CIM Membership

38452092
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Unit Title INTEGRATED COMMUNICATIONS (2101)

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Level 4 CERTIFICATE IN PROFESSIONAL MARKETING

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Quality and IT Experts Co. Ltd.
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Integrated Communications 38452092

Table of Contents

Task 1: Organization Summary and Culture ..................................................................................... 1

1.1 Organization Summary ................................................................................................................ 1
1.2 Organization Culture: ................................................................................................................... 1
1.3 Organization’s Culture Impact on Internal Communication .............................................. 2
1.4 Resource allocation for internal & external marketing communications....................... 2
1.5 Assessing the effectiveness of internal communications ................................................. 3
Task 2: Organization’s Brand, Customer Value, and New Product Development .................. 4
2.1 Organization’s Brand characteristics ...................................................................................... 4
2.2 Customer Value Delivery ............................................................................................................. 4
2.3 Creative brief developing process ............................................................................................ 5
2.4 New product development process.......................................................................................... 5
2.5 Brand Building Methods .............................................................................................................. 6
Task 3: Integrated Marketing Communications Objectives and Plan Proposal ...................... 8
3.1 Marketing communication objectives recommendation..................................................... 8
3.2 Integrated Marketing Communications tools to achieve the objectives: ....................... 8
3.3 Integrated Marketing Communications Plan Proposal: ...................................................... 9
3.3.1 Context Analysis .................................................................................................................... 9
3.3.2. Objectives ............................................................................................................................. 11
3.3.3. Strategy ................................................................................................................................. 11
3.3.4. Budgets & resources ......................................................................................................... 12
3.3.5. Timelines: .............................................................................................................................. 12
3.4 Measuring proposed IMC plan effectiveness................................................................... 12
3.5 Internal & external stakeholders’ relationships, needs, & conflict of interests ...... 13
Biography ................................................................................................................................................... 1
Integrated Communications 38452092

Task 1: Organization Summary and Culture

1.1 Organization Summary

Sudatel is a publicly traded company established on 13th September 1993 working in the
telecommunication industry in Sudan, with $2.5 Billion Authorized Capital, $893,915.388 Paid in
Capital, 10,000 shareholders and 893,915,388 shares (at the end of 2008). It is based in
Khartoum - Sudan, with 1700 employees. Sudatel was acquired from the Sudanese National
Wired & Wireless telecommunication Corporation. (Sudani, (2015))
Sudatel is competing in the Sudanese market under the brand name Sudani (established 2006),
against three other main international group players these are: Zain Sudan, and MTN Sudan, and
Canar (Etisalat UAE ownership). Sudani provide end to end telecommunication solutions, with
both mobile, and fixed telephony networks for B2B & B2C markets. Zain & MTN are competing
with Sudani in mobile services only in both B2B & B2C markets, while Canar competes with
Sudani in fixed data services in B2B only. Sudani’s mobile customer base is 7.6 M subscribers
as of Q2 2015, and coming in the third place with a market share of 27% next to Zain Sudan 42%,
and MTN Sudan 31% market share. (Zain sudan, 2015)

1.2 Organization Culture:

Organizational culture is the system of common beliefs, values, and assumptions that dictates
what is acceptable or inacceptable behavior within the organization. It is the way how business is
done inside the organization. The main levers of culture are: the preferences & values of the
founder or founders, and the type of industry. This crafts the early values, goals and assumptions
of the organization. (Mason Carpenter, n.d.)
Sudani’s organizational culture is influenced by its being previously owned by a governmental
entity plus being a kernel of communications industry in Sudan (which was mainly the old fixed
telephony technology). The culture: strongly respects local Sudanese traditions and values,
conservative, stable, bureaucratic with centralized decision making processes. (Jad, (2015))
Sudani’s Vision is to be the leading information and communications technology (ICT) in the
region, and its organizational values are: responsiveness, transparency, inclusiveness,
evolvement, and connecting. Some of these values are not “values in use”, others are implicit and
appears in employees behaviours in all structural levels of the organization. Transparency can be
seen in the open space offices layout. Responsiveness for example cannot be clearly experienced
because of the bureaucracy. (Jad, (2015))
The average employee tenure in Sudani is 10 years, and the average employees’ age is 45 years,
some of them worked in the government owned corporation before being acquired by the mother
company. This fact fosters high quality relationships between employees. Power, political
belongingness, narcissism, and loyalty to the in-group are assumed as accepted norms within
Sudani. Recruitment and selection depends highly upon subjective personal preferences.
(Sudani, (2014))
Harrison (1972) cited in (Armstrong, (2012)) classified organizations’ ideologies into four main
types: power orientated, people orientated, task orientated, and role orientated. Adapting this
classification to Sudani it can be classified as a power orientated in the sense that it is affected
by the personality rather than the expertise, and role orientated organization in that it is
bureaucratic.

