Growth Strategy for Crooks Trailers Company

I) BACKGROUND

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The market plan for Crooks Trailers Company has been created in order to get additional funding in order for it to experience more growth as well as to inform the employees on the current status of the company and the future direction. Even though Crooks Trailers Company was launched four years ago, it has realized high demand of its products more than expected. Research shows that the target market of the trailers and semi-trailers produced by the company has increased. The main target being livestock farmers. The firm is also highly interested in adding new product lines as well as extending the existing ones. Furthermore, Crooks Trailers is exploring the opportunities in the internet and online platforms in order to increase their sales. In the past, the firm used older generations such as word of mouth but currently is thinking of the online sites in order to reach young farmers. The marketing environment has warmly received the company's high-quality goods, trailers, thus increasing the interests of enthusiasts all over the globe. Due to the high quality of products produced, they prefer selling the items on their own especially in Northern Ireland. A few years from now, approximately five, Crooks Trailers is set to increase its production and distribution of new products thus winning many customers.

COMPANY DESCRIPTION

Crooks Trailer Manufacturing Company has been operating for four years now. It is Private Limited Company that is mandated for the manufacturing of trailers and semi-trailers with their target being mainly livestock farmers (Burk 2010 p4). The company’s constant improvement is geared by two directors, Ian Cuddy and George Crook both from Britain who have been managing the company since 2014, March. They both own half or less of the company’s shares. The Company was founded in by 1973 by Alec Crook later sold in 2010 but established itself into business in 2014. Apart from manufacturing trailers and semi-trailers for livestock, the company also offers fixing services for trailer makers. It is located in Dungannon, Bush, and the county of Tyrone and offers its services in Northern Ireland and parts of the Republic of Ireland. The firm employs at least eight people per year including fitters, welders and office staff. The company produces at least fifteen trailers a month mainly plant trailers, livestock trailers and special trailers such as the ones with “Rainbow Signs”. The lifespan of the trailers produced by Crooks Trailer is up to thirty years and this makes it stand out in the market especially against its competitors who are IFOR Williams. IFOR produces trailers that have a maximum lifespan of ten years. The company does not only manufacture and distribute trailers but they also sell parts and offer after sale services such as fixing. The firm is small but is able to adapt to the changing demand. Most of the trailers sold and used in Northern Ireland belong to Crook Company but currently, around sixty trailers are shipped to the Republic of Ireland by various dealers. They buy most of its parts from the United Kingdom and they have two building sites, one for fabrication and the other one for assembly. The cost of production for a trailer is 2900 pounds and the company sells at 3800 pounds hence meeting the net selling price. Finally, the company operates through continues improvement, focus on the innovation, highly skilled staff and management. The owners are engineers with 40 years of experience (Blythe et al 2018 p21).

CROOKS TRAILERS COMPANY MISSION AND GOALS

Crooks Trailers mission is to provide top quality trailers and semi-trailers to their dealer networks at net factory prices. According to Borden et al (2015), the company has built its reputation as an honest and reputable producer and distributor of high quality, efficient and longevity product lines. With this in mind, the company is making sure that it provides ultimate end-user customer products. Moreover, Crooks Trailers is striving to come up with programs that try to preserve the environment. This is because of the adverse problems caused to the natural environment from manufacturing companies. The company has a vision of providing the best possible product to every customer, build trust and become the best in the market.

In the coming years, the company seeks to achieve the following non-financial and financial goals:

Nonfinancial goals

Enter new markets geographically, for instance, Scotland.

Development of successful and strong internet sites at the same time maintaining good relations with retailers.

Production of at least five hundred trailers in the next ten years.

Promoting a lot of trade shows such as the cattle markets.

Promoting the farming weeks especially after a fortnight.

Financial goals

Getting financial support in order to increase its manufacturing abilities and distribution. The financial support will enable the company to acquire enough land and also meet the electricity prices that have risen to 13%.

Increase revenues each year by at least 50%.

Meeting the market demand by meeting the costs of production in order to produce enough trailers.

CORE COMPETENCIES

Crooks Trailer is aiming at using its main competencies in achieving a sustainable competitive advantage whereby the competitors such as IFOR Williams cannot provide the same value of the product to consumers as it does. Already Crooks Trailer has developed competencies in offering high-quality trailers recognized all through the country, selling directly to customers thus creating community among customers and selling the trailers at affordable prices. The company intends to keep on building on these competencies so that the products it offers increases in relation to the distribution outlets (Borden 2015 p33).

