Marketing Plan

Marketing Management Course Project

Objective:
1. To help students apply concepts of Marketing Management discussed in the
class to a specific product-market situation
2. To put students in a specific context to allow them to identify specific
decisions required to be taken to prepare a marketing/ business
development, help realize the specific information required to make
decisions based on structured analysis
3. To undertake the process of marketing research collecting and analyzing
primary and secondary data to enable marketing decisions.

Context:

Globalization has significantly increased the number of Indian migrant workers
outside India. This has resulted in emergence of consumer-to-consumer (private)
Money Transfer Services which is now an important business opportunity for
Financial Services firms. Money Transfer Service or Remittance is generally used by a
migrant worker to transfer money to his friends/ relatives from the foreign country
to his/her home country. In many cases, such transfer is quite regular and recurring
if the key bread-winner of a family is working outside India with his/her dependents
in India.

Unlike banks, which can accept/ remit money through wide network of their
branches, several non-banking money transfer service providers depend on other
financial services agents who have wide retail network of consumer service such as
domestic non-banking financial services companies, travel and tour operators or
even petro- retailers. Muthoot Money Transfer (MMT) is a financial services
company with a one-stop retailing of money transfer services of several non-banking
money transfer service providers. It uses its wide network of over 4000 branches in
India to serve individual recipients of money transferred from other countries
through international money transfer service providers. MMT is a one stop
destination for all money transfer services retailing services of Western Union,
Xpress Money, Moneygram, Royal Money, EZ Remit, Instant Cash, Transfast, Wire
Money, etc. In addition to money transfer MMTs network of branches retail various
financial services primarily short-term loans such as gold loans.

The Task
As a marketing manager of MMT you are expected to analyze current market
situation of retailing of money transfer services in India and develop a marketing
plan outlining marketing strategy and programs for next planning cycle which is
taken as one-three years.

The marketing plan development task involves primarily two parts: a) Marketing
Research and Situation Analysis b) Developing marketing Objectives, Strategy and
specific Marketing Programs.
For the purpose of this exercise, you can focus on the national market and consider
both inbound and outbound money transfer.

a) Marketing Research & Situation Analysis:

You will have to understand the market and the dynamics first using
qualitative methods like interviewing executives of companies in the money
transfer business, talking to customers, reading available information in
books, magazines, internet sources etc. This can be followed by Data
collection using secondary sources and primary sources if required to
understand current market situation in terms of Consumers, Competition,
Channels and the Company (Muthoot Finance). This would lead to a clear
profiling of the market in terms of its size, growth, competition, consumers
and their behavior, channels, etc.

b) Developing a Marketing Plan:

This would involve identification of specific marketing objectives for the
company to market money transfer services for the next three year period,
developing marketing strategy (segmentation, targeting and positioning) and
proposing marketing programs (product portfolio, price, promotion and
place). Based on analysis of the data collected on a) above, this would largely
be an arm-chair, group discussion and brainstorming exercise. However, each
element in the proposed marketing plan must be based on rigorous situation
analysis. You are also expected to identify a clear customer value proposition
which is translated to positioning and actionable marketing strategy.

The submission:
Students would be working in groups of maximum of members
Submission deadline is September 20.
The expectation is a 10-12 page report (A 4 size , font size 11, Calibri, 1
margins on all four sides, sources of information clearly acknowledged)
o The groups must submit a hard copy and a soft copy in PDF format.
All submissions will be checked for plagiarism. A plagiarism score of above
30% will get an F for the component automatically.

Submission should include:

Part A Situation Analysis

Overall Money Transfer Service Market Characteristics (Size, growth, trends,
key players, market shares, channels of distribution, etc.)
Consumer behavior (Needs/ motives, influences, use situation, decision
making process, frequency of usage, choices, etc.)
o Who is your consumer/customer, what do they buy, why do they buy,
how do they buy, when do they buy, from where do they buy?
Competitive Analysis (products offered by competitions comparative
strengths and weaknesses of various money transfer service retailers)
Channel analysis (modes of remittances of money)
Company Analysis (Muthoot Finance in general and Muthoot Money Transfer
in particular)

Part B Marketing Strategy and Marketing Mix Decisions for 2014-16

Objectives for 2014 and 2014-16 (business goals)
How will you meet these objectives/business goals
What possible strategies do you advocate?
o Product Development/market
development/penetration/diversification
Your marketing strategy
o How to segment the market, which segments are there. How will you
evaluate the segments, which segments will you target.
o Value Proposition (s) considering the consumer needs and the
competitive offerings.
Marketing Mix decisions
o Product Portfolio related decisions (new products launches, specific
product features, etc.)
o Price
o Place/ distribution/ branch network
o Promotion
How will you promote the product