as the global economy starts to boom.
-250%
-200%
-150%
-100%
-50%
0%
50%
100%
150%
Nov '08 Dec J an Feb Mar Apr May J un J ul Aug '09
Fig.15: Operational Profit of InterviewBay (from Nov '08 to Aug '09)

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4.3 Marketing Audit:
4.3.1 External Marketing Audit:
4.3.1.1 Macroenvironment:
PESTLE analysis was conducted by regular interactions with one of the management
staff of the company. Based on those discussions, it has been identified that for the
Admission Consulting industry there are no political, legal and ecological problems.
Hence they are not discussed here.
Economic:
Global economic conditions play a big role in the number of students enrolling to MBA
programs. During times of recession, when there is an increase in unemployment, the
trend generally increases while it remains normal during economic boom. GMAC has
reported an increase in the number of applications by 77% of business schools as against
64% in 2007 (BusinessWeek, 2008). Survey conducted by CGS in U.S. proves this by
showing that during the current global recession there has been an increase of 4% in
international applications while the domestic students increased by a steep 8%. (Heiser,
2009). Recent poll surveys conducted by the consulting firm AdmissionConsultants
have indicated that almost 43% of students have indicated that they are applying for
88%
12%
Fig.16: Business Revenue % Split-Up
MBA Admission consulting
Strategy Consultants

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MBA during the current recession period as they have no choice (AdmissionConsultants
Survey, 2008). As InterviewBays business is global in nature, the economic conditions
around the world play a big role in defining the growth of their business.
The currency value of dollar against the aspiring students countrys currency matters a
lot in the number of students opting for the mock interview. Many Asian countries
currencies are weak against the dollars and hence the conversion value appears to be
high for those students from those emerging countries. For example countries like India
whose currency value is Rs.48.1 against $1 (MSN Money, Sep 2009) amounts to huge
sum as fees for the mock interviews. This becomes a hurdle for those students to opt for
international institutions providing the mock interviews and force them to go for a local
vendor.
Social:
The MBA Admission consulting is a fragmented industry leading to lack of standards.
There are too many small and few big time players operating their businesses without
standards. Pioneers in MBA Admission consulting industry have identified this issue
and as a step to bring in process, they have started a not-for-profit organization AIGAC
which defines and promotes ethical standards and professional development against
graduate admission consultants and increase public understanding about the consultants.
An organization with a stamp of AIGAC is an emblem of highest quality to the public.
Going forward, every admission consultant would be required to have this AIGAC
recognition in order to gain a competitive edge in the market. Again, losing this symbol
will become a mark of poor reputation in the field. InterviewBay, as a start-up firm, has
to obtain this recognition and maintain it in the society in order to achieve success in its
mission.
Earlier, one of the criteria for getting admits to top MBA schools had been work
experience. But now the trend has started to change. The number of admits straight out
of the college has increased drastically when compared to five years ago (VeritasPrep,

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2009). If the same trend continues, InterviewBay needs to rework on its targeted
customer segments.
Technology:
In the current business scenario, the world has shrunk due to rapid development in the
internet technology. But the evolving internet technology plays a big role in the growth
of business by effectively connecting the aspiring candidates with the mock
interviewers. MBA applicants are spread across the globe signalling the need for a
technological interface to connect the mock interviewers with these aspirants. Internet
with its voice chat and video conferencing facilities has bridged this gap. When the
MBA aspirants are local, face-to-face interview helps but in order to reach out to the
students worldwide, the industry banks on the internet technology to develop their
business.
Growth in internet technology has spread widely among the developed countries. In
many of the developing North-African countries like Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia etc also,
there has been a wide usage. But, at the same time, there has been a poor growth in
internet usage due to lack of internet infrastructure in South-African countries (Rena,
2008). Being a global business, Admission Consulting largely depends on the internet
facilities to connect to the rest of the world in a cost-effective manner. But the poor
facilities in the South African countries make it dependable on the alternative mobile or
the traditional telephonic communications. But as this is very expensive, interfacing
technology poses as one of the challenges for the students in poorly developed internet
countries. It is the same case with some of the developing Asian countries thus posing a
threat to the Admission Consulting business.
4.3.1.2 Microenvironment:
Porters 5 forces (Figure 17):
Threat of new entrants:

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MBA Admission Consulting is a very young industry and anyone can become an
Admission Consultant (GeekMBA360, 2009), especially, the Alumni of the top b-
schools and the Admission Officers. This business does not require a huge investment to
start up. The investment required to set up the infrastructure is minimal. It requires an
office space with an admin staff to handle the enquiries and book slots for the
candidates requirement. The company needs to have a website where the prospective
candidates can learn more about the companys services, their consultants and also to
make payment. Many times, the student need not even meet the interviewers in person
and everything can happen over phone or Instant Messenger Services. Thus it is easy to
start this business by anyone who knows this industry. Hence, the threat of new entrants
would be high.
Suppliers:
Interviewers are one of the suppliers. They are crucially important for building a
successful relationship with the prospective student. As these interviewers are largely
the alumni or current students or the Admission Officers of the b-schools, they are
available in large numbers in the market. Hence getting the best talent depends on the
negotiating skills of InterviewBay as it includes monetary terms also. Thus this can be
medium.

