Huawei Company
The success of every company depends on several factors, which may include the strategies that are put in place to meet the goals and the objectives of the organization. In recent years, companies no longer focus on a product but have shifted to developing brands. This is most common in most technology companies that are rapidly growing throughout the whole world. Brand development deals with ways in which the marketing department of a company uses to attract the attention of the company’s products. This is mostly due to high levels of substitute products in the market. It, therefore, explains the need for every company to have brand management.
Brand management deals with ways in which the company’s products can increase sales. Customers’ behavior has been shifting from cost to buying quality products, thus the need for brand management (Fleisher & Babette, pp80). It is the responsibility of the company to ensure that the brand of the products is oh high quality and therefore win demand in the market. Some of the activities that are done within brand management include brand auditing and brand plan. Brand auditing keeps a record of all the goods and services that a company has in stock. It, therefore, makes it easy for tracking the flow of goods and services into and outside the company. The brand plan deals with how the product is tailored to meet the demand of the customer, according to their behavior, Marketers work mostly with a brand plan to alert the product to meet the specifications of the customers.
Other features of a brand management compliment brand auditing and brand plan. These, in particular, include opportunity analysis, target market, competitive analysis, market positioning, and application of brand marketing. All these works together to ensure that there is an increase in the sale of goods and services. This paper aims to discuss brand management of the Huawei company under the complementary elements of a brand audit and brand plan, as stated above.
Huawei
Huawei is a multinational Chinese technology company that mainly sells consumer products such as smartphones and electronics. The company was started in the year 1987 by an ex-military official in China. The company initially operated as telecommunication and a consultancy firm in china and countries abroad. Currently, it is specialized in producing electronics and other technological products. The company had its headquarters in China, but has an extensive network throughout the world, over one hundred and seventy countries.
The company derives its success mainly due to the support that it gets from the government. This means that the tax that is payable by the company would be a bit less than the ones paid by private companies (He, Wu, Shenghua & Ling, pp67). The company, however, begun as a private company but later was involved in the government. It faces competition from other technology companies such as Tecno and apple. It can obtain protection from the government in several ways. The company has also successfully employed over a hundred thousand people in the world. As of 2018, the company sold about fifty-two billion phones, earning its revenue of about 105.1 billion U.S dollars. This is because of the premium phones that the giant company produces, given today’s demand of the market. The order in the market, especially electronics, requires high-quality products to fake items, and this is what has seen Huawei develop.
Opportunity Analysis
Opportunity analysis is the process of identifying ways of increasing revenue or cutting down on costs to realize the profitability goals of an organization. It looks into the demand and competitiveness of a company with relevance to its environment. It, therefore, studies the market, too, the behaviors of all market forces to enable the company to come up with strategies. The strategies that are to be formulated will meet the objectives and the goal of the organization. This is where the growth of the company is determined since the proper analysis will enable the company to have increased sales and, therefore, achieve profit maximization, which is the dream of every company.
The Huawei company has various ways in which it conducts its opportunity analysis. This includes researching the customer and competition. The research that is done on the customers mainly is on their bargaining power and the consumption patterns (Shchetinina et al., pp1139). This is what guides them in producing the various phone models that are going to fit customers, if all levels. The company also looks into what their competitors like Tecno and Apple companies are doing and the markets they are venturing into. One of the attest realizations of the company is that customers no longer follow cost do much but concentrate more on the quality of the phone.
The company also has an analysis that looks at adjacent opportunities. This includes looking at other activities that the company can do, apart from what they are doing at the current moment. In Huawei company, they started as telecommunication and a consultancy firm. In the analysis of the market, the company shifted to the production of electronic and supplying them to the whole world. This may not only incorporate the products but can also look at what other markets the company can venture into apart from the one that is operating in.
Opportunity analysis also looks into other factors such as legal regulations, government influence, economic factors, trade policies, and social-cultural norms. The Huawei company has successfully penetrated over forty countries in the whole world, selling its products. This is because of how they adjust their products to meet the demand of their customers, in the native country. They have done this through successful research on the market and the socio-cultural issues which are diverse. The company also works with the government of china in some parastatal. This is what gives them a competitive advantage. Though the company has experienced controversies sin in some countries, especially in the united states in recent years (Wedel, Michel & Wanger, pp90). Several reasons have been given for this controversy. However, it must have been due to the competition it was bringing the giant company Apple Inc.
Target Market
This is the group of people that a particular product or service is aimed at. The strategy that is usually used here is target marketing, in which companies segment the market into sections (Menkveld, pp31). The company then concentrates on the segments that are most likely to give the best results as per the objectives of the organization.
