Marketing Plan on "Marketing Plan the Product That Is Being"

Quoted Instructions for "Marketing Plan the Product That Is Being" Assignment:

This is the second of a 5-part marketing plan.

Prepare a 4 page report, addressing the following:

Discuss the type of product the company will offer and identify its primary characteristics.

Discuss the product branding strategy.

Discuss how the product fits within a product line and the depth and breadth of the line.

Explain how the product and target market strategies fit with the organizational strategy.

Use at 2 references to support the discussion on the product, product characteristics, and target market.

Please read the first 5 pages introducing the product to be marketed. The was the first part of this 5-part marketing plan.

Research plan to support introducing the Product and Service for *****Your Marketing Plan***** to the U.S. market. In addition to stating your marketing objectives, the student is required to:

Identify the marketing segment for the product and explain why this segment was selected;

Discuss the target market and why these customers will be targeted;

Conduct a SWOT (strengths, weakness, opportunities and treats) analysis for the company;

Describe the market position for your product and service.

Just recently Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. announced its new MLX series of advanced routers delivering extraordinary scale, performance, reliability and cost-saving efficiency for the world*****s most demanding networks. The MLX series of routers provide industry-leading 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE), 10 GbE, and 1 GbE wire-speed density; rich IPv4, IPv6, Multi-VRF, MPLS, and Carrier Ethernet capabilities without compromising performance; and advanced Layer 2 switching.

With increased network traffic, internet service providers, transit networks, content delivery networks, hosting providers, and internet exchange points rely on these routers to move this traffic and reduce the cost per bit. By utilizing the MLX router, mission-critical data centers can simplify large campus networks, support additional traffic, and achieve greater virtualization.

With the extraordinary technological advancements, and advent of the internet over the past four decades, it is no wonder the equipment utilized to make it possible can keep up. As table 1, shows just in the past ten years alone, internet usage has grown worldwide by 444.8%. That*****s equivalent to almost 2 billion people around the world utilizing the internet for various reasons.

So one may ask; just how does the internet work? The simple answer is switches and routers. These complex machines are strategically placed around the world by virtually every company to run their networks and provide access to the internet in one form or another. Since this market research is centered on the B2B world I will focus on large scale networks which include the backbone of the internet, and most large or small business***** internal networks.

Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. develops, manufactures, sells, and supports these switches and routers. Brocade focuses its marketing budget on selling its products to small and large scale businesses that provide internet access, transit networks, content delivery networks, hosting providers, and internet exchange points. These businesses are what make the World Wide Web so prolific in our lives today. Even though this is a large diverse group of businesses I consider Brocade*****s marketing segmentation to be that of a niche market.

The niche marketing segment best fits Brocade because they strategically focus on a smaller market that have specific needs that they can serve well. Brocade has a global presence that allows its sales force to penetrate into countries from the U.S. to emerging markets in third world countries. Brocade markets to a broad range of demographics including company size, account size, and all types of firms. Their customer base is very diverse and includes content providers, educational institutions, the federal and local governments, and financial outlets to include the New York Stock Exchange. Regardless of the customers***** size, location, or scalability Brocade has a networking solution.

As you can see from this SWOT analysis Brocade possesses both a strong internal and external business unit. Brocade*****s main competitors are Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks respectively. Cisco has more than 65,000 employees and annual revenue of $40.0 billion as of 2010. Juniper Network employs more than 7,000 employees with annual revenues of $3.8 billion. Comparatively Brocade employs over 4,000 employees with annual revenues of $2.07 billion.

Brocade*****s new MLX series routers offer massive scalable multi-terabit IP/MLPS capabilities and breakthrough 100 GbE wire-speed scalability and cost, this router is an industry leader in MPLS and IPv6 performance. The MLXe has advanced routing, carrier Ethernet options, and carrier-class reliability. This, with the expected growth in infrastructure upgrades positions Brocade*****s MLX routers to offer customers a tremendous value for their money.

References

http://www.brocade.com/products-solutions. Retrieved October 21, 2010.

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm. Retrieved October 22, 2010.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/detail/stock_quote?Symbol=brcd. Retrieved October 22, 2010.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/detail/stock_quote?Symbol=jnpr. Retrieved October 22, 2010.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/detail/stock_quote?Symbol=brcd. Retrieved October 22, 2010.