Research Paper on Manulife Financial

Introduction

Manulife financial is a leading Canadian-based insurance company with major operations in Canada, the US and Asia. The corporation is renowned for providing strong trustworthy and reliable solutions for financial decisions. Its international network involves agents, distribution partners and employees who offer products and services for financial protection and wealth management. Some of the services offered by the company include individual and group life insurance, health insurance, pension products, long-term care services, annuities, banking products and mutual funds. Manulife financial also offers institutional services such as asset management to customers across the globe. Other institutional services also include reinsurance solutions property specialization and retrocession of casualties (McDonald, 2016, 109). Both in Asia and Canada, the corporation operates through the brand name "Manulife Financial" while in the US, it uses the brand name "John Hancock"

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Strategic Marketing Planning Process

For a company to stay in business, it needs to convert potential into closed sales. The way that a business markets to its prospective customers is always referred to as a strategy for marketing. Companies can have various marketing strategies in place at any given time through the use of various platforms for marketing. Some of these marketing strategies can include networking, traditional print advertising or even through digital media (McDonald, 2016, 110). While companies are expected to develop marketing strategies, it is most important to have strategic marketing planning in place as well.in planning of strategic marketing, some of the following processes are common: assessment of marketing opportunities, development of marketing strategies, selection of target markets, planning for marketing programs and management of marketing efforts. This planning process has been the core for Manulife Financial, and has kept its business alive ever since.

Analysis of marketing Opportunities

Before developing a plan, it is usually important to determine exactly where the business currently sits. This strategy is essential in gauging other avenues that the company needs to get involved in to scale up its revenue. The analysis of marketing opportunities offers the avenue to take honest assessment of why the business is where it currently sits before thinking of hoe to scale up revenue. Most of the information usually needed for this analysis is often within existing business plans and updated data reports. Other ways that companies evaluate market opportunities is through conducting SWOT analyses.

Manulife Financial has been using two major situational analyses tools to assess market opportunities. The first form of situational analysis used by the company has been through financial analysis. Like any other company, Manulife Financial conducts an annual meeting where the management recaps the progress that the company has made during the fiscal year. Such reports are vital in assessing the positioning that the company attains at the time of reporting, and to know which initiatives are required of its management to move it forward from the position.

Another vital tool that the company uses in analyzing marketing opportunities has for long been the SWOT analysis. This analysis is quite vital in assessing the strengths of the company to know what gives it an edge over other peer companies. It helps in assessing its weaknesses to know the areas that it needs to polish to take advantage of the marketing opportunities. The analysis also helps the company's management to know the threats that marketing opportunities bring to the company. Lastly, the analysis is vital in assessing opportunities that it can exploit to thrive even more in the markets. In general, Manulife Financial has been using SWOT analysis to identify internal and external strategic factors to exploit market opportunities.

SWOT Analysis of Manulife Financial

As one of the leading insurance company, Manulife has various strengths that have enabled it to flourish in the market. These strengths have not only helped the company to guard its market share in present market but also to exploit new markets. The first strength that the company has is its high-level performance in new markets (McDonald, Christopher, and Bass, 2003, 110). The company boasts of building expertise at exploiting new markets and becoming successful in them. Such expansion has been key to creating new revenue streams that help it to diversify its economic cycle in the markets that it operates in. Another strength that the company has is in having good returns on Capital Expenditure. The company has been successful at executing new projects and generating good returns on capital expenditure through building new revenue streams. As a result, it boasts of successful record of developing new products and services.

One weakness that Manulife Financial has, however, is that it has limited success outside its core business. Although it is regarded as one of the leading companies in insurance business, the company has faced numerous challenges in moving to new product segments, especially with its present culture. Another weakness that the company has comes from gaps in product range vended by the company (McDonald, Christopher, and Bass, 2003, 110). With the lack of choice within company management, new competitors can easily cement themselves in the market and reduce market shares for the company. The company has also been realized to grapple with the challenges that new entrants to the market bring along. As a result, the company has continuously lost small amount of the market share to new companies in the insurance sector over the past few years.

