Remote Collaborations: Navigating Challenges During Covid-19 Outbreak - Essay Sample

Introduction

The global shutdown trends due to the Covid-19 outbreak have left companies with various productivity and operational challenges mainly revolving around communication and collaboration among the employees. Due to the increased work from home calls by governments and health experts, companies are continuing to encourage their employees to work together and collaborate remotely. Such remote collaborations are made possible through online collaborative spaces. In light of the increasing application of online work environments, plans are underway to launch the WorkTogether App globally to service companies and their employees in collaborating and communicating remotely.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

WorkTogether App provides innovative solutions to workplace collaboration environments that employ a combination of the best attributes of Zoom, Slack, and Microsoft Teams. A marketing plan is thereby outlined here to describe the strategic roadmap for organizing and executing the marketing strategies of WorkTogether App Company. This marketing plan shall, as such, define the Company's marketing and segmentation strategies, positioning plans, brand personality, pricing strategy, retail member roles in the value chain as well as the promotion plans during and after launch.

Marketing Philosophy

The market philosophy defines the strategy and logic behind the marketing venture. For the WorkTogether App, the marketing management philosophy focuses on selling, marketing, and social marketing concepts. The selling concept intends to make money from the WorkTogether App by making every probable sale of the product to the companies in the Company's radar. The Company will thereby focus on selling the application to as many global companies as likely. We shall maintain a worldwide sales reach by convincing various multinationals of the need to buy the App and its importance of increased online collaboration. The selling concept shall involve identifying as many interested service companies as possible and finding convincing them of the need for the employee innovative remote workplace collaboration spaces. More sales shall equate better business for the sales team.

In addition to the primary selling concept approach, the Company shall also engage in a marketing approach. As the selling approach only handles the myopic profit-focus of the Company, more proactive concepts like the marketing concept shall be used to guarantee the Company's longer-term business survival and success. A basic understanding of approaching marketing from the marketing concept perspective entails the centrality of the customer. The needs of the customers in online collaboration will thus be analyzed and used in informing the marketing approach. In this marketing philosophy, thereby, the Company shall research on what the customer wants and needs in the WorkTogether application and reconfigure the App to satisfy such special customer requirements. Value creation shall be the central focus of this marketing concept. The Marketing Concept and value proposition will be a necessary competitive aspect in such a competitive and mostly generic competitive field of online marketing and service provision.

Lastly, the Company shall complement the marketing concept discussed above with the Societal Marketing Concept. As the significant intention of the App is to foster collaboration, the societal approach to marketing is essential in ensuring the acceptance of the Company in the long run by the overall society. While companies intend to make money in the short term, the longer-term strategies of forward-thinking companies should involve fostering and maintaining positive interactions with their customer base as well as the wider community. Corporate social responsibility functions shall, thereby, be engrained as necessary components of the Company's long term marketing structure. Poverty alleviation, environmental focus, and societal wellbeing are some of the areas the Company shall take an active, participative position in the social settings.

Market Segmentation for the App

WorkTogether App targets a global audience of small and medium-sized teams. The demographics of such workplaces are thereby diverse in terms of ethnicities, age, education, proficiency in internet use, religion, and race. In demographic segmentation, the App team will apply age averages for various companies to find an appropriate mapping of the marketing process. Understanding the different individual requirements of the demographic segments allows the App team to tailor the marketing in a manner that is responsive to the differences in age and internet proficiencies. The other sensitive demographic aspects, including race, religion, and ethnicity, will not be used to isolate or prejudice any demographic settings.

In the demographic segmentation component, the team shall conduct studies on the particular geography-related preferences and interests of the customers. Being a globally-scoping company, WorkTogether shall aim to understand the local contexts that may influence the adoption of the technology in the various companies. Customizations to the App are thereby necessary to make it societally acceptable to the separate settings.

Psychographic and behavioral segmentation aims to understand the behavior and critical values and activities of the employees in various companies. While these two types of segmentation are different in approach, they offer an opportunity to figure out what pattern of actions and lifestyle drivers to expect with the consumers. Thereby, the team will use the marketing and social marketing concepts to research and map the differences in customer values and actions and strategize the Company's marketing appropriately.

Differentiation and Positioning Strategy

To have the App stand out among the generic competition space, the team shall aim to 'niche' the App's market and product positioning. In positioning, the Company shall map out the potential place of the WorkTogether App in the workplace collaboration tools market. The team shall determine how the App might fare against the established providers of online workplace services based on the customers' purchase trends. Are small and medium level companies inclined to purchase the App over the other Apps and more established online sites? While positioning the App, we must also analyze the customers' perceptions of the benefits provided by the App. The team must thereby map out the unique means that the App shall deliver these exclusive benefits to the customers.

In differentiation, the App must be set aside as unique and valuable over the flooded market of providers offering similar applications. As already described above, the team shall aim to present exceptional value to the customers in the App. The App combines the strengths of Zoom, Slack, and Microsoft Teams to result in a unique product that approaches collaboration and communication among employees innovatively.

Brand Personality for the App

The personality aspects of the App shall be used to 'humanize' the App provision. Beyond the functional benefits, the App offers, the brand personality aims to add qualitative value to the consumer segments. In effecting and affecting the personality of the App's brand among consumers, the team shall purpose to evoke emotional responses of the consumers regarding the product offering (from the use of the App). The App offering will, as such, aim to elicit emotions such as excitement, competence, sincerity, ruggedness, sophistication, among other traits. To stimulate collaboration and communication in a work setting, the team shall accurately define the App's brand personality as sincere, carefree, and accomplished. In such a nuanced character, the App aims to balance the unbounded nature of online collaborative environments to the feelings of workplace achievement. The interaction between the carefree and accomplished emotions are then united by an emotion of sincerity and family bonding at the workplace.

The brand personality will allow the App to develop a character and map a different route towards storytelling about the brand. WorkTogether thereby shall establish a brand identity that stays family grounded as well as competent and excitement oriented. As the targeted segments entail diverse age groups and geographical settings, the Company intends to balance the core emotions of most human demographics. Family and accomplishment are cross-cutting themes through the various facets of humanity regardless of their religious, ethnic, or social/economic beliefs. The segmentation into age groups will also provide a path to branding through the excitement emotions. Youth segments will be more inclined to align with an excitement based brand.

Pricing Strategy at Launch

The tradeoff between competitive pricing and profit margins shall inform the pricing strategy. Production and other expenses must be catered for through pricing. At the same time, the price must stay competitive to attract customers and maintain the margins. While launching a new business – such as WorkTogether App – it is essential to balance the cost management and profit intentions of pricing discreetly. The four main pricing approaches that shall be implemented during the App launch include penetration pricing, promotional pricing, psychological pricing, and geographical pricing. Geographical pricing will be used to stay sensitive to the geographical differences in commercial processes. The regional tax policies, tariffs, and rent-based expenses are some of the geographic costs that may affect the pricing policy of the Company.

Penetration pricing shall involve an initial, lowering the prices of the App compared to competitors to gain customers based on price competitiveness. This method, however, hall only be used sparingly as the team believes the App's unique value offers enough competitive advantage for the team and the Company. Initially, though, the team proposes slightly lower pricing on the App to attract customers. Promotional and psychological pricing strategies shall then aim to evoke an emotional response from the customer. Such approaches in pricing like offering trial periods in the App allow time for customers to experience the App and to develop the initial trust in the App before committing to the subscription. Psychological pricing approaches may also involve reducing one currency unit on the price to attract the customers. It has been determining, for instance, that customers respond more to $99 price than a $100 price – this is referred to as psychological pricing.

The Role of Retail Members in the Value Chain

The Company's intentions occupy a global space will mean that the Company works with retailers and customer relationship managers within the geographical regions. In these settings, the organization will engage sales associates, customer service representatives, visual merchandizers, App managers, and Inventory Control. Despite the app offering being a predominantly online offering, the App also requires physical installation and assets. Marketing and sales departments are thereby necessary at the various geographical locations. Furthermore, the App requires actual visualization and customer service representatives. These members of the value-chain are directly engaged with customers and, as such, understand their preferences and individual emotional statuses. The sales team at the main headquarters must, as such, ensure a holistic engagement of these separate retail services members.

Promotion Plans

As already briefly stated, the promotion approaches for the App shall involve a variety of strategies that evoke customer interest and emotional attachment with the product. Promotional pricing has already been identifie...