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InterviewBay sources its clients through partnership with other websites. If the students
referred by these websites take up interviews with InterviewBay, then InterviewBay
needs to pay these websites a negotiated percentage from the fixed price of the mock
interviews. Thus, InterviewBay depends on external websites for attracting students to
increase its top line. Hence, there is a significant level of dependency by InterviewBay
on these websites to improve its business line.
Buyers:
Prospective candidates are the buyers here. In this field, quality matters considerably as
it is concerned with their success with respective Business school. It also depends on the
value added services that the training centres provide for the prospective candidate. So
it is not simple to attract new clients unless the company provides the customer with
their expected requirements. And at the same time buyers are even ready to pay
premium cost to improve their confidence level before their final interview.
Threat of substitutes:

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Alumni students of the top business schools can be the substitutes here. If the
prospective candidates have friends or relatives who happen to be alumni of the schools
that they are trying for, then all the services provided by Admission consultants can be
provided by the Alumni without any cost to the student. But this is hypothetical as, at
the same time not every prospective candidate has a friend or relative like that.
Top B-School like Stanford has made it strictly clear that applicants "cross a line when
a piece of the application ceases to be exclusively yours in either thought or word."
(Stanford website, 2009). Similarly there are few more schools like Fuqua and Harvard
which feels that they are doing additional checks to find the right person as these
schools confidence level about the Admission Consultants is below the mark. Hence
this may force the MBA aspirants to stay away from the Consulting Services and submit
their work on their own.
But the Admission Consulting industry has been taking every steps through AIGAC to
ensure that they do not follow any illegal or unethical activities against the b-schools
admission process. They are working towards a supporting role for the b-schools in
reducing their admission processing time (AIGAC, 2009).
Even though there are schools which are still against the MBA aspirants use of
Admission Consulting services, the standards set by AIGAC and the goodwill building
measures taken by AIGAC makes this threat to be considered as medium.
Competitive rivalry:
The MBA Admission Consulting is highly fragmented industry. There are numerous
players operating in this industry and hence there is a high level of competition among
these rivals. But this industry is dominated by few companies which have been in the
field for a longer period and they hold a major market share. Being a start-up firm,
InterviewBay will have a tough competition against these rivals. Moreover, in this
industry, the top firms have more services to offer which can be combined with the

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mock interviews than the start-up firms. Hence this also adds up to the toughness for
start-up firms to survive.
The analysis of the five forces leads us to an understanding that the MBA Admission
consulting business is part of an unstructured industry with excessive competition from
pioneers to new entrants. It also faces threat from the Alumni and the Admission
Officers. Financial services and consulting firms which hire almost two-thirds of the top
business school students are contemplating about recruiting undergraduates at a lower
cost and groom their through their in-house programs (Thompson, 2008). With all these
considerations, although the Admission Consulting industry seems to be risky, the
various steps taken by institution like AIGAC and the increased number of applicants
for the top business schools (Heiser, 2009) make this industry still an attractive and a
lucrative one.
4.3.2 Internal Marketing Audit:
4.3.2.1 Current Marketing Objectives:
InterviewBay has been focusing on mock interviews for aspiring MBA students. It has
been currently providing services to students from any nationality. However, it has not
been focusing on any specific markets. It has also been providing mock interview
services for job-seekers like Strategy Consultants, Bankers and General Managers who
look out for jobs in top consulting firms.

4.3.2.2 Market Segmentation:
The admission consulting industry is highly fragmented and there is very less data about
the market size of this industry. Also, the mock interview is the last stage of the
admission process for the students who try for the top 30 business schools. The market
size is almost fixed for mock interviews as it depends on the total number of seats
offered by the business schools. Since this industry does not offer information on the
market size, it has been calculated based on the formula (MarketingProfs, 2009) and has
been determined to be approximately 26000 prospective students annually amounting to
$15,000,000 business. However, the market size is huge when the other admission

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consulting services like essay writing, resume and recommendation letter services are
also taken into consideration. The number of applicants taking up the GMAT exams has
crossed over 200,000+ (GMAC website, 2009) thus representing a huge business.
Currently, business is generated from any prospective student and it is not focused on a
particular target segment.
4.3.2.3 Competitive advantage:
InterviewBay has identified itself in the right sector in the Admission Consulting
industry. In proper sense, its mock interview services are conducted by the alumni or the
existing student of the b-school which the interviewee has opted for. This is a unique
advantage that InterviewBay possess as no other admission consulting firm offers the
mock interview by respective alumni. InterviewBay has gained this advantage through
its rich network contacts. Even the survey conducted by the author shows that almost
68% of the students feels that it would be useful if their interviewer is from the same b-
school that they are applying for (Appendix B). Thus InterviewBay has a clear edge
over its competitors in terms of providing its consulting services.
4.4 SWOT Analysis:


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Figure 18: SWOT Analysis of InterviewBay