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1.3 Organization’s Culture Impact on Internal Communication

Internal communications refers to the transactions that takes place within an organization
between different groups or individuals in various specialization areas. (Dubravka Sinčić, 2012).
The main role of internal communication is to promote marketing orientation of customer
orientation across the organization, clearly communicate corporate goals and objectives, staff
empowerment regarding customer service, and rewarding employees who best serve the
customers, etc. (The Chartered Institute of Marketing, (2014))
Sudani’s culture (stated above) affects internal communications positively in some aspects and
negatively in others. Stability has a negative impact in Sudani since the telecom industry is one
of the fast evolving industries, and stability makes it resisting to change, openness and new ideas,
which makes it irrelevant to the industry changes and requirements. Bureaucracy along with the
centralized decision making results in long unneeded procedures and undefined processes and
this contradicts the “responsiveness” values of the company. Centralized decision making
discourages employee innovation and effective customer service. Rewarding system is present
within Sudani, however it lacks clarity of methodology for choosing employees. (Sudani, (2014))
Employee tenure (stated above) helps in a good bilateral communications within the company
and excellent relationships between employees. Old heritage stories are always present with
negative or positive experiences. This leads to insecurity and uncertainty feelings by new
employees. Having long relationships between employees affects the formal flow of information
through official channels, the thing that encourages grapevine as an informal communication
channel. Relationships also affects the peer, upwards and downwards communication and
promote unneeded verbal communications, and this affects organizational communication
efficiency, and leads to lack of documentation and prolonged processes (since the verbal
communication that takes place is a formal in an informal way). So meetings -either group or
individual- face to face communications is commonly used within Sudani and is dictated by
culture. (Sudani, (2014))

1.4 Resource allocation for internal & external marketing communications

Organizational resources can be divided into four main types: physical, human, financial and
intangible resources. (The Chartered Institute of Marketing, (2014)).
As a telecommunication company, Sudani have various resources distributed as follows: (Sudani,
2015)

Intangible ●National brand with overall positive perception on transparency and offers
simplicity

●Incumbent Telco with fixed operations

● Customer base; strong in B2B, wholesale and gov. with suitable enterprise
product portfolio

Physical (Technical) ● Wide access and transport network: Good reach of fibre for backbone network

●Copper fixed network for fixed and BBS services

●International gateway; Submarine continental cables access and ownership

(SAS, EASSY)

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● Text messaging service,

●Data centre for cloud services

●Fixed assets ownership

Human ●1700 employees across the country

●Well-educated staff, Highly motivated managers

Financial ●Profitable in local currency, net receiver in international interconnection

●Net profit 2013 USD 23m

●Revenue: 250m USD ●CAPEX: 44m USD ● Brand equity: 43m USD

●EBITDA margin: 30% ●OPEX: 201m USD

Table 1.1 Sudani Resources

Sudani uses its resources with different intensities and as needed for each and every campaign.
The main communication tool used internally is email. Physical resources, customer care shops,
office buildings, etc. are used to grab customers’ attention as well as raising employee awareness
about ongoing organizational events, products, and plans, by using internal and external branding
ads. Financial resources are used for motivating employees and increasing their loyalty and
attachment. Employee loans, paid leaves and health insurance are paid by the company for this
purpose. Financial resources are used as well in creating and executing new and existing
products campaigns. The highly motivated staff in marketing and HR help in creating
organizational initiatives for rewarding good practices by employees in different departments.
Internal staff, customer care & call centre’s employees are informed about the new offers, and
flyers and danglers are distributed in order to raise customers’ awareness about offers and new
products. Other intangible resources such as the brand image is used in improving employee
welfare by requesting bank loans for the employees under the company’s brand name. Given
the Sudanese economic situation (Central Intelligence Agency, n.d.) A more rational usage of
financial resources is a must . (Anon., 2014)

