FAU Sports Calendar Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

FAU Sports Calendar

SWOT Analysis

Strengths:

a) The four marketing majors have structured a solid association to start a new business.

b) They performed great measure of analysis for the product selection for their new.

c) They chose sports calendar as product because it wasn’t introduced before and it is also because its market was untapped in Florida Atlantic University (FAU).

d) These four majors had efficient market research available.

e) For the advertisement there were such events that could also be utilized for the marketing purposes.

Weaknesses:

a) There was no pre-defined guidance to validate the product performance as product was new for the existing market.

b) The time allocated to sell the calendar was limited and new semester would be started in no more than 2 months ahead.

c) The marketing plan for this type of product was untested and numbers of questions were unanswered.

d) Selling of calendar would restrict the students to them if they wanted to sell it, which in turn put burden on them to sell these calendars that would also require an extra work as they can only carry 10-12 calendars.

e) To advertise the calendars, it would require more specific marketing plan, which was not designed at that time.

f) Critical decisions were to be made on what kind of athlete should be addressed as cover page of the calendars.

g) The capital was limited for the initial start-up, and students were asked to generate at-least $8000 profit to cover the initial cost or to maintain the break-even.

Opportunities:

a) The opportunity was there as FAU didn’t had the official sports calendar, which would result in successful sales as well as it would become a profitable product and would become the annual calendar of FAU.

b) Bookshop at FAU was already selling the two types of calendars that wasn’t creating any sufficient profit and wasn’t attractive for the students. That would also create an opportunity to launch the new calendar.

c) There was an untapped market waiting to be captured for the FAU sports themed calendar.

d) The survey shows that 76.9% of students showed their interest to buy the sports calendar. This shows the untapped market potential for this category of product as 16,700 students were the customers. (See Survey Results sheet in the Excel as well as in the Appendices under Exhibit 1).

e) Around 198 students among those surveyed were ready to fork at least $8 to buy the calendar.

f) Sales figures from other University showed realistic expected revenue per student to be from $1.42 to $1.94.

g) Bookstore was selling 3500 calendars, which generated $31,905 in revenues which was translated to per student calendar expenditure of $1.45.

h) The FAU book store was ready to buy their product in bulk. That meant $9,000 in low risk revenues and would possibly pay back the $8,000 partners investment right way. (See Exhibit 3: Current Calendar Sales at Bookstore)

i) The Print shop for the printing of calendar was willing to give them 30 days credit facility to pay the printing bill.

Threats

a) Other universities could also jump-in in this market segment to sell the calendars.

b) The bookstore of FAU could gain the pricing power if Marketing Majors go with the bookstore.

c) FAU didn’t claim the royalty on athletes’ pictures; this would increase cost if FAU go for claiming the royalties.

d) FAU’s sport team’s performances could also impact the calendar’s sales.

Segmentation

There are following variables that can be used for the market segmentation:

Ω Gender based Segmentation

Ω Campus based Segmentation

Ω Class based Segmentation

Ω Preferences based Segmentation

The survey showed that 76.9% of students demonstrated interest in buying of calendar. From other universities, calendar sales were around 20%-29%, this indicated that students were willing to buy the calendars. From the survey, the 60.87% respondents were females and 39.13% respondents were males. It shows that females are interested more than males for buying the calendars. This also incorporates that the product should be placed near the events and seminars where mostly females will be available.

The survey shows that 69.2% of respondents were from Boca Raton campus. Therefore, the advertisement and product placement should be done in Boca Raton campus. This would also result in reduce expected counts of calendars sold. The 18.97% of survey shows that the respondents were from the Davis Campus and sales could also be generated from there.

The Marketing Mix

Marketing

Calendar as Product:

From the survey, 31.24% of respondents wanted all female calendar and 42.69% respondents wanted all male calendar. In view of the fact that there is not a large portion of preferences in particular, so we can recommend that 40% of female athletes and 60% male athletes could be used in the calendar. This mix could also attract the remaining 26.09% respondents. The pictures of athletes could be customized according ........................................

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