Week 14 Reflection

Let's do this.

That was the motto for this week as our class was split up into three teams consisting of three to four group members per team. Collectively, the task was to develop our own marketing plan and carry out our decisions over a six period interval through the MarketShare simulation program. Although we have had access to this particular simulation for over a month now, this time, we were not allowed to restart the simulation and go back at any time time. This time- as in the real world- every decision mattered.

My team, consisting of Thao, Samantha, and I set out to catapult our "Allstar" brand of liquid cold relief products into the upper echelon of cold brands. Utilizing an estimated 55/45 split between a push/pull strategy, respectively, we were able to drastically sharpen our company's image and craft the cash cow image we had hoped. Numbers-wise, our total revenue and gross margin increased, and subsequently, we were able to please our investors and shareholders with a higher stock price. This success over the six period mark was not immediate- only after the fifth period did our company show signs of exponential growth. This showed me that although term-to-term growth for a company may be stagnant at times, it is critical to implement a marketing plan in order to evaluate mid-term to long-term company growth and success. Without a marketing plan, a company not only suffers from living too much in the moment, but the company also suffers from a sever lack of direction and will become discombobulated as a result.

As to how our team actually accomplished to succeed through our marketing plan, we learned very quickly that planning only gets you so far. After each period, our team viewed the "industry report" tab in the simulation in order to stay up to date on new company products, industry sales growth, and tackled specific company-related problems. For example, our team was responsible for compensating victims who bought and used a tampered version of our product. Through this responsiveness to change, our company stayed nimble and was able to act accordingly given the context of the situations at hand. It is very evident that marketing managers must be adept at extrapolating important facts from a plethora of industry-wide data in order to lead their companies to success.

As for our real revenue-boosting decision, our team decided to introduce an "Allright" children's multi-symptom liquid cold remedy solution into the market. This expanded upon our adult version "Allround" which was previously on the market. The difference in formulation was that our children's version was non-drowsy formulated since it lacked the alcohol content of the adult version. Interestingly, the introduction stage for our children's formulation hurt our growth during that specific period. However, the product was a key contributor to our revenue growth and our net income jumped by 50% from period five to six. This goes to show that introducing a product takes time in order for early adopters and early majority members to buy your product.

One week of classes left. Have a great week.

-Chris