The Marketing Expert package is designed for conducting marketing analysis.
The Marketing Expert system was developed by Pro-Invest Consulting (Moscow) using well-known analytical techniques accepted throughout the world (GAP analysis, Segment analysis, SWOT analysis, Portfolio analysis), and solves everyday practical marketing problems. Marketing Expert is a consultant to the head of an enterprise, commercial director or sales manager, who allows you to put into practice the basic principles and methods of marketing analysis and planning.
Using the Marketing Expert package, you can solve the following tasks:
Market segmentation. Formation of the company's territorial sales structure by establishing connections between products, consumers, and sales channels.
Assessment of product profitability, profitability and profitability of individual market segments.
Selection of optimal sales channels and product sales options.
Assessment of the company's competitiveness (SWOT analysis).
Selecting a marketing goal and developing the most effective strategy for achieving it - reducing costs, releasing new products, developing new markets (GAP analysis).
Assessing the risks associated with the implementation of each strategy.
Development of a tactical marketing plan, formation of an optimal portfolio of goods and marketing mix events (Portfolio analysis).
Solution of the inverse problem - calculating price options for a group of goods for a given profit.
Calculation of demand elasticity coefficient and sales forecast.
Formation of the marketing part of the business plan in accordance with international standards.
Marketing Expert is a convenient tool for developing strategic and tactical marketing plans, allowing you to perform all the necessary analytical operations, as well as prepare and print the necessary documents. Marketing Expert, using a convenient graphical preprocessor, allows you to build a model of a company that has a complex sales structure, operates simultaneously in several markets, has certain competitors and conducts certain events for certain target consumer groups. The constructed model of the company makes it possible to conduct a segmental analysis of profitability by calculating income and costs for any market segment or structural element of the company. Marketing Expert allows you to conduct a multi-criteria marketing audit, which can involve both quantitative and qualitative criteria.
The program helps set enterprise goals and determine strategies for achieving them. Marketing Expert allows you to build matrix models designed to develop strategic recommendations on product range and attractiveness of market segments. In addition, using the program tools, you can perform a multivariate analysis of risk and uncertainty - both due to variations in external factors (market volume, market share) and due to local factors (marketing costs, variable production costs, sales revenue) .
The program allows you to solve the inverse problem - given the profit of the entire company, determine the necessary initial parameters. In particular, the problem of finding price options to cover total costs for a group of goods is solved.
Marketing Expert can store a forecast and several plan options in one project, which makes it possible to enter actual information as the plan is executed and compare current data with planned indicators. The program makes it possible to optimally distribute the marketing budget using multi-criteria optimization procedures.
Basic principles of system operation
A strategic marketing plan is the foundation of a corporate business plan. The basis for long-term corporate planning of an enterprise is a five- or three-year strategic marketing plan. It should define clear quantitative goals and develop strategies for achieving them. Marketing Expert provides decision support at all stages of strategic marketing planning and helps prepare the necessary output forms and schedules.
Marketing Expert provides solutions to the problems of GAP analysis, SWOT analysis, multi-criteria Portfolio analysis, optimal distribution of the marketing budget and risk and uncertainty analysis, and also allows you to solve the inverse problem - using a given margin to calculate the necessary input parameters.
A strategic marketing plan developed on Marketing Expert provides all the necessary data for production planning and financial planning, thus being the basis of the business planning process. A convenient graphics processor allows you to quickly create a model of a company that has a complex infrastructure and operates in several markets simultaneously. Information visualization tools allow you to create a company database with a graphical user interface. Using a graphical preprocessor, a “Market Map” is created, which displays the company’s infrastructure elements, target consumer groups and competitors. Primary data and analysis results can be displayed on the Market Map using the legend editor.
Marketing Expert enables teamwork when developing a corporate marketing plan, i.e. several departments can independently plan their actions while being in the same project. Each infrastructure department of the company can enter up-to-date data on the results of the implementation of its plan. In this case, the results of executing the general plan will be calculated automatically.
Solving optimal price planning problems
Marketing Expert allows you to solve inverse problems for a given profit (profitability) of the entire company, and find price options for individual products. This procedure can be applied, in particular, to find price options for covering the company's total costs (variable and fixed) for a group of goods. In a more general formulation, the problem of multicriteria optimal price planning is solved, i.e. the task of finding optimal price options for a group of goods, based on satisfying several criteria at once, both quantitative and qualitative (profit, profitability, demand, competitiveness, etc.)
