Demetra Andrews

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• Demetra Andrews
• Presentation, Fall 2005

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Stick a fork in it, its done!

• Marketing Strategy Shelf Life

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Congratulations, you have a strategy!

• Youve churned through the marketing planning
  process and now you have a newly-minted strategy
  to show for your efforts
• So what do you do now?
• You marshal all of your forces
• Get your ducks in a row
• You IMPLEMENT!
• And everything goes well from here on out,
  everybody gets rich and youre the company hero!

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Change is Constant

• Maybe for a while but things tend to change that
  impact the effectiveness of your strategy
• Changing market trends
• Changes in consumer / customer preferences or
  needs
• Changing technology
• Changes in management or management emphasis
• Changes in resource availability
• Changes in supplier offerings
• Changes in competitors
• Changes in legislation
• Changes in economic trends

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Change is Constant

• Marketplace change might even render your
  strategy inappropriate

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• In other words
• Strategies often have a limited shelf life

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Whew! Whats that smell?

• Its imperative to any marketer to be able to
  identify when a good strategy is going bad
• While IMPLEMENTATION is the sexier of the
  marketing strategy steps, three additional steps
  are also critical to your companys success as
  well as your own
• Implement ? Monitor ? Evaluate ? Update /
  Terminate
• These steps will keep you objective, honest and
  out of trouble

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Todays Topics

• Recognizing an expired strategy
• What to do about it
• CASE American Airlines Travel Academy

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Travel School Overview

• Established in 1987 in response to the growing
  need for highly trained travel industry
  professionals.
• The travel school offers a comprehensive Travel
  Tourism curriculum that provides students the
  skills needed to succeed in a unique and vibrant
  industry.
• Originally consisted of 1 school in Dallas Fort
  Worth (DFW)
• Grew to also include a school in Chicago and a
  curriculum licensing business serving vocational
  schools

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Travel School The Problem

• 1998 Appointed Director of travel school Group
  had lost money for more than 18 months
• Task Figure out what was wrong and fix the
  problem
• In essence
• A strategy had been implemented in 1987 Start a
  school
• It had been augmented Open another campus, offer
  licenses
• The strategy wasnt working Travel School had
  sustained losses
• No one was sure what to do
• Strategy problem?
• Market problem
• Implementation problem?
• Lets walk through how this problem was
  deconstructed

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Step 1 Monitor

• Get your hands on the right data
• Know whats available
• Know what the objectives are
• Aggregate or disaggregate at the appropriate
  level
• Collect both quantitative and qualitative data
• Travel School
• 10 years of data
• Profitability is objective
• Disaggregation
• Qualitative data
• Individual and group meetings

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Step 2 Evaluate the Data

• Figure out what the data is saying (the hard
  part)
• Be objective
• Evaluate results based on your objectives
• Evaluate from the perspective of stakeholders
• Look for trends (1blip, 2 blips, 3 blips)
• Is there a downward / upward trend?
• Are the thresholds being met?
• Seek explanations for both good and bad results
• Can the causes be isolated and identified?
• Travel School
• Demand cycles, high school costs, credit issues
• Isolation of problem stagnant school sales
• Unsuccessful effort to revitalize school sales
• Expired school strategy

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Step 3 Update / Terminate

• Act on your new knowledge
• Augment or adapt an existing strategy
• Implement an additional strategy
• Pull the plug on an expired strategy
• Travel School
• Closed schools
• Relocation for Chicago school needed
• Reinstatement of school loan program required
• Restructuring of cost structure necessary
• Identified new market for curriculum licensing
  (community colleges)
• Increased support for curriculum licensing

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Bottomline Take-aways

• Implementation is an intermediate step, the
  follow-ups will enable you to adapt or terminate
  an expired strategy
• Monitor
• Evaluate
• Update / Terminate
• Expired strategies can create quite a stink!