The soap market in Sri Lanka is worth of 7 Billion rupees in the year of 2010(LMRB Data), which is the total market value of toilet soap and baby soap. The total tonnage of toilet soap and baby soap is 22,000MT in the same year (LMRB Data). Hence it is evident that most of the Sri Lankans use either toilet soap or baby soap for their bathing and other purposes.
As result of the new technology & infrastructure developments in the country in last 3 decades demand & competition increased. The toilet soap and baby soap marketers also started to get use of the opportunity and started to put more marketing effort to capture the consumers taste. The soap manufacturers used different marketing strategies to enhance their market share. Toilet soap marketers began to position their products as beauty soaps where the most female consumers got attracted.
Almost all the toilet soap manufacturers enhanced the product characteristics to satisfy the female consumers. Varity of beauty soap brands can be identified in the Sri Lankan market, which consists of several multinational & local brands. Today like all the other markets, soap market also has a huge tend to move for the herbal soap because most of the ladies move from beauty soap to herbal soap. Company Profile The story of the Siddhalepa Group of Companies goes back 150 years to the middle of the 19th century.
In Galle, a small town on the southern coast of Sri Lanka lived Hettigoda Gamage Don Carolis de Silva, an agriculturist by profession. His talents however, were multifaceted. He excelled in the art of Astrology and was also well known as a skilled Ayurvedic physician. Of his two sons, Hendrick De Silva Hettigoda followed in his father’s footsteps and studied Ayurveda and Astrology, while his younger son, the late Most Ven. Dr. Walpola Rahula, rose to fame as a world-renowned Buddhist scholar. With a sum of RS. ,500, Ayurvedic Doctor Victor Hettigoda began production of the balm in 1971.
Hettigoda had spent 12 years under his father’s tutelage learning the secrets of Ayurveda. His father in turn learned the trade from his own father. Hettigoda first sold the product by travelling around the country convincing boutique owners and small retailers that it was genuine. His business has extended today to other commercial sectors such as soap and toothpaste also. Today the company has diversified businesses and leader of many of products in the respective fields.
Task One Competitive analysis Competitor analysis in marketing and strategic management is an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors. This analysis provides both an offensive and defensive strategic context to identify opportunities and threats. Profiling coalesces all of the relevant sources of competitor analysis into one framework in the support of efficient and effective strategy formulation, implementation, monitoring and adjustment. Competitor analysis is an essential component of corporate strategy.
It is argued that most firms do not conduct this type of analysis systematically enough. Instead, many enterprises operate on what is called “informal impressions, conjectures, and intuition gained through the tidbits of information about competitors every manager continually receives. ” As a result, traditional environmental scanning places many firms at risk of dangerous competitive blind spots due to a lack of robust competitor analysis. According to task One requirement I’m carrying out a competitive analysis to define our competitive advantages.
I have drew a graph to depict the current image of the particular product over the consumers with its competitive brands which are available in the Market. According to the following graph visaka soap is not ranking at a good position in the Market comparing its competitors.
SWOT ANALYSIS
SWOT analysis (alternatively SWOT Matrix) is a structured planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. A SWOT analysis can be carried out for a product, place, industry or person.
It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving that objective. The technique is credited to Albert Humphrey, who led a convention at the Stanford Research Institute in the 1960s and 1970s using data from Fortune 500 companies. The degree to which the internal environment of the firm matches with the external environment is expressed by the concept of strategic fit. Setting the objective should be done after the SWOT analysis has been performed.
This would allow achievable goals or objectives to be set for the organization. Strengths: characteristics of the business or project that give it an advantage over others. Weaknesses: are characteristics that place the team at a disadvantage relative to others Opportunities: elements that the project could exploit to its advantage * Threats: elements in the environment that could cause trouble for the business or project Identification of SWOTs is important because they can inform later steps in planning to achieve the objective.
First, the decision makers should consider whether the objective is attainable, given the SWOTs. If the objective is not attainable a different objective must be selected and the process repeated. Users of SWOT analysis need to ask and answer questions that generate meaningful information for each category (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) to make the analysis useful and find their competitive advantage.
They use proper management for managing the resources. They have active research and development team. Weaknesses Still they are not using E-commerce. Their distribution channel is mainly focusing on rural areas. Opportunity Trend to consume herbal products in the global market. Can launch a product called “Visaka Body Wash” Expand distribution channel through urban markets. Threats Increasing rivalry among existing market. Threats of new entrance are high. Bargaining power of suppliers is high due to the limited natural resources. High tendency to enforce new taxes and levies by Sri Lankan government.
Purchasing price of ingredients is also tending to increase. So these types of analysis may help visaka soap to be the leader in soap Market. Task Two Brand Vision When managers undertake brand visioning, while they might focus on one of the components at a time, as they do so, they would be rapidly considering in their minds the implication of that components on the other two.
For example, when two entrepreneurs start, they do so because they share a belief i9n a common set of values that they consider to be important at the back of their minds is the challenge of how these values can inspire their employees to work on a brand that should bring about a better world. Arriving at the three component of a brand vision is akin to entering a circle – entry can be gained from any point, but the trajectory will encounter all three components. Brand Vision For Visaka Soap VISON To be amongst the top 10 international herbal products drawing upon the rich heritage of the Sri Lankan system of herbal medicine.
BRAND SPHERE
When we are auditing the key forces that enhance or impede brand performance are changes I the economic environment, new technology and the possible introduction of new legislation. When first faces with this challenge on a brand strategy project, many issues were considered. The problem was that with so many factors, it proved challenging to summarise the impact of different forces. To make the audit feasible, and to then enable the results be analysed, the brand sphere, shown in figure, was devised. This summarises the fine enhancing or impeding forces.
Without knowledge of these factors, it is difficult to appreciate what promise the brand should aim to deliver. Corporation/Firm The Need Of Internal Alignments It is essential to evaluate the impact of the corporate issues discussed above against the organization brand and on same line the brand’s team able to arrive an overall assessment. Further, the reviewing of those factors assist to identify the state of brand success. The critical issues came out from the evaluation for or against the brand are to address immediately. Distributors The company may distribute its brands directly to its users but it is most unlikely.
The company uses third party to approach the end users. Tn such events the impact to the brand and to the organization in to consider 1. Alignments of Goals The manufacturers have their own understanding about the vision and the objective of the brand. In same way the distributor too have their long term and short term objectives. For effective marketing needs to be a shared understanding about how both suppliers and distributors can use the brand for mutual benefits. Sometimes there may be overlap between the goals of suppliers and the distributor.
In such situations the both parties reach to an agreement avoiding any damage to their brand. 2. Power It is the nature that distributors or brand owners to use their relative strength when negotiating the terms and conditions. Based on this a strategy is to adopt keeping aside the superiority. Power Matrix Distributor Attractiveness For Visaka Soap For F L H L H Brand Strengths for Visaka Soap It is the responsibility of the brand’s team to evaluate the attractiveness of each distributor. For some a periodic workshop to be held and agree upon the attribute that make distribute attractive.
The ultimate result of such meeting, workshop evaluations are meeting their (brand owners and distributors) goals strategically. Customers The customer is defining as the end user in the consumer market. Customers in business to business (B to B) market End consumer Time rich or Money rich A consumer research is to carry out the identity how the consumers buy their brands and what role the brand will play in enhancing their lifestyles. In the society there are consumers of little time for brand decisions and who do not have schedules. Tight or Loose Capital
Now a day the companies are internet oriented and they have created their own internet environment. On marketing aspects it is advantage to have consumer community through internet. Having such environment benefitted for the brands for its functional, emotional and experimental values. Further having chat room in the websites that, encourages discussion about the brand. How well does the brand fit the consumer’s buying process? The consumer’s respectualism towards the brands vary according to the degree to which they are involved in the buying process.
It is necessary to fit the brand to the once buying process. Competitors Competitors are the force that impact on the well being of brands. Defining the Competitive Set The consumers most of the time buy brands after comparing with other similar brands. Therefore the managers role is to evaluate their brand very frequently against the competitors. Members of the brand’s team are responsible to make assumption about the brand and share the same view. In respective of the personal background of the team members a common view is welcome to develop the brand to complete with similar other brands.