Marketing Expert is a decision support system at all stages of developing strategic and tactical marketing plans and monitoring their implementation.
Main functions
The Marketing Expert program is designed to solve two main problems:
1. Conducting a marketing audit: assessing the company’s real position in the market, comparing with competitors, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the sales structure, pricing policy.
2. Marketing planning: developing the optimal strategy and tactics of the company in the market using well-known analytical techniques (GAP analysis, segment analysis, SWOT analysis, Portfolio analysis, etc.). In the process of implementing these tasks, the user gets the opportunity to solve the following particular problems:
Assess the profitability of products for individual products and product groups, as well as the profitability and profitability of individual market segments;
Optimally distribute products across distribution channels.
Working with the program
The central element of the program is the “market map”, which is constructed by the user using a special graphical preprocessor. A market map schematically displays a company, its divisions, territories in which it operates, products, consumer groups, competitors, etc. All objects are linked in a certain way and described in detail (the relevant information can be entered when the object is activated). Thus, Marketing Expert allows you to “work through” every significant element in the life of the company, keeping the overall picture before your eyes. In addition to quantitative methods, Marketing Expert contains qualitative analysis tools (expert sheets and tools for editing them).
results
The program allows you to view the results in tabular or graphical form, print them directly, or export the data for further editing in Microsoft Word.
The Marketing Expert program menu includes the following items:
File
“New/Open project” – this command creates a new or opens an old project file with the extension *.me. A project consists of several files stored in a database. These files correspond to various strategies calculated in Gap analysis, the results of SWOT analysis and Portfolio analysis.
“Close project” – this command closes the current project. “Open file” – this command opens separate windows with matrix models (extension *.mat) or results of multicriteria analysis (extension *.mka). “Save file” – saves the data of the current window.
The program has three types of windows. The first is the main window with the Market Map. Each project can contain only one such window. The second type of windows are windows with matrix models. They are stored in files with the *.mat extension. Several such windows can be open. The third type of windows is windows with the results of multicriteria analysis. They are stored in files with the *.mka extension.
“Report parameters” – this command displays a dialog panel with which you can set the parameters of the output tables.
“Exit” – exit the program.
Model
“Show model” – this command displays the main program window with the Market Map. Repeating the command closes the Map window. Show tools – this command displays three toolbars that allow you to edit the Market Map. Repeating the command closes the toolbars.
“Horizon” – this command displays the “Set time intervals” panel, intended for setting reporting and planning periods. It is recommended to set periods at the beginning of work on the project.
“Scale” – this command allows you to select one of eight display scales for the Market Map.
Audit
“Marketing effectiveness” – this command displays a series of panels that allow, using a series of questions, a preliminary assessment of the effectiveness of marketing at the enterprise. The survey is of an auxiliary nature and is not functionally related to other parts of the program.
“Select topics” - this command displays a panel in which you can select criteria for multi-criteria analysis or for building matrix models, created by developers based on the works of Philip Kotler. By selecting the topic name “Customer’s Philosophy”, the user activates the corresponding panel (Fig. 131).
Selecting the topic “Marketing Organization” will open the panel shown in Fig. 132, “Marketing Information” - in Fig. 133, “Strategic Perspective” - in Fig. 134, “Operational efficiency” - in Fig. 135.
“Comparative analysis” - this command displays a dialog panel, with the help of which the procedure of multi-criteria analysis is carried out, the results of segment analysis are loaded and matrix models of portfolio analysis are built.
“Organize table” – this command independently ranks comparative analysis objects according to all criteria in *.mka windows.
“Criteria restrictions” – this command sets criteria restrictions for all criteria in *.mka windows.
“Decision table” – this command is used to perform multi-criteria selection of objects in a comparative analysis.
Analysis
“Risk analysis” – this command displays the risk analysis panel.
An assessment of an enterprise's potential can be carried out using a SWOT analysis, which should cover all areas of activity (management, production, marketing, finance, research and development).
When you use the “SWOT analysis” command, the corresponding panel appears. Using the “View operational data” command, a panel appears with which you can conveniently view and print operational data for any Market Map object.
“Operational calculation” – using this command, an operational calculation is made for the selected segment of the Market Map. “Gap analysis” This command displays the Gap analysis panel, with which you can select a strategy and compare their results.
Analysis of the company's competitiveness in the market
using the system "MarketingExpert»
Let's take a closer look at the main functionality of the Marketing Expert program.