4.5 Marketing Objectives:

BCG matrix has been applied on InterviewBays mock interview services for MBA
aspiring students, Bankers, Strategy Consultants and General Managers (Figure 19).
Strength
* One of the very few companies offering
mock interviews with interviews conducted by
the respective school's alumni
* Business done globally with a minimal fixed
infrastructure, and hence higher margins
* Rich contacts with other b-schools paving
way for quality interviewers.
* Cost reduction by outsourcing the website
development and maintenance
Weakness
* No brand image
* Less impact on Customers with the
current Advertising campaigns
* Company has only one product -
conducting mock interviews
* Website attracts lesser students
* No big prospective clients list for follow-
up services
* Pricing Strategy
Opportunities
* Students request for a complete MBA
Admission package
* Increasing trend in students applying for top
b-school MBAs
* Tie-up with GMAT institutes to act as their
mock interview service provider
* Expanding to MBA Mock interviews for
Indian Institute of Management (IIMs)
admissions
* Addition of other complementary services
* Few of the institutions interests for such
interview services for Law schools
Threats
* Global economic conditions
* Highly competitive industry
* Too many players in the market
* Market already in matured phase
* Still many schools are against the use of
Admission Consulting Services
SWOT

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With mock interview services as the fundamental business, here, the focus of
business growth has been decided based on the different categories of people that it
caters to. Based on the continuing trend (Figure16), it appears that Admission
Consulting is the top performing area for InterviewBay followed by mock interview
for Strategy Consultants. Although InterviewBay has not yet conducted interviews
for Bankers, it is highly optimistic about the growth in this area (Interview with
Management, 2009). As the companys intention is to work on the niche categories,
discussions with the stakeholders has revealed that mock interview services for
General Managers does not fall in line with their objectives.


Figure 19: BCG Matrix for InterviewBay
Being a start-up venture, InterviewBay has not yet achieved a significant market share.
However, the three categories - The Admission consulting, Consultants and Bankers
categories have a high potential to grow. J ohnson et al (2005) mentions that a company
generally needs to have sufficient number of products in the Cash Cow section to fund
the Star and Question Marks. Although InterviewBay currently does not have any
Stars:
NONE
Question Mark:
Mock Interview Services for
* MBA Aspiring students
*Financial Consultants
*Investment Bankers
Cash Cows:
NONE
Dogs:
Mock Interviews for General
Managers

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product in the Cash Cow section, the companys niche services has high expectations
that the Admission Consulting will become its Star and then become the Cash Cow in a
short period to fund the growth of the other two categories Bankers and Strategy
Consultants which are also promising businesses.
The SWOT analysis (figure 18) has helped to clearly identify InterviewBays current
position in the business scenario. This lays the foundation for the marketing objectives.
InterviewBay has carved a niche for itself in the Admission Consulting industry by
conducting mock interviews specifically by the Alumni or the existing student of the
respective b-school. This provides a competitive edge against many of its competitors.
The SWOT analysis leads us to the following marketing objectives:
Our first task is to identify the products and the markets that InterviewBay needs to
focus on in order to achieve its business mission. Ansoffs matrix will help us to identify
the products and the markets (Figure 20). The marketing objectives are planned for a
period of 3 years.

Figure 20: Ansoffs Matrix for InterviewBay
As InterviewBay offers niche services, as a first step for the first year, it has to
concentrate on capitalizing on its competitive edge and have a strong foothold in the
industry. For the year 2009-10, the primary target is to achieve a minimum of 75%

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increase in the number of interviews conducted in 2008-09. It also needs to achieve the
break-even and aim to bring in profits for the organization. In order to achieve this
ambitious target, InterviewBay has to penetrate deeper into the existing markets like US,
UK and European countries as there is a huge potential to tap more business. Thus it has
to follow the technique of selling existing products in existing markets.
In the recent years, the number of students from the Asian countries like India, China,
Korea and J apan has increased drastically (GMAC, 2009). Currently InterviewBay has
been catering mainly to the US, UK and some of the European markets. In order to
achieve its target for the year 2009-10, InterviewBay can supplement by focusing on
other emerging countries like India, China, Korea and J apan for mock interviews.
InterviewBay should start using better advertising campaigns (Refer Marketing Mix
Section for Promotions) and also start working with its strategic partners (Refer
Strategic Choices) in these countries in order to lay a strong foundation for 2010-11s
objectives - capture a market share of 0.5%
In the Admission Consulting business, InterviewBay has just one product conducting
mock interviews. But, the aspiring MBA students look for a combined package which
includes Resume fine tuning & recommendation letters and essay writing (Appendix B).
It has to expand its product portfolio by including these services. Thus it has to follow
the strategy of expanding its product portfolio in the existing markets during the year
2011.
InterviewBays specialization includes conducting mock interviews for Consultants and
Bankers who seek jobs in large consulting companies. As the current economy is
affected by recession, InterviewBay has been focusing less on this product. Also there
are only a very few players in the market to conduct such interviews, InterviewBay can
leverage its Human Resources experience and also its rich contacts to reach out to more
candidates and help them to success in their real-time interviews. Thus it can use the
strategy of selling new products in existing markets during the year 2011-12.

