Promotion and Public Relations

For this the minimum requirement in terms of personnel is five to seven, with responsibility for:

i) Planning (the manager), ii) Information Gathering

iii) Statistical analysis and forecasting iv) Customer relations

The above manpower program assumes that the PAJ in conjunction with KTO's executives, continue to carry out the actual promotion and public relations function of the Terminal.

Planning

The Marketing Manager should have at least a first degree in the social sciences (marketing, management or economics), plus experience and broad based knowledge of the shipping industry. He should report directly to the Managing Director. It is

important that he be given the necessary level of autonomy and authority to plan and carry out the port's development . It is essential for him to have good communication skills, since there will be a need to liaise with and win the cooperation of the various departments. The support of top management also plays a vital role in his ability to solicit the degree of cooperation needed from other departments. Ideally, plans will need to be developed and approved on a team work basis, incorporating all the other members of the management team. The emphasis here is teamwork. Top management will also have to ensure his accountability in terms of plans as against achievements.

Information Gathering

Information gathering is indispensable to good analysis and planning. Relevant information will surface from any and varied sources. Therefore the person responsible for this task must be patient and thorough. Since it involves a great deal of reading, extraction and classification of data, the candidate for the job should possess a literary background. Perhaps a degree or diploma in the arts or social sciences.

Statistical Analysis and Forecasting

The job of statistical analyst involves evaluating the data gathered in order to identify possible threats and opportunities. The person employed will need to make assessments of the likely

impact of economic and political policies on the port; to evaluate the environment, look at current trends in

cargo/commodity flows and services and forecast future ones. The Marketing Manager will need to rely heavily on his skills and ability in devising the actual marketing plan. For this task, a specialist in economic analysis is necessary - whether he has a port background or not. The possession of at least a first degree in economics or statistics is essential.

Customer Relations

Customer relations involves maintaining contact with current customers so as to ascertain their problems and the degree of satisfaction with the service quality of the Terminal as well as contacting and monitoring potential customers. This is also a task for the Marketing Manager, that is keeping in contact with the customers. But in order to give more time to the planning function, he will need assistance in this respect. The person assigned this job must have excellent communication skills, as he will need not only to speak on the phone and through the mail, but also make and receive personal calls to and from customers. An important element in his ability to deal effectively with the

customer will be his knowledge of their relative importance to the Terminal, in terms of traffic volume and profitability. In such a case, this individual will need to possess information on the status of the accounts of the different clients. In fact, he can be very useful in assisting the Accounts Receivable department in their collection, efforts. This function may conceivably require more than one person, depending on the customer base and the level of attention required..

Department Administration

For the daily administration of the department, a secretary is essential. She will have the responsibility of the usual secretarial duties. At this point it must be stressed that the preferable combination is a typist and a secretary. The former would have the responsibility for preparing the various external and internal communications, manning of telephones and so on, for all members of the department. The secretary would be aligned primarily to the Manager . and ensure the administrative functioning of the department in terms of meetings, appointments

and budget monitdring. She would report directly to the Manager. An experienced secretary is needed.

A diagram of the proposed functional relation for the marketing department is as below:

7.2 TOWARDS A MARKETING PLAN FOR KTO

The marketing plan is the actual written document which details specific marketing actions to be taken to achieve specific marketing objectives. It should pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of the port in meeting market demands, while identifying future market potential, and thus facilitate an organized approach to their achievement. It is a plan of action. Preparation of the marketing plan is therefore a most important activity.

This section relies heavily on the work^of Robert K. Skacel for the methodology involved in preparing the plan. An attempt will be made to lend relevance to the methodology in a port

^ The Marketing Plan: How to prepare it, what should be in it. Published by MPM Associates.'

context by using KTO as a study. It is intended that by so doing, the initial step in devising a marketing plan for the

improvement of KTO's performance will have been taken.

Six broad steps in the development of a Marketing Plan can be identified. Viz: 1) 2> 3) 4} 5) 6)

The first four will form the focus of the rest of this chapter, while the guidelines for the establishment of the marketing budget is presented in Appendix 7.5. Forecast of profit is a function of throughput, price and costs. The latter two are internally decided to a large extent, and are therefore more predictable. The real task is therefore to attempt a forecast of terminal throughput. A methodology for forecasting container traffic is presented in Appendix 7.6.

Preparation of the fact base

Identification of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) '

A statement of specific objectives Development of the market strategy Establishment of a marketing budget Forecast of throughput and profit-

7.2.1 PREPARATION OF THE FACT BASE

The first step in developing the actual plan is to establish the basis for the plan. This is achieved by using the information gathered from the market information system discussed in the previous chapter. The fact base, so created, must give a thorough account of all the current conditions and situations in the marketing environment, pertinent to the current position of the Terminal, what is now being proposed as a solution and why. Since everything else flows from this fact base, it therefore represent a most crucial part of the entire plan.

Based on the analytic classification for the port fact base, presented in Appendix 7.1, the relevant fact base for KTO could be as below: