My Company is “Target” entering Kenya and my week 2 paper will be below the instructions. With this assignment you will complete the Global Marketing Plan for your mentor company that you began working on in Week 2 of this course. When submitting this assignment, be sure to include the portions you completed during Week 2 through Week 5 and make any adjustments to the work from any recommendations in your gradebook. For this assignment, you are encouraged to upload your work to your ePortfolio in addition to Waypoint. Learn more about Folio, Ashford’s ePortfolio tool, by viewing the Folio Quick Start Guide (Links to an external site.). Submit your file to Waypoint using the button below. Then paste the link to your Folio page as a comment in Waypoint so your instructor can access your ePortfolio. In your paper, Under an Executive Summary heading Summarize the rational of your plan. Under an Environmental Analysis heading Analyze the environmental situation of your mentor company in global arena based on Economic, Trade, Social and Cultural, Political, Legal, and Regulatory factors. Then select a country in one of these regions: Latin America, Middle East, and Africa and provide a situational analysis of that country considering the following criteria: demographic, economic, trade, social, cultural, legal, regulatory, and political factors. (Hint: Refer to your Week 2 Global Marketing Plan Part 1 assignment and include it in your final paper after you incorporated your instructor’s feedback and comments). Discuss how market research, information systems and big data will help you understand the region better. Under a General Strategy heading Explain your segmentation, targeting, and positioning strategy for that line of product in the new region (Hint: Refer to your Week 3 Twitter Advertising Analysis for Target Marketing discussion). Discuss your market entry strategy including export selling and sourcing activities, if any. Under a Specific Plans and Strategies heading Explain your competitive advantages strategies to compete against five industry forces. Formulate the 4Ps: Product and brands (Hint: Refer to Part 2 of your Week 4 Product Branding discussion) Price Place Promotion with a special focus on digital media and IMC (Hint: Refer to your Week 5 Integrated Marketing Communications assignment) Discuss the company’s CSR and social responsiveness strategies particularly in the selected region. The Global Marketing Plan Part 2 Final Paper Must be 10 to 13 double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA Style (Links to an external site.) resource. Must include a separate title page with the following: Title of paper Student’s name Course name and number Instructor’s name Date submitted For further assistance with the formatting and the title page, refer to APA Formatting for Word 2013 (Links to an external site.). Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice (Links to an external site.) resource for additional guidance. Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper. For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.) as well as Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.), refer to the Ashford Writing Center resources. Must use at least one scholarly sources in addition to the course text. The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment. Must document any information used from sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.) guide. Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Ashford Writing Center for specifications. Please use Folio to upload your paper. Carefully review the Grading Rubric (Links to an external site.) for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment. WEEK 2 ASSIGNMENT Global Marketing Plan Part 1 The Target Corporation opened their first store in 1962 and since then has grown to one of the largest retailers in the United States. As of 2018 Target now operates in all 50 states within the United States and is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. While Target has found a large amount of success within the borders of the United States, it does not employ it’s stores in any other markets outside of the United States. This paper will discuss a global marketing plan for Target to expand into new markets outside of the United States. Environmental Analysis Economic: Target currently operates over 1,800 stores in the United States along with several distribution centers. Over the last few years, Target has expanded into all 50 states with the addition of a store in Vermont and has seen revenue increase over the same period. While Target has managed to outpace the growth of other competitors, to maintain their edge, Target must continue to analyze avenues to save money and pass those savings on to their consumers. With Target solely based in the United States, fluctuations in the US’s economy can have a positive or negative impact on how the company performs. Recently, Target attempted an expansion into Canada; however, it quickly failed due to an underdeveloped supply chain which left shelves in the store empty and online shopping unavailable. Trade: Target focuses on high quality merchandise and low-cost designer fashion at discount retail prices. This allows Target to compete with the likes of Costco’s quality products and Walmart’s cheap prices. Target currently operates with four different in-store formats and additionally offers