Construction of a “Market Map”
One of the main advantages of the Marketing Expert program is the availability of a convenient tool for building a hierarchical model of a company. The system developers called this model the “Market Map”. Using the model designer, a marketing analyst gets the opportunity to model the company's market structure. The following types of objects can be located on the “Market Map”: “company” (only one object of this type can be located on the map), “department” (structural division of the company), “sales channel”. To plan market segments, you can place objects of the “territory”, “product” (product groups) and “consumer” types on the map. To conduct a SWOT analysis, you can enter objects of the “competitor” type into the “Market Map”. If the user intends to evaluate the contribution of specific marketing activities to the overall result of the company, then on the “Market Map” it is necessary to place objects of the type “Marketing mix” (“Marketing mix” or 4xP: Product, Price, Sales, Place), Promotion. As part of the formation of a company’s investment policy, it seems possible to evaluate the effectiveness of investment projects tied to a specific market segment. For this purpose, the program provides objects of the “IP” type (investment project).
Hierarchical connections must be established between the elements of the Market Map. The Marketing Expert system provides two types of connections. The first type is intended for building a tree structure of a company that has an extensive sales network and operates simultaneously in several market segments. The tree structure of the company model suggests that several connections can come out of one “Market Map” object, and only one can enter. Links of the first type have a pointer at the end that identifies the object where the link belongs. Connections of the second type are established between objects of the “competitor” type and other objects of the “Market Map”. For this type of connections, the rule for constructing a “tree” does not apply. The construction and editing of the “Market Map” is carried out using three tool panels. The view of the “Market Map” and the panels for editing it is presented in Fig. 1. Using these panels, you can construct a company model, that is, select the type of “Market Maps” objects, add and delete objects, give them names, establish connections between them, etc. Let's move on to consider the technology for solving the problem of assessing a company's competitiveness in the market (carrying out a SWOT analysis) using the “Marketing Expert” system.
Fig.1. View of the “Market Map” and dashboards /R1.bmp/
Carrying outSWOT- analysis using the system "MarketingExpert»
One of the most important tasks of audit and strategic marketing planning is the task of assessing the company’s position in the market relative to its main competitors or SWOT analysis. This task consists of formulating key success factors (KSF) to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the company. CFCs are factors that are critical to success in a given market (or market segment) from the consumer's perspective. Each CFU is assigned a weight corresponding to its degree of importance among all selected CFUs. The firm and its major competitors are then scored for each key success factor and total weighted scores are calculated using linear convolution rules. Each such weighted assessment is an integral characteristic of the market position of the corresponding enterprise (market participant) and is called “business strength”. The formula for calculating “business strength” is:
,
Where S - business strength;
i - KFU index;
Weight (degree of importance) i - KFU;
Meaning i - KFU;
n - number of CFUs.
As part of a SWOT analysis, the relative strength of a business can be calculated for a company and its competitors as the ratio of the strength of the company's business to the strength of the business of the most dangerous competitor.
If the business strength of the firm and its competitors is known, and the total market share occupied by the firm and its competitors is also known, then the market shares occupied by the firm and each of its competitors can be estimated. The calculation is based on the assumption that the size of an enterprise's market share is proportional to its business strength. For example, for the case of a company with three competitors in the market, the following relationships will be valid:
Where 0 - market share of the company (unknown value);
1 , 2 , 3 - market share of the first, second and third competitors of the company, respectively (unknown values);
S 0 - the strength of the company's business;
S 1 , S 2 , S 3 - business strength of the first, second and third competitors of the company, respectively.
The market share controlled by a firm is calculated using the formula:
where is the market share (total market percentage) occupied by the firm together with three competitors.
By substituting the value 0 into expressions (1) - (3), we can calculate the market shares of each competitor of the company using the formulas:
It should be taken into account that the estimates of the market shares of the company and its competitors obtained in this way are unlikely to coincide with the real values. It is possible to determine the exact values of market shares only if data on the actual sales volumes of the company and its competitors in the planning period are known. But at the stage of strategic marketing planning, such data cannot, in principle, be obtained, since information about actual sales volumes can be generated only after the implementation of the marketing plan. Therefore, when developing a marketing forecast plan, when the marketer-analyst is in conditions of significant incompleteness of information, it will be very useful to use approximate estimates of market shares proportional to the values of “business strength”.
Let's consider the technology of conducting SWOT analysis using the Marketing Expert program using a simple example of a business situation that is conditional in nature.
