Team 10

Name Email Country of Residence

Warisha Farhat warisha99farhat@gmail.com Pakistan

Brendan Mahoney Brendan.mahoney@marquette.edu USA

Heena Chauhan India

Albert E. Bittle aebittle@uncg.edu USA

Sahil Sharma sshar783@mtroyal.ca Canada

 X Culture Kids
Executive Summary
We are X Culture students who are doing this report. Our task is to solve a major problem
of our client. Our Client, X culture has started a new initiative X Culture kids. X-Culture
is a project designed to offer trainees an opportunity to complete a project in a global
virtual team and, in the process, experience the challenges and learn the best-practices of
global virtual collaboration and business consulting. We need to develop new market
strategy for X Culture kids. Our report contains 3 sections:
1. Market Analysis : In this section we do a market analysis of X Culture kids. We
have listed down the main competitors of X Culture which include Kids go
Global, KQED and TIGed. We have given one market which we suggest X
Culture should consider and that is Finland.. We have given all the details about
choice of advertising, recruitment, pricing and marketing startegy to use for
Finland.
2. Marketing Strategy: In this section, we have given a detailed plan of the
marketing strategy X Culture Kids should apply. The marketing startegy starts
form who to market, how to market and when to market.
3. Operations management: In this section, we list down the modes of entry and the
potential partnership candidates X Culture can approach.

First section
Market Analysis
About X Culture Kids
X-Culture Kids stems from the X-Culture Project. X Culture is a project where students
enrolled in International Business course from different universities participate in it.
They form virtual teams where they provide detailed solutions for the major challenges of
their client. X Culture was formed in 2010 by Dr Vas Taras and has had over 40000
undergraduate students from 40 different countries. Uptil now people aged 19 to 60 take
part in X Culture to gain international and business experience. Starting in 2018, X
Culture kids has come into the picture where students aged 9-17 can participate in X
Culture as well. There will be certain changes in this project due to the difference in age
of the participants. However, X Culture kids is a promising new start and is thought to be
even more better than X Culture university.

Target Audience
The end consumers of X culture kids are the pre college students. However, they will not
be the ones who will make the decision of participating in X Culture. This decision will
be made by the teachers and parents. So in a way, the target audience is the teachers and
the parents. The program has to be designed in a way that teachers find it appropriate for
their students to participate in.

Barriers to Entry
X-Culture kids faces numerous barriers to entry. They are limited to targeting
organizations that have access to technology. There is no X-Culture Kids without
technology. Also, technology limits the audience that we can target. Currently, everyone
in the world doesn’t have access to the internet and this limits our target market.
Language is another barrier to entry that causes disruptions. The cultural experience of X-
Culture is one of the biggest benefits that is taken away from the experience, but that can
be limited because of language.
Communication is crucial in X-Culture and team members need to be on the same page.
Therefore, there needs to be a common language that team members can use. Even if
there is a common language, the degree to which a person may know the language may
cause confusion. Finally, I think that product differentiation is another strong barrier to
entry. Our competitors offer a similar learning experience and we need to construct a way
that separates us from the pack. We need to offer a unique experience that our
competitors can’t emulate. The main goal for all our competitors is to have our clients
learn and gain valuable experience, but it is up to us to go the extra step and differentiate
ourselves from the competition.

Our Competitors
X-Culture has many competitors. KQED is one of our competitors and due to the way the
approach topics can somewhat be different from X-culture kids. KQED addresses
environmental and everyday conflicts and drive to find a solution to these problems more
effectively. Our competitor also explores many other ideas and does not limit it to just
cultural issues that may arise in a group. All competitors have the same mindset and
focus on all issues around while X-Culture kids is limited to just a few things to discuss
and work on.

Main Competitors:
“Kids Go Global” - http://.kidsgoglobal.net/
“KQED”- https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/28303/a-design-challenge-to-students-solve-
a-real-world-problem
“TIGed” - http://projects.tiged.org/global-issues-pbl

Target Market Country:

Finland
Finland has the highest efficiency scores in school systems from around the world. They
have a very broad, creative, and customizable learning system that takes a slow learning
approach to make sure that the students actually understand materials taught!

Choice of Advertisement:
 Television
Accounted for 19.7% of the ad market
Newspapers/Magazines
35.7% of the ad market
https://en.portal.santandertrade.com/analyse-markets/finland/reaching-the-consumers

Marketing Message
We want to highlight the benefits of the X-Culture experience. The marketing campaign
will be centered around the supplementary skills that a X-Culture student will receive
after the completion of their project

Recruitment
Local recruitment agents can email and meet with local school teachers. A recruitment
agent will be assigned a region and will be responsible for getting participation from the
schools in their assigned area.

Promotional Materials
X-Culture Kids is ran through the internet, so it is important to have a website. This
webpage will be used to show potential clients what it is like to use X-Culture Kids and
the benefits that come from it.

Pricing
There will be a fixed price for solo first time users. Discounts will be offered for group
subscriptions based on how many people register. Additionally, as a way to keep loyal
customers we will offer loyalty packages, so once you have been with X-Culture kids for
a predetermined set amount of time there will be a discount applied.

Marketing
In this section of the report we will talk in detail about the promotion strategy of X
culture kids, which includes reaching out to potential customers and managing a
relationship with them. X Culture kids is an unparalleled product, consequently different
promotional methods need to be adopted in order to reach out to potential customers. The
first step in X Culture kids is identify who should the product be marketed to. X Culture
is a product in which the end user of the product is different from the one who buys it.
The teachers/parents will make a decision on behalf of their children, who will participate
in it. This is why X Culture has to find potential teacher-parent groups from all over the
world who will authorize their children’s participation.

Audience
 Much larger population than the original X-Culture project
 Students are ages 9-17
 About 1 billion people ages 9-17, half of whom already speak English
 Must have a web-presence to enroll
 Teachers and adults would be a key target because they influence kids
Promotion Channels
 These approaches have to be promoted directly to the targeted audience
 Using teachers as recruiters- Professors who have worked with X-Culture
can spread the news of the benefits X-Culture kids would provide.
 Teachers would be considered part-time workers, but full-time workers
would only work on recruiting potential users of X-Culture Kids.
 Full-Time recruiters would be assigned an area within a region, and their
job would be to recruit schools, teachers, and students to enroll in X-
Culture Kids
 Targeted promotion is another ideal method in promoting X-Culture Kids
 Research the best way to get in touch with teachers, schools, and adults in
each region because it may vary region to region.
 Teachers should be the prime target in the school system. Getting the
school to implement X-Culture kids school wide will be almost
impossible. Recruiters should focus their main attention on teachers.
  Contact teachers within the school system to tell them about the X-Culture
Kids benefits to their students. X-Culture Kids gives the teachers the
option to teach their students valuable international skills they can’t learn
in a standard class.
 Recruiters can sit down with a teacher in a coffee shop, their classroom,
etc.
 A five minute sit down can go a long way. Hearing in person the benefits
of X-Culture is the best way to recruit teachers.
 Brochures should be passed out to teachers after the meeting so they can
reference the benefits of X-Culture Kids
 There is limited space in brochures, but there is enough space to describe
why teachers should implement X-Culture Kids in their classes.
 LinkedIn should be used as well
 Recruiters can reach the largest audience through the Internet
 Once recruiters match with teachers they can explain what they do and
offer to have a sit-down with said teacher.

Message
 A strong way to promote X-Culture Kids is to express the benefits students gain
 Students become more culturally aware through X-Culture Kids
 X-Cultures Kids offers training in online collaboration, cross-cultural
communication, problem solving in teams, and the basics of international
business.
 There are very few opportunities to work with international persons before you
enter the workforce, but X-Culture Kids gives students the opportunity to gain the
international experience. Promotions should stress the idea of experience which
can’t be gained in a normal classroom.
 This kind of experience can only be gained through first hand experience of
working with international students.
 Another good way to convince people to use X-Culture Kids is to show them the
results of X-Culture
  The test scores of X-Culture students shows an increase in test scores after
finishing X-Culture, this should be stressed when promoting X-Culture Kids
 Former X-Culture students can be used in promotions
 There are 40,000 students who can tell their stories of what it was like to use X-
Culture.
 Slogans should be centered around the benefits students receive and the results of
X-Culture
 “Building international leaders one project at a time”
 “Shining a light on new learning areas”
 In my opinion, the brand name is good. The logo should share some similar
characteristics to X-Culture. However, I believe it should be a more childlike
logo. Example, use a logo which looks like it was drawn with crayons.

Promotional Materials
In this section of the report we will talk about the promotion strategy of X culture kids. X
Culture kids is an unfamiliar product and different ways need to be adopted in order to
reach out to potential customers.
The first step in X Culture kids is identifying who to market this product. X Culture is a
product in which the end user of the product is different from the one who buys it. The
teachers/parents will make a decision on behalf of their children, who will participate in
it. This is why X Culture has to find potential teacher parent groups from all over the
world who will make their children participate.
There are two channels of informing the teacher/parents:
1. Face to face
 Hear about X-Culture from our local representatives.
 Receive our printed pamphlets, emails, letters sent through regular mail.
 The contact can be cold-calling meetings and presentations (unsolicited
approaches such as visiting a school), meetings at conferences or other
third-party events, organized events, mini-conferences, round-table
discussions, etc.
 Referrals by former participants.
 2. Online
 Hear about X-Culture from our local representatives.
 Receive our printed pamphlets, emails, letters sent through regular mail.
 The contact can be cold-calling meetings and presentations (unsolicited
approaches such as visiting a school), meetings at conferences or other
third-party events, organized events, mini-conferences, round-table
discussions, etc.
 Referrals by former participants.

3. Promotion Channel

Promotion is one of the most important parts of the criteria for working in any
field. When you are looking to move forward with using a good balance in promotion and
the target audience, it is important to be specific and suitable to the culture and mindset
of both customer and consumer. With X-Culture kids, we are dealing with some of the
most sensitive parts of education. Promotion will be taken care of while working with
both kids and also working in such a way that both students and instructors/guardians are
impressed with this program. The following ways can be adopted.
 One of the best ways to reach teachers and kids while also having
assoriety of same is that we can make this as curriculum.
 We can apply one of the factors like printing about X-Culture in school
handbooks or magazines.
 One of the most effective ways is to take a workshop in schools and other
institutions were kids and their parents are involved.
 Advertising in learning apps and also on other websites that are used for
education purposes.
 Providing any kind of benefit to the person who is introducing x culture in
their organization.
  To look forward with using the internet and mailing, but it is not useful
due to many nations and regions not having such access to use as a
medium of communication.

4. Message

In today’s world, reaching out to people is not a difficult task but convincing them
to buy a particular product is not easy, there can be lots of information available
and more information needed to convince the individual. The following ways can
be adopted to spread the message in a more efficient way.
 We will focus on both the consumer and also customer of our product in a
balanced way which can be done by having good communication on both
ends of the different platforms.
 Students should be educated in how they are going to deal with future
studies and how they should work with different types of people for life
and work.
 Parents and guardians are also attracted by this competition by knowing
that this can serve as being a helpful vessel to kids in this melting pot of a
world!
 Messages are also given by word of mouth which helps them to have a
good impact as well as have fun while working at the same time!

5. Promotion material
Promotion of any product is not possible until it is lead by good information and
the perfect set of knowledge on the product. One of the best promotion materials is word
of mouth and interaction with your target audience.
 We can use online sites to provide relevant information of our work and agenda.
 Spreading information by word of mouth and also with one-on-one interaction
with our customers the consumers by using seminars and other online services to
have good reviews.
  One of the cheapest and easiest ways is to sponsor small events at schools and
other kid targeted/related events.

Operations Management
Entry Mode:
X Culture is a type of business that needs and entry mode because the main point of X
culture is to create teams in which the members are from different countries. In order for
that to happen X Culture needs to contact schools from different countries. The possible
ways of entry in to different countries are listed below with their advantages and
disadvantages.

1. Direct Sales
If X Culture adopts this mode of entry, it’ll have to contact school teachers and principals
and provide them with proposals. The problem with this is that there is no incentive for
the schools when their kids participate in X Culture. X Culture needs to do a very
effective job in explaining to the schools’ managements about how benefitting for the
kids it is to enroll them in this program. The advantage of doing this is that X Culture will
be in direct contact with those schools. Focusing on direct communication with
customers is important for long term success for any business. X Culture is a new startup
so it needs to have enough exposure to its first customers in order to adapt and grow so
that they can meet their needs.
2. Joint Venture
Joint venture is when X Culture will have to form a cooperative enterprise with
educational agencies in different countries. By doing so schools that fall under those
educational agencies will register their kids in X Culture. However X Culture will have to
form many joint ventures with different agencies in different countries and this can get
very hectic. Also, joint ventures are not permanent so there will come a time when this
will get over. However by that time many schools will already be mobilized about X
Culture. Joint Venture is good for X culture because right now X Culture just needs ways
to have kids from different countries. And once a school enrolls its kids, it’s just a matter
of time when X Culture kids will get bigger than x Culture University.

