FINAL REPORT “INTERNATIONAL

MARKETING PLAN” Central and Eastern Europe

Jacky Agyemang 0863554 Turan Babayigit 0863408 Afaf El Hendouz 0860779 Soufiane Kasri 0869015 Aron van Stijn 0860301 Class & Group IBL303 Group 1 Teacher Mrs. De Vos Course Code IBLIMPL00R3 Date 06-06-2015 Title Final Report “International Marketing Plan” Country Croatia Education HR IBL YEAR 3 Key terms Management Summary, Internal & External Analysis, Entry Strategy, Marketing Plan Intermediate File Draft Final Report “International Marketing Plan”

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Table of Contents Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................... 2

Management Summary ........................................................................................................................... 4

Background Information ......................................................................................................................... 5

Internal Analysis ...................................................................................................................................... 6

Vision ................................................................................................................................................... 6

Mission ................................................................................................................................................ 6

McKinsey’s 7S Model ........................................................................................................................... 6

Value Chain Analysis ............................................................................................................................ 8

Primary activities ............................................................................................................................. 8

Support activities ........................................................................................................................... 10

Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 11

External Analysis .................................................................................................................................... 12

Porter’s National Diamond ................................................................................................................ 12

PESTLE Analysis.................................................................................................................................. 14

Porter’s five forces model ................................................................................................................. 17

Market Attractiveness ....................................................................................................................... 19

Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 20

Entry strategy ........................................................................................................................................ 21

Internal factors .................................................................................................................................. 21

External factors ................................................................................................................................. 22

Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 23

Operational Deployment: Marketing plan ............................................................................................ 24

Product .............................................................................................................................................. 24

Place .................................................................................................................................................. 24

Price ................................................................................................................................................... 25

Promotion .......................................................................................................................................... 25

Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................... 26

Attachments .......................................................................................................................................... 30

Research Report ................................................................................................................................ 30

Table of contents ........................................................................................................................... 31

Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 32

Methods and Materials ................................................................................................................. 33

Results and Discussion .................................................................................................................. 35

Attachments .................................................................................................................................. 38

Attachment: Questionnaire ........................................................................................................... 38

Plan of Approach ............................................................................................................................... 40

Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 42

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Chapter 1: Project and Background .............................................................................................. 43

Chapter 2: Research Plan .............................................................................................................. 45

Chapter 3: Project Members and Organization ............................................................................ 47

Chapter 4: Planning ....................................................................................................................... 47

Chapter 5: Costs and Benefits ....................................................................................................... 48

Chapter 6: Risks ............................................................................................................................. 49

Appendices .................................................................................................................................... 50

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Management Summary In cooperation with the University of Applied Sciences of Rotterdam and Festival Companion, we have agreed to conduct an extensive research for Festival Companion in order to find a solution on the following problem statement: “How can Festival Companion enter the Croatian market and successfully position their application within 6 months after the launch date?” Festival Companion is a startup company that offers a mobile festival application with custom event information adjusted to the wishes of its customers. The company was founded in 2015 and currently, they are solely active in their home country the Netherlands. The company is exploring their opportunities to expand their business to the Croatian market. The purpose of this report is to provide Festival Companion with a realistic insight into the attractiveness of the Croatian festival and applications market. Since Festival Companion has no international experience, they are unfamiliar with expansions, and foreign festival markets. In Festival Companion’s case, the festival market of its target country Croatia appeared to be among the most active markets of its kind in Europe. With many popular festivals like Sonus, Soundwave, and Moondance, the country attracts thousands of festival visitors each year, including local and foreign visitors. In our field research, over 90% of the Croatian respondents said to visit festivals at least once a year. The majority of these potential customers are young individuals, either in school or working, who fit Festival Companion’s main target group consisting of people ranging from 18 to 35 years old. Although Festival Companion offers offline usability, it was not considered the most valued feature by the Croatians. Out of our total number of Croatian respondents, 66.7% stated that they would consider using an application like Festival Companion’s. However, 26.7% of the respondents mentioned that they could consider using this application, depending on the features offered in the application. This means to say that with the right approach and marketing strategies, these potentials customers, who currently still hesitate, could be turned into real users. Once they expand to the Croatian market, Festival companion should ensure the design of its application as user-friendly as possible. Important matters like the completeness of the information and the functionality of the application are important as well. The focus with the application should be on the wishes and demands of potential customers, which are described extensively in our report. Promotion wise, Festival Companion will have to gain brand awareness among the Croatian festival visitors. Social Media platforms e.g. Facebook, and Twitter are price-efficient solutions that could serve perfectly for promotional purposes. Both hesitating and positive potential users can be approached through these networks. Considering the importance of commercial and advertisement partners for Festival Companion’s monetizing strategy, clear standards and especially appropriate pricing has to be a main point of attention. Furthermore, supporting factors like the company’s website and the Apple App store have to be considered. It is of utmost importance for the company’s visibility that these platforms are complete and ready to use for customers and partners. Reviews on the digital software stores such as the App Store, and Google Play are very important for the company’s visibility. In the following report, we will provide an extensive oversight of all the actions that have been undertaken by our team in order the offer Festival Companion a suitable recommendation. The various analyses and stages of our research will be explained in careful stages.

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Background Information Our project group consists of five International business and Languages students who in collaboration with the Rotterdam Business School and Festival Companion, are going to look in to possibilities for Festival Companion to expand their services to Croatia. As a result of qualified field and desk research, the ultimate result is a suitable recommendation.

The company Festival Companion offers an application for festival visitors. With this festival

application, users can look up different festivals and artists, while they can create their personal festival

calendars and listen to music of artists. Festival Companion is a startup company and its resources are

limited. The company has launched their application in The Netherlands in May of 2015, and they are

looking into possibilities to expand their business to Central Eastern Europe. A beneficial feature in

comparison to other applications is that it functions without the presence of an internet network. The

application provides ticket services, line-up information, the ability to listen to featured artists, and

many more. By buying their ticket through this application, users can eliminate problems and costs of

printing tickets and easily enter the festival by scanning their ticket at the cash register.

Festival and event organizers can also benefit from the festival application. Too gain more awareness

for their event Festival Companion can feature them in their application. This is beneficial as the

organizations do not need to develop their own platform and invest large amounts of money in it. To

realize this organizations can develop a custom-made page in the application for their own festivals

that will provide information about their festival but still maintain their theme and feel.

Our problem statement is as following: ”How can Festival Companion enter the Croatian market and successfully position?” Based on the answer of this question we will give our final recommendation to enter the Croatian market. In order to provide a suitable recommendation, our team will among other things conduct an internal and external analysis. To acquire information about the attractiveness of the relevant Croatian markets, we will also conduct a field research among Croatian and other European youth. The final results of our research will be presented to the founders of Festival Companion, where they will be given the opportunity to ask questions and clarification about the conducted research. For the results of this research and for a step-by-step operational deployment plan, we would like to refer you to the sections “Entry Strategy” and “Marketing Plan” of this report.

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Internal Analysis To find out organizational strengths or points of improvement for Festival Companion, we will conduct

an Internal Analysis. More importantly, the outcomes of this analysis are to prove whether with its

current organizational situation, Festival Companion is capable of an expansion to Croatia.

Vision

Festival Companion has their vision for their business stated as follows: “The Festival Companion wants

to tighten the relationship of festival organizations and visitors with the help of an international

platform. This platform gives festival visitors the possibility to discover numerous festivals and artists.

The festival organizations are able to reach their target group more accurate then on other channels

(Companion, 2015).”

Mission

Festival Companion describes its reason of existence, also known as a company’s mission statement

as: “In 5 years we want to serve 50 million international festival visitors with accurate festival

information. Our main goal is to earn enough money with the exit strategy to develop other concepts

we are working on (Companion, 2015).”

McKinsey’s 7S Model

We will make use of McKinsey’s 7S Model to look into the alignment between 7 different, important

aspects of a company’s internal organization.

The 7 elements that will be covered in our Internal Analysis are divided into three hard elements and

four soft elements. First there is Strategy, Structure, and Systems who together form the hard

elements. In turn, Shared Values, Staff, Style, and Skills are called the soft elements (Jurevicius, 2013).

Strategy

In order to achieve their vision which was discussed earlier on in the Internal Analysis, Festival

Companion has two main strategies. First of all, the company wants to offer customers (festival

visitors) a complete platform with all the necessary information which will enable customers to

discover new and unknown events. This means that providing all the necessary information at all times

is an important, strategic activity for the company and its employees. Furthermore, Festival

Companion eventually wants to offer its service as a free –of-charge platform, both as an application

and a website. While doing so, the company’s spokesperson has stated that innovational

improvements, which will benefit the customer’s experience for the better, will always be tried to

realized (Companion, 2015).

Structure

At this point, we do not have sufficient knowledge about the structure of Festival Companion’s human

resources, except for the fact that it is a start-up consisting of two people who are at the same time

the founding partners. However, the company has stated earlier that they want to fill up personnel

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gaps with interns. Interns will support the company in acquiring necessary information about partner

festivals and in eventually finding new business relations. Many actions and strategic decisions that

are undertaken in this firm at this point, are done so to be able to find the right partners. By partners

we mean not only financial investors, but also festivals that Festival Companion will be working with.

The company sees finding suitable partners as an important aspect of their business at this early stage,

as with the right partners and with enough money invested in the application, it is true that overtime

the company’s capability of realizing their innovative plans will improve.

Systems

There are several tasks and procedures that the people behind Festival Companion carry out on a

regular base. First of all, keeping the application complete will require daily research in new available

information about the featured festivals, such as line-ups and updates on tickets. However that counts

to the natural B2C activities of the company. At the B2B side, there is for example investors, who are

very important to Festival Companion. They are so, since a complete app which is available offline and

has frequent innovations but at the same time is offered for free, is obviously going to require financial

resources. Therefore, building and maintaining relations with investors is an important constant

activity. Besides information, it is obviously very important to constantly build and maintain relations

with event organizers and festivals, both for existence and advertisement purposes. Festival

Companion is very obviously going to need festivals which they can feature in their application.

Once the application is launched, Social Media platforms will start to play a major role in the company’s

daily routines and activities. Besides the actual application, social Media is a great cost-effective,

complementary service in order to get in touch with new and existing customers. Platforms like Twitter

are a great opportunity to inform and to interact, for example with complementary and emergency

questions and sudden schedule changes.

Additionally, the company will have to analyze the changes and trends in user behavior in order to do

improvements and attract new customers. Festival Companion’s spokesperson has stated that

Google’s