Case Study 1

Competitive analysis is a key component of your marketing, sales and product strategy. If you dont know where your company fits into the competitive landscape, you wont know how to position your offering, what alternatives your prospects might consider, or what improvements are most critical in order to compete. But effective analysis is really hard to do. If you do it internally, you have to rely on information you can collect from third parties and your competitors websites. You can hire an analyst firm, but thats very expensive, and they dont always focus on the key factors that really drive buying decisions. Recently, one of our clients, Synthesis Technology, asked us to conduct a competitive analysis of their product compared to two of their competitors. We analyzed pitch book and fact sheet automation providers that focus on the wealth/fund management industry. Competition is intensifying in this automation space, with new entrants bringing innovative products to compete with entrenched vendors. At the same time, more fund companies are recognizing a need for this type of automation, creating new market opportunity for the providers. This was an interesting project. While we were engaged by a specific vendor, we needed to stay as neutral as possible in the analysis to protect our integrity, to give the client meaningful results by which they could evaluate their strategy, and to provide the target audience with a meaningful and useful tool to help in their buying process. But at the same time, we faced limitations in terms of budget, timeframe, and my own technical expertise with these types of products. We engaged a former product marketing executive from a large fund manager to help with this analysis, as she is a user and represents our target audience. We started out reviewing interview notes and transcripts from buyer persona interviews and win/loss analyses wed conducted with the client over the past several months. From these, we compiled a list of value drivers that drove buyer decisions both for and against our client. We focused on the value drivers instead of features to allow us to create a more qualitative analysis. This was partly driven by expediency, partly by what the buyers would need to make decisions. Once we had the value drivers, we reviewed the vendor websites and any other information we could obtain on the Internet. Then we interviewed the vendors sales people and product managers, viewed demos and dug into functionality. Then we prepared a written review based on the issues that we believed were most important to the buyers based on our reasearch. The analysis was limited in scope for budget reasons, but it did provide insights that the client has found very helpful as they plan their strategy. Our target audience was marketing and product managers at investment management firms, asset and wealth managers, retirement plan providers, TAMPS, and hedge funds. Our goal was to give these people a valuable tool that would support their search for automation solutions. The client has found the competitive analysis very helpful. It gave them more insight into where they fit in the market and is helping them to better evaluate leads based on likely fit. This is enabling them to focus limited sales resources on prospects that are more likely to close, and stop competing for opportunities that are better fits for their competitors. It provides a key offer that they can provide in the evaluation stage to help prospects prioritize key buying criteria. In addition, they are using the insights to formulate their product strategy and product roadmap.

Q1: Write a comprehensive summary of the above case study in your own words? Considering the followings points;

• What was the main discussion in the case study?
• What was challenges discussed in the case study?
• Furthermore, explain the results and findings of the study? 15 marks

Q2: Consider yourself as a sales manager for your company, what main technique you will utilized to win a complex competitive market? Explain in detail? 10 marks

Q3: If you fail to compete in the current market with the existing products, what strategies you will prefer for gaining customer trust? Explain in detail? 10 marks

Case Study 2

Sena Cases, a leading manufacturer of premium leather phone and laptop cases, was utilizing an outdated e-commerce website that fell far short of doing its products justice. The Sena brand required a high-end touch that could not be achieved within the existing site. A thorough site audit and brand exploration revealed an outmoded visual identity and a rigid, cookie-cutter e-commerce platform both of which were hindering the ability of Senas marketing department to showcase and sell its beautiful products effectively. To help support Senas brand and business goals, Amp initiated a comprehensive site redesign, developing a whole new platform to help better showcase Senas products and enabling users to quickly identify the right product for their needs through faceted search. Amp orchestrated the migration of the entire Senacases.com site experience to Magento, a more robust e-commerce solution. We then integrated Magento with a custom Django Content Management System designed to support more modern marketing content. Amp also developed an SEO framework, leveraging Solr search technology to deliver a faceted search-driven shopping experience that shortens the conversion funnel. This framework is specifically optimized for the ways in which consumers search this product category and remains SEO-friendly despite the dynamic nature of faceted search. Additionally, Amp completely revamped Senas analytics tracking, which had previously been improperly installed. With our help, Sena was able to adjust its analytics benchmarks and report results more accurately.

Q4: What is the main challenge in case study 2, explain it in your own words? Also explain how Amp supported Senas brand goal? 5 marks

Q5: Do you think Sanas should follow some other promotional strategies rather than a showcase? If your answer is YES, discuss with detail? 5 marks

Q6: To help Senas brand and business goals, what Amp initiated? Explain it in detail? 5 marks