3. Franchising
If X Culture chooses this method, it will need companies or individuals who are ready to
be the franchisee. X Culture will have to provide them with all the details about this
program. They will have to send some representatives of X Culture to these places
because the franchisee will not have full information about how this works. Again, X
Culture will have to franchise in different countries. However, when compared to joint
ventures, franchising is permanent so X Culture will have a first mover advantage.

4. Partnership with the local distributors, government agencies

X Culture will have to approach educational agencies, schools or government agencies
for partnership. This option is a little difficult because in partnership profits have to be
shared and right now X culture is not in the position for this because it needs all of its
profits to be reinvested. However, even if it decides to do so, partnering with schools
which have franchises in different countries will be a very good idea because that way X
Culture can get many kids from different countries.

5. Partnering with Schools and Teachers

X-Culture should work with local schools and build relationships. Local agents should
build and maintain relationships with schools and their teachers. This will help build
stability. They will continue to bring their students back to X-Culture and will basically
be a fixed income X-Culture can rely on.

6. Always Innovating
There should be more levels of X-Culture. Some people will want their final project to be
20-30 pages, and other students won’t be as educated. X-Culture should test a lower and
higher level model and attract to students those different options. This will better help
teamwork because dedicated students will be placed with other dedicated students.
Hopefully, this will help result in better final projects too.

Partnership Candidates

1. Kumon Math & Reading Centers

Developed by Toru Kumon, Kumon Math and Reading Centers has over 1400 US
franchises and 24000 international franchises. Kumon franchisees use various methods of
daily practice and self-paced advancement to children's math and reading skills. It is also
ranked #20 on Franchise 500. This is a huge school franchise.
Partnering with Kumon will give X Culture Kids a very big exposure platform. Since
Kumon management believes that the common education system is not apt for kids so
they have their own methods of teaching. X Culture can use this property of theirs to
convience them that X Culture is a very different yet effective way of students to learn
not only international business but also team management and getting knowledge of
different cultures.

Corporate Address: 300 Frank W. Burr Blvd., #6

Teaneck, NJ 07666
CEO: Mino Tanabe
2. Huntington learning Centers
Huntington Learning Centers offer instruction in reading, mathematics and study skills,
as well as phonics, spelling, vocabulary, writing, algebra, geometry and SAT/ACT exam
preparation.
Since Huntington is not just a school but also a place where students go to prepare for
tests like SAT/ACT, it is a good option for partnership as here Huntington can give its
students a chance to participate in X Culture before going to universities as it’ll make
them stronger candidates. And for Huntington, X Culture can be their competing
advantage as other centers will not offer this.

Corporate Address: 496 Kinderkamack Rd.

Oradell, NJ 07649
CEO: Eileen Huntington

Partnership Candidates references : https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/195050

Payments

Ways to move money across borders:

1. Bank money transfers: X Culture can accept money through bank transfers. They
can give their bank information to the customers who can transfer it to their
account. However it should be kept in mind that transferring money to an
international account will cost the party transferring money an amount.
2. Transferwise: TransferWise lets you pay with a bank transfer, or with your debit
or credit card. The transfer can be made on their website, their mobile app, and
even on Facebook, through their Facebook bot. In most cases, the recipient will
receive the money within 1 to 4 working days. On some routes, the transfer is
nearly instantaneous.

Pricing

1. Fixed Pricing: By doing this, X Culture will be charging everyone the same price. This
way X Culture kids can get a constant margin of profit on every registration. However,
 most of organisations like these offer group discounts so this can be a little
demotivating for customers who what want to register in bulk.
2. Group Pricing: In this type of pricing, groups will get discounts and the individual price of
one registration will reduce. The perk of doing this is that this will encourage more and
more student applications. How ever if one base price is used, the bigger the group will
be, the lower the individual cost per person will be.
3. Repeat Customer Discounts: in this type of pricing, customers who have already
registered will get discounts when they register again. For example, a school registers a
100 students for the first time. So the next time it will register the students it will get
discounts. This type of pricing will help retain customers but during the first round no
one will get this discount.
4. Instalments: This type of payment will allow X Culture to charge full amount but the
customers will pay in installments. This will help those who can’t make instant payments
but are eager to participate. This will attract people who are not financially able to make
full payments at once.

Out of all the types of pricing, the most apt for X Culture is group pricing. Since X Culture
kids is still in its initial stages so it should go for such a pricing strategy that will help them
get the most number the registrations. Group pricing is what will get X Culture get the more
registrations as it will cater to those who want to get lower individual prices.