almost all of it’s goods through online services. Social and Cultural Target focuses on their consumers not just while they are in the store but also gives back to the communities that they are a part of. Target has a long legacy of giving 5% of their profits back to the communities that they serve and also have community outreach programs where volunteers help out through a multitude of programs. Apart from taking care of the consumers, Target also takes care of it’s employees by ensuring equality. Through Target supporting the community, employees happy to come to work and help the consumers, Target is a well-received company that promotes loyalty. While numbers suggest that parts of Africa will be a good fit for Target, Target will need to do it’s own research to verify that it is going to be a profitable venture. While research costs Target money and time, Target may be willing to go forward with the venture no matter what the research reveals due to previous numbers showing it should be profitable (Keegan, W. & Green, M., 2020). Political, Legal, and Regulatory According to Target, they source their products from all over the world. They utilize their own internal Sourcing Services team which anticipates issues and potential risks. By evaluating potential supply chain issues, Target is able to look ahead and act to prevent supply chain constrictions. Target’s mission with their vendors is to ensure that the vendors utilize efficient, safe, and ethical factory environments where they can produce safe, reliable, high-quality products (Target, 2020). With a requirement to abide by labor, employment, environmental, privacy, and security laws for each country it deals with, Target is well versed on how to operate in a global market. General Strategy Marketing Strategy in Africa First and foremost, when marketing to a new unknown group, Target needs to consider the needs of it’s new customers. It is expected that by 2025, Africa will account for one-fifth of the world’s population and that two-thirds of the estimated 303 million African households will have discretionary income (Agyenim, 2015). What makes this even better for Target is that African income earners are young and willing to spend on new products. Discount designer fashion items and desirable household items will play well to the desires of a growing African market. Demographic African consumers are young and more willing to spend money to try new products. 53 percent of earners in Africa are between the ages of 16 and 34 (Agyenim, 2015). With it being a young market, they are connected via online platforms which makes targeting consumers online a must for Target in Africa. Economic While much of the vast continent of Africa remains underdeveloped, urbanization in the large cities that it does have is having a tremendous impact on it’s consumer market. Africa already has as many cities with more than one million inhabitants as what North America does which with that concentration of consumers bodes well for companies looking to expand into these fast growing cities. Trade Africa is rich in natural resources and it has relied mostly on farming which is still performed by over 60 percent of the population (Gardiner, R. & Middleton, J., 2019). Many of Africa’s exports comes from the natural resources that are harvested throughout the country which produces jobs for many people. China is one of the largest partners for exporting. Social Factors With Target’s desire to give back to the community and volunteer, Target will be well received among the African people. With the target consumer being younger, many consumers in Africa will have the ability to adapt and take advantage of Target’s online platform. With Target utilizing their website or through emails, consumers will be able to be reached with coupons that they can then use online or bring into the stores. Cultural Factors Leaders need to be mindful that trust and belonging to a group is needed prior to being able to lead. Africans value time put into building relationships prior to being told what or how to do things. They want a sense of belonging just as their history of belonging to clans suggests. Legal Factors and Political Factors When entering into Africa Target needs to look for regulatory frameworks and areas where growth is happening. Search out opportunities in large stable cities that are supported by a strong country government. With corruption and economic instability in some parts of Africa, those areas should be avoided while looking for better opportunities. Conclusion The ultimate goal for any company is to be successful. By being aware of the cultural requirements of the African people, Target can integrate itself into the appropriate African markets and make a positive impact on it’s future clients while also making a profit. There will be multiple avenues for Target to reach it’s audience that will inspire not only more shopping but also brand loyalty. References Keegan, W. J., & Green, M. C. (2020). Global marketing (10th ed.). Retrieved from https://www.vitalsource.com Agyenim-Boateng, Y., Benson-Armer, R., & Russo, B. (2015). Winning in Africa’s Consumer Market. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packaged- goods/our-insights/winning-in-africas-consumer-market Gardiner, R., Middleton, J. (2019). Africa. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/place/Africawills bus622 week 2 assignment
