Marketing and Action Plan Essay example

Submitted By Pantera10
Words: 1173
Pages: 5

Memorandum

To: Re: Recommendation of an action plan to support company’s growth

Executive summary eBay’s business is evolving in fast pace, which demands proper actions to be taken in order to respond to the rapid growth. Organization’s infrastructure is insufficient and unable to support such expansion. Therefore an action plan is necessary in order to respond to the challenges of turning big. Based on the conducted analysis and conclusions, the recommended steps are to hire COO and CIO, to provide focus by using SMART goals and job descriptions, to create middle level management team and hire and train people with specialized skills. I. Current situation eBay is a small, growth oriented company with large potential. The purpose of the report is to recommend an action plan that would help building organization’s infrastructure and maintaining the core values in order to provide growth. Reason for the study is that the organization is looking to grow and expand but the current design of the organizational structure is not suitable for large business entity. Some of the issues characterizing the current situation are:
Lack of job descriptions - people do not have clear focus on what the job duties and responsibilities are
Lack of screening process to avoid selling illegal and dangerous items
Communication issues with newly acquired companies, which bring own values and culture
Lack of formal policies in integrating the acquired companies II. Problems The organization faces several problems that stand on the way to desired growth. The identified problems are:
No clear organizational structure – causes reporting issues and lack of accountability
No formal processes and policies – typical for small companies
Lack of control over sells of sensitive items (i.e. firearms) is potentially harmful for the business (legal issues - lawsuits)
No job descriptions – causes lack of focus among employees
Insufficient infrastructure and technology to maintain flawless work of the website causes frustration among sellers and buyers when the system is down
Necessity of more people with specialized skills
Customer complaints. Lack of market research that would allow knowing customers of our customers in order to help selling products. III. Vision, corporate and marketing strategy The company’s vision is to be the world’s largest online person-to-person trading community. The corporate strategy is to generate high margin business through acquisition of high-end items auction companies. This is to increase the average price per item sold through the website and therefore larger commissions. The marketing strategy focuses on power users. Advertising to heavy sellers and providing more privileges, since those users bring 80% of the business. Together the corporate and marketing strategies are growth oriented. Providing more capital through sales, allows expansion by investing in the organization’s infrastructure, technology and personnel. IV. SWOT analysis The main points of the SWOT analysis (see Table 1) show that the organization has multiple important strengths and advantages. The management uses the strengths to keep the leading position on the online auction market. Realizing the potential for growth the organization needs to address the weaknesses through implementation of a proper action plan. The market offers good opportunities for expansion From the constituted SWOT analysis the core competencies are innovative technologies; strong leadership; user loyalty; reputation. In conclusion - eBay has a strong user community, loyal customers and good reputation. The organization needs to improve operations and infrastructure in order to keep customers satisfied and to support growth. V. Competitive analysis The organization operates in online auction and retail industry. The other companies in this industry are not as powerful. Amazon is one of the larger competitors but strongly retail