The Huawei company’s target market is mainly the millennials. This is because these are the people who follow fashion and technological trends for the new lifestyles. This also is the group that uses most of their daily activities through the current technology. For example, most of the research activities and other academic activities currently employ the use of smartphones. The millennials who are the ones doing all these would require smart, premium phones that would meet their demands.
The market of Huawei company is segmented into five main parts. This includes business-focused, value-based, family-focused. Entertainer, socializer, and heavy users. These five market segments are what guides their activities. The company recently introduced the honor brand, for example, which was targeted at young people. The main focus is to create smart technology and design that is going to attract young people. The brand is developed on a twin signature that will give the young people more options. It will, therefore, meet their demands in the market and satisfy their requirements.
Competitive Analysis
Competitive analysis tends to survey the performance of the brand with relevance to that of its competitors. It looks at what the company is doing to be in a better position than its customers. The first competitive advantage that the company has in the diversification of products where it produces a variety of electronics, including smartphones, laptops, and tablets. These, therefore, enable the company to be in a better position than some of its counterparts like Nokia and Samsung (Kraatzke, Cynthis & Carolyn, pp15). The company also produces its electronics with long-life batteries. They have managed this by making their processors lighter. This is a double advantage in that the products become easy for the customer to carry and also preserves energy, making it most convenient for the customer.
The other competitive advantage that Huawei has taken over some of its major competitors, Samsung and Apple, is pricing. Before the establishment of the company, Apple and Samsung had invaded the market but sold their products very highly. The Huawei company took advantage of this and produced products at prices that were affordable to the customers. The prices ranged from the cheapest to the most expensive one, depending on the quality. This gives low-income earners and opportunity to own phones even if it is not of high quality. The company also majors in producing cell phones since not everyone is comfortable with tablets and laptops.
Market Positioning
Market positioning deals with the power of the company to influence the perception of the consumer. Huawei develops its brand to be among the top in the world to create a trusted brand. Its effort is to prove that the products are the best, compared to that of their competitors. Huawei produces its products with the simplest android technologies, in a way that the customer can easily use (Page, pp50). This, therefore, gives the customer the perception that the products of the company are the easiest to operate yet, ranging in the same quality as others like Samsung and apple. The company also utilizes the fashion that the youths want. For example, the company introduced the honor brand. This brand has fashion design told that are inscribed in to attract the young people. The aim is to give the perception that its fashionable and, therefore, fits their age.
Application of Brand Marketing
The Huawei company has established markets for its products in over one hundred and seventy countries all over the world. This has enabled the company to spread its legacy to the world as a whole. Once the brand is known to be available globally, the company wins the trust of people. It utilizes its values, identity, and personality of the company to create a strong brand in all its markets. The company also uses its market segments mainly to develop its brand. The brand primarily looks into the socializer segment, which is mostly comprised of millennials. The young people help mainly spread the brand through recommendations to their friends.
Conclusion
In conclusion, every company needs to look into the strategies that it put in place to meets the profit maximization goal. Several trends have shifted the desire and the tastes of the people. This has seen the developments of brand management, especially in most technological companies. It will enable them to come up with ways of outdoing their competitors and gain market share. The company, for example, may aim at developing one product, which is going to beat all the others and therefore win the trust of the employee. Items like the target market, market positioning, and competitive analysis will enable the company to know how to penetrate the market. For example, marketing strategies allows the company to know which demands to venture into, depending on the market segmentation. The company should also look into the requirements of an external environment, such as the legal requirements. The focus is to see the company operate without any disturbance from the external environment. This would include the government and other statutory bodies.
Work Cited
He, Wu, Shenghua Zha, and Ling Li. “Social media competitive analysis and text mining: A case study in the pizza industry.” International Journal of Information Management 33.3 (2013): 464-472.
Fleisher, Craig S., and Babette E. Bensoussan. Business and competitive analysis: practical application of new and classic methods. FT Press, 2015.
Kratzke, Cynthia, and Carolyn Cox. “Smartphone technology and apps: rapidly changing health promotion.” Global Journal of Health Education and Promotion 15.1 (2012).
Menkveld, Albert J. “High-frequency trading, and the new market makers.” Journal of Financial Markets 16.4 (2013): 712-740.
Page, Tom. “Smartphone technology, consumer attachment, and mass customization.” International Journal of Green Computing (IJGC) 4.2 (2013): 38-57.
Shchetinina, Е., et al. “Peculiarity of market positioning of the food industry in Russia.” Middle East Journal of Scientific Research 17.8 (2013): 1138-1148.
Wedel, Michel, and Wagner A. Kamakura. Market segmentation: Conceptual and methodological foundations. Vol. 8. Springer Science & Business Media, 2012.