1.5 Assessing the effectiveness of internal communications

Although internal communication takes place within the organization through different formal and
informal channels, no attempts to measure the “effectiveness” of formal internal communication
have been made. However employee responses to several internal campaigns such as “Sudani
Star” - employee reward contests- and “Employee Satisfaction” survey, were comparably
moderate. Responses does not mean efficiency however it might give an indicator. (Sudani,
2015).
Measuring employee awareness before & after the campaign by using qualitative research
methods: i.e. employee surveys, questionnaires about top of mind products, services or events.

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Task 2: Organization’s Brand, Customer Value, and New Product Development

2.1 Organization’s Brand characteristics

Kotler & Pfoertsch define brand as the promise or the totality of perceptions that lets customers
differentiate between products or services either by experiences, association or expectation.
(Kotler & Pfoertsch, 2006). Using Kapferer’s brand prism (1997) to illustrate Sudani’s brand
characteristics (European Institute for Brand Enagement, 2009)

Fig. 2.1 Sudani Brand Prism as Adapted from Kapferer’s Brand Prism (2008)

Sudani Brand Prism (Lavandel, (2015))

Physique: telecommunication operator, brand visuals: logo; a lime green star in the mid of a blue
background that represents the sky, slogan: “Be a Sudani”, Jingle: local music with a warm vocal
performance, association with mother company “Sudatel”.
Personality: trendy, classy, professional, elegant, social, generous, honest, patriotic (unlike the
competitors (Zain & MTN Sudan, please refer to the organization’s summary).
Culture: Static, transparent, resistant to radical changes, conservative,
Relationship: trustworthiness, transparency, professionality, B2B satisfaction
Reflection: old aged citizens, Sudanese locals, non-trendy, different ethnicities & backgrounds
within the country, mid to low value customers,
Self-Image: for business customers: professional, national patriot, Mass customers: national
aspect, and non-appealing for youth (aged 15-25 years old).
A big gap between Sudani brand image & identity the thing that negatively impacts the brand.
2.2 Customer Value Delivery

Customer value is the resultant perception of the functional benefits of a product/service that a
customer gets and the amount he paid. Value maximization can be achieved either by increasing
perceived value or decreasing cost of ownership. In order to create, deliver or enhance customer
value an organization should start by understanding market segments then alter or optimize the
cross functional processes- internally and externally- to deliver maximum customer value.
(Christopher, (1996))
Sudani started segmenting, and targeting its customer base however it faces some difficulties in
positioning for some segments. From the brand prism we can see a mismatch between the brand
identity and image, the thing that makes it hard for Sudani to position itself in the youth market for
example, since the reflection is “old, local, static and not trendy”.
In the business and corporate segments Sudani is performing better due to the end to end
telecommunication connectivity that helped its positioning in such a market where rational

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decision making and type of DM involvement is high. So Sudani’s brand is contributing positively
in delivering value to some segments, while it contributes negatively in other segments.
2.3 Creative brief developing process

A creative brief is a document that describes business and creative requirements in a thorough
and succinct manner. (Emily Ruth Cohen, n.d.) a creative brief should include the following key
elements: product history, product features & benefits, objectives of the campaign, target
audience, timetable for the campaign, budget available. (The Chartered Institute of Marketing,
(2014)).
In my chosen organization and after the product concept approval a creative brief is sent the
creative agency. Figure 2.2 shows the process of creative brief development within Sudani.
(Ezzalarab, 2015)

CMO Product
Creative brief Agency craetiv Idea screening Design
concept
development idea and approval creation
approval

Fig. 2.2 Sudani Creative brief process development

Sudani’s brief consists of 3-4 pages, and does not include all the previously mentioned elements
by CIM, the thing that makes it not precise. More elements are included in the brief due to the
complex nature of telecommunication sector offers and to clearly illustrate the offer’s value.
Moreover outsourced creative agencies are new in the telecom industry in Sudan the thing that
dictates the need to somewhat long briefs. Briefing depends on the portfolio or type of product
and the product lifecycle stage. Target audience is specified so as to have a relevant message
content that complies with the conservativeness of the society and organizational culture. (Ibid)
Budgeted monetary values are not stated in the brief, instead the marketing communication tools
are stated and agencies are negotiated for every item’s price. Normally agencies are used for
ATL campaigns, other BTL campaigns are designed and executed within the company e.g. text
message broadcasts which are sent to specific targeted group of customer. (Ibid).
“Our briefing process reinforces customer value” says (Ezzalarab, 2015). “When the agency
better understands the offer, a better communications message will be delivered, relevant to the
target audience and at a shorter time, the thing that reduces the time to market, payback periods
and ROI of the campaigns and the products. The success of a campaign has positive impacts on
all stakeholders internally (employees) and externally (agencies and other partners) which fosters
business continuity” (Ibid).
2.4 New product development process

Sudani NPD process is described in Fig. 2.1 below. (Sudani, 2015)

The product manager normally is the initiator of new ideas, then a brainstorming session is held
with some marketing team members. Technical departments like IT and network are consulted
for the technical feasibility and possibility of implementing the idea. Then comes the analysis part
which is concerned with financial feasibility studies, business cases, product launch plan and so
on, and this is done by the product manager and his team. Afterwards a PDP is issued and signed
for approval by the CMO, and in parallel, a marcom’s brief is issued for the agency to start
designing the campaign, and an RFP is issued to IT team to carry on actual product
implementation. Product implementation and simulation is done in a back and forth way between
marketing and IT until the desired results are met.

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concept technical
Idea Generation: Idea screening: feasibility and
Business analysis,
normally by done in a brain testing: done in
financial feasibility
product manager storming session conjunction with IT
team

PDP approval ,
Product marcoms brief
Product Launch development and issued, RFC for IT
testing to implement new
product

Fig. 2.3 Sudani New Product Development process

2.5 Brand Building Methods

Building a brand is a very time consuming process. Brands are initially built by either: a bottom
up approach in which a specific product advantage is created, then intangible values and
attributes are added through time (see fig 2.3 below), or, top down approach in which brands and
intangible values determine the products that fulfil the desired image. The two dotted lines at the
end of the graph shows that successful brand management is the continuous monitoring and
optimization of tangible and intangible aspects. (Kapferer, (2008))

Fig. 2.3 Brand building models through time

Source: Kapferer (2008)

When started in 1993, “Sudatel” –the mother company- used a bottom up functional product
based approach. Even the name “Sudatel” is an abbreviation of “the Sudanese
Telecommunications Company”. After mobile networks penetration in Sudan, and Zain and MTN
entering the Sudanese market “Sudatel” decided to compete in mobile market; this time it used
another approach: a top down approach focusing on local Sudanese values and culture. This time
the name ‘Sudani” is chosen, just concentrating on the intangible aspects, no functional cues are
present in the name. Customers’ loyalty started at that time. A cohesive relationship started in the
B2C market between customers and the brand name “Sudani” because of what the name
represents along with the values associated. However in the B2B market the name “Sudatel” still
exists because of the end to end connectivity that “Sudatel” used to provide, and the different
needs that mobile network only can’t satisfy (e.g. fixed broadband & internet services through
fibre with very high speeds). Business customers who were using Sudani at that time were forced
to pay two bills, one for fixed services and the other for mobile. Sudani took customer’s feedback
and unified all its operations in Sudan under the brand name Sudani, leaving Sudatel name for
the mother company only. Sudani succeeded in delivering value to customers and achieved a

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competitive edge its end to end connectivity. However for internal employees from the “old era”
as well as some of the customers Sudani is a little bit confusing. (Lavandel, (2015))

