Global Marketing Entry Strategy Assignment

Prior to beginning work on this assignment, review Chapter 15: Global Marketing and the Digital Revolution and refer back to Chapter 9: Global Market-Entry Strategies: Licensing, Investment, and Strategic Alliances in your text.Mobile advertising and mobile commerce are terms that describe the use of cellphones as channels for delivering advertising messages and conducting product and service transactions. Choose between Starbucks and McDonald’s and imagine you have a contract with this company to strategize and enhance its mobile advertising and mobile commerce activities. Do some research and see what already is available in terms of mobile advertising and mobile commerce for your company.In your discussion post you willSummarize current mobile advertising and mobile commerce activities being used by your contract company. Formulate a new mobile strategy for your contract company around the use of GPS and mobile payment. Select two implementation challenges if your proposal is accepted to roll out globally. If the company decides to enter a new market via licensing versus investment, how would it impact the new mobile strategy that you are proposing? Your initial discussion post should be 250 words. Cite your textbook and any other sources used to support your ideas. You may refer to University of Arizona Global Campus Writing Center’s APA Style resource.

Global Marketing Entry Strategy

The company selected: Starbucks.

According to Keegan (2020), mobile advertising and mobile commerce are two terms used commonly to describe the use of cell phones to deliver advertising messages and for the delivery of products and services. Starbucks is currently a global company that harnesses the power of mobile apps in the market. It uses the app to allow users to review the menu, create new orders, make payments using credit cards, give rewards to consumers, and access GPS to help customers locate the most convenient location (Heggestuen, 2014). Of the most important features is the ability to tell where the customer is ordering from and the nearest store using GPS.

The proposed strategy goes collaboratively with licensing. That is, companies like Door Dash have managed to deliver products to their customers for years without delay and consequently earned massive brand loyalty. Starbucks should not be an exception. The company should not be charging a minimum fee to have the coffee delivered by a third party who sometimes delays or fails to deliver the expected service standards, causing dissatisfaction. It is high time for Starbucks to come up with food trucks that are GPS enabled so that a customer can order coffee within a specified location and the truck will just deliver within minutes. Instead of waiting for the delivery companies, the truck would go round the specified region delivering coffee to the customers that order through the app and who can also see the location of a nearby truck before ordering. The trucks could also make deliveries for companies, conventions, festivals, and many other markets that could massively boost the brand’s awareness in the area. Additionally, these labeled Starbucks food trucks going around a given area would be a way of advertising, creating more brand awareness through the Starbucks name and logo.

There are challenges to this strategy. It would be significantly costly for the company to purchase and use food trucks on a global scale, which would raise the investment risk. Another challenge is that there are cultural differences across the globe. In some countries, consumers prefer a sit-in coffee to a takeaway and in other countries, the company could be labeled as a polluter.

The best alternative for Starbucks is through licensing. Food truck businesses have been on the rise in recent years. According to the United States Census Bureau, the number of food truck establishments in 2018 was 5,970, nearly double the 3281 in 2013 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2020). By using an already established food truck company, Starbucks could reduce the massive startup and operating costs (solving challenge one) while reaching an even greater market.

References

Heggestuen, J. (2014, September 3). The Starbucks app: How it works for mobile payments, why it’s so successful, and future growth. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/the-starbucks-mobile-app-how-it-works-why-it-works-and-why-its-so-important-2014-8?r=US&IR=T

Keegan, W. J., Brill, E. A., & Alon, I. (2013). undefined. Prentice Hall.

U.S. Census Bureau. (2020, September 2). Fast-growing food truck industry can operate amid COVID-19 social distancing rules, no indoor seating orders. Census.gov. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/09/food-trucks-one-way-to-eat-out-during-pandemic.html