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Business units in the J apanese market have approached InterviewBay for conducting
mock interviews for their clients interested in Law schools and Undergraduate
admissions. InterviewBay can consider this opportunity over the next few years.
4.6 Target Segment:
With the company planning to grow exponentially, it needs to have a clear vision about
the segment that it needs to target. An in-depth analysis (refer literature review) has
been performed to identify the target segment for InterviewBay.
Survey conducted by GMAC institution (Refer Figure 7 in Literature Review) shows
that the number of students applying for the top MBA schools is in the age group
between 24-30 and less than 24 years. This trend has been increasing for the past few
years. With GMAT being one of the fundamental criteria for the admission process, it is
a credible source to determine the market size and the target segment. Thus it is a good
starting point for InterviewBay to focus more on the students in this range.
In the recent years, it has been clearly shown that the number of female students
applying for the top business schools has been on the rise (Refer Figure 6 in Literature
Review Section) even though the ratio of male to female still remains the same.
Moreover, the business schools are wooing the female aspirants to bring in a balance in
the study rooms. Thus the business is not confined just to the male segment but also to
the female gender also.
Top business schools mandate that the applicants need to have at least an undergraduate
degree but can have various subject backgrounds. Similarly, in the area of work
experience, many schools provide admission to students with an average work
experience of 4 years.
Thus, it can be defined that InterviewBays target segment needs to be students of both
the genders in the age group of 20 to 34 with undergraduate degree as minimum
educational qualification and an average work experience of 4 years.

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4.7 Marketing Strategies:
4.7.1 Marketing Mix Decisions:

4.8.1.1.Product:
From the BCG matrix (Figure 19), it can be seen that there is one service namely the
mock interview services for the General Managers in the low growth and low market
share section. Based on the discussions with the stakeholders of the organization, it is
clear that the need for this service in the market is very low. Being a start-up venture,
InterviewBay cannot focus on product/services which would not bring in business for
the organization. Hence, it is highly prudent to remove the mock interview services for
General Managers from InterviewBays product portfolio.
In the Question Mark section, InterviewBay has its mock interview services for
Admission Consulting. Based on our literature review as well as research & survey
results (Appendix B), it is very clear that this service would be highly beneficial for
InterviewBays business growth. With its rich list of highly qualified interviewers and
the increasing need for Admission Consulting services in the market, InterviewBays
main focus should be the mock interview services for aspiring MBA students which has
a high potential of turning to be a Star product and in the near future become Cash Cow.
Interview with one of the stakeholders of InterviewBay has revealed that they are highly
optimistic about the other two existing services providing mock interviews for
Consultants and Bankers for top consulting and financial firms even though they are in a
dormant state now (Interview with Founder, 2009). Economic recession has a big impact
on this service. It is highly expected that the recovery of the global economy will again
give a big boost to this service. Hence, InterviewBay can concentrate on these two
services next only to Admission Consulting industry. InterviewBay can view these
services as mid-term Stars.
4.8.1.2.Price:

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Currently, InterviewBay charges a fixed price per interview for a candidate across the
globe irrespective of nationality. Looking at the survey results, it can be noticed that
almost 60% of students have opted for a price range of less than $150 whereas 39% of
students have opted for $150-250 for mock interviews. Further analysis into the
feedback on pricing reveals that Asians, in particular, countries like India have been part
of the lower price whereas some Asians and more of US and UK students have selected
the price range of $150-250 (Appendix B). From this, it could be inferred that the
affordability of students differ between countries and that the economic factors of
countries play a critical role in the pricing. Hence, the pricing should be flexible to
accommodate the economic conditions of the countries. In other words, the author
suggests that the pricing strategy consider the economic status of the countries. With the
number of students from the Asian continent on the rise, it would prove to be an
advantage for InterviewBay if the pricing can be fixed based on countries and not as a
fixed price across the globe.
But the next question would be how InterviewBay would make profits if it offers at a
lower price for economically developing countries. For this, InterviewBay needs to
develop its interviewing strategy accordingly. It needs to develop its interviewers
contact list in these countries and should reduce its operating cost to make better profits.
4.8.1.3.Promotion:
For any business to grow, it needs to be promoted well in the market. As a start-up
venture, InterviewBay has been advertising its services through Google Ads and blog
spots which are frequently used by MBA aspirants for gathering information about top
MBA schools. To fuel its growth, InterviewBay firmly believes in strategic alliances
with companies and websites promoting complementary products and services. It has
also entered into strategic relationship with the company NetIP which is a networking
website for Indian Professionals. It has agreed to provide a discount for candidates who
are referred through Net-IP. Thus it is advisable to follow the current promotional
activities along with the new ones mentioned below:

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InterviewBay provides high quality services to all its customers and believes firmly in
word-of-mouth promotions. It can introduce a referral scheme with its existing clients
by providing free mock interviews or a percentage in the fee charged by to its clients. It
can combine this with its already existing promotional activity of providing discounts to
its new clients who come through referral.
As information is a critical resource for the aspiring MBA students to guide them to
achieve success, many companies provide useful information through their website
portals. It should be designed in such a way that the students are kept informed about the
latest happenings in the MBA world and should be made highly interactive and user-
friendly. Guidance which is expected by the prospective students can be provided by
introducing forums in the websites. Currently InterviewBay provides many of the good
features generally available in all admission consultants websites. It can redesign its
website to make it interactive for the students. It can build loyalty among these students
by making them visit InterviewBays website by providing interesting career and MBA
related information.
For a business to thrive, it needs to have a database of prospective clients to follow up
with them and to bring in new business. Currently, InterviewBay maintains a thin list of
prospects. InterviewBay can start sending newsletters to its existing clients with
valuable information about the current MBA trends and the latest happenings.
InterviewBay can increase its prospective clients details by adding a section in the
home page to capture the email ids of candidates who visits the website and are
interested to receive these newsletters.
Internet has become a powerful media since the past decade. A company which
publishes interesting articles gains lot of attraction from its viewers. InterviewBay can
regularly publish articles about hot topics in the Admission Consulting industry. For
this, it can use the services of the online public relation website prweb.com which helps
businesses to publish their articles in well established online media like Yahoo!, Google
and Wall Street J ournal for a cheap price.

