DE LA SALLE UNIVERSITY

Ramon V. Del Rosario College of Business

CASE STUDY
The Futurist Center

In partial fulfillment of
the requirements for
MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Submitted by:
Angeline B. Buenaventura
Ryle Scott D. Mancia
Rufino Gerard M. Moreno III
Submitted to:
Dr. Rayan P. Dui
Submitted on:
February 24, 2016
I.

Statement of the Problem

What strategies can Danny Abuel use to introduce his company, Brain Power
Psychic Development Center in the market?

II.

Case Facts/Background
Danny Abuel is a relatively unknown but suitably passable psychic who plans to start
a training center for developing other peoples psychic abilities. However, the people
Danny trains do not end up being as effective as he promised. In fact, it was very
easy for sceptics to question Dannys psychic abilities, mainly because he cannot
predict specific names, dates, and places. His predictions involve the use of many
general-sounding statements. Nevertheless, Danny is confident that his training
center will generate in the general public and vice-versa.
Danny wants to make a way to make this business take off, without having to
rely on his presence all the time. He wants to train people to become qualified as
well, as to preserve and maintain his health.

III.

Situational Analysis
The current situation is that people generally are skeptical when it comes to matters
concerning the paranormal and the occult. Danny had an acute ability to sense what
other people are thinking by pre-empting them whenever they were about to say
something. He also claimed to have an ability to activate peoples psychic abilitites,
penetrate peoples minds by implanting a portion of his psychic self into their
consciousness which enables them to be psychic as well. Though the recipients of
this penetration process felt a difference afterwards, they found it difficult to predict
with decent hit ratios. Danny, too, had a success rate of 60 per cent which is not too
convincing.
Mr. Regalado, after consulting with Danny about using his innate ability as a
business pointed him in the right direction. He told Danny that it would be easier for
him to give specifics meaning, he should give names, dates, and places, so that
people are more inclined to believe him. The way Danny makes his predictions is
easy to make anyone to question his abilities. It also did not help that Danny was a
bit stubborn when it comes to his business ventureshe refuses to let anyone help
him out with operations and he prefers do things on his own.

Mr. Regalado suggested instead that Danny should set up a training center to teach
people how to read minds so that Danny gets to have a larger potential clientele. It
was also suggested that Danny could also hold regular maintenance workshops to
ensure regular income flow as opposed to someone coming in to ask about his or
her future.

IV.

Objectives
Through this case analysis, the group aims:

To identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of Danny

Abuels business;

To determine the target market and its environment;

To identify the needs of the target market and his capacity to meet such need;
and

To formulate a strategic plan and offer recommendations that will help

strengthen the companys current market position.

V.

Alternative Courses of Action

ACA No. 1: Maintain the status quo
ACA No. 2: Creating a clear marketing program
ACA No. 3: Benchmarking on other well-known psychic training centers
ACA No. 4: Forming a partnership with a co-psychic

VI.

Discussion and Analysis of each Alternative Course of Action

ACA No. 1: Status Quo

Danny Abuel can choose to stick to his current plan of renting out a friends
game room with a capacity of 20 people at a billiards hall every Sunday afternoon to
conduct his trainings. His idea is to charge P500 per person every session to make
the business work out. He can also offer all the programs he says he can due to his
deep knowledge and wide range of materials on those topics. In the event his
manner of conducting the business is successful, he can open this for franchising
even if he has to do this alone. On the downside, doing things his way may not be as
effective due to the growing cynicism against psychic readings coupled with a lack of
proper research about the market.
ACA No. 2: Creating a clear marketing program
Creating a clear and structured marketing program will determine the
appropriate target market for his business. It will help in introducing the business in
the market through the use of advertisements. It will also position the business in the
market and give the business a competitive business edge. Mr. Regalado could have
assisted him in making the proper market research to determine the target market.
Though Danny Abuel knows that he can cater to the working class, as opposed to his
competitors such as The Silva Method and Jaime Licauco who offer expensive
classes, a proper market research could be made in order to prepare his program
and cater it to his target market. The pitfall of creating a marketing program is the
cost. Hiring the right people and conducting market research is relatively laborintensive and it would require Danny Abuel to shell out quite a sum of money to be
able to conduct this.
ACA No. 3: Benchmarking on other well-known psychic training centers
Danny Abuel should choose to spend on marketing his business to the public
because it is relatively new. He can use market research and benchmarking to help
in planning his marketing strategy and methods. Benchmarking relies upon a
comparison between the activities of your own organization and those of another.
Danny Abuel can compare with other popular psychic training centers so that he

could determine the aspect of his business he must improve on, based on the
operations and processes of the competitor companies. It also helps improve
customer orientation because benchmarking will help him in determining the
rigorously defined market and customer requirements more so that there seems to
be a forming apprehension towards his line of business. However, since his company
is relatively young and he has no organizational structure and processes in place, he
might have a difficult time in selecting the proper benchmarks.
ACA No. 4: Forming a partnership with a co-psychic
Danny Abuel has an option to ask a co-psychic to be his partner in the business.
It is preferred that the co-psychic be one who is well-known in the field and who has
a high success rate. Also, the partnership can help boost the clientele of the Brain
Power Psychic Development Center by bringing in the existing clients of the partner,
They can share the cost of starting up or maintaining the business as well as the
responsibilities of the work. They can also use the complementary skills and
additional contacts of each partner which can then lead to the achievement of
greater financial gains and in the case of risks and expenses, they can also share in
these which would diminish the individual risk and expenses. Lastly, they have each
other to lean on for support and motivation. However, some negative aspects of
forming a partnership would be the following: Partners are jointly and individually
liable for the business activities of the other. If your partner leaves you, you'll be
liable for all the debts of the partnership; there will be sharing of profits; total control
of the business is not possible as there will be sharing of decisions and differences in
opinion may lead to disagreements or worse, a falling out among partners.
VII.

Decision/Recommendation
The group recommends that Danny Abuel choose the second alternative course
of action which is to create a clear and structured marketing plan. Among all the
ACAs, this is the most feasible because it entails the least risk and this allows him
the most freedom to determine the services he can offer based on the results of the
market research. This option also allows him to explore a myriad of options on how
best to conduct his business. Though this option would make him shell out money,

the returns in his investment would be bigger in the event the market research is
carried out and becomes the key to his success.
VIII.

Action Plan
In choosing to create a clear and structured marketing plan, Danny Abuel should do
the following for the continuing success of his business:

Aim for continuous improvement

Evaluate effectiveness of the marketing program

Continuously scan the business environment

Strategies
Danny Abuel must also improve on the following strategies:

Enter marketing segments where big competitors do not compete

Conduct promotional activities