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Task 3: Integrated Marketing Communications Objectives and Plan Proposal

3.1 Marketing communication objectives recommendation

Marketing communication objectives are the most important element in the communications
strategy. They stem from marketing objectives, and corporate objectives which in turn come from
the corporate mission. Communication objectives are concerned with integrated promotional
activities whereas marketing objectives concentrates on the whole marketing mix, i.e.
communications objectives create awareness but never replace product innovation or distribution
channel efficiency. (The Chartered Institute of Marketing, (2015)).
Sudani corporate objectives are: To maintain a strong and consistent financial performance and
potential for growth, to adopt efficient and flexible practices within the organization to benefit
employee and customer, to maximize shareholders’ value and develop internal community, and
to provide solutions and services that better serve the community and environment. (Sudani,
(2015))
Sudani Strategic pillars are: Business Transformation (B): fixing the basics, Leading ICT and
innovative solutions (L), Unique customer experience (U): through customized solutions,
employee & culture focus (E): being employer of choice. These pillars compose the acronym
BLUE, and along with the strategic corporate objectives will guide marketing objectives and then
communications objectives. (Ibid)

Recommended Objectives:
- Increase overall internal employee awareness about organizational issues: Customer
orientation, corporate strategy & strategic pillars, offers, etc. by 10 % (pp.) from 38% to 48%
by the end of 2016.
- Enhance brand image and reputation and remove the confusion between mother’s company
name “Sudatel” and brand name “Sudani” in order to increase brand equity by 7% from 43m
USD to 46m USD by Jun 2017.
- Increase overall customer satisfaction & loyalty by: decreasing annual churn rate by 1% (pp)
from 7.5% to 6.5%, and increasing annual revenues by 10% from 250m USD to 275m USD
by end FY 2016.
- Reposition Sudani brand in a trendy way to target youth segment, by increasing the number
of subscribers in this segment by 100% from 50k to 100k subscribers by end of 2016 (refer to
market analysis).
- Enhance the internal organizational culture by adopting employee empowerment, reducing
bureaucracy to enhance efficiency and effectiveness within the organization, through adopting
a change management plan in coordination with HR.
Using (Gospe, 2008) template for this IMC plan, we will have to reinforce or sustain good
communication practices, re-align or fine tune some of the tasks, start up new initiatives, and
complete change of some basic concepts in culture e.g. bureaucracy.

3.2 Integrated Marketing Communications tools to achieve the objectives:

Table 3.1 below lists the target audience and communication tools in corresponding to each objective:

Objective Relevant Strategy Target Tools

Pillar Audience
Internal employee Business Internal Intranets, emails, group meetings,
awareness transformation - fixing customers building cross functional teams,
the basics (employees)

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Employer of choice employee boards, corporate website,

Customer experience loyalty programs
Enhancing brand Business Internal & Advertisement (TVCs, billboards,
image transformation external press), social media.
Unique customer customers
experience
Increase customer Unique customer VIP Business Direct sales, loyalty programs, trade
loyalty and experience & VIP shows, corporate website, call
satisfaction consumers center, shops,

Reposition Sudani Business Youth Social media, viral marketing,

brand among the transformation segment sponsoring youth online & offline
youth segment events & universities & high schools
contests and fairs, text messaging
Enhance Business Internal Group meetings cross functional
organizational culture transformation customers teams
Employer of choice (employees)
Customer experience
Table 3.1 target audience and communication tools

3.3 Integrated Marketing Communications Plan Proposal:

“Marketing communications plans consist of a series of activities or elements, which do not

necessarily occur in a strict order or particular sequence” (The Chartered Institute of Marketing,
(2015)). Using Fill (MCPF) 2013 framework (Ibid) with some modifications

3.3.1 Context Analysis

External Analysis
Using PEST
Political: “Sudan is also subject to comprehensive US sanctions” (Central Intelligence Agency,
(2015)).
Economical: inflation: reached 47% on an annual basis in November 2012, but subsided to 37%
in 2014. Increasing USD exchange rate. (Ibid)
Social: Sudan Population: 36,108,853, youth 15-24 years old: 20.5%,
Technological: cellular coverage is one of the best in the region, domestic and international fibre
optic connectivity through submarine cables, (Central Intelligence Agency, 2015) some
competitors towards latest wireless technologies, 4G LTE (zain Sudan, 2015)

