Marketing Strategy

Title: BIOFOAM, JUST PEANUTS? – REPORT COMPANY CASE 6
Subject: PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING
Level / Semester: MBA 1
Programme: Master in Business Administration
Subject Tutor: Martin Kirkby
Name of Student: Juan Manuel Aristizabal - 1103014
Elena Galybina - 1102054
Armand Duclaire - 1011025
Ehsan Akbari - 1106015
Date of Submission: 11th August 2011
Word Count: words
Word Limit: 3000words

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Biofoam is a small company which think that it can solve polystyrene peanut problem in packaging loose-fill supply. Polystyrene peanut is introduced in 1970. It is very good packaging material but bad for the environment. According to Ed Alfke, Biofoam’s CEO, The sorghum peanut is a good product with low prices. Initially Biofoam targeted retailers who wanted to sendenvironmentally friendly message. To date will have to expand beyond environmentally sensitive firms into a broader market. Their strategy is to install machines on the customer’s premise to produce peanuts in – house- an arrangement that would give Biofoam rent free production sites. This strategy might sound unusual because some company already done it and there are some disadvantages of thisstrategy such as lack of space, no employees working in the plant. Many Industries think that Alfke cannot reach his ambitious but other are more optimist. Furthermore other firms have entered the market with biodegradable, water-soluble foams and there are more competition in environmental sector today.

TABLE OF CONTENT

1. INTRODUCTION 4
a. Principles of Marketing Management 4
b. Marketingplanning in Business 4
c. Approaching to this Company Case Report 5
2. CONTENT 6
a. Theory of Marketing Planning 6
b. Questions and Answers of Company Case: Biofoam, Just Peanut? 8
 Outline Biofoam’s current marketing strategy 8
 Which elements of the marketing mix are most important for Biofoam to focus on? 9
 What is the nature of demand in the loose-fill packagingindustry? What factors shape that demand? 10
 If you were a buyer of packaging materials, would you agree to Biofoam’s offer of machines inside your plant? If not, how could Biofoam overcome your objections? 11
 What environmental and organizational factors are likely to affect the loose-fill packaging industry? How will these factors affect Biofoam? 12
 Is Alfke right? Is this a good deal?Would you have bought into the firm? Why or why not? 13
3. CONCLUSIONS 14
4. REFERENCES 15

1. INTRODUCTION
a. Principles of Marketing Management
The global economic situation, the change on markets, the globalization and many other circumstances make the business world far away different from the beginning of industrial development worldwide and that implicates new perspectives tobusiness and corporations. For many years the process of purchase and sales in business did not have deep analysis of demand to establish a market, the companies supplied a market without any strong strategy and simply provided products to an extensive demand. The monetary benefits were massive due to the lack of offer and huge demand, but people saw opportunities and started to produce goods andthe competence was becoming harder. The companies understood those changes in global markets and the apparition of new competitors made managers and director start to think about strategy to defeat the competences and be the leader in markets.
This involves getting answers to questions such as which markets the organization should be operating in, what resources are necessary in order to besuccessful in these markets, who are the key competitors and what strategies are they using, how can we develop and sustain an advantage over these competitors and what is happening in the wider world that might affect or organisations?. These questions refer to issues that represent the strategic context in which organizations operate. (Baines, Fill and Page, 2011, p. 159)

b. Marketing...