Example. Let the company "Print", which sells printing equipment, sell a certain model of a printing press in two market segments: "large printing houses" and "small printing houses". In these market segments, the company has three main competitors - manufacturers of similar printing machines from the Czech Republic, Germany and Japan. The company's marketers conducted market research and identified key success factors in each market segment. Using the method of expert assessments, marketers determined their weights and also assessed the company and its competitors for each KFU. To assess the weights of the KFU, a 50-point scale was chosen, and to evaluate the company and its competitors according to the list of KFU, a 30-point scale was chosen. In addition, the total market share occupied by the firm along with its competitors was determined. The value of this parameter is 60%. The results of marketing research for the “small printing houses” segment are presented in table. 1.
Market research results for the “small printing houses” segment
Table 1.
|
Key success factors (KSF) |
Firm "Print» |
Competitor 1 (Japan) |
Competitor 2 (Czech Republic) |
Competitor 3 (Germany) |
|
|
Brand awareness |
|||||
|
Quality |
It is necessary, based on the obtained initial data, to determine the “strength of the business” and the relative market shares of the company and its competitors in the selected market segment using the “Marketing Expert” system.
D
To implement the SWOT analysis procedure, you must first build a “Market Map” of the company. On this map (the company's market model) it is necessary to place an object of the "company" type (the "Print" company), two objects of the "consumer" type (large printing houses and small printing houses) and three objects of the "competitor" type (Czech Republic, Germany and Japan). Hierarchical connections are established between the elements of the “Market Map” - the company and market segments. For the segments for which a SWOT analysis will be carried out, it is necessary to “pick up” competitors. The computer screen view with the “Market Map” for the Print company is shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2 “Market map” for the company “Print” /R2.bmp/
To assess the competitiveness of a company in the market, the names of the KFUs, their weights and estimates of the KFUs for the company and its competitors are entered into the appropriate fields of the “SWOT Analysis” dialog panel. You should also enter the total percentage of the market occupied by the company together with its competitors. After all the necessary data has been entered, the program will calculate the following indicators for the company and its competitors: “business strength”, relative business strength (the ratio of the “business strength” of the company to the “business strength” of the most dangerous competitor), market share and relative market share ( the ratio of the market share of a given firm to the market share of its most dangerous competitor). View of the “SWOT - analysis” panel with input data and calculation results for segment p
The market - “small printing houses” is presented in Fig. 3.
Fig.3. Dialog panel “SWOT analysis” with calculation results /R3.bmp/
The Marketing Expert program provides the ability to present the results of a SWOT analysis in graphical form. On one graph you can display the weights and values of the estimates for each KFU for the company and its competitors. The graph of weights and estimates of the CFU of Print and its competitors is presented in Fig. 4.
Fig.4. Presentation of SWOT analysis results in graphical form /R4.bmp/
From Figures 3 and 4 it is clear in which KFU the company is inferior to competitors and in what directions it is necessary to take measures to achieve a competitive advantage in the market: the most dangerous competitor (competitor “Germany”, which has the maximum business strength among three competitors) and competitor “Japan” are superior to the company "Print" in the field of brand awareness, service and product quality. To strengthen its competitive position in the market, the company must pay special attention to these factors when allocating investments. In terms of the “Product Price” factor, Print is superior to its competitors. The Print company should “bet” on this advantage when developing an advertising campaign.
The distribution of business strength and market shares occupied by the firm and its competitors can be represented in the form of pie charts. Diagrams of the distribution of business strength and market shares between the Print company and its competitors are presented in Fig. 5 and Fig. 6.
R
is.5. Distribution of market shares of Print and its competitors /R5.bmp/
R
is.6. Distribution of "business strength" of Print and its competitors /R6.bmp/
From the charts, it can be seen that competitor "Germany", which has the maximum "business strength" among the three competitors, which is 16.93, controls the highest market share of 16.82%. Competitor Czech Republic, with a minimum "business strength" of 11.89, has the lowest market share of 11.81%. Let us recall that in the “Marketing Expert” program, market shares are calculated using formulas (4) - (6), based on the assumption that the market share occupied by the enterprise is proportional to its “business strength”.
The “Marketing Expert” system allows you to print or export to Word the results of SWOT analysis in tabular and graphical forms. This information can be further used in various documents, reports, etc.
Program for developing a company's marketing strategy
Developer: Pro-Invest IT
03/13/2003. The Pro-Invest IT company has stopped working on the development and distribution of the Marketing Expert program. At the moment there is no such product on the market.
