Louis Vuitton Marketing plan for handbags and Luggage (Essay Sample)

THE LOUIS VITTON MARKETING PLAN FOR LUGGAGE AND HANDBAGS
Student Name
Institutional Affiliation
MARKETING PROJECT
PART ONE (SUMMARY OF THE COMPANY)
Introduction
The Louis Vuitton is a company that started up in 1854. Louis Vitton died in 1892 and his son, George Vuitton took over its operations. He started a drive to maintain and make the company an international brand in luxury clothing and products. The company is famous for its style and originality (Ransom, 2011). Their products and artistic values exemplify fashion, mixed together with tradition, and stimulate dreams and fantasy. The management of the company stresses on creativity and innovativeness while producing luxury trunks, leather goods, jewels, and accessories. The Louis Vuitton Company is one of the leading companies in producing and marketing luggage and other leather products. The Company has expanded its line of products and stores across international bodies. It first set its base in 1992 in Beijing at the Palace Hotel in China. At China, the company aims for product superiority by reinforcing the luxury image of their products and striving to be the best in producing durable and high quality products. The Company targets men and women all over the world whose ages range between 22 and 65 years old (Siegel, 2003).
Corporate Mission
The Louis Vuitton Company produces long-lasting and high quality leather luggage and handbags. Their focuses are at ensuring uniqueness, high-status products, power, and the feel good factor. It targets the high-class members of the society. Its main products include leather bags. Since its conception, the company develops and refines its emphasis for quality founded on the “four main elements” of the company’s business model. The four elements of the business model include the product, the distribution and delivery, communication, and price (Siegel, 2003).
core competencies
The Louis Vuitton uses its unique resources to develop a competitive advantage over its competitors. One way this company establishes this is by developing core competencies. Core competencies refer to the systems and strategies developed by a company to enhance its effectiveness, worth, innovation, and consumer responsiveness. The functional organization of the Louis Vuitton entails creative individuals, designers, and models who give the company an extra edge. Its organizational resources give the company an edge because their products are difficult to mimic. The Louis Vuitton brand name and brand recognition are unique. The name alone is enough to sell a product. This attributes arises from the fact that the company only produces durable, long-lasting leather luggage and handbags. The company has a large international market share in the luxury segment. It is one of the most easily identifiable market brands in the world. People from all over the world view its products as a sign of innovativeness and exclusivity (Ho, 2007).
The company’s development and training department provides recruitment opportunities for talented individual to work within the organization. This gives the company an exclusive high talent human resource to operate. The company grants controlled distribution to its exclusive customers, to fight fake production of its products. This ensures utilization of resources in a highly efficient manner to reach its target market (Ho, 2007).
Marketing micro-environment
The marketing microenvironment refers to the immediate environment of the company. It consists of distributors, the employees, customers, stakeholders, competitors, and suppliers. The distributors of the Louis Vuitton Company consist largely of joint venture partners and importers. Louis Vuitton benefits largely from long-term planning and localized marketing campaigns in China. The Chinese customers base their ability to buy luggage and handbags on the duration of time a company has been in the market. Therefore, the company prioritizes the link between the business and its immediate environment to ensure that it provides only high feedback.
The Louis Vuitton Company involves itself in joint ventures with the local members of the community to set up new markets. The company aims to set up new markets in places like Shanghai following its success in Beijing. The joint ventures comprise mainly of state-owned businesses to help them penetrate new and unfamiliar markets. The set up in China is different; it requires that a business must acquaint itself with the traditional and business practices of the local members of the society. The set-up partners help them to carry out administrative procedures (Kaufmann, 2013).
The distributors of the Louis Vuitton products provide the company with a low cost method of operating. However, its major setback is the possibility of losing grip of the market that eventually threatens the image of the company. The company endears to limit its operations in chain stores across major cities in China. This provides the means to reduce risk for the reason that it gives time for consumers to response. Most distributors of Louis Vuitton products in China obtain their luggage and handbags then organize logistics and deliveries. The distributors are liable for promoting the brand in the Chinese markets (Belk, 2013).
The employees of the Louis Vuitton are highly specialized. They mainly consist of talented designers who go through a careful screening process run by their human resource department. The human resource designs criteria for selecting the best employees who fit in with the company’s corporate mission. They provide optimal training to guarantee that their services meet the required standards. The company consists of more than 1000 employees in their workshops, stores and their headquarters in Beijing. The roles played by the employees include design, manufacturing, logistics, retail, sales, marketing, finance, information systems management, and human resources (Belk, 2013).
China provides a market for international clothing brands. This is due to its rapid population growth rate and advancement in technology. Some of the biggest brands that operate in China and provide competition for Louis Vuitton include Alfred Dunhill, Hugo Boss, Armani, Ermenogi Ido Zegna, Burberg, Coach, and Gucci. Louis Vuitton has a unique relationship with the Chinese market. The business products provide an outlet for luxury luggage and handbags. The company aims to identify with the needs of the high class, satisfy them, and anticipate the marketing trends in China. Because of this fact, the company’s human resources focus on customer orientation. The logistics team researches into customer life experience in order to create a lasting impression of high status products (Siegel, 2003).
The stakeholders that constitute their microenvironment include the employees, the Chinese government, and the local communities. The government collects revenue from the business, as it provides crucial information for the company. The business interacts with members of the neighboring communities to understand their cultures, make sales and to receive feedback on their products and services. The employees are the human resource that actively interacts with the communities.
Marketing macro-environment
The macro-environment refers to market mediators who help to propel the performance of goods in the market. The macro environment is factors outside the business that affect the efficiency of service and product delivery. Some of the stakeholders in the macro-environment include resellers, the physical distribution firms, marketing agencies, and financial mediators. The most important factors to consider in the macro-environment include the types of markets, the types of consumers, the resellers, and the national and international laws. China is an upcoming market, therefore, for the business is yet to penetrate most of the cities. Marketing intermediaries that help to boost its operations include partnerships with distributors, government-owned businesses, and chain stores (Siegel, 2003). The stakeholders recognize that most of the customers belong to the high economic and social class who is aware of the trends in fashion.
Current brand portfolio
The company aims to increase its market share by more than 15 percent in the coming months. Its present market share is at 6 percent. The task is to compete with other designers who take up most of the market. To achieve this object, the business needs to fight the spread of fake brands in Chinese markets, carry out intense market protocol like advertisement, enhance its technology, and boost its access on social media. This will help the company to boost awareness of their products among people in the new market. The company needs to operate with the local neighboring community and the government to boost its sales and increase its understanding of the local cultures. To increase the effectiveness of the company in Asia, the company should increase the number of workshops, chain stores, and departmental stores countrywide to reach other cities like Guangzhou and Shanghai. By increasing the participation of the company in local events like sports activities, the company gets an added advantage as the locals can identify with their products (Siegel, 2003). The company also requires increasing its promotional activities in China to acquire its target.
Part 2
2. 1 Summary of intended strategy for the proposed luggage and handbags
The main products for the Louis Vuitton Company are leather bags. The company aims to amplify its sales for luggage and handbags in China by increasing its levels of sales in Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing. The products will include the monogram luggage and handbags, the monogram Denim, the monogram multicolor, monogram Vernis, and Damier canvas luggage and handbags. Its augmented produ...