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For a start-up firm, it would require its advertisements to reach its target customers but
at the same time, cost is a crucial aspect where it needs to ponder upon. Advertising in
newspapers reach the target customers effectively but the cost incurred is exorbitant.
Thus, to reach the same targets, InterviewBay can paste the Sticky-Notes with simple
but catchy words on the front page of the same newspaper which would cost it very less.
4.8.1.4.Place:
The office of InterviewBay is located in the heart of London and hence the local
prospective UK students have an excellent access to their office. But in many cases, as
the candidates are from other parts of the globe, the interviews are conducted through
internet and telephonic services. Hence, the location does not matter many times. But
InterviewBay believes in face-to-face mock interviews which builds the confidence of
the candidates. Hence, it has also chosen an inorganic growth and has been on an
aggressive mode to establish business partners in many of the high growth business
countries like US, India, China and J apan.
4.7.2 Strategic Choices:
In order to increase its business growth, InterviewBay has inked tie-ups with some of
the websites like Net-IP which are frequently visited by MBA Aspirants.
As a measure to reach the students in the top business providing countries like US, India
and China, InterviewBay has to establish strategic alliances with educational institutions
offering services like GMAT. This acts as a better approach as the local institutions can
market the mock interview services easily than InterviewBay reaching them directly.
InterviewBay has been providing mock interview services only and hence attracts
students only at the last stage of the admission process thus missing a big market
segment. Currently it does not provide other services like the resume fine tuning,
helping the students to write essays etc. Thus InterviewBay can increase its revenues by
forming alliances with institutions offering these services but not the mock interviews.
When InterviewBay offers mock interviews only, it can provide the commission

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percentage as the only benefit for the allied partner. But now, by having tie-ups with
institutions offering these services, it can provide business to the partners as well as gain
revenues from those businesses also. From the students perspective, it becomes a single
stop for the entire admission process to obtain an admission in their dream b-school. By
doing this, it results in a win-win situation for everyone in this assignment.
Going forward, it can also think about acquiring websites which offer services related to
Admission processes. For example, there are websites like MBAExchange.com which
provides Admission process related services. Thus, instead of developing from the
scratch, it can directly acquire a strong client base and build the business further.
4.8 Budgeting:
Budgeting is the toughest part of the marketing plan, in particular, for a start-up venture.
The available funds need to be carefully allocated, thus ensuring that it is not spent on
any non-beneficial activities in the initial stages of a company.
The financial year for InterviewBay is from April 6th of current year

to April 5
th
of next
year. With almost 5 months over for the current year, the budgeting done here is for the
remaining 7 months only. The figure 22 provides the budgeting for the next 2 years also.
Currently, the management of InterviewBay has spent around 250 towards marketing
& advertising expenses. It has also spent 1400 towards its website development which
acts as the interface between the organization and the end-user. It has spent 500
approximately as its initial technology set up cost. Now with the company eyeing for an
exponential growth, it has to plan for an aggressive and effective marketing and
advertising. Based on the analysis of advertising costs and the appropriate advertising
media, the budget towards advertising for the remaining year is estimated to be another
600. It also has to allocate an amount to upgrade its website with the latest news and
promotions. Hence, an amount of 700 has been allocated toward website development
and maintenance. For the current year, as InterviewBay has made purchases towards
upgrading their communication infrastructure, there would not be any allocation towards

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it. As a measure of cost reduction, InterviewBay hires interns from top MBA schools
and conducts its market research activities for which a sum of 500 has been allocated.
Regarding the salary, the CEO of the company as well as other management staff has
agreed to start taking salaries when the company enters the profit zone. Hence there is
no allocation for salaries. However, it needs to pay commission to its interviewers based
on the number of interviews they handle. But, as InterviewBays policy is to get the
interview fees from its clients beforehand, it pays the interviewers with this revenue and
hence the author has not allocated any budget towards this expense.
4.9 Implementation and Control:
A well-designed marketing plan finds its worthiness only if it is implemented. And it
requires a project plan in order to ensure that the management has a clear idea about the
tasks to be carried on the right moment in the future. The table 2 depicts a tentative plan
for InterviewBay for the next 3 years. This has been arrived at based on the marketing
strategies that have been decided based on the research and the organizations vision.
In order for the marketing plan to be implemented successfully, the entire management
team should be involved. Most importantly, since it is a small organization, the CEO
should head this activity and keep monitoring the progress in order to show her total
commitment in this endeavour. But at the same time, the activities should be split among
the management team members. It is highly imperative that the team meets every
quarter and reviews the situation. When the plan is put into use, it is then that the
organization would face the reality. In case of any unexpected events, the team should
immediately meet and amend the plans accordingly. Market research should be done
regularly to understand more about the customer requirements as well as the
competitors decisions.