Official presentation of the product by the developer
The system helps to assess the real position of the company in the market, conduct a comparative analysis of its sales activities with competitors, and formulate an optimal sales structure. The system allows you to determine the profitability of various market segments and products, the company's market share and its growth rate. You can set your desired profitability level, and Marketing Expert will calculate the cost of goods required to achieve it.
The use of generally accepted analytical techniques (GAP analysis, segment analysis, SWOT analysis, Portfolio analysis) provides invaluable assistance in developing optimal strategies and tactics for the company’s work in the market, assessing risks and calculating the main planned financial results. A strategic marketing plan developed using Marketing Expert can be used to forecast sales volumes in the Project Expert program.
Our review
This program is undoubtedly one of the most developed in terms of functional completeness and the only one that includes truly powerful analytical tools. The main idea behind the program is to build a virtual model of the market and the company operating in it. The model includes geographic distribution and market segmentation by consumer categories and competitors’ behavior patterns, and much more. The principle of working with the program is sometimes even closer not to the usual work of an analyst, but to a business game, because It is impossible to capture the entire picture of the model in your mind, and its behavior is monitored by the program itself. This idea, if it were fully and efficiently implemented, could lead to the emergence of a great product. However, the program has a number of disadvantages that significantly reduce its value:
1. The interface is extremely unprofessional; as a result, working with the model is inconvenient and the “game” component of the work disappears, i.e. the dynamics of work are lost. In some cases, working with the program completely obscures the user from working with the model. This limits the applicability of the tool to those projects in which it is too difficult to assess their prospects without building a complex marketing model.
2. The program works with large volumes of data, but does not offer good tools for collecting it and preparing it for input, so creating an acceptable model is an expensive operation and not always feasible.
For the above reasons, the program did not produce a flexible and high-quality tool. But it still looks quite acceptable as not the most convenient, but the most professional system. We can recommend getting acquainted with Marketing Expert even if you are not going to buy and use it - this is the best way to understand many of the principles of marketing analysis, evaluate their complexity and applicability for each specific case.
Demo videos and detailed descriptions of functionality can be obtained on the developers' websites.
The Marketing Expert family of programs (we will call the entire family after the first program) consists of three independent programs, each of which solves a subset of marketing research problems:
Marketing Expert- a set of analytical tools for building a marketing plan (BCG, SWOT, etc.), preparing a financial plan for the company’s marketing activities.
Marketing GEO- maintaining and analyzing marketing information.
Marketing Analytics- a specialized OLAP client for analyzing marketing data by markets, products, etc.
This family of programs is undoubtedly the most developed in terms of functional completeness and the only one that includes truly powerful analytical tools. The main idea behind the program is to build a virtual model of the market and the company operating in it. The model includes geographic distribution and market segmentation by consumer categories and competitors’ behavior patterns, and much more. The principle of working with the program is sometimes even closer not to the usual work of an analyst, but to a business game, because It is impossible to capture the entire picture of the model in your mind, and its behavior is monitored by the program itself. This idea, if it were fully and efficiently implemented, could lead to the emergence of a great product. However, the program has a number of disadvantages that significantly reduce its value:
1. The interface is extremely unprofessional; as a result, working with the model is inconvenient and the “game” component of the work disappears, i.e. the dynamics of work are lost. In some cases, working with the program completely obscures the user from working with the model. This limits the applicability of the tool to those projects in which it is too difficult to assess their prospects without building a complex marketing model.
2. The program works with large volumes of data, but does not offer good tools for collecting it and preparing it for input, so creating an acceptable model is an expensive operation and not always feasible.
For the above reasons, the program did not produce a flexible and high-quality tool. But it still looks quite acceptable as not the most convenient, but the most professional system. We can recommend getting acquainted with Marketing Expert even if you are not going to buy and use it - this is the best way to understand many of the principles of marketing analysis, evaluate their complexity and applicability for each specific case.
Marketing GEO - GIS + analytics
Separately, a few words should be said about the GEO and Analyst systems. They implement a set of functionality that has existed for a long time, but only within large systems. In some issues (maintaining your own geoinformation and other data), the transition to easy solutions looks completely unjustified, and what can be trusted with the combination of ArcView + Oracle Express, in no case should you trust Marketing Analytic, but where ready-made information bases are used and you need a quick analysis, using the Marketing Expert series programs will be quite reasonable.
Marketing Expert - market map
Despite the fact that the programs are implemented as independent, this division is rather arbitrary and is caused more by the intricacies of the legal relations between developers than by real necessity. In reality, the systems are highly integrated with each other, especially ideologically.
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