Question

Steffes Corporation produces engineered solutions for the manufacturing, electric utility, and oil and gas industries. Wanting to expand beyond their traditional markets in North Dakota, company leadership sought a clearly defined brand and strategy. Chief Outsider, Dennis Bailen, researched internal and customer attitudes to develop a meaningful brand promise and tag line, while giving direction to a newly organized corporate marketing team. With the new brand and an integrated strategy, Steffes is expanding into new markets in the US and internationally. With help from Chief Outsiders, Steffes has progressed rapidly in its marketing capability. “When we hired people in the marketing field, they grew probably ten times faster by working with Dennis and Chief Outsiders than they would have just being here at Steffes,” stated Rothschiller. Informed by Bailen’s experience and market research, Schneider’s team learned how customer attitudes and branding all tied together. “He did a great job with that,” stated Schneider. “Through the process we learned more about business-to-business branding.” Bailen noted a significant transformation at Steffes. “They have evolved from an operating company to a market-oriented company, a big step, and developed their own marketing capabilities,” he remarked. Armed with the brand promise, Tom Schneider and his team developed a new logo and marketing materials. With an integrated strategy for expansion, Steffes is rolling out the brand, supporting the introduction of their products into other states and countries. “I do think customers are relating to our new brand promise line,” offered Schneider. “Those few words—Customer Focused. Solution Driven. Field Proven—they rely on us to do exactly that.” Believing that the industry would grow, Rothschiller’s investment in the future with Chief Outsiders is beginning to pay off. “With these investments, starting with the brand changes, building an internal department and bringing on a strategic head of marketing, they are now successfully securing contracts in markets they’ve never entered before,” stated Bailen.

Q1.      What are the strengths and potential threats for Steffes Corporation?

Q2.      Frame the key issues in expanding the Market. How do you synthesis the case?

Q3.      Do you think the brand presentation and the role of CMO has an important role in expanding the market? Why?

Q4.      What should be the strategy to be followed for further expansion of the market?

Answer 1

1. What are the strengths and potential threats for Steffes Corporation?

Ans: The potential strengths and threats for Steffes Corporation are:

2. Frame the key issues in expanding the Market. How do you synthesis the case?

Ans: The key issues in expanding the market are:

• Understanding the internal market dynamics
• Building the proper marketing plan to reach out to customers
• Maintaining the pace of development and operations
• Best partnerships with the local players in any of the field
• Strong flexibility and quickly adaptable

3. Do you think the brand presentation and the role of CMO has an important role in expanding the market? Why?

Ans: I think the brand presentation and role of CMO has key role in expanding the market because it is important to:

• Position the company with a proper brand and tag line
• Transformation from operations company to market-oriented company
• Building internal capabilities and matching them to the local market demands
• Creating a marketing team with local strategic marketing head
• Development of new and innovative marketing capabilities to become successful in new markets as per the market dynamics
• Strategic transformation to match new markets

4. What should be the strategy to be followed for further expansion of the market?

Ans: The strategy to be followed for further expansion of the market is:

• Enhancing the marketing capabilities and further formulating a strategy to meet the local market needs
• Robust marketing strategy and proper segmentation
• Partnership with efficient distribution channels
• Retaining the trained employees and framing a proper HR strategy to attract proper local talent team