II) SITUATION ANALYSIS

PESTLE ANALYSIS

A PESTLE analysis will be used in analyzing how the external factors may affect Crooks Trailer's business in areas of politics, economics, social, technology, and legal concerns. The analysis will help in coming up with a detailed SWOT analysis. The factors are discussed below:

Political factors- The political concerns likely to face Crooks Trailer are government tax policies, new standards and regulations and labor rates (Atighechian at al 2016 p307). As the world is getting smaller, the competition is increasing and as a fact, Northern Ireland is likely to increase the tax for the trailer companies. So, Crooks Trailer needs to put in plans on how to adapt to this. The labor rate is also a factor that will directly affect Crooks Trailer Company since it will create a larger expense for the same amount of labor and as a result, the company should increase the price of the trailers similarly in order to meet the profit margin.

Economic factors- The economic factors in relation to Crooks Trailer include interest rates. The company being small is another disadvantage because it needs to borrow cash in order to establish itself. Once the interest rates increase, which is common to manufacturing companies, the cost of borrowing is likely to increase and this makes the loans to be more expensive thus Crooks Trailer will find it hard to borrow.

Social Factors- The social factors that relate to Crooks Trailer are environmental resources concern and population growth. The population of livestock farmers will grow and the company will be unable to meet the demand of the farmers who need trailers. This is because the company will not be able to meet the production costs. In the environmental resource sector, Crooks Trailer needs to consider the way they manufacture and dispose of their leftovers so that they don't harm people. This is a good opportunity for the company since it has started the environmental programs.

Technological factors- Innovation and technology are important for Crooks Trailer Company. Technology lowers the costs and creates a high volume and low margin competition (Zalengera et al 2014 p347). This seems to be a threat to the company especially the poor developed online sites such as Facebook. The company needs to develop and use modern technology in order to scare away its competitors who mainly are IFOR Williams.

Legal factors- They include technical usage laws, labor and employee safety laws and, copyright laws. Crooks Trailers Company fully satisfies all these factors.

SWOT ANALYSIS

The marketing environment for Crooks Trailers shows exciting opportunities. Also, it highlights the various challenges the company is facing but believes to meet them successfully. In this case, a SWOT analysis will well illustrate all the Crooks Trailers Company’s internal strengths, internal weaknesses, external opportunities and external threats (Bull et al 2016 p99).

III) EVIDENCE FROM RESEARCH

A research done by Crooks Trailers earlier while other companies can be taken as competitors, none of them offers quality and long lasting trailers as Crooks. This can be supported from the trailers produced by IFOR Williams that only last for a maximum period of ten years. According to Niederwieser et al (2016), the research also showed that Crook Trailers products are offered at favorable prices as compared to other companies. For example, they sell a trailer at a maximum cost of 3800 pounds while IFOR Williams sells at approximately 4000 pounds. A survey conducted by Crooks Trailer showed that 70% of the livestock farmers prefer changing their trailers and spares from the company because of their moderate pricing (Cui et al 2015 p87).

IV) TARGET AUDIENCE THROUGH SEGMENTATION

The target market for Crooks Trailers is active livestock farmers. This means most of the target audience of the company must be above twenty years. These active or potential customers represent a demographic group of successful and well-educated individuals. They receive comfortable household incomes but this does not hinder them from being price conscious. Regardless of their age, most Crook Trailer customers lead active lifestyles and they like to be associated with high-quality products, trailers, but not willing to pay highly for a certain brand. Most of the company's customers tend to live in Northern Ireland (Niederwieser et al 2016 p778). However, our future aim is to target customers in Scotland and the Republic of Ireland. In order for the company to understand its customers well it uses the segmentation and targeting criteria. According to Cui et al (2015), this helps in knowing the customers' desires, needs, and preferences. These criteria will enable Crooks Trailers to adjust its product lines and the marketing techniques that appeal to every group. The company should use the following types of market segmentation to understand its customers:

Geographic Segmentation- This will help the company to divide its customers in relation to their geographical areas such as countries and cities. The trailers produced by Crooks Trailers seem to do well in the Republic of Ireland because 30% of their manufactured trailers are sold there. This shows that the people living in the Republic of Ireland are livestock keepers and they live so the firm segmenting their customers geographically will boost their sales. So, Crooks Trailers Company should customize their trailers sales efforts and promotion to fit the geographical variables of Ireland. Also, due to globalization, the company should consider using geodemographics. This is linking of socio-economic and demographic factors such as income (Cui & Choudhury 2015 p354). The Republic of Ireland is one of the countries which are economically stable meaning that people earn a good income. Crooks Trailers should take this opportunity in their segmentation process. Behavioral segmentation- This is segmentation based on the customer's attitude towards a product and the response to the same product (Cui et al 2015 p87). It is evident that the trailers manufactured by Crooks trailers have been highly accepted in the Northern Ireland market because of their quality and high lifespan. For the company to construct good market segments, Crooks Trailer should look at the following behavioral variables:

Benefits- Crooks Trailers should look at the different benefits the customers need from the trailers. For instance, the special Rainbow signs trailers produced should be made to benefit everybody not a specific group. This will assist the company to identify the customer segments by causal factors.

User status- This will help the company segment its customers according to potential users, regular users and first-time users of the trailers. So, the company should try to fit into different marketing approaches in regard to this. Crooks Trailers is well performing in this and that is why it is able to target its customers in different ways such as the manufacture of livestock trailers and plant trailers.

Usage rate- This is segmentation in relation to how the customers use the product. Crooks Trailers should target farmers with lots of livestock. Even though they are small in percentage they usually account for high sales percentage.

Buyer-readiness stage- This is associated with the interest and awareness of the product. According to the earlier discussion in this plan, most of the livestock farmers in Northern Ireland are well informed of the trailers produced by the company. Due to this, Crooks Trailers should implement and use this criterion to segment its customers.

Loyalty status- It is evident that most of the customers are loyal to buying the Crooks trailers as compared to IFOR Williams. This is because most of the trailers used in NI belong to Crooks Trailers according to the latest research. This will make it easier for Crooks Trailers to segment its customers.

Attitude- This highlights how people behave with a product. Either positively or negatively. Most of the people have a positive attitude towards the trailers manufactured by Crooks due to their good lifespan. The company should consider this method in segmenting its customers.

After Crooks Trailers Company applying the discussed segmentation criteria, it would be wiser for the company to use the differentiated targeting method. This involves giving offers to the customers such as the cattle market trade shows Crooks Trailers is involving itself in.

V) SMART OBJECTIVES FOR CROOKS TRAILERS

Crooks Trailers Company understands its strengths and weaknesses as well as the business environment they are subjected to which constitute of competitors such as IFOR Williams. The SMART objectives used by Crooks Trailer will help the company to evaluate the suitability of the marketing objectives and how to improve their business processes. SMART is an acronym that stands for; specific, Measurable, Achievable or Attainable and Timely (Bjerke et al 2017 p125).

Specific- This is making use of certain marketing objectives. Crook Trailers Company has a specified plan of employing eight people per year. These people include 3 fitters, 2 welders 3 office staff including the managers.

Measurable- The marketing plan for Crooks Trailers should be measurable in terms of profits and quantity sold. The company’s average cost of manufacturing a trail is 2900 pounds but sell it 3800 pounds meaning that it is able to measure its profit. The Company also manufactures 170-200 trailers per year and 70% of them are sold in Northern Ireland and 30% in the Republic of Ireland.

Achievable- Business growth is always gradual. Following the previous records of Crooks Trailers manufacturing 170-200 trailers per year, it is evident that in the coming five or ten years, the company will be having enough resources to manufacture its anticipated three forty and five hundred trailers respectively.

Realistic- Crook trailers objectives are reasonable. For instance, the plan to expand their business to Scotland is reasonable and it can be attested by their venture into the Republic of Ireland market which has seen them sell 30% of their manufactured trailers to this country.

Timely- The marketing objectives should be time bound. Crooks Trailer Company has been able to manufacture fifteen trailers each month for the last six months. The company is planning to manufacture 340-400 trailers in the next five years and this is ultimately achievable. This plan motivates the company to work hard towards achieving their intended results.