Industry Analysis
Mobile subscribers: 27.8 M, (Central Intelligence Agency, (2015)).
Telecom market penetration rate: mobile 77%, fixed 1.1%, internet: 30%. (BuddeeComm, 2015).
Communications share of voice: Zain 45%, MTN 30%, Sudani 22%, Canar 3%, the average
revenue per user per month (ARPU): Zain 5 USD, 2.3 USD, and Sudani 2 USD. (Sudani BI Unit,
2015).
Subscribers: Sudani: 7.5 m, Zain: 11.6m, MTN: 8.6m (Ibid)
Subscribers annual growth rate: Sudani: 6%, Zain: 4%, MTN: -2% (Ibid)
Churn rate: Sudani: 7.5%, Zain 8%, MTN 8.5% (Ibid)
Penetration in youth segment: Sudani: 1%, Zain: 3%, MTN 10%. (Ibid)

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Due to the embargo enforced by the US, Sudanese telecom companies started working with
Chinese companies such as ZTE Corporation, Huawei Technologies, Lenovo and TCL. (Chris
Alden, (2006)).
Zain announced introduction of 4G technology in 2016 (zain Sudan, 2015)
Sudani will upgrade current 3G network only in 2016, 4G expansions will take place in 2017.
(Sudani, (2015))

Internal Analysis
Financial resources & assets: refer to task 1
Sudani identity suffers from confusion between the mother company’s names ‘Sudatel” and the
subsidiary name “Sudani”. (Task 2) however both represents local nationality and attachment to
Sudanese culture.

Customers:
1. External customers (subscribers segments): As in table 3.2 below

Decision
Segment Perception Perceived Media
Involvement making
Characteristics Of Brand Risk usage
process
TV, Radio,
National Brand, Financial,
Mass Low Short personal Billboards,
affordability, functional
rarely press
Financial, Direct sales,
Corporates National Brand, Very High Long,
functional trade shows

National Brand, Financial,

Government Very High Long Direct sales
appealing, functional

Somewhat Personal, Personal

Consumer VIP Medium, Short
appealing Self-image selling, TVC

Appealing, Press, Direct

Financial,
SMEs affordable Medium Medium sales, trade
functional
national brand shows

Peer pressure,
Not appealing, Self-image & referrals, Social
Medium
Youth irrelevant, low peer reference Media, direct
class, dull colours assessment figures and sales
groups,
Irrelevant to Direct
nationality, high Irrelevant Reference marketing ,
Immigrants Low
cost international offers groups personal
calls pricing, selling
Table 3.2 External customers (subscribers segments)
2. Employees:
For the sake of this report a survey is made to measure employee general awareness about the
organizations internal issues and the best channels of communications used, the results summary
are (Ghazy, (2015)):
- Organization’s vision, mission, and objectives statements: 15%

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- Employees’ awareness about products details 45%

- Channel of information: email: 20%, SMS: 30%, website & intranet: 0%, other employees: 50%.
3.3.2. Objectives

