Case Study Analysis of Leopard Controls

Question: Discuss about the Case Study Analysis of Leopard Controls. Answer: What couldMarketing Professionals do for a Company like Leopard Controls? The role of a marketing professional in an organization is to design marketing plans and strategies in for meeting the long term goals and objectives of the organization (Burnett, 2008). Leopard Controls have made their name in one of the biggest providers of the Building management services all over Australia. They are giving tough competition to many multinational companies but there are still some unexplored segments which are needed to be exploited with the help of the marketing professionals for the growth of the organization. These are: Leopard Controls have been following the Bottom up selling approach in which they are approached by the old clients to do their work but over a period of time they have grabbed many BMS contracts and maintenance work but in order to survive competition from major players like Siemens, Honeywell etc. they have to follow top down selling (Holman, 2008). The marketing professional will have to design strategies that will help Leopard Controls to crack bigger business opportunities like the Perth International Airport. Leopard Controls also want to explore new business opportunities outside the Australia. The responsibility of the marketing professional is to design effective marketing strategies for the foreign market and launch attractive advertising campaigns for creating Brand awareness among the consumers. Leopard Controls dont want to limit themselves to a particular market segment, they want to discover other industries too. They are interested in entering into mining industry situated in Western Australia. The marketing professional should go into extensive research and analyze the external factors affecting that industry. As the company is situated in Perth, they have achieved economies of scale but if they dont want to limit themselves to only one geographical location. The marketing professional is required to find a solution of capturing other market segments while operating in Perth only in a cost effective manner. The company also wants to follow triple bottom line reporting to create business value in the mind of the customer (Alhaddi, 2015). In some ways the Leopard Controls approach to gaining market share could be considered naive. It may be good for the clients, but it's not necessary good for business itself. Growth can be slow and erratic because price and service quality perception call fall victim to the mood state of the client. Profitability is also dependent on a high activity level. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this approach to business? The Building management system is a very competitive field in Australian due to the awareness about the environmental protection issues arising from building operations and strict government regulations to control it. The building management system installation cost almost 10 percent of the building that is why there are many competitors. Leopard Electrical being quite a small player had many strong rivals in this industry such as Honeywell, Siemen and TAC who have created strong customer base. In order to secure a competitive position and avoid the threat of new entrants, the existing organizations are using proprietary software and proprietary products which gives the company a right to ownership of BMS software. But in order to capture the market, Leopard Controls have opted to serve their customers non-proprietary products which can easily be used by any other suppliers, if the clients are not satisfied with their services. This enabled the customers to choose Leopard Controls ov er any other competitors. There are many advantages and disadvantages of this approach to Leopard Controls. Advantages: Open source software and non-proprietary products give Leopard Controls a competitive edge from other competitors who believe in monopolizing the BMS market by offering only proprietary products. It is easily compatible with any system or a product. Unlike other players in this industry, Leopard Controls give the clients a right to try the product and if they are not happy with the services they can anytime cancel the contract with the organization and can choose another supplier with no additional cost. Leopard Controls have created a strong customer base by providing quality at good prices than its competitors. They guarantee customized services, according to the customer requirements. If they want to avail their maintenance services they provide that unlike its competitors who offer only contract based packages (Leopard Controls, 2017). Providing different services which are not contract based enable the clients to test the services of Leopard Controls. It is very difficult to capture and track established clients due to the strong presence of competitors like Honeywell but by offering quality services at good prices gives an opportunity to Leopard Electricals to attract potential clients. Disadvantages: The strategy used by the Leopards Controls is client oriented but it is a major threat to the growth of the organization in the industry. The BMS industry attracts many new competitors due to the high revenue earning opportunity. Many established organizations have restricted the entry of competitors by offering only proprietary products and services. Proprietary products and softwares are not compatible with any other products offered by the suppliers. This restricts the client to avail services of only existing suppliers and if they want to switch to other organization, they have to bear the installation cost again. This will protect the revenues of the suppliers but Leopard Controls are not doing anything like this. They are ready to cooperate with other suppliers if the clients want to discontinue their services. This can be a major threat to the revenue and growth of the organization (Klomp, 2013). References Alhaddi, H., 2015. Triple Bottom Line and Sustainability: A Literature Review. Accessed from redfame.com/journal/index.php/bms/article/download/752/697 on 20 April 2017. Burnett, J., 2008. Core Concepts of Marketing, Accessed from https://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Core-Concepts-of-Marketing.pdf on 20 April 2017. Holman, D., 2008. How Top-Down Selling Can Generate Higher Average Sales. Accessed from https://www.acce.org/clientuploads/directory/magazine_archive/uploadedFiles/Publications/Chamber_Executive_Magazine/2008/Articles/TopDownSelling.pdf on 20 April 2017. Klomp, S., 2013. Leopard Controls finally shows its spots, Marketing, Theory, Evidence, practice, Oxford, Australia, pp. 70-75 Leopard Control, 2017. Leopard Control Building Integrated system integrators, Accessed from https://www.leopardcontrols.com.au/ on 20 April 2017.