Case Study of Calyx & Corolla Essay

Calyx and Corolla is a company that can be considered a big success. It is a company that has beaten competition and has managed to curve their way into huge profits. Located in spacious offices in San Francisco gives the company added advantage as they have a centralized decision making unit. The company deals with the delivery of flowers from growers to customers by mail. This was a new invention that contributed much to the success of the company. The simplicity of their model of business was the role they played in the flowers transaction. The company only acted as a facilitator to enable growers reach customers directly. The report is an analysis of the various marketing strategies employed by the company in the course of their business and how those strategies worked. It is an evaluation of exactly how the 4Ps and 3Cs approaches were employed. It is also an evaluation of the strategies employed by the company to attract and retain customers in an otherwise flooded flower market. The paper ends with some recommendations on the future of the company particularly how to formulate a strategy to accommodate the expanded business. The paper presents the options available for the company and the capacity each option has to the company. The 4Ps model simply is a marketing strategy that strikes a balance between products, price, promotion and the place in which the business is located. On the other end the 3Cs model provide customers with choice, convenience and control to enable them enjoy the company’s products or services. Finding the right balance between all the above factors constitutes on effective marketing strategy. The companies that have managed to find this balance have managed to penetrate tight markets while competitors stagnate. A powerful marketing plan not only gains a larger share but it also gains loyalty of customers (Baker, 2003). Products are the basic units that form a company’s basis for operation. The products that a company produces have to be needed by the customers. If companies produce unnecessary goods, they would not have the means of recovering the costs involved. As entrepreneurs evaluate the businesses to engage in, they should do so based on market information. The Calyx and Corolla Company had gathered enough market data and identified customer trends. The product they chose to deal with, flowers, was one needed by customers. The company had also identified who their target segments were. In dealing with a product that expressed peoples’ emotions, the company managed to draw huge customer base (Baker, 2003).. A product can be released that customers need. But it is not until the awareness is raised that customers would gain interest in it and evaluate it with others in the market. Promotions are therefore necessary and should be targeted at the customer base the company has identified. Promotions should be centered on customer satisfaction rather than product selling. Calyx and Corolla Company run many advertisements on televisions, print media including magazines running promotions, and point of sale marketing. In their advertisements, they made customers fell that their needs had been met. They not only provided customers with flowers but they also vases to put in. The promotions covered well the entire market they intended to reach especially the European market. Customers will always go for the cheap products in the market if the utility is the same for costly ones. Customers are also willing to go for slightly costly products if they believe the goods or services are of higher quality. The business model employed by Calyx and Corolla of linking customers with flower growers enabled them to lower the costs of delivery. The company therefore offered customers cheaper products whose quality superceded that in the market. This enabled the company to gain more customers. The strategy by the company involved gaining customer royalty and expanding market share. Their price strategy worked for them evidenced by the huge sales they managed to make in just a short time. Another key factor considered for effective marketing of products is the location of the company. Location eases a company’s access to suppliers to facilitate the delivery of goods and other raw materials needed. Location is also important in enabling the company to reach their customers faster. The distributions channels of the company can only be effective if there is a central place where both suppliers and customers can operate. Calyx & Corolla Company is strategically placed in San Francisco, a place where customers hare a high demand for flowers. San Francisco is well served by the major airlines making provision of flowers and other commodities not only cheaper but also convenient. The company has spacious premises on which a warehouse has been built. The warehouse offers the company with temporally storage of products, which further reduces costs. Customers often avoid products or services that deny them the flexibility they need. They insist on having varieties to choose from. Customers are attracted more by those products that not only satisfy their immediate need but also offer more. This is the case when customers evaluate the value of the products more than the price. Calyx & Corolla Company managed to diversify their products. They not only dealt with facilitating delivery of flowers from growers to customers but also provided flower vases to the customers as a value addition strategy. The vases were offered at competitive prices, which were almost negligible for the customers. The customers were more persuaded into buying the flower vases since they had been saved the hustles of going to purchase flower vases from some other vendors. The customer care department of the calyx & corolla company was very effective in handling customer queries and complaints. The company increased workers in this department to cater for the many customers who streamed in at the peak seasons. This increased the effectiveness of the company. The company therefore succeeded in offering the necessary convenience customers sought and thus were able to move ahead of the competitors. In a company dealing with products selling or delivery as Calyx & Corolla Company dealt, customers require deals which give them power to determine what they need. As customers choose, they enjoy having control to dictate what they need. The customers in the Calyx & Corolla case, customers have control to order for certain specifications for their products. The company, by linking customers with growers, has enabled customers to identify with these growers. There are however challenges that have risen from this expansion of business. Customers have increased and complaints have increased too. The company is left with the option of hiring more workers, which in effect would be counterproductive during the low seasons. For the company to effectively compete with other international flower firms, they must consider expanding their business operations to Europe. Market research has shown that Europeans have a higher liking for flowers than the Americans. The company should therefore consider opening a branch in Europe to capture the lucrative business there.