Analysing the above situation we recommend come to the following Marcom’s objectives:
Findings:
Internally
- Employee awareness about organizations vision and products is very low.
- Website and intranet are not updated the thing that makes it not a source of information.
- Although emails are frequently sent before each new product or event launch, employees
do not recall the message details or ads within the email. This means that email structure
should be revised (e.g. putting ads at the beginning of the email as an eye catcher).
- Employees’ best channel for information is verbal communication, and that is due to the
absence of effective alternative method.
Internal objectives
- Enhance employee awareness about important organizational issues in order to better
deliver customer value by 70% from 15% to 85% by the end of 2016.
- Enhance & update corporate website and intranet usage as source of information by 60%
by end of Q1 2016.
- Improve email communication content, and layout so as to increase number of employees
who recall details by 20% from 30% to 50% by end of Feb 2016.
- Enhance internal organizational culture.
Externally
- Despite the fact that the market is not saturated, growth rates opportunities for Sudani are
not going to be great because of the limitation in network expansion in the near future
while competitors already communicated their network upgrade to 4G. So Sudani should
focus on enhancing customer experience and brand image in 2016, plus gaining revenues
from the 3G expansion.
- Sudani’s share in the youth segment is very low compared with competitors, so emphasis
should be given to increasing Sudani’s market share in this segment. From the above
analysis it was clear that Sudani is not appealing to this segment so efforts should be
made to alter their perception and better reposition the brand. Total penetration in youth
segment is low so there is a room for growth in this segment.
External objectives
- Enhance brand image and reputation and remove the confusion between mother’s company
name “Sudatel” and brand name “Sudani” in order to increase brand equity by 7% from 43m
USD to 46m USD by Jun 2017.
- Increase overall customer satisfaction & loyalty by: decreasing annual churn rate by 1% (pp)
from 7.5% to 6.5%, and increasing annual revenues by 10% from 250m USD to 275m USD
by end FY 2016.
- Reposition Sudani brand in a trendy way to target youth segment, by increasing the number
of subscribers in this segment by 100% from 50k to 100k subscribers by end of 2016 (refer to
market analysis).
3.3.3. Strategy

These objectives will be implemented through a profile strategy since we need to build customer
relationship to enhance the image and reputation in the first place.

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3.3.4. Budgets & resources

Communications budgets can be set using different techniques, some of it are: affordable
approach, a percentage of sales, objective & task, competitive parity. (Gilligan, (2005))

The most important resource in this plan is the human resource, since awareness campaigns and
shifts in some cultural aspects are targeting them. The type of change we need for culture is
organizational- that is both incremental and discontinuous- and will be done in a collaborative
approach according to (Chaffey, (2009)). According to Chaffey, the success factors of any change
management are: top management buy-in, project management, employee acquisition &
retention, and employee ownership of the change program (Ibid). In setting a budget for such a
campaign we might use competitive parity and industry averages for such campaigns.
Marcom budget

3.3.5. Timelines:

As demonstrated on figure 3.1 below:

Figure 3.1 IMC Timeline

3.4 Measuring proposed IMC plan effectiveness

Marketing research, MKIS, and business intelligence are key tools for measuring the
effectiveness of IMC plan. Some of the objectives in plan like cultural shift and awareness could
be qualitatively measured by behavioural changes, attention gained, message understanding &
likability. Direct sales activities can be quantitatively measured by sales revenues. Trade shows
effectiveness for corporates & SME’s can be evaluated by number of contacts made and how
many actual deals done afterwards.
(Walker, (2012)). Communications ROI could be used as a measurement for the objective of
enhancing the brand image.

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Figure 3.2 demonstrates a table that shows the media tools used in each promotional tool:

Figure 3.2 media tools and promotional tools

3.5 Internal & external stakeholders’ relationships, needs, & conflict of interests

CIM divides stakeholders into three types:

Internal: employees & managers;
Connected: shareholders, retailers, distributers, customers, suppliers, etc.
External: those that form PESTELE.
Conflict of interests within an organization may arise because one of the following: task
independence, structure, reward system, goals, technology, size, differentiation, uncertainty, and
environment. (The Chartered Institute of Marketing, (2014)).

For this IMC plan, COI might arise internally in different levels. Branding and rebranding expenses
might not be justifiable for the BOD and shareholders since these costs are assumed to be
strategic and their monetary values cannot be seen immediately, given the above mentioned
country’s economic situation. In this case benchmarking the results with competitors may help
gain their buy in. Another internal COI might arise between the roles of corporate communication
and marketing communication which report to different lines in organizational structure.

Externally, building a strong brand will increase the bargaining power of organization (porter’s 5
forces), and hence decreases the bargaining power of its suppliers, agencies, and other partners,
which might seem from their POV a decrease in their revenue. However a good external
communication and management of suppliers will solve this conflict.

The proposed plan will help reduce these conflicts, since awareness will be built, and culture will
be modified.

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Biography

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