BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND MARKETING CASE STUDY

Written By,
Esfar Sharek
University of Dhaka

I am company X selling a course on "Baby's health and nutrition". The cost of the
course is Tk 2500 and it is 3 days long. Using your imagination and technical
knowledge, write:

1) A business operations plan highlighting the logistics of how the course should be
conducted.

Answer:

We know that the backbone of any successful project is the trained personnel who are working
as a team to accomplish something. Suppose I am operating in Rangamati District then I will
need a head office to work as the center of my operation. I will have to hire people to operate
my center

A project like baby’s health and nutrition will require a hefty effort from my logistic team
which should consist of the following type of People:

I. Equipment & Transpiration procurement team.

II. Trained personnel.
III. Personnel to run the district HQ ( Accounts, HR & Administration)

The field experts who work in the front end will will require people who has sufficient enough
knowledge to deliver an authentic course related to baby’s health and most eligible people to
deliver that authenticity would be doctors (general practitioner hired on contract basis) and also
Nutritionists. Two things should be kept into hiring these people:

I. Personnel who has knowledge both in teaching and Health.

II. Preferably female personnel will be more effective in this project.
III. At least single year of experience ( health sector or teaching)
IV. People who have worked in NGO and worked in projects close to this project.
The communication is something we can never neglect and to create a proper communication
channel, we can make an agreement with telecom companies like Robi to offer us special
corporate packages which would be financially beneficial for both companies.

The Marketing department is the heart and soul of any project. They are the one who brings
sales to make people aware of the products. So when hiring people for marketing department
we should attract people with attractive packages and offers along with salary. For example:

I. 5% percentage of each sale will be given to their account.

II. If they can meet the yearly sales target of students of this course then they will be given
a certain amount of reward.

Suppose I am maintaining the Rangamati Sadar Office to run my project in the Rangamati
District radius. The projected operating cost could be:

Salary 1000000
Rental exp 50000
Advertisement exp 985000
Electricity 20000
Communication 20000
Transportation 20000
Administration Cost 40000
miscellaneous 10000

Total operating cost 2145000

2) A marketing and branding plan highlighting how customers will be attracted for this
course. (Hint: Think about the marketing mix and different platforms of marketing. Focus
on how such a product could establish a brand) Please write the plan in no more than
300 words and prepare a small excel sheet of the marketing cost structure. (The
numbers do not have to be accurate just believable)

Answer:

Product: In this case, the product is a course on "Baby's health and nutrition". The cost of
the course is Tk 2500 and it is 3 days long. Experienced professionals will conduct
these courses in the field level to increase the awareness related to baby’s health and
nutrition.
Price: Price has been set at 2500 taka only.

Promotion & place: At first, we have to make people aware “what are the consequences
of neglecting the education related to Baby’s health?” Then we need to approach them
with our product and let them know that there is product which might ease their concern.

I will make my advertisement and branding plan like this:

 If my place of operation in Rangamati district then, I will contact the local radio to
run some ad for my courses. In the rural area people really prefer listening to
radios during their free time or even in work (shops).
 Advertisement placed in between popular TV serials also might be effective.
However, this would be also the most costly branding tool for our project.
 People in the rural area are always attracted to posters and Flyers. I will make
my marketing and branding team place posters all over the district preferably
near clinics and Hospitals where we will attract most of our potential customer.
 We have to understand, who are our target customer and in this situation, they
are the mothers of our country. SO, we need to target those areas or places
where we will be most effective. Those places might be :

I. Near maternity Hospitals.

II. Kindergarten School and Primary School premises.
III. Near rail stations.

Now, I have made an assumption about the cost related to Advertisement and Branding
of the product.

Salary (field Operatives) 500000

Radio ad cost 50000
TV Advertisement Cost 250000
Poster ,Flyers Cost 100000
Communication 30000
Transportation 15000
Administration Cost 20000
miscellaneous (food etc) 20000

Total Branding
Operating Cost 985000
3. How many customers will we need to break-even?

Answer: If we divide the total operating cost by unit price then, we will get the number of break
even customer.

Total Operating Cost 2215000

Customer needed 886