University of Transylvania, Brasov

Marketing

Study of White Mountain Property Company

 Table of Contents

I White Mountain Property (WMP) Presentation................................................................................3

II Macroenvironment of WMP.............................................................................................................4
Demographic environment..............................................................................................................4
Cultural environment.......................................................................................................................4
Economic environment....................................................................................................................5
Natural environment........................................................................................................................5
Political environment.......................................................................................................................5
Legal environment...........................................................................................................................5
III Microenvironment of WMP............................................................................................................6
Internal environment........................................................................................................................6
Orientation of marketing activity..............................................................................................6
Integration of marketing function.............................................................................................6
Company's culture.....................................................................................................................6
Human resources ......................................................................................................................6
External environment.......................................................................................................................7
Suppliers....................................................................................................................................7
Competitors...............................................................................................................................7
Intermediates.............................................................................................................................7
Clients.......................................................................................................................................7
Individual consumer market:...............................................................................................7
Industrial market:................................................................................................................7
IV WMP's Marketing mix....................................................................................................................8
Product.............................................................................................................................................8
Brand ........................................................................................................................................8
Labeling....................................................................................................................................8
Price.................................................................................................................................................9
Distribution......................................................................................................................................9
Promotion.........................................................................................................................................9
Commercial advertising..............................................................................................................9
Promotional sales......................................................................................................................10
Public relation ..........................................................................................................................10
V Conclusions.....................................................................................................................................11
 I White Mountain Property (WMP)
Presentation

White Mountain Property (sometimes refer to as WMP) is a Limited

Liability Company
White Mountain Property has a unique associate: Mr Damian Galvin John
Fitzgerald, a British citizen and over 20 employees.
White Mountain Property is a Real Estate agency with professional
experts in finding, buying, selling, renting, maintaining & renovating properties in
and around Romania.
White Mountain Property has its headquarter in Brasov, 35, Poarta Schei,
Romania.
White Mountain Property has activities in the following domains:

7011 Developing (Promoting) Real Estate

7012 Buying and selling own real estate
7031 Real Estate Agents
7032 Property administration
7470 Buildings' maintenance and cleaning
7485 Secretarial and translation activities

White Mountain Property team comprises staff from both Romania and the
UK, but are very much part of the local community.
White Mountain Property is specialize in offering a western standard of
professionalism in Real Estate services, from buying, selling, renting, translation
and legal services, to renovating & interior design.
Its location is in the beautiful medieval city of Brasov, Romania’s fastest
growing tourist location and economic hub. It has good partner links in other
major cities including Bucharest, Cluj Napoca, Sibiu & Sigisoara.
White Mountain Property offer a less comprehensive service in cities
outside Brasov county, but nonetheless the same professional, excellent value
service wherever it operate. With 4 years of experience of helping local & UK
buyers in the region, can help you to avoid the pitfalls while securing and
managing an excellent investment.
White Mountain Property has representatives in the UK too, giving
confidence in its commitment to the buyer/ investor/ landlord.
Whatever a property's needs, White Mountain Property it there to help. Its
mission is to make life easier and less stressful – whether people are looking to
buy, sell, rent or let a property in Romania. And it’s all backed up by expert local
knowledge and a helpful, friendly service from local team.

Buy, Sell, or Rent The WMP Way...

 II Macroenvironment of WMP

The Macroenvironment of WMP includes all factors that influence this

organization but are out of its direct control. We will study six major
macroenvironment forces that have influenced and will continue to influence WMP
activity: demographic, cultural, economic, natural, political, legal and
technological.

Demographic environment

If western countries like The UK or Germany have been on the Self-

Actualization level on Abraham Maslow's hierarchical pyramid for more than 30
years, Romania hasn't reached the Self-Esteem level long ago. Still, WMP has seen
that Romanians have overtaken this level with a high speed.

