Strategic Marketing and Customer Value
Professional services and products rely on strategic marketing to gain a competitive advantage and maintain sustainability in a firm or producer organization. Strategic marketing often involves utilizing marketing disciplines to influence any organization’s goals in achieving a competitive advantage. The service I have selected is accounting as an integrative advisory service. My company is a small accounting firm that offers a wide range of services handled by businesses daily. Generally, my firm’s core objective is to monitor financial conditions in consideration of books of accounts and financial statements.
Accounting services bear the responsibility of analyzing and preparing financial statements. The services we offer at my firm rely on the belief that all businesses maintain accounting systems to monitor financial results. Also, my firm plays a vital role in monitoring business trends. Such trends include drifts in sales and expenses that are assessed to make due considerations and recommendations on expansion and measure profitability within a stipulated timeframe. From the monitoring of business trends, my firm can offer working plans for effective financial management to businesses that require our services.
My firm’s objectives in helping firms gain competitive advantage through assessing their financial journey and prowess align with other vital business sectors. Accounting is a critical pillar of measuring strength in any organization; hence, it requires a professional interconnection with other business departments such as sales and marketing. In doing so, the accounting services we offer can meet industry standards as we stretch the limits of the services we provide to gain a competitive advantage in the accounting industry. Like other services such as packaging and logistics, the firm experiences direct competition in the industry.
To mitigate competition, the firm keeps in check with industry developments and adjusting standards. Further, the firm takes a keen interest in the growth objectives of competitor firms within the industry. The firm is at par with the annual ranking of prominent players in the accounting industry to learn their client and customer movement directions and gain insight into their market strategies. Shaping the firm’s future in the industry is set to be achieved through daring projects such as employing relevant and new technology in the accounting industry.
Recently, the “Accounting Today” survey brought to focus on the issue of the impact of new technology and the adaptability of accounting firms. The survey incorporated various stakeholders in the accounting industry, including consulting firms, accounting practitioners, and regulators. Notably, the survey identified these two challenges of technology impact and adaptability to change as the significant challenges that may baffle the accounting industry. Our firm is prepared to confront these challenges by employing broad technological developments. However, it will not use these developments extensively because of the effects on both society and the economy.
The firm faces stiff competition from other key players in the accounting industry and other industries. Competition is rising from recovering demand in sectors such as insurance and finance. The pressure is mounted from fast-developing firms and renowned accounting organizations with highly qualified certified accountants and personnel with robust experience in accounting within the industry. More accounting firms are increasingly employing the use of software to substitute traditional accounting practices.
Personally, friends and co-workers believe that handling competition will not only require strategy but also tact in the way the company handles specific issues. Corporate Social Responsibility, for instance, is gradually gaining more interest in the quest for competitive advantage. More organizations are keen on shaping image and reputation by giving back to society to fulfill an obligatory mandate. Similarly, co-workers in the firm seem to emphasize the need for effective human resource management to enhance inhouse performance and consequently combat competitors in service provisions. Constant communication with employees has revealed the need for integrating technology that eases and fastens service delivery.
The firm caters to a wide variety of customers and customer needs. Notably, our key clients are banks and microfinance companies. We maintain strong interaction with clients on various levels, including the preparation and planning of taxes and financial statements. In addition to exemplary customer service, we provide value-added programs such as seminars that present extreme advantages. We offer personalized services to our most trusted customers as a customer retention strategy.
Banks and microfinance firms are considered the most valuable customers critical to the profitability of the firm. Generally, they contribute and demand a return. As a result, the firm has had to go through extensive measures such as further consultation and liaising with professionals when handling their accounts and other accounting services. Additionally, reliability is a valued benefit highly enjoyed by our bank and microfinance clients who appreciate a big firm’s quality and the flexibility of a small firm feel. To retain these valued clients, the firm engages employees with in-depth knowledge and utilizes resources for efficiency.
To illustrate our valued client’s special treatment, we will calculate the lifetime value of one of the banks under our services. The criteria the firm uses is specifically tailored to appropriately allocate the right resources for customer retention and keeping the client happy. The formula calculates the lifetime value as the average value of service or sale multiplied by repeated transactions. The bank in question has been in business with the firm for ten years now. Rather than using initial costs, the firm uses a membership charge that retains customers, which is slightly high for banks. Our membership plan spans for ten years and goes for 20,000 US dollars. The number of transactions can go as high as ten times annually for a bank. As such, the lifetime value will be calculated as 20,000 multiplied by10 years, resulting in 200, 000 dollars.
The firm’s top clients’ lifetime value is essential in guiding the amount of time and resources allocated to serving the client. The firm takes keen importance in recognizing the client’s worth for better management of services and retention rather than continually trying to grow the customer base. Communication with most clients, such as chase bank, has revealed their satisfaction in the firm’s work. In various instances, our firm has been reflected positively, especially by our most valued customers. These customers have praised our exemplary performance and special treatment on separate occasions citing services such as maximum resource allocation when dealing with exceptional clients. Organizational goals should align with set objective management practices for any company to potentially realize the extent of its organizational abilities.