A look at the opportunities that the insurance sector has brought to the market, it is easy to note the avenues that Manulife Financial can exploit for its benefit. Manulife has the opportunity to create even more revenue streams from the new opportunities that the market has brought up. Another opportunity come with new environmental policies that have continued to be passed, which are aimed at leveling the field for all players in the industry (McDonald, Christopher, and Bass, 2003, 110). From this opportunity, the company can use its new technology ventures to take advantage of the market and gain more market share with its products.

With new developments taking place in the insurance industry, changing consumer behavior to online channels can pose a significant threat to businesses such as Manulife, especially regarding its supply chain model that is driven by existing physical infrastructure (McDonald, Christopher, and Bass, 2003, 110). Another threat to exploiting marketing opportunities comes in the form of liability laws in different countries that might expose the company to liability claims, especially with changes getting enacted in those policy markets at alarming rates.

Selection of Target Markets

Target market entails a group of individuals with similar needs, perceptions or interests, and who show a particular inclination towards similar brands. It is usually essential that organizations identify the set of people with these inclinations to their products or services, and whom they would wish to target with their products.

As an insurance company, Manulife relies on two strategic positioning that helps it with selecting a suitable target market. The first position that the company employs is investing in professional market segmentation. This position is often powerful, especially when done professionally. It is able to provide invaluable insights in identifying where the company's spend is best placed. The company uses this strategy in pinpointing customers that would be more beneficial to its business and suggesting ways that it can best target them.

The second positioning that the company uses is ignoring preconceptions. Instead, the company relies on statistical approaches that put factors such as demography into play to analyze consumption patterns within a given demography (Baker, 2012, 125). This approach has been found to minimize generalization and further remove stereotyping while giving the involved companies the desired edge against its competitors.

Development of Marketing Strategies

In the development phase of a marketing strategy, the first and perhaps most important consideration is in creating a proposition that stands out. As a successful business, Manulife relies heavily on outlining a winning tactic for its marketing strategies. The company realizes that successful strategies in marketing are made up of different tactics, some of which are online while others are offline. After determining the target audience, and putting the industry factor in the decision, it becomes easier to decide whether the strategy should be offline or online (Baker, 2012, 126). For instance, for young target audience, the company knows why it should engage online marketing strategies. Likewise, while intending to appeal to the older generation a solid outline of tactics will dictate why the company should opt for print media and offline advertising instead of online and digital advertising.

Planning of Marketing Programs

In insurance, the number one issue in planning marketing programs is research. After realizing the gaps in market and why the product is highly appealing to the target audience, the next step is in drafting a marketing plan. As an insurance company, Manulife always ensures that the point of drafting a marketing program involves its target audience as the primary idea in the marketing plan (Baker, 2012, 130). The company's description is often concise and descriptive. For instance, when attempting to improve consumption among older consumers, the company was concise in describing the target audience. It

Impacts of Strategic Marketing Planning Process

For any business to grow and develop, there needs to be some strategic planning done to its procedures. It helps to provide basis for the activities conducted within a business, which should then affect the performance of these strategies and the company as a whole. Some of the most essential aspects of strategic planning involve vision and mission values of the organization.

The context of strategic marketing planning usually involve the needs of the business organization, including the needs for the organization to ensure that its operations are properly matching the market conditions. For instance, since situations in the market keep changing, they can significantly impact the demand of a company's products and services. In this context, therefore, strategic planning of the marketing strategies can help in prioritizing levels of development within the organization (Lidstone, and MacLennan, 2017, 15). In the context of Manulife Financial, strategic planning of marketing strategies has been the key to stay ahead in the insurance market. Manulife invests in market analysis which helps it to keep tabs with the small changes in the market before they can become noticeable by competitors in the market. With these analyses, the company can manage to employ its best strategies and take advantage of the market opportunities before others.

The process of planning strategic marketing is significant in managerial performance. It emphasizes the reality that impacts how an organization is run, with the objective of always taking advantage of market opportunities and improving company outcome. At Manulife, for instance, the activities of its managers generally involve planning that requires analysis of internal organizational environment (Lidstone, and MacLennan, 2017, 15). These requirements have been...