Cultural environment

Culture is not only seen as one of the key factors of macroenvironment but
also has an important role in simultaneously generating and responding to specific
needs and aspirations, expressing identities and essential values and consolidating
social cohesion and structures.
In Romania, over the last 10 year, people have had a greater contact with the
international markets and therefor they have changed their lifestyle mostly by
adopting elements of the western cultures. WMP is here in order to help people get
their hands on these elements in real estate domain.
Same as the Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs in Romania, we
consider that
culture and cultural freedom are an essential element of human development while
cultural creativity represents one of the main sources of human progress. It is the
culture of people in Romania, that stimulates the quality of life and ensures social
cohesion
 Therefore, culture ceases to be a mere source of expenditure and is
transformed into a dynamic public service, which contributes to economic growth
on a sustainable basis.

Economic environment
Romania's transformation from a centrally planned to a market economy
began in
December 1989 within a very difficult economic, social, and political context.
In 2005, Romania was in the middle of the ambitious economic reform
programme aimed to stabilize the economy, particularly continuing the gradual
reduction of inflation, while addressing some of the deep-rooted structural
problems built-up over previous decades.
Problems like fragile financial sector, where bank credit to private
enterprises is very limited; as well as governance and corruption were the main
obstacles in establishing WMP in 2006.

Natural environment
Considering the fact that one of WMP's main activity is property
management, the natural environment in Brasov is a main advantage. Brasov is one
of the most visited mountain area in Romania. Its ski resort, Poiana Brasov,
gathers every winter tourists from all over the world. This is now when the demand
for accommodation is probably the greatest in the area. But winter is not the only
season that attracts tourists. Summer activities like hiking the mountains, horse
riding and mountain trips are also another reason for which foreigners come in and
so, ask for accommodation.

Political environment
After the fall of the communist system, Romania had to assume the
consequences of its political and economic insulation of the years 1980 and the
mistrust of the Westerners with regard to the former Communists remained with
the capacity after 1989. The communism fall has given a lot of people the
opportunity to get reach though. Since the rules were not so strict wright after the
fall, many have taken advantage of it and factories and lands were bought for
almost no money. Corruption has increased significantly since than and it became
normal to bribe a politician or a civil servant in order to get some advantages.

Legal environment
Referring to the legal system Romania has, WMP has encounter from the
beginning a problem related to the properties that belonged to Germans who left
Romania when the communism came. Since they left, the properties were brought
into the state's ownership, but after the communism fall, people start coming back
and ark for their houses. Since the state hasn't done much about the Law no
112/1995, it slows down the purchasing of such a property.
Another law that influences WMP's activity is the fact that some buildings
are considered by the state as monuments and so for every change that is desired, a
permission from the Romanian Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs must be
acquired.
 III Microenvironment of WMP

Internal environment

Orientation of marketing activity

White Mountain Property is orientating its activities in in order to gain

customers trust. Since the market already plenty on real estate agencies, White
Mountain Property in trying to gain a competitive advantage by offering the clients
a high-standard service, making them chose quality rather than low prices.

Integration of marketing function

White Mountain Property uses the marketing function as an integrated

function.

Company's culture
White Mountain Property is a company that has a British background. Since
its single associate in a British citizen, he brings on the real estate market in
Brasov a new vision: Romanians, mostly the middle class, will always be
willing to spend some extra money for a product or service very popular. Mr
Damian Galvin is there not just to get WMP very popular in Romania, but also
so offer a high quality in every service offered, accepting no compromising.

Human resources
Stimulation of employees:
− visibility and clarity of objectives
− fixing targets and standards
− benchmarking
− request for feed-back
− share benefits
− empowerment and trust
External environment

Suppliers

The suppliers that provide WMP with materials (mainly for WMC-White
Mountain Construction) are: Regal Salon- couch, Mobexpert- furniture, Lisin-
windows. One of the main advantage WMP has on the market is its good relation
with the well known furnishing producer, IKEA.
Promotion services are done by Maroma, In-Madia, Transilvania Express
Information about potential clients or work are gathered from different
magasines and newspaper: Pretul Zilei, Transilvania Express, 2Imob
All financial operations are done through Bancpost
WMP has asked advertise some jobs on Mondojobs and Bestjobs.