VI) MARKETING MIX

The strongest part of the marketing mix for Crooks Trailers involves non-traditional marketing strategies such as attending trade shows and cattle markets for agriculture community, sales promotion such as trade shows and public relations. The discussion below shows the details of the proposed marketing mix for Crooks Trailers Company products:

Promotional Strategy- Crooks Trailers speaks with its customers and dealers about its products in various ways. Crooks Trailer's information as well its products is available on the website, such as Facebook and in person. The company’s promotional efforts also seek to distinguish its products from others (Elenkov 2014 p41). The firm depends on personal contact with the customers and dealers in order to inform them about the products in their stores. This personal contact helps to convey the company's message, build relationships and show the unique qualities of their trailers. The dealers, who are six in number at the moment visit the stores regularly and are offered in-store training on the trailers' features in order to also inform the new customers. As distribution increases, Crooks Trailers will adjust by increasing the sales staff in order to meet the customers' demand. The company is looking forward to selling its products in the Republic of Ireland and also Scotland. This will ensure that its stores are frequently visited and in-store training offered by various sale representatives. Public relations and sales promotion are the main focus in Crook Trailer's promotional strategy. The company's staff in collaboration with retailers work together in order to offer sales promotion events such as Farming Week, farm life and trade shows, especially in cattle markets. According to Fine (2017), their contribution to environmental programs has also led to good public relations. Non-traditional marketing programs often require little cash but lend a lot of creativity especially to Crooks Trailers. Since Crooks Trailers is a small and flexible company, the firm can implement ideas such as Farming Week. The company plans to engage in the following activities in the coming year as a way of their marketing efforts:

Organize a hike for willing customers to participate.

Create Crooks Trailers tour where various workers travel around Northern Ireland to campgrounds and distribute promotional items such Crook Trailers spares accompanied with discounts.

Organizing the farming week after every fortnight.

Product Strategy- Crooks trailers presently offers high-quality livestock and plant trailers ranging from twin axle and triple axel. The company has researched the most enticing bodywork and produced fourteen varieties all of them have a lifespan of at least thirty years. The company has been producing fifteen trailers each month for the last six months and it is aiming at producing at least 400 trailers in the next five years.

Distribution Strategy- Presently, Crooks Trailers is market mostly in its place of location, which is Northern Ireland because 70% of their manufactured trailers are sold within Northern Ireland. So, Crooks Trailers has not been distributed to other livestock farming countries. The climate of various countries tends to dictate the type of farming as well as this dictates the sales of Crooks Trailers. The company gets its information about the trailer industry from different geographic areas and various organization mainly in the Republic of Ireland and Scotland. In the coming years, the company aims at distributing its products to various stores in the globe putting their main focus in Scotland. Also, the firm plans to expand its online sales since it's fully establishing its website by offering customized trailers through the internet only thus distinguishing its direct sales from internet offerings. Eventually, we may place our stores at strategic points for potential customers to reach us easily. Regardless of its expansion strategies, Crooks Trailers intends to maintain and monitor its strong relationships with its customers and dealers who help them distribute the trailers to other countries such as the Republic of Ireland.

PRICING STRATEGY- As discussed earlier in this plan, trailers produced by Crooks Trailers are assigned prices with the competition in mind. The company is not concerned with setting high prices so that to brag of its products nor is it trying to the offsetting goals of low prices by selling high quantities of products. The company is aiming at practicing value pricing so that the customers can feel important. The pricing strategy also makes Crooks Trailers products good gifts for cattle markets shows. The trailers will be priced competitively thus a good value will be offered against its competition (Fine 2017 p12).

The diagram below shows some of the simplified strategies Crooks Trailers uses to acquire its customers.

VII) BUDGET, TIMESCALE, AND MONITORING

Throughout its history, Crooks Trailers has enjoyed a stable increase in sales since it re-established itself four years ago. The figure below shows Crook Trailers net worth and current assets as from 2015 to 2017. The Y axis represents the net worth in form of pounds while the X- axis represents the years.

The figures below represent the financial data of Crooks Trailers based on annual reports:

Profit & Loss

Date of Accounts 2015-03-31 2016-06-30 2017-06-30

Currency

Net Worth 2 3 495 8 141

Balance Sheet

Current Assets 99 193 131 815

Net Assets Liabilities Including Pension Asset Liability 2 261 8 141

Capital & Reserves

Shareholder Funds 2 3 495 8 141

Other Financial Data

Accruals Deferred Income 1 250

Called Up Share Capital Not Paid Not Expressed As Current Asset 2

Creditors Due Within One Year 103 944 127 684

Fixed Assets 5 012 4 010

Net Current Assets Liabilities -267 4 131

Number Shares Allotted 2

Par Value Share 1

Share Capital Allotted Called Up Paid 2

Total Assets Less Current Liabilities 2 261 8 141

From the above information, it can be seen that the company is growing steadily. The company also focuses on increasing the number of trailers it manufactures to 400 trailers in the next five years. So, for this plan and budget to be successful, the company is focusing on the following resources in order to maximize its costs and lower the costs. Time- Time is always an alternate of money thus Crooks Trailers is focusing on how to use its time in order to reduce the costs of the plan. Galvanization and checking quality of the trailers produced by the company takes one week. The company is planning on reducing this time so that it can increase its sales. Money- No organization that has unlimited funds for marketing. So, Crooks Trailers is planning to borrow loans in order to get their message out about the trailers they produce. The timeline of the company’s products and introduction of the trailers to other countries is likely to take three years. The implementation of each of the tasks will be monitored keenly and its performance evaluated. The timescale is represented below:

VIII) EVALUATION OF THE MARKETING PLAN

Evaluating the marketing plan as well understanding if it is delivering the prospected results will save money and ensure growth and success of a business. According to Jobber et al (2012), the marketing plan should start by evaluating the objectives but the marketing plan for a company such Crook Trailers should be assessed continuously to ensure its success using the following ways:

Market Reaction

The reactions of the competitors are the main barometer towards measuring success or failure (Jobber 2012 p4). If the competitors in this case IFOR Williams rush to copy Crooks Trailers acts, then the plan is working and if not there must be an issue and evaluation of the plan should start immediately. Also, the marketing partners are at a position of providing a feedback whether the plan is working. This is because the outside members have a direct contact with customers and if the plan is successful they will be the first to feel.

Customer Response

Customer service feedback, click-thru-rate, and online engagement will reveal what they think about Crooks Trailers Company products and their efforts. Various basic questions such as "how did you find about us?" will directly which initiatives in the marketing plan are getting to buyers at the same time driving sales. For the success of the plan, media should be used to suit the audience and should be as accurate as possible. It is one of the major issues Crooks Trailers are focusing on. Once the market reach is expanding, then probably the market plan has an impact on the market (Jobber et al 2012 p7). Marketing plans that penetrate into new segments through natural indirect growth or customer recommendation indicate an appealing value proposition. Crooks should ensure that their trailers deliver according to its value proposition.

Sales Performance

Always to know that the marketing plan is working, the sales should be going up. Then Crook Trailers should examine the numbers of the trailers to see if the plan is working. As discussed earlier, according to the figures in the company records the plan is working. The dealers can also be another way to be used in carefully evaluating the marketing plan. They should always provide feedback to the company in order to know that the efforts are effective. Moreover, the sales conversion rate should be checked. Historical records will better serve this. Effective sales conversion is a crucial part in attaining growth so it is not all about generating leads but assessing success at a closing deal.

Cost Per Acquisition

The marketing CPA is the essential metric for measuring real return in relation to the investment. If revenue is not created then the marketing plan is not working and due to this, the plan needs to be evaluated (Lamp & Crompton 2017 p173). Crooks Trailer Company contains all the certificates of business required by Northern Ireland and this is a clear indication that their plan is working and at the same time generating revenue. The metrics are always used to determine the budget required in order to comply with the goals of the business. They also help to provide an effective way of managing the complicated planning process with the finance department.

Return on Investment

The final goal of every marketing plan is to bring profits. All the other elements can help evaluate the efficiency of the plan but measuring the amount spent in relation to the benefits helps to assess the efficiency of the plan (Wolfe et al 2014 p112). Crooks Trailers spends 2900 bounds in manufacturing each trailer and sells it at a cost of 3800 pounds proving the efficiency of the marketing plan.

Ix) CONCLUSION

Crooks Trailers anticipates continuing with its manufacturing operations even in the future with no plans of leaving the market. Instead, as discussed in the plan, the company focuses on increasing its presence in the market even extend to other countries such as Scotland. At the moment there are no plans of selling the company or making a public stock offering or merging with another company.

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