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Table 2: Project Plan for implementing InterviewBays marketing strategies
More importantly, as a growing organization, it should track and record all its activities
which led to success and failure of the sub-tasks. This would become a knowledge
repository over the years and prove to be a valuable asset when the organization takes
any decision for its future growth.
4.9.1 Break-even Analysis:
Considering the above estimated budget and InterviewBays mock interview fees, the
break even analysis is provided below. It can be noted from the figure 17 that if
InterviewBay conducts 27 interviews, it would reach the break-even point. With its
previous years interview count as 22, and its target to increase its count by 75% this
year, InterviewBay is on the right track and should be able to enter into profit zone this
year comfortably.

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Figure 21: Break-even Analysis of InterviewBay
Here, the breakeven has been calculated assuming that all business comes through its
strategic partners. The more the business InterviewBay generates on its own, lesser its
variable cost and hence will reach its break-even even further.
4.9.2 Revenue and Cost-projections:
The figure 22 depicts the projected profit & loss statement of InterviewBay for 3 years
based on the new business strategies and discussions with the management.


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The sales projection (No. of interviews and Sales Revenue) has been done keeping in
mind the different marketing strategies that has been decided for the next 3 years. In the
first year, InterviewBay is expected to increase its sales by 75% leading to 40
interviews. By achieving this, it would cross the break-even point and enter the profit
zone. For the next year, its sales target would be to achieve 0.5% of the market share,
thus estimating the number of interviews to be 130. Even though it looks to be a steep
increase from the previous year, InterviewBay would be performing the base work of
getting into strategic alliances with institutions and vendors in the targeted countries.
For the year 2011-12, it would be introducing new package plans as well as venture
extensively into its job-seekers market and also the current MBA Admission mock
interviews. It is expected to bring in a sales target of 15 students under comprehensive
plan, 25 job-seekers and 1% market share in the mock interview services.
The cost projection is also shown in the figure 22. InterviewBay would be investing
mainly on the advertisements and sales promotions in order to promote its services in
the targeted countries. As it plans to reach out to a bigger targeted segment, a sum of
1500 and 2000 has been allocated towards advertisements for the next 2 years. It is
also planning to invest around 1200 and 2000 over the next 2 years on the
technological front and improve its website and develop programs to enhance the
interface between institution and InterviewBay. It would further invest consistently on
its market research in order to understand the need of the market and adapt its business
accordingly.



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5. Recommendations & Conclusion:

5.1 Recommendations:

1. Since InterviewBay is a start-up venture, firstly, it needs to generate revenue to
sustain in the market. Hence it can remain focused on the small market size of
26000 students for its mock interview business. In order to grow exponentially,
it needs to include other complementary services like Resume &
Recommendation letter fine tuning services and Essay writing services which
have a potential of 200,000+students. It can also look at building strategic
alliances with companies offering these complementary services

2. Ambitious but realistic sales target of 75% increase in the current year has been
proposed. For the years 2010-11 and 2011-12, a sales target of 0.5% market
share and 1% market share along with business from new products has been
proposed. To achieve these targets, InterviewBay can expand its focus on the
emerging markets of the Asian continents like India, China and Korea as there
has been sufficient proof about the increasing number of aspiring MBA students
from these countries.

3. Students of the current generation have become quite internet savvy. A well-
designed and informative website lures a good crowd and thus generates a big
business for the portal. It is also a powerful way to increase the level of
interaction between customer and the brand and builds loyalty (Brassington,
2007). Moreover, the growing trend of internet technology can be used
effectively to lay a strong platform for e-commerce business. InterviewBays
existing website provides information to the students. However it can be
improved further in terms of the page design and user-friendliness. It can be
made more interactive by including forums.


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4. InterviewBay needs to position itself well among the prospective students by
using effective advertising strategies. In the long run, this would help it to build
its brand image in the industry. But at the same time, it needs to be cautious that
it does not overrun its advertisement budgets. It needs to allocate a minimum of
25% of its budget towards advertising and sales promotions for the next 2 years.

5. The pricing strategy is another critical area where InterviewBay should
concentrate on. As its business growth is dependent on the Asian countries, it
should consider the impact of currency fluctuation of these countries against the
dollar while setting up the pricing for its services. It is highly recommended to
set different prices region wise and not a flat price across the globe.

6. Currently, the company does not have an exclusive position of Marketing
Manager as such. The CEO along with other management team members decides
upon the marketing activities also. It is highly suggested that InterviewBay
appoint a Marketing Manager with rich experience in start-up companies to take
upon these activities.

7. InterviewBay should sustain its competitive advantage by building an extensive
region specific network to provide local support to the prospective students. By
conducting interviews through local resources for the interviewees, the company
can increase the confidence level of the MBA aspirants and thus making it as
another core advantage for the successful growth of InterviewBay.

5.2 Project Conclusion:
The author has used the classical theories of marketing to arrive at a marketing plan that
will suit the contemporary business environment. The best and very useful features of
those marketing theories have been considered and used in this project. The author is
very glad that the management of InterviewBay has started planning to implement this
plan which reflects that these classical theories are still effective for the current business

UB No. 08013436 Page 69 of 84


situations. The research approaches that the author has used have proved to be very
useful in understanding the clients perspective about the industry and also have
provided an opportunity for the organization to improve its services further to achieve
its business mission.



