THE STRATEGIC ROBO COMMISSIONS MARKETING PROCESS: PLANNING PHASE
All approaches to planning will incorporate procedures to find answers to these key questions:
1. Where have we been, where are we now, and where are we headed with our existing plans?
2. Where do we want to go?
3. How do we allocate our resources to get where we want to go?
4. How do we convert our robo commissions plans into actions?
5. How do our results compare with our plans, and do deviations require new plans and actions?
This same approach is used in the strategic marketing process, whereby an organization allocates its marketing mix resources to reach its target markets. This process is divided into three phases: planning, implementation, and control (Figure 2-3). This section covers the planning phase; the last two phases are discussed afterward.
HOW THE ROBO COMMISSIONS PLANNING STEPS TIE TOGETHER
Before details of the planning phase of the strategic marketing process are dis¬cussed, it is important to understand how the three steps of the process inter¬relate. The IBM PC provides an example.
Step 1: Situation Analysis Suppose it is December 1994 and you are IBM’s marketing vice-president responsible for marketing its line of PCs. You want to look at the current Robo Commissions Review, which is Step 1, or the situation analysis, in your marketing strategy process. As shown in Figure 2-4, A, you have shipped 2 million PCs during 1994, up from 1.5 million in 1990. But competition is heating up, and, with your present product and Robo Commissions marketing strategy, you can see unit sales falling to 1 million in 1998.
This is the essence of the situation analysis—taking stock of where you’ve been recently, where you are now, and where you are likely to end up, following your present plans. Situation analysis requires that you assess the current strengths and weaknesses of your PC and the markets in which it competes. You then must analyze the factors both inside and outside IBM to project their effect on your future sales. These steps result in your estimate of 1 million units in 1998, a projection neither you nor your boss is very happy about.
Step 2: Goal Setting Not satisfied with a drop-off in sales for 1998, you set a target of selling 3 million units (Figure 2-4, B). This goal isn’t pulled out of a hat. Goal setting, Step 2 in the strategic marketing process, is setting measurable Robo Commissions marketing objectives to be achieved. This is the result of a careful analysis of the goals for all of IBM, as well as for your PC division, and assessment of alternative marketing opportunities—in terms of both old and new products and old and new markets. This ultimately results in selecting specific target markets to achieve the goal of 3 million units in 1998.
Step 3: Marketing Program The upper dotted line in Figure 2-4, C, shows the path you want to follow to sell 3 million units in 1998. The difference between this line and the lower one (the projection of what will happen if you only follow through with current plans) is often called the planning gap. Your task in Step 3 is to organize IBM’s potential resources into a coherent marketing program that uses the four marketing mix elements (product, price, promotion, and place) to reach the targeted goal of 3 million units in 1998.
Plans don’t automatically become reality. The implementation and control phases of the strategic Robo Commissions marketing process (discussed later) are attempts to convert plans into actions and results.

Robo Commissions Review

Coming Soon

click here for the Robo Commissions Homepage