MARKETING MANAGEMENT

Marketing Management

Marketing Management

Lifespan Catering Services is a specialist catering operation owned by Anglia Support Partnership and based at Ida Darwin in Fulbourn, Cambridge. We specialise in cook-chill food preparation and produce in excess of seven million portions of food for NHS Trusts, NHS hospitals and care homes every year. Our team boasts many years' experience of catering and technological development.

Our production and delivery operation is accredited with ISO 9001 - 2000 and ISO 14001 certification, the procedures of which cover all aspects of our service. Our Lifespan Catering Services is also regularly audited by both specialist consultants and the local Environmental Health Department, and has achieved STS approval for supply to the NHS. Lifespan Catering Services, this is the leading cook-chill provider in our area. The team ensures the ingredients used in patient meals are of the highest quality and deliver food in its optimum state. This results in great tasting food and excellent nutritional value. The service holds accreditations to ISO 9001-2000 for quality standards and 14001 for environmental standards. We are committed to meeting our clients' needs and we are able to achieve this by developing new dishes, adjusting our cook-chill production schedules and amending our current recipes. Our regular dishes are diet coded, and include gluten-free, diabetic-friendly, low-sugar and low-salt diets, and we can create meals to cater for specific dietary requirements.

Lifespan catering Catering is a start-up company. Marketing is critical to its success and future profitability. Lifespan catering offers creative, gourmet kosher catering for a wide range of events. The basic market need is a high quality, creative kosher catering company servicing the Philadelphia Jewish population. Lifespan catering will meet this demand with an ever expanding innovative repertoire of kosher meals. (Nigel Piercy, 2009, 55-87)

SWOT Analysis

The following SWOT analysis captures key strengths and weaknesses within the company and describes the threats facing Lifespan catering.

Strengths

Strong relationships with many different congregations.

Excellent staff who are highly trained and very customer attentive.

Superior service offerings.

High customer loyalty. (Nigel Piercy, 2009, 55-87)

Weaknesses

The struggle to build brand equity.

A limited marketing budget to develop brand awareness.

The difficulty finding someone with enough culinary skill to support Susan.

Opportunities

Growing market with a significant percentage of the target market still not aware that Lifespan catering exists.

The steep learning curve that kosher food can be creative.

The ability to develop many long-term customers because of a close-knit Jewish community. (Nigel Piercy, 2009, 55-87)

Threats

Competition from similar service providers in Anglia Crown, Tiery Valley, Apetito Local, established competitors that wake up and realize that there is a huge market in Philadelphia.

The inherent high cost of kosher food production.

A slump in the economy that will decrease customer's budgets for parties.

Competition

There are four other caterers (Anglia Crown, Tiery Valley, Apetito) that serve the low to middle end of the market. These caterers compete to some degree on price (due to budget constraints of some clients), more so on service. The quality of the food and the serving of the food are the main ...