UB No. 08013436 Page 70 of 84


Appendix A: Project Proposal

UB Number: 08013436
Name: Balaji Bangalore Varadarajan
Project Title: Strategic marketing plan for a start up venture
Supervisor: Paul Webb
Company: InterviewBay
Submission: September 2009
1. Scope/Rationale of Project
InterviewBay currently focuses on providing mock interviews for aspiring MBA
students to get into top MBA schools. Its product also includes mock interviews for
Strategy Consultants, Bankers and General Managers to prepare them for the final
interview with top companies. Having been started in 2008, the company is looking at
innovative ways to enhance its business growth. Being in a booming industry, it now
has ambitious plans to grow rapidly and hence it is in the phase of defining its business
strategy which includes product positioning, marketing strategy and to identify tie-ups
with related businesses to tap the market potential.
As a part of it, the scope of this project would comprise of the following:
Study the existing business concept and develop a business strategy for the next
five years of the business covering:
o business growth and market positioning
o improve the top line of the company

Identify strategic partners to tie-up for marketing InterviewBays products
A detailed business plan needs to be prepared as a Word document and also
PowerPoint presentation for investors
A detailed marketing plan to identify the target, segment and positioning of the
company
3 Year detailed financial forecasts
Analyse the companys current business focus towards MBA Admission
Consulting and provide suggestions whether to brand themselves as MBA
Admission Consultants in the future. If not, then suggest the alternatives.

2. Methodology

UB No. 08013436 Page 71 of 84



As a first step, an induction programme by the management would be conducted to
understand their business concept, their goals, their objectives and their existing strategy
to run the business. A basic level of research would be done on the internet and
literatures to understand the Admission consultancy industry and their scope.
A market audit would be carried on to understand the companys marketing
environment, its objectives, strategies and activities. The companys current marketing
activity needs to be studied to understand their effectiveness and to propose better
marketing strategies to improve their customer base. The Strategic analysis model
Porters 5 forces would be used to understand the power of competitors and other
aspects of the micro environment of the business. A complete SWOT analysis would be
performed to understand clearly the current position of the company and the ways to
capitalize on the opportunities using their strengths and to proactively plan to handle the
threats and their weaknesses.
For any company to grow, it needs to have a healthy business pipeline. The current
status of prospective customers list would be analysed. To improve the prospective
customer database, a market research would be conducted through online surveys using
a list of students obtained from authorised external resources to capture the interest of
the students in doing MBA, the schools that they are planning for and their timeframes
and the usefulness of the role of Admission consultants for them in obtaining a seat in
their dream business school and the price that they would be ready to spend for
Admission Consultants. But before this, research needs to be performed to identify these
external resources and the effective method of procuring the students list.
Using the details about their competitors and market potential along with the market
research details obtained from students, it would be required to define the market
segment that the company should focus on. By applying the literatures, appropriate
target marketing strategy would be selected to categorize the target customers. Research
on product positioning would be done to create a distinctive place for the company in
the market place.
Analysis on the current pricing structure would be performed. With the competitors
pricing model along with the market researchs outcome about students affordable
prices, suitable and competitive alternative pricing strategies would be developed. A
marketing plan comprising of all these tasks would be prepared as a part of this project
to help the organization with a clear marketing strategy.

UB No. 08013436 Page 72 of 84


The strategic capabilities of the company to provide competitive advantage for them in
the market would be identified and ways to sustain the advantage would be developed.
Currently, the companys business is conducted through their website. As a part of the
project, the current advertising modes will be studied and research will be carried on
with the different ways to advertise the companys product providing inputs on the
suitable ones to tap the market potential. As it is a start up venture, the budget toward
advertisement is limited and hence, innovative ways of promoting the product would be
identified which would reach the expected audience but within the budget.
Since the company is into Admission consulting, to improve their revenue stream, the
possible options of entering into strategic partnership or joint ventures with physical and
online education related businesses would also be analysed. A list of suitable partners
would be prepared with their merits and demerits for the company to decide.
Since this company is in its seed level, it requires the financial forecasting to be
performed for a minimum of 5 years which would help the organization to have an idea
about the investments that is required to carry on the business with all the new initiatives
to increase the business growth. This could also be used by the company during
discussions with the investors which is outside the scope of this project.
Research needs to be carried on to find whether the companys current focus of
conducting mock interviews only would help it in the long run to sustain in the business.
Hence, it needs to be identified about the other products that the company can include in
its portfolio in order to provide value added services to its clients helping it improve its
revenue stream.
The company requires an identity for itself in the long run and hence need to research
and develop its branding strategy. It needs to be analysed if it needs to retain it image as
MBA Admission Consultants. Interviews would be conducted with the management to
understand their long term vision. It also needs to be looked into how the company will
handle its mock interview business for strategy consultants and bankers.
The companys current revenue would be studied. Based on the various inputs that have
been arrived so far, the revenue milestones would be set by holding discussions with the
management.
In order to gauge the growth of the business, a business performance scorecard would be
developed. It would be used to measure the companys performance in terms of the
newly developed strategies and revenues.

