The impact of marketing strategies on the growth of Orange Cameroon

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

From time past, businesses all over the world has faced a great difficulty in getting their products acceptable or sold in the market. Until recently, producers had always found it difficult to penetrate freely into the market in such a way that prospective buyers are convinced to buy their products and stay loyal to the company’s products. However, the emergence of marketing has paved the way of success for producers and marketers globally (Aremu and Lawal, 2012).

A marketing strategy is a method by which a firm attempts to reach its target market. It is a plan that allows business owners to direct activities that are consistent with the goals of the business owner and organization and spend money wisely in order to create the greatest amount of return on investment. Marketing strategy focuses on delivering greater value to its customers and the firm at a lower cost. However, quantifying the return on investment from marketing expenditure on activities such as advertising, promotion and distribution is one of the most complex issues facing decision makers. Marketing performance is essential in today’s fast moving competitive markets and measuring the performance of marketing is critical in order to manage it effectively (Dewa, 2014).

Marketing strategy is one the most important areas that needs to be carefully examined by the organization. A sound marketing strategy becomes imperative. Marketing strategy is commonly defined as a strategy employed by a firm to attain its marketing objectives, which

in turn is related to the achievement of the firm’s business objectives. In other words, marketing strategy refers to the marketing goals and action plans that address matters of product/ service price, distribution, communication, and the process of new product development. The adaptation of any strategy depends much on factors such as management style and experience of the top management, age of the institution, economic environment, and regulations.

In order to measure the effect of the marketing strategy a business has to break down its marketing function into constituent parts and should also bring out a mechanism that will analyze the interaction between those parts. By doing this decision makers will be in a position to relate marketing expenses to shareholder value and understand how to tie marketing initiatives back to the values created for the company. Decision makers will also be able to understand the internal motives that propel the marketing value of the business (Dewa, 2014). By manipulating the following marketing variables; price variation, promotion, research, advertising, product differentiation, quality, packaging and place, this could increase the returns to the firm.

Marketing strategies involve all initiative undertaken by organization to promote increase in sales, usage or trial of a product or services (i.e. initiations that are and are not covered by other element of the marketing communication/promotional mix).marketing strategies is an important component of an organization overall strategies planning along with accountability, risk management and other functions. Marketing strategies act as a competitive weapon by providing an extra incentive for the target audience to purchase or support one brand over another. It is particularly effective in spurring product trial and unplanned (Aderemi, 2012).

Most marketers believe that a given product or service has an established perceived price or value, and they use sales promotion to change this value relationship by increasing the value and/or lowering the price compared with other component of the marketing mix (advertising, publicity, personal, selling). In determining the relative importance to place sales promotion in the overall marketing mix, an organization should consider its marketing budget, the stage of the product in the life cycle, the nature of competition in the market, the target of the promotion, and the nature of the product. For example, sales promotion is particularly attractive alternative when the budget limited. Additionally sales promotion can be an effective tool in a highly competitive market, when the objective is to convince retailers to carry a new product or influence consumers to select it at the expense of those of competitors. Sales promotion includes communication activities that provide extra value or incentives to loyal consumers, wholesalers, retailers and other organizational customers. It also stimulates sales, product trial (Kotler and Kelvin, 2014). One of the essences of this paper is to test the effectiveness of sales promotion on organizational performance.

Over the years, the telecommunication sector in Cameroon has spread over the country and now a ready market unlike before due to the increasing knowledge of the population about the use of mobile phones. Not only has it been a ready market but it has embraced the technology in several ways and it has been able to operate as Multinational Corporation that originates from the soil (Dewa, 2014)

Today, Cameroon has four telecommunication companies competing for growth in their sales and market share superiority. They include; MTN, ORANGE, CAMTEL and NEXTTEL. With this mix, these companies must have highly specialized marketing strategies that gives them better growth and that also gives each of their products a competitive advantage. This study relates to the impact of marketing strategies on the growth (in sales volume, profitability, revenue and size) of Orange Cameroon as will be seen in the subsequent chapters (Dewa, 2014)

The trading environment in Cameroon, as is the case globally, has changed dramatically in recent years (Dewa, 2014). There has been a significant economic and social change in the cities, towns or rural areas which has altered the ability, perception and behavior of customers as regards shopping and retailing. The needs and desires of the customers have changed in various ways and so has the consumption of products varied for example fixed versus mobile phone service consumption.

Clearly, Orange has employed various marketing strategies mentioned above as well as the following; product planning, pricing, branding, advertising, promotion, packaging and others. Here we will focus on frequently used strategies of this company which is advertising as well as promotional efforts like personal selling. These have been brought out because there is a possibility for them to be tested quantitatively and qualitatively (Dewa, 2014)

1.2 Problem Statement

This research is meant to examine the effect of marketing strategies on the growth of orange Cameroon The marketing strategies being used by Orange Cameroon is been challenged by myriads of problems which includes poor network services, drop calls, checking of balance problems in the billing system, resulting to the increase in customer complaints, challenges posed by competitors in the country. 

Consequently, evaluating the marketing strategies of orange Cameroon in which information was sourced from the marketing manager of orange Cameroon, it is denoted that orange has their problems just as other networks have their problems, so far they have been trying.

From observance Orange Cameroon has had to put in a great deal of effort to use the right marketing strategies in order to gain a greater market share and also to overcome some of these problems they face. To captivate the customers and so push the firm’s long run growth in sales, market share and the profit, the marketing campaigns of Orange have had to be of great efficiency. But the problem is that little information is available, identifying the Right strategy to used, Securing Enough Budget, Targeting the key Audience, with respect to these problem, these marketing campaigns or strategies affect the overall growth of Orange Cameroon.

 The study seeks to answer the following question

1) What is/are the marketing strategies of orange Cameroon?

2)  What is the impact of marketing strategies on the growth of Orange Cameroon?

3) To what extent does Promotion affects the growth of Orange Cameroon?

1.3 Research objectives

           The main objective of the study is:

1. To examine the impact of marketing strategies on the growth of Orange Cameroon. The specific objectives of the study are;

–  To identify the marketing strategy of orange Cameroon.

–  Examining the extent to which Promotion affects the growth of orange Cameroon.

MANAGEMENT PROJECT TOPICS WITH MATERIALS