Question

Now that Michelle has all of the pieces of her marketing plan in place, the board is ready to see the final plan. She is apprehensive about this because the board needs to approve the plan for it to move forward. It is imperative that the plan addresses all of the marketing issues discussed to this point, and that it also includes a discussion of how MM( Mobile Manufacturing) will measure the success of the plan after it has been implemented.

Primary Task Response: respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments.

Michelle is happy with how the plan is being put into place. The date and time for the final board meeting has been set when she calls you.

“How will we know if the new product launch is a success?” she asks. “How will we know if what you have suggested really worked? Since I started this company as an entrepreneur years ago, I feel like everything that happens here is my fault or my responsibility. Does that make sense?”

“You’ve been so supportive to me during this whole process,” you say. “Leave it to me. I’ll think about what you’ve said over the long weekend and I’ll be ready to sit down and discuss the details as I prepare the final draft of the plan.”

Based on your original goals and the plan you are putting into place, what will you tell Michelle?

What will you measure to determine whether or not your new product plan for MM( Mobile Manufacturing) is a success?

What about a contingency plan?

Do you need to make recommendations for MM if things do not go the way you hope and expect them to?

Answer 1

One of the most important factor that I will focus while preparing my new plan would be its reliability and the degree of customer orientation that I associate with the product. Any efforts done without prior customer acknowledgement is in vain. I will have to tell Michelle about the meticulous market research that i would be conducting prior to the preparation plan that could reduce the risk of failure of the up to a certain extend.Apart from that, a new technique called market test method will be applied in the scheme in which the product and the marketing efforts will be tested in a few selected number of markets or an artificially created environment where likely results can be predicted. This will help in understanding more about flaws in the plan, and errors are corrected immediately. This method must be repeated again and again until the the plan becomes almost error free. The initial test of this method will help you to know whether the product launch will be successful or not.The time for conducting the test can be adjusted according to time constrains.This will also help her to know whether my suggestion is correct or not.

Michelle is also cladding with emotional problems related to her sense of responsiblity. Tell her about the importance of self confidence without which there wont be success in personal and professional life. Such self blamings are nothing but hallucinations which every strong beings must cope up with.   

There is no better measure to determine the success of a product plan unless either we expose the product into the market or involve ourselves into the social laboratory. Gathering product expectations data through questionnaires or using social media platforms to discuss customer acceptance could help in measuring the success/ failure of a product plan. Also commence market testing on a small scale.You can even begin it from the private sphere of your friends and family. As for the contingency plan, developing a backup product idea would be highly expensive. However, alternative marketing strategies and sales promotions could act as a reserve plan , if the results does not meet with expectations in the future.

Finally, if things does not go as hoped, it does not mean that the product or the plan is a failure. It is just a mistake in filling the gap between customer expectation and the product offered. It can be easily corrected through revised launch of the product with new tactics.

I hope you are satisfied with the answer.