UB No. 08013436 Page 73 of 84


A business plan encompassing the details about the new strategies, financial forecasting,
marketing and sales strategy would be developed.
3. Data Sources

Primary information
Conducting interviews with the management staff to understand their
existing business concepts and marketing strategy
Conduct surveys to gauge the markets interest in studying MBA from top
schools and the timeframe
Telephonic discussion to gather information from different advertising media
about their pricing and their reach to the targeted customers.
Obtain the list of online educational websites and educational consultants for
a strategic partnership

Secondary information
Current Articles in Internet on Admission Consultancy business
Gather information on the effectiveness of different advertising sources like
newspapers, internet etc for developing the marketing strategy.
Competitors pricing structure and package from Internet
Literature on Advertisement strategy, e.g. Marketing Communications
Students database from authorised external agencies like MBA related websites
Appropriate Business template for Admission Consultants industry from Internet
Sample Marketing plan templates from Internet

4. Aspects of MBA Syllabus Used
This project involves the core modules in Strategic Management, Marketing and
Business Accounting. It includes the electives in Entrepreneurship, Marketing
Communication and Business Simulation and also the power point presentation skills
obtained through Career Development Services and regular tutorial presentations.
5. Proposed Chapter Headings and Sub-Headings
1. Introduction
1.1.Objective of the Project
1.2.Rationale of the project
1.3.InterviewBay
1.4.Terms of reference

2. Literature review
2.1. Introduction

UB No. 08013436 Page 74 of 84


2.2. Marketing Plans
2.3. Business Plans
2.4. Admission Consulting Industry

3. Research Methodology
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Research Method

4. Marketing Plan
4.1.Porters 5 force Analysis
4.2.SWOT Analysis
4.3.Marketing Audit
4.4.Market Positioning
4.5.Pricing Strategy
4.6 Product Promotion

5. Strategic Partnership
5.1.Why is strategic partnership required?
5.2.Who are the potential partners?

6. Corporate Branding Exercise
6.1. Is branding needed for InterviewBay
6.2. What should be the branding for InterviewBay

7. Business Plan
7.1. Business Summary
7.2. Analysis of the Opportunities & Environment
7.3. Financial Forecasting
7.4. Revenue Projections

8. Conclusions
9. Work Programme
UB No. 08013436 Page 75 of 84

May J une J uly August September
4 11 18 25 1 8 15 22 29 6 13 20 27 3 10 17 24 31 7
Submit proposal
InterviewBay Induction
Review literature
Management Interviews
Identifying authorised external
agencies
Survey students to gauge
market interest
Gathering information about
advertising
Identifying Strategic Partners
list
Analyse the data
Meetings with sponsor
Meetings with supervisor
Complete first draft
Incorporating review comments
from Supervisor
Write project
Submit for copying/binding
Submission to University

UB No. 08013436 Page 76 of 84

Appendix B: Survey Results, 2009
The following graphs represent the results of the some of the questions raised in the online
survey conducted by the author as a part of this project.

Admission Consulting includes various services like Mock Interviews, Essay Editing Services,
School Selection guidance, and resume fine tuning services. As a part of knowing the interest of
the MBA aspirants in these services, this was raised as a question in the Online Survey. From
the above graph, it can be noticed that the interest of MBA aspirants are spread across all the
services but, in particular, they are interested more in resume reviews and mock interview
services.


0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
% of Interest in Admission Consulting Services
53.85%
11.54%
19.23%
0.00%
15.38%
Best Interviewer for conducting Mock Interview
Alumni of the same school
Current students of the same school
Alumni of top business schools
Current students of top business
schools
General Admission consultants with
exposure to MBA admissions


UB No.08013436 Page 77 of 84


In the Online survey, one of the questions was to understand the need of MBA aspirants in
terms of the interviewer. The results show that the MBA aspirants are highly interested to have
their interviewers who are Alumni of the same school.

One of the questions in the online survey was to understand if the current pricing is as per the
markets affordability. Almost 61% of the respondents expect the fees to be less than $150
whereas 34% has favoured $151-250. Further analysis has revealed that majority of 61% has
been from the Asian countries where the dollar value is high against their respective currencies.
Thus, if more the fees, more the local currency they have to convert to take up mock interviews
from InterviewBay.
Appendix C: Online Survey Questions
The following are the questions included in the online questionnaire in order to assess the
awareness of aspiring MBA students about MBA Admission consulting and their usefulness. The
survey was also meant to gather information to determine the pricing strategy for InterviewBay
and to understand how to provide better services to the customers.
1. Are you planning to apply for an MBA at a top business school?
2. Select the schools that you are planning to apply
3. When are you planning to join a top business school?
4. Which of the following services do you think will help you get into your dream business
school?
5. Who do you think will be the best interviewer for conducting your mock interview?
6. If you are applying to a top tier Business school, would you like to have a mock
interview?
61.54%
34.62%
3.85%
Mock Interview Fees Affordability
Less than $150
$151-250
$251-350


UB No.08013436 Page 78 of 84


7. What information would you like to see in the feedback provided to you after the mock
interview?
8. How much can an MBA applicant afford to pay for a mock interview?
9. Have you ever taken up a mock interview?
10. How satisfied were you with their services?
11. If you were Satisfied or Very Satisfied, what reasons would you attribute to it?
12. If you were Dissatisfied or Very Dissatisfied in the above question, what reasons
would you attribute to it?
13. General Comments



UB No.08013436 Page 79 of 84


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