Brookdale Centre Plan (Essay Sample)

Brookdale Centre Plan
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Executive Summary
The following report delves into the problems faced by Brookdale Centre, an entertainment and leisure establishment and focuses on a development plan that offers strategic options for the solution of these problems and the centre’s future development. It also details implementation aspects of these strategies. The development plan bases its strategic options on established business theories that are appropriate for the current business situation. It also includes recommendations for the short term and long term solutions of these problems with the aim of ensuring the business’s long term profitability.
Table of Contents
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Introduction  PAGEREF _Toc420917806 \h
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Moving Forward-Detailed Plan and Implementation  PAGEREF _Toc420917807 \h
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Turnaround  PAGEREF _Toc420917808 \h
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Product strategies  PAGEREF _Toc420917809 \h
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Pricing Strategies  PAGEREF _Toc420917810 \h
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Promotional Strategies  PAGEREF _Toc420917811 \h
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Competition  PAGEREF _Toc420917812 \h
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Human Resource Management  PAGEREF _Toc420917813 \h
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Conclusion  PAGEREF _Toc420917814 \h
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List of References  PAGEREF _Toc420917815 \h
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Appendix  PAGEREF _Toc420917816 \h
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Introduction
Brookdale centre is a lucrative leisure and entertainment centre that has been in operation for less than a decade since its inception. The enterprise is still relatively new. It has however lived up to its founder’s vision which was entertainment and leisure and has managed to present a beautiful centre complete with leisure attractive products. The products offered by Brookdale Centre include a leisure centre, food outlets, a crèche, a swimming pool, a sports stadium, a four star hotel with a hundred rooms and two restaurants, an enclosed shopping centre, a car dealership, executive offices suite and a farmers’ market. This is part of the reason it has attracted the customer base it serves today; it offers a host of entertainment and leisure services coupled with utility products.
The other reason it attracts customers is its comfortable and beautiful entertainment facilities all under one roof which is its main unique feature. In terms of service provision Brookdale Centre can be considered average. However, the internal business environment is not doing as well based on the feedback from employees. The business’s human resource management is wanting and the business’s people dimension has deteriorated to the point where it requires help from an objective consultant. Brookdale centre’s management has identified a couple of problems that they need ironed out by a consultant. These are the identification of immediate problems at the Brookdale centre, prioritisation of key issues for improvement and suggestion of a way forward.
One of the main problems that have been identified is that actual sales and consequent revenue are falling way below projected and planned sales and revenue. The Brookdale Centre is attracting very little clientele and the four star hotel in all its splendour has had a very low turnout. Productivity and business performance is below average as depicted by the revenue sales that have not even attained to half the current projected revenues. Work relations are strenuous and employee satisfaction is gradually reducing every year. Poor service delivery, organisation and management of the most basic ancillary services is also a persistent problem. If these problems persist the Brookdale centre will be headed for sure closure.
A SWOT analysis was used to analyse the company’s situation and reveal its strengths weaknesses, opportunities and threats (David, 2007). The following is a summary of this analysis
Moving Forward-Detailed Plan and Implementation
The business development plan will focus on solving each of these problems through strategic implementation of development plans. The main goal of the Brookdale centre’s business development plan is to achieve projected revenues each year by improving business performance to get actual revenue to attain to at least the projected revenue, increasing employee productivity and attracting a huge clientele with the aim of gradually growing the business’s loyal customer base. The five force model was used to analyse and determine the development plan. This model basically looks into the five main factors that influence business and markets; existing competitors, potential entrants, buyer power, supplier power and threat of substitution (Grundy, 2006).
Turnaround
The Centre will have to change tactic moving forwards and a couple of strategic business development plans will be applied on specific areas in order to achieve the outlined goals above. The following are the specific strategies that will be applied to achieve the business development goals outlines above; human resource management, competition and a healthy marketing mix comprising of promotion, pricing, product and place (Teece, 2010). The place category has been well implemented as the centre is conveniently placed and accessible to the target market and therefore the following plan details the other three categories; promotion, pricing and product.
Product strategies
The product category of a healthy marketing mix constitutes whether or not the products meet consumer wants and needs, whether or not it includes costly features that the customer does not need or want, branding differentiation, and the cost of production versus the selling price (Boon & Liang, 2015). In the case for Brookdale Centre, they might have to re-evaluate some of the products and services they offer and change them to suit customer needs. One of the services that need changing is corporate hospitality. There is a high demand for conferences, exhibitions and corporate hospitality, but the centre lacks facilities that support this service and instead use the stadium or the brewery as facilities for these services. They must set resources aside to set up facilities to cater to the huge demand for these services. This is a potential lucrative service that they have the opportunity to take advantage of. Branding will also have to incorporate value and the centre needs to create an image that represents leisure, unique quality and entertainment (Cravens, Piercy & Prentice, 2000).
The other product strategy that the Brookdale Centre needs to apply is quality customer service. The admission by the Northern Hospitality as not being suited to handle events and corporate catering means that not enough effort and strategy is put into ensuring skilled and expert service delivery befitting the centre. Usually service delivery plays a big role in attracting a loyal client base (Khurum, Aslam & Gorschek, 2007). One of the product strategies for the centre’s development plan should include skilled and expert service delivery on all fronts (Vorhies & Morgan, 2003). This means that they must continually strive to conform to industry best practices on all fronts.
Pricing Strategies
Pricing is considered one of the most important marketing aspects as determines the company’s mark up as well as the clientele it targets. It can be used as a strategic ploy to increase market share or gain footing in a new market (Maglaras & Meissner, 2006). In the case of Brookdale Centre, the pricing strategy will be aimed at increasing its market share and improving the Centre’s sales and revenue volumes. The things that are taken into account during pricing include production costs, competitor pricing and expected revenues (Popescu & Wu, 2007). The pricing strategy for Brookdale centre shall incorporate these factors in deciding the price. The target customers for Brookdale Centre are people who are looking for luxury and entertainment. This luxury product clientele usually is not very price sensitive as it takes a huge price change to affect the level of demand. However, In the case of Brookdale Centre, they have to find a way to appeal to this clientele first. Different pricing strategies can be applied for different products. An effective pricing strategy to increase their current market share would be the high-low pricing strategy and penetration pricing and premium pricing for some products (Graganska & Jain, 2006).
High-low pricing has to do with regularly pricing products and sometimes pricing them higher than competitors then using promotions to offer lower prices or discounts on selected items (Leonidou, Katsikeas & Morgan, 2013). Brookdale can use this strategy by determining products that are usually a quick sale such as those at the food market or food courts. They can then offer discounts for these products. This strategy has the effect of attracting customers into the centre where they are not only offered the promotional products but also the regular or high priced products.
Penetration pricing entails offering lower than market price products for a certain period in order to attract customers with the aim of increasing prices upon creating a loyal customer base (Manchanda, Rossi & Chintagunta, 2004). This strategy would work best for the four star hotel which has recorded a very low customer turnout as it would offer four star quality hotel services and products at lower prices therefore attracting customers. The aim is to have them experience what is offered ...