The promotion strategy will include discounted package deal. The sale process will include several criteria such as product presentation, relationship building, customer requirements, or needs. The company will build technical products that are more effective than the products of the competitors. The company will provide value for its customers by developing high quality products. The marketing strategy that the company will employ is to use the company website for the marketing promotion. The company will submit the company website into highly ranked search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and other top ranked search engine. The company will ensure that the company website is listed at the top five when customers search for the software product on the search engine. Through this approach, customer will have easy access to company website. The delivery channel for the company products will be based on the integrated marketing model using mixed communication media. The marketing program will be designed to increase the company brand recognition to attract potential and new customers. The company will use wide range of marketing communication, which includes: Internet: The company will use internet as a primary marketing tool, which will be designed for:

Easy access of different pages within the site

Use of the state-of -- the art graphics

A menu that will include easy product purchase

Use of the state-of-art trading execution platform

Secured online transaction payment form.

To enhance wide exposure of the company website, Ivy Discover Software will develop more than two websites. The company will also use print media for the marketing campaign. The marketing campaign through print media will be weekly magazine advert and daily newspaper advert. The company will also use broadcast media such as television, radio, cable advertising to reach potential customers. The company will also send message to target customers through email, and the message will be in form of newsletter for customers who have already established active accounts with the company

The company will also use sale strategy to achieve its goals. The sales strategy will include direct sales forces, direct marketing, subcontractor, and internet marketing to reach wide range of potential customers. The pricing strategy will be below industry price to attract large percentages of potential customers, and the pricing will be 30% below the market price.

3. Industry and Business Environment background

Software publishing industry is highly competitive. While the industry is highly competitive, large companies such as Microsoft and IBM dominate the market by having large percentages of marketing shares. On several occasions, Microsoft has been accused of using its monopoly position to dominate the market. The plan provides the critical analysis of external environment using SLEPT analysis.

3.1: SLEPT Analysis

SLEPT is an external environmental factor, which includes social, legal, economic, political, and technological factor, affecting a firm within industry.

Social: Social factor is one of the environmental factors affecting the company financial performances. Social factor includes age distribution, population growth, career attitudes, and culture. An increase in the aging population within a country will imply smaller willing workforce. The United States has largest number of higher educational institutions in the world. Thus, the company will be able to attract large pool of qualified skilled labor to work within the company. However, the company will need to pay for the cost of highly skilled labor to retain highly qualified workers. The culture is also among the social factor affecting the company performances. However, U.S. population increasingly understands the importance of computer and software for human development, and many businesses are now integrating culture of technology into their business strategy.

Legal: All companies must adhere to the rules and regulations guiding the sector the company are operating, and there are several laws that are affecting a company business process. One of the effective regulations that the company must comply is the issue of taxation. Although, there is no specific-income tax levied on the software publishing industry, however, the company tax on R&D is very important because there is high level of R&D undertaking within the industry. There is also Federal copyright law that stipulates the unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or display of copyright protected work. The copyright law is one of the most important laws within the industry. Large firms have potential to claim the damages from small or medium enterprises in the case of unlawful infringement. Ivy Discover Software Limited needs to protect its intellectual properties against unlawful copying and distribution. The company must also respect this law to remain in the market. Since Ivy Discover will need to offer its products in the international markets, the company must also observe the law of the countries that the company will be operating. Typically, the copyright law in the United States may not be applicable...

The company must also observe all the foreign laws affecting the company business process. The company should also observe that the U.S. is among the signatory of "Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works" (IBIS World, 2000 P. 20) that protects the works of the businesses operating in the member states. Additionally, the U.S. is a member World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that implements copyright law for the member states. The company should understand that infringement of copyright law outside the United States could affect the company business process and since United States is a signatory member of some other conventions protecting the intellectual property.
Economical: The level of a country economic growth could affect company market performances. The level of a country GDP and economy performances always affect the market performances of a company. Between 2000 and 2008, the U.S. economy enjoyed a boom leading to high market performances of several companies in the United States. Data in Fig 3 reveal that the U.S. enjoyed economic boom from the year 2000 to year 2008, however in 2009, the country recorded a decline in the economy growth. For example, the U.S. recorded 13.2 trillion in the GDP in 2008 however, the country GDP declined to 12.7 trillion in 2009. (See Fig 3). The economy situation of the U.S. also affects the U.S. software publishing industry.

Fig 3: U.S. Real GDP Chart

Source Chantrill, C. (2012).

Between 2006 and 2008, the software industry enjoyed a significant growth because of the boom in the U.S. economy. However, in 2009, the software publishing industry recorded a decline in the industry revenue as being revealed in Table 3.

Table 3: Industry Statistics ($Million)

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Industry Revenue

141,760.19

150,588.61

156,640.79

147,242.40

145,769.89

Industry Gross Product

89,025.39

94,419.10

98,057.10

92,026.49

90,960.41

Number of Establishments (Units)

8,741

8,626

8,342

8,091

8,011

Number of Enterprises (Units)

6,334

6,106

6,045

5,863

5,805

Fluctuation in the exchange rate is also another economic factor that will affect the business performances. A decline in the performances of dollars against foreign currencies could affect the company revenue especially if the company is engaging in the international business. The fluctuation in the interest rate could also affect the company financial performance. With high level of interest rate, volatility and this could affect ability of the company to source for loan from the banks and loan repayment since the company will pay higher denominated debts when there is an increase in the interest rates.

Political

United States is operating capitalist economy where the government does not intervene in the business activity. Nevertheless, the government intervenes in areas such as provision of tax law, labor law, tariffs, trade restriction, and environmental law. Some of the political interference may affect the business performances of a company. In many emerging and developing market, the government intervention is very high in these economies. Government may nationalize a company property or make outright ban on the importation of certain products because these governments are always suspicious of foreign companies. Thus, Ivy Discover Software should analyze the level of government intervention in a given economy before introducing its products into that economy.

Technological: United States is the most advanced country in the world, and the country is endowed with the high level of technological development. Typically, the level of the country technology is very high and the software is characterized by the rapid technological changes. With the high level of U.S. technology, the software company should always produce high quality products. To remain competitive in the market, Ivy Discover should implement effective research and development to produce innovative product. It is essential to realize that high quality and innovative software products in other country might be consider a low quality product in the United States because of rapid changes in technology. With fierce competition within the industry, software-publishing industry spends large amount of money on R&D. Consequently, large companies always introduce new innovative products in the market (Oxford University 2007).

3.2: Porter Five

This section provides the Porter 5 to assess the potential threats the company is facing and opportunities that the company stands to enjoy within the software publishing industry. Porter 5 is used to assess the competitive environment that the company will be operating. According to Porter (2008), likelihood…