Marketing Plan

Nguyen Electronic’s DRAGON Multi Function Printer

Marketing Management MM522

Keller Graduate School of Management

March 2010

Name: Anh Nguyen

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY........................................................................................................................................ 3

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION...................................................................................................................................... 4

SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS...................................................................................................................................... 5

1. THE COMPANY...................................................................................................................................................52. THE VIETNAMESE MARKET....................................................................................................................................53. SWOT ANALYSIS................................................................................................................................................7

THE TARGET MARKET.......................................................................................................................................... 8

THE COMPETITOR AND SUBSTITUTES.................................................................................................................. 9

THE COLLABORATOR......................................................................................................................................... 10

STRATEGIES...................................................................................................................................................... 10

PRICE................................................................................................................................................................ 12

PLACE............................................................................................................................................................... 13

PROMOTION..................................................................................................................................................... 14

PROMOTION BUDGET....................................................................................................................................... 14

MONITORS AND CONTROLS.............................................................................................................................. 15

CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................................................... 16

REFERENCE....................................................................................................................................................... 17

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Table of Contents

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Executive Summary

Vietnam is one of the biggest printer businesses in Asia and grown year on year.

Nguyen Electronic has started its printer business in Vietnam in 2006 and grown

dramatically to number 4 in term of market share in 2007.

With the ‘introductory’ marketing strategy, Nguyen has formed the position of being

“market follower” and its pricing strategy involves “high value” mentality of pricing well

featured devices at lower prices.

In May 2010, Nguyen will introduce in Vietnam market the printer model DRAGON –

Laser Multi Function Printer (MFP) – one of its main printer products of the company. Nguyen’s

target will move from market share focus in 2010 to increase market share and brand awareness

to profitable position in 2011 and a “market challenger” in 2012.

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Product Description

The Nguyen DRAGON Multi-function Printer is designed to fully meet the demanding

needs of the Office Automated Sector customers such as single user in corporate or small work

group with four functions including fax, printer, scanner and photocopy. The DRAGON has a

fast copying and printing speed of 20 cpm/ppm as well as speedy fax modem speed of 35kbps

that can transmit as fast as 4 seconds per page.

There are three USB ports to facilitate user in printing documents, pictures directly

from USBs without computer connection. The printer supports printing with different files

format including images (GIF, TiFF, JPEG & bmp, etc…), Ms Office files (xls, xlsx, doc, docx,

ppt, pptx, etc…) & others.

The scanner is one of active function of DRAGON multifunction printer. Adding to its

basic features of a scanner to scan documents for office works, it has more special features for

purposes such as scanning a great number of photos or slides, or scanning negatives. It is very

valuable for scanning large photo collections. Specially, the additional removable scanner tray

to feed big documents such as text books can be separated or installed easily. This function can

help users to scan a text book by taking and feeding paper automatically and continually.

Moreover, the DRAGON is Professional & Economical Laser fax that can meet all office

automated needs for better results with lower cost. In order to save toner, the DRAGON is

designed for manual adjustment (the Money Image button) the clear and sharp level of

designated documents. In case that it is not necessary to make a an excellent because it is just

used for reference and users want to save tonner (up to 40% on toner) with one simple touch by

pressing the Money Image button. It also has the largest toner capacity in comparison with its

competitors.

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Situational analysis

1. The Company

Nguyen Corporation was founded in 1990 in Southern of Vietnam. The company is a top

rated electronic & IT brand. From 2000 to 2006, Saigon Business rated Nguyen as 20th on the

Top 50 Vietnamese brands and the Number 2 in the electronics industry. Nguyen Corporation is

a well-known nationwide Vietnamese corporation that operates in many industries such as

electronics, engineering, heavy industries…. Nguyen Electronics is one of biggest company

under Nguyen Corporation operates in electronics industries nationwide. It has about 30 offices

in Vietnam that employs over 1,000 staffs.

There are many manufacturing printers for many big names in the world available in

Vietnamese market such as HP, Xerox, Lexmark, Ricoh, HP, Fuji and Fujisu. Nguyen

Electronics now is the only one Vietnamese manufacturer for laser MFP (Multi-function

Printers). In 2007, it sold about 12,356 printers in the market with the total market revenue is

about USD2 million just only for hardware. In Vietnam, Nguyen just started its printer business

in 2006 and it has achieved the number 4 in term of market share with the total market revenue is

about USD2.8 million and it sold 15,873 units in 2009.

2. The Vietnamese market

According to IDC Market Research (2008), the Vietnam hardware printer market is over

279,000 units valued at over $95 million USD. This is a growth of 53% and 23% respectively.

IDC also predicts that the Vietnamese market will continue to grow 23% in terms of units and

35% in terms of value. This makes Vietnam one of the most attractive markets in Asia in terms

of the printer industry.

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Market brand loyalty is not high and the category of products and alternatives are accepted.

Consumers are willing to consider attentive products that offer good value and quality. Purchase

behavior relating to printers is infrequent and often requires time and effort to compare

differences and benefits.

Some highlight characteristics of Vietnamese market as follows

Politic a. Stable political environment

Economic b. Strong growth economy

c. Good investment on IT

d. High inflation rate forecast in 2010 may

impact economic growth.

Social –

Culture

e. Vietnam’s culture and society is changing

along with internet and email.

f. Educational advantage.

g. Low PC owner rate (only 6.5 PCs per every

1000 – FTP Corporation

Technology h. Vietnam plan for e-economy and will develop

IT infrastructure (Ministry of Planning, 2007)

Legal i. Tax policies for import product are more

favored in ASEAN (5% import tax). This will be

favor for imported printers.

Environment - Paperless office

j. Environmental policy for paper and cartridge

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recycle

3. SWOT analysis

Strengths Weakness

- Strong electronics Vietnamese

brand

- Strong product with multi-

functions that easy to fit in

customer needs

- High quality

- Low running cost

- Easy to use

- Different functions of USB

ports to print directly from

USBs with many files format

and the additional scanner tray

for big documents.

- Nguyen is considered as lower

value & quality than those of

competitors as it is made in

Vietnam.

- Not strong name in printer.

- Weak product awareness

- Newly in the market

Opportunities Threats

- Vietnam forecast high PC

growth.

- Vietnamese government

decrease tax policies for

- Emerging of electronic

documents & email

- Environmental issues on paper

- Refill cartridges

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electronics Vietnamese

manufactures.

- Vietnamese society has strongly

emphasized in document back

up by hard copy.

- Strong competitors

- Parallel imports

The Target Market

The DRAGON is a Mono Laser MFP that provides professional printer, economical laser

fax, photocopy and functions.

The DRAGON’s customer focuses are:

- Single user in corporate environment

- Telecommuters

- Home Offices

- Medical practices

- Travel agency

- Accounting firms

- Real estate professional

These are customers with office automated needs and demands for high performance, low

cost and high reliability MFP.

In order to achieve greater profitability a greater number of resources must be focused on the

B2B market segment which may result in slightly less gains in market share but will better

position them in terms of profit by 2011. Nguyen plans to engage a greater number of direct

customers and systems integrators in order to win over the more profitable corporate and

government segments. In order to do this the distribution will be diversified actively.

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The Competitor and Substitutes

Nguyen has 3 main competitors in MFP business for DRAGON in Vietnamese market.

They are HP and Canon and Samsung. These brands are well-known in over the world as printer

manufactures for many years. It cannot be denied that their multifunction printers have very

good designs, features. However, Nguyen MFP has better features than other competitors

because of three USB ports to facilitate user in printing documents, pictures directly from

USBs without computer connection and the additional removable scanner tray to feed big

documents such as text books.

Nguyen Electronics is currently at its infancy in Vietnam. Many customers although

aware of the Nguyen brand have not yet fully come to accepting the brand (in terms of printers)

and hence the company’s MFP in have not yet reached the stage of generating brand preference

or loyalty.

However, Vietnam is a developing country so customers of the market are companies with a

large numbers of small and mediums sizes. Customer are willing to consider attentive products

that offer good value and quality to save cost of operation. The traditional purchase behavior

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relating to printers is infrequent and often requires time and effort to compare differences and

benefits. In addition, the business community is always encouraged to use domestic products

(especially electronic products) in order to meet the commitment for developing the country.

Nguyen takes these advantages to compete with competitors by lowering the MFP prices and

using FPT, a government-owned corporation, as the distribution. Through this powerful

distribution, the company can reach a great number of customers in government departments,

authorities who do not pay much attention in excellent office machines, printers or others.

Strategies

Nguyen in Vietnam is currently is in the position of “market follower” with the objective of

becoming a strong “market challenger” (Philip Kotler, Kotler, P 2008) by 2010.

As a market follower Nguyen is positioning itself as a product innovation in an attempt

differentiate with the competitors by producing higher specification devices with lower running

costs and lower environmental impact, as well as well designed and easy to use products.

Nguyen adopts the “offensive marketing” strategy, targeting HP and Canon’s leader positions

taking into consideration the strengths and reactions to market promotions and market share

gains. Moreover, Nguyen targets competitive weaknesses such as speed inefficacies, high

running costs and design problems of Canon, HP and Samsung. Additional “attack strategies”

include improved service and support with additional warranty (12 months longer than

competitors) and higher number of service centers.

Thanks to over 100 service centers nationwide and many years in the market and experiences

about culture and customers understanding, Nguyen Electronics has increased and built the brand

image by proactive and good services. The relationships with customers are not only at basic and

reactive only selling products but also with much follow-up and often encourage the customer to

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call when they have problems. As the result, Nguyen has very accountable, proactive or

partnership relationships with customers.

Nguyen strongly and frequently follows this advantage of good existing services to attract

and increase numbers of customers. Specially, customers with out of warranty period are support

extra services by these centers with free of charge. Each center service is in charged by a leader

with long experience, high performance and strong technology background. The leader center

manages a group of 3 technicians with over 3 years of experience and 3 to 5 supporters (smart,

newly-graduated from college) who are fresh and want to get experience with reasonable

salaries. According to the survey of company, these centers always highly meet customers’

satisfaction.

Price

Nguyen is the youngest player of the major brands in the Vietnam printer market. Therefore,

Nguyen adopts a “competitive” pricing approach looking at the prices of competitive products in

the market and price positioning as a “high-value” product in the market. It offers lower price for

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seemingly faster, cheaper to run and better designed products. The pricing adopted is appointed

at a local level and based on the importance of the segment and product category. If the category

is highly profitable in terms of high usage then more aggressive price positions are taken.

Taking it in to product pricing, Nguyen has position their price for DRAGON as below:

  Nguyen DRAGON Canon Samsung

Price ($USD) $239 $259 $229

Speed (PPM) 16 11 14

Memory 16MB 16MB 8MB

Cost per page $0.021 $0.027 $0.018

Nguyen manages its feature and performance leadership with slight pricing advantage. The

Vietnamese channel market is still price sensitive.

B2B: Position itself as a premium brand. B2B customers are looking for feature rich products

that assist in cost and procedure efficacies, price higher because to this which will result in

perceptions that Nguyen is genuine not cheaper alternative

With regard to pricing a “basic cost” model is adopted, profit = retail price (X% less than

retail price of Canon) – fixed costs – variable costs.

- Fixed costs: salaries, per-determined marketing costs, rent, and structural cost allocation.

- Variable cost, raw material cost affecting production, sales commissions, distribution

costs and cost of money/credit.

With the current pricing, Nguyen DRAGON price is lower than Canon’s product with

high quality and higher than Samsung’s product with lower quality.

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Samsung Vietnam

FPT Distribution

Master Dealers IT Resellers Customers

Direct Retailer Dealers Customers

Direct Large Customers

There is one important problem of the market trend of refill cartridge that Nguyen may need

to look at reducing its toner cost for DRAGON to overcome the thread from toner refill and

remanufacturers.

Place

Printing products are sold via two avenues:

- Channel, which is considered large IT outlets, smaller IT stores, consumer electronics

retailers and well as office automation outlets

- Direct – usually B2B customers that purchase large or expensive printing devices or

purchasing large quantities of product.

In order to reach these channels, FPT was appointed as the official distributor. FPT

(FPT:VN) is a government owned and multinational information technology company of

Vietnam. One of Vietnam's leading companies, it is based in Ha Noi and has branches in Ho Chi

Minh and Da Nang. FPT affiliate companies are active in telecommunications, property,

education and financial services. FPT ranked first in the publicly traded companies section of the

2008 VNR500 List of leading Vietnam companies; the list is compiled on the basis of revenue,

growth and other economic factors. FPT in 2006 and distributes to master dealers who sell

nationwide to smaller IT mama/papa” stores and IT retails. FPT also sells directly to major

consumer electronics outlets.

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Promotion

Nguyen’s promotions of DRAGON focus on quality and lower running costs. With the target

to extend brand awareness, Nguyen has used value added promotions such as bonus toner

cartridges and bundles with PCs and servers. And this is not to bring price positioning down

instead adding value and increase customer perceptions of value and quality with warranty

bundles at the same time. Continue to stay away from price reductions, focus on value add

solutions that drive the message of cost efficacies and reliability.

Additional promotional activities of the company are joining yearly technology trade fairs

and advertising in the high-tech newspapers. These activities help Nguyen to increase image

brand in business communities and look for opportunities for relationships with business-mans

(who may be a decision makers in companies) and other potential customers.

Promotion budget

Public Relations 2,400.00

High-tech Newspapers Advertising 15,000.00

Miscellaneous Advertising 1,000.00

Trade Fairs: 20,000.00

(In 4 main cities of the country: Hanoi,

Hochiminh, Danang, Haiphong)

Bonus toner cartridges and bundles with PCs and servers 40,000.00

Total Promotion Budget 78,400.00

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Monitors and Controls

There are 3 key tools that Nguyen can use to monitor DRAGON in Vietnam market:

- The company uses GFK data, Germany's largest market research institute, to

monitor the sell-out data at retail points as well as the movement of the product’s

competitors.

- IDC market research data is used to monitor the DRAGON’s market share and the

product performance against its competitors.

- Internal data from distributor sell-in (sell-out) data is used to monitor the product

movement as well as market feedback and dealers and retailers’ performance.

Nguyen also set up weekly meeting to review the product performance and monitoring

product’s inventory. Through SAP system, Nguyen can also monitor the product’s financial

status for performance against inventory and revenue targets.

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Conclusion

In order to move from the position of “market follower” to “market challenger”, Nguyen

should not reduce the product price but need to look at increasing guarantee periods and

providing extra services to its targeted customers.

Developing the company distribution network is another step that Nguyen needs to

consider to catch up with other existing competitors like Samsung, Canon and HP in MFP

segment. Nguyen also is on the way to consider other solutions to overcome the future threats

such as toner refill and remanufacturer in developing country like Vietnam. With the target to

achieve number two position in Vietnam printer market in the next 2 years, DRAGON is one of

the major products that Nguyen need to concentrate on to extend the company ‘s brand

awareness and increasing its market share in order to make profit in 2011.

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Reference

IDC Market Research, 2008, IDC World Wide Hardcopy Tracker, Q4 2009,

www.idctracker.com

Kotler, P, Adam, S, Brown, L and Armstrong, G 2001, Principles of marketing, Sydney:

Prentice Hall.

Philip Kotler, Kotler, P 2003, Marketing management, 13th ed. Sydney: Prentice-Hall,

chapter 1-20.

The Principle of Marketing – An Asian Perspective -2005

http://www.Samsung.com/vn/consumer/monitor-peripherals-printers/printer-multifunction/

index.idx?pagetype=type

http://wapedia.mobi/en/FPT_Group

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