Competitors

Competitors within Brasov: B-Art, Deane's, Union Imob, Remax, General,

hotels and pensions, other real estate agents

Intermediates

In projects that include more apartments, WMP works for the firm that owns
the project even though the final benefiter is the person who will later buy the
apartment.
WMP has Mrs. Butu Ramona as business consultant.

Clients

Individual consumer market:

Foreign tourists, Romanian tourists – accommodation
Local citizen, foreign investors – property management, renovations, cleaning
Foreign investors – investment consultancy

Industrial market:
Bathroom and kitchen fitting – apartments projects: WMP has done the Bathroom
and kitchen fitting for Avant Garden and Cobco residential zones in Brasov and for
Belleview in Bucharest.
 IV WMP's Marketing mix
Product
White Mountain Property provides a complete comprehensive property
service, from cleaning, to design, bringing Western European Customer Care
standards to Romania.

Services offered at:

First level: Second level:
− sink, oven, microwave,
− Kitchen fitting
refrigerator, cabins, furniture
− Bathroom installation − bath tub, sink, toilet, wall
− Interior Design and Furnishing tilling, floor tilling, mirrors
− Furniture and design elements
− Renovation and repairs − Reconditioning
− Property management − Buy, sell, rent, clean, inventory,
bills
− Investment consultancy − Advise in investments
− Project management − Same work in more apartments,
furnishing, designing,
− Sales and rentals
advertise for sale/rent, tenant finding,
Third level:
− high service and good standards
− good value
Forth level:
− location of apartments
− British experience
− turn-key service (A to Z)

Brand

Name: White Mountain Property

Sign WM
Advantage - location of headquarter, attractive for foreigners
Disadvantage - high cost -3000 Euro/year

White Mountain Property is compounded of:

− White Mountain Construction
− White Mountain Sales
− White Mountain Rentals

Labeling
See attachment
Price

The price strategy that White Mountain Property uses is that o a high value.
This means the services have a high quality and the price has a medium value.
This strategy was considered by WMP's management as the most efficient at
this moment on the real estate market, since Romania is already full with real
estate agencies, most of them offering poor quality taking advantage of their well
known brand. It was also considered the best strategy to fight against the real
estate giants existing on the market but which have giants prices as well
WMP has taken as one of their main objective the maximization of the
market share. When WMP fixes the prices of its services, it takes into
consideration how many people would demand such quality that we offer. For if no
one wold really appreciate a higher quality for a medium price, it would be useless
to offer this on the market. But WMP has seen the trend Romanians have had over
the past 10 years comparing this moment with the one in the UK around 30 years
ago and so can easily come up with the satisfying solutions.
White Mountain Property uses the cost-plus method in establishing any
price of its services or goods (bought to be sold).

Distribution

Since White Mountain Property is a real estate agency, the third marketing-mix
element is not very used. Probably the only area where we can speak about distribution in this
domain is how we supply the WMC (White Mountain Construction) branch with
necessary tools and materials.
White Mountain Property has two cars an two trailers used for supplying.
This is used for both direct distribution, meaning working for the final
beneficiary and indirect, working through third parties

Promotion

After more that 10 years of

activity in UK in real estate domain,
Mr. Damian Galvin has reached the
conclusion that he best way to
promote these services is by
satisfying the customers.

Commercial advertising

White Mountain Property uses for

this kind of promotion the following:
− Wizair magazine
− Forums
 − A Board
− Local press
− Local radio
− Internet
− Press
− Banners
− Brochures
− Leave-behind note
− Word of mouth

Promotional sales
This picture shows some of the
promotional items WMP offers to customers,
according to their service requests.
For people wanting to rent an
apartment for long-term period, WMP offers
a free sleep-over night to the customer. This
will ensure that the client likes the place and
is willing to remain.

Public relation
White Mountain Property is the only real estate agency in Brasov that have
supported people suffering as a result of floods in Romania. On last year disasters,
WMP has sent several of its employees and some construction materials in the
affected areas. This has built the company a very good image.
As stated sooner, White Mountain Property is offering free Investment
consultancy, reason for which foreigners, after buying a property in Romania,
leaves WMP to manage it.
V Conclusions