Strategic Marketing Assignment: PROFESSIONAL WRITTEN COMMUNICATION Objectives and background Communication Audit Process Considering the current turkey market situation in Australia, the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia has found it beneficiary to convince customers for eating turkey for the rest of year through an Australia wide media campaign. This Strategic Marketing Assignment campaign, the four big producers, also the members of association, has proposed four marketing strategies. However, according to the Strategic Marketing Assignment team some common internal issues can majorly affect the implementation of these strategies. The audit process has been done over the association members- sole operators, small and four big producers, through assessing the existing strategies determining the effectiveness of new strategies, in line with organization and business objectives. The Strategic Marketing Assignment audit process, as a result of the assessment, has identified some serious internal issues to hinder the launching of new media campaign, implementing the proposed strategies. The issues are as follows, causing hindrances to achieve the campaign goal to portray turkey as healthy alternative to red meat and chicken. Internal communication issues are hindering the members’ involvement into decision-making process. Communication, at the same time, with the members is difficult and impossible and it takes longer time to gain feedback on launching the campaign. Staffs send unprofessional emails and budget restrictions because non-payment of the staffs as well as casual employment resulting in the Strategic Marketing Assignment that outlined specific guidelines and delivers formats.
Specific purpose The purpose of this report is specifically to draw recommendations to implement new strategy for launching Australia wide media campaign, based on overcoming strategies for internal issues. General purpose Apart from the specific purpose, the objective or general purpose of the report is to foster staff motivation as well as member engagement within the association for innovative and sustainable decision-making process.
Problems Problem 1 Based on the Strategic Marketing Assignment audit team analysis, it is comprehensible that no members can directly participate in the main stream of decision-making process of the association, causing major internal communication issues. The significance of this issue is to be assessed in the context of quantitative measurement of problem. As commented by Adam Cobb (2016) the key purpose of strategic decision-making is to foster firm’s financial performance through fostering the employee or member engagement and active participation. In the context of Australian turkey farming business, where turkey meat production market share has reached to 65% until 2017, this internal communication issue has the obvious impact to cause preventions to sustain a steady growth of the association’s market share. From a qualitative perspective also, it can be stated that apart from the financial performance, this internal communication issue has obvious impact to foster association performance through sustainable decision-making. According to Mone & London (2018), achievement of sustainable outcome from the strategic decision-making process entirely is determined through the employee or member involvement in it. Therefore, the internal issue of not communicating decisions with the members can result in creating barriers for strategic decision-making process because lack of involvement disables the members to understand the decisions. Problem 2
Escalated by the internal communication issue, the decision-making process is getting slow down with the issue of not being able to communicate with each member at same time and longer time to get feedback. The issue on this Strategic Marketing Assignment indicates an immense impact on association performance from an economical aspect. As illustrated by Ward (2016) strategy diversification directly influences the firm’s profitability, fostered by the communication decision with each member. In Australia only during time of Christmas, the customers only want smaller turkeys, which are only 10% of the production of big firms, mainly because of high price. In such context, for achieving the purpose of the campaign, this issue can slow down the decision-making process and strategy implementation. Hence, it is comprehensible that for sustainable firm performance, member participation and short-duration for decision-making function as the key determinant factors (O'Boyle, Patel & Gonzalez‐Mulé, 2016). Apart from the quantitative significance, the issue is to be signified from qualitative perspective. Based on the audit process outcome, a major uncertainty can be sensed in achieving sustainable outcome from new campaign because of the gaps in communicating with each member at same time. Most importantly, lack of communication prevents the members to give feedback or comment comfortably for diversification as per the information identified on this Strategic Marketing Assignment task. Problem 3 Apart from the above-drawn problems, the strategic performance of the association is to be seen from the aspect of its staff development and well-being to motivate them to achieve the campaign purpose in sustainable way. According to Shin & Konrad (2017), employee development and well-being escalate the high-performance workplace, building an integrated relationship with firms’ market growth. Similarly, this issue cause major issue to run the office successfully prior to achieve the purpose of launching the Australia wide media campaign. On the other hand, as commented by Barrick, Thurgood, Smith & Courtright (2015) employee skill development and well-being are the key determinants of collective employee motivation and engagement, leading towards sustainable organizational performance. Similarly, in the context of Turkey Farmers Association of Australia, performance to convince and attract customers must be hindered by the non-payment of the staffs and lack of professionalism.
Action steps to solve the problems According to the report of the audit team, it can be understood that the most advantageous way for the association will be to combine three strategies of first three big producers, in line with budget restrictions. However, prior to this, the association can adopt the following action steps to overcome the issues. Problem 1 For this issue of internal communication, the association must focus on ensuring the decentralization of power to make decisions from the association to all members. As a solution to this issue, the association should develop a team of executives, where there will be the representatives from both the association and each member. During decision-making process, this team development enables everybody to understand the decision made and its impacts. Most importantly, it will help the members to understand the purpose of the association to launch the Australia wide media campaign. Problem 2 This problem identified while collecting information for this Strategic Marketing Assignment is the geographical distances and longer duration for strategy implementation makes the members uncomfortable to share own opinion and feedback about the strategies. It hinders the diversification and innovation of the strategies. Therefore, for overcoming this problem, adoption of effective communication approach would only be the convenient way to communicate with each member at same time. Most importantly, the duration will be reduced to communicate decisions and to gain feedback from the members. Problem 3 For the solution to this problem, there should be an effective strategy for budget allocation to implement regular staff training and development regarding the usage of digital communication tools professionally (Lins, Servaes & Tamayo, 2017). Beside this, the association must implement legal and social responsibilities to protect the rights of casually employed staffs and the students, who work as part-timers. Apart from this, the association must restructure the
budget allocation to prevent the non-payment of the staffs for increasing employee motivation and engagement.
Closing Synopsis This memo has been developed with the purpose to draw recommendations for launching Australia wide media campaign of the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia. This is the memo, based on currently done internal audit by the audit team of association over the members and the staffs. The audit report ended up in identifying three common major internal issues regarding lack of member involvement in decision-making process, lack of communication, nonpayment and unprofessional emails from the staffs. Based on the given context, combination of proposed strategies of first three big producers will be more profitable. Benefit of compliance The compliance benefits are not only to be seen to the members but also to the association on the adoption of above recommended solutions. In the given context of the Turkey Farmers Association of Australia, tangibility of business, risk management and effective governance are the most possible benefits of compliance while addressing Marketing Assignment.