Product Customization to Adopt New Market Trends: XYZ Beverage Company Case Study
Introduction
The business world is one that is constantly experiencing one change or the other. The changes are brought about by factors such as technological advancements, entry of new players into the market and the unpredictable change in the tastes and preferences of the consumers. XYZ Beverage Company is no exception. The company has experienced some difficulties in dealing with stiff competition and change in consumer tastes and preferences. The company needs to study the market and the competition to gain more knowledge on the actions that it needs to take, such as a change in the packaging methods used, to help appeal to the new tastes of customers and the current competition. Failure to adapt to the environmental changes would result in XYZ losing its customers and making great losses.
Initial Statement XYZ Company
As an MBA graduate hired by VP of the marketing department at XYZ company, one has several responsibilities, that help ensure the company is able to compete favorably with the rest of the companies that produce similar products. The marketing department wants to understand what changes can be made to the marketing department, to help improve the profit margin of the company. Making use of information from other continents such as Asia and Europe gives the marketing department at XYZ, more strategies to help develop the company. The company may also use some of the strategies from other countries in their own company and have the chance to introduce new items and strategies in the market. This will go far in giving XYZ a competitive edge. The team that is tasked with conducting the market research will help find out why the consumer’s tastes and preferences are constantly changing (Barak, 2016). This will allow XYZ to identify the reasons behind the dating of their beverages, which make up a large part of the products sold by XYZ. The company has faced great competition from red labels, and blue labels that have caused a lot of rivalry in the market.
Goals of the Project
The project aims at having the company understand the types of packaging that are being used by competitors, which makes them outdo the current products of XYZ Beverage Company. The packaging may not appeal to all team members equally, which shows the importance of having a team that is made up of people from different races, genders, and ages. The variation in team members allows the team to have different outlooks on what is presented by different competitors, which may show a different area in which XYZ Beverage Company is being outdone. Having some members of the team being located in different continents allows XYZ to have data from different parts of the globe, which helps the company make the necessary changes to beat the competitors (Alexander et al., 2015). The project is also being conducted with the aim of giving XYZ Beverage Company an understanding of exactly what they are doing wrong. When an opinion is sought on what the consumers think the company should change about its packaging, naming of the products and flavoring of the products, XYZ can use that data, plus what the consumers find appealing about the competition; XYZ can incorporate the changes while retaining the uniqueness of the XYZ products.
Diversity of the Team
The project aims at coming up with information that showcases all avenues of the market in which other companies are doing better than XYZ company. The areas in which research is being conducted include the flavoring of the natural drinks, the naming of the products and the product packaging. As the company caters to a very large and diverse consumer base, the methods employed in marketing and research have to reflect the diversity (Alexander et al., 2015). Having different ages being represented in the team show how different methods of packaging appeal to people of different ages. This may be of advantage as XYZ company may use different packaging styles, to get the different customers interested, and buying the products of XYZ. The diversity of the team also allows the company to understand how different flavoring, the naming of products and packaging may be offensive and unacceptable to different races or people of different regions (Alexander et al., 2015). Making use of a diverse team has some difficulties, but is also very rewarding as the approaches used by the team members are completely different, and refreshing. The diverse team members also bring new ideas to the team, and new ways to solve the problems that the company may be facing.
Challenges of Working with a Diverse Team
Dealing with a diverse group of people is not always easy and some misunderstandings and challenges may be observed. In this case, the team is quite large and has people with differences being picked as members on purpose. The first challenge is the issue of gender equality. Some cultures have people who feel and believe that a certain gender is superior to other genders. Therefore, they may cause unnecessary friction between the members of the team, and make it difficult to have work being done effectively. Another challenge is where diversity brings about cultural and ethnic differences (Barak, 2016). The cultures that people are brought up in play a large role in the behavior and beliefs that an individual has. With a diverse team, people have to be taught the importance of having people with a different way of thinking, to give the business some edge over the competition.
To have a team functioning effectively, communication has to be exceptional. However, with a diverse team, the challenge of poor communication is very common. The team members may make use of different terms that may not be easy to understand. This may result in misunderstandings, which may derail the progress that the team is expected to have. This may also be caused by having a generation gap between the team members (Barak, 2016). The last challenge is the issue brought by having differences in people’s beliefs. Though this challenge is experienced by all teams, it is very prominent in teams that have people with major diversities. Packaging that is appealing to people of generation A, might not be found appealing to embers of an older or younger generation. The diversity will allow the company to have more information on the market, and boost its sales to its very diverse customer base.
Strategies to Handle the Challenges
The challenges that the team will face have to be mitigated to ensure the team is successful. The members need to go through team building activities to make it easy to learn of each other’s beliefs and differences. The team building activities will also help in reducing the judgments that the team members may harbor towards each other after they learn that they are all working towards one goal. In XYZ company, the drinks that are produced have been sold to people of different ages, races, and genders. The company embraces diversity, which should also be reflected in the tea that they send out to perform a market reconnaissance. The purpose of the research is getting the company’s products to be bought by more people of different races and ages (Benschop, 2016). Another strategy would be to come up with avenues where the team members can spend time within the company of a person of a completely opposite race, gender and generation. In this way, the team members will be taught how to accept the differences they have and work together to achieve the team’s goal. Another strategy is to have the team members attending a lesson on ethics. If the team members are made aware of how they are expected to conduct themselves at work, then issues such as disrespect of other’s culture can be avoided (Benschop, 2016). The lack of proper communication can be maintained through the use of official language that is easy for every day to understand.
Conclusion
The challenges that may be faced by the large diverse team have to be addressed before the team begins its market study, to increase the possibility of success. The team members will also be expected to provide an honest opinion on what they think of the information that they access in the market (Benschop, 2016). The honesty will provide XYZ Beverage company with more concrete data, which they can use to build the company, and improve company sales. The marketing department will also be expected to come up with a way of integrating the information that is brought to them by the team while retaining the aspects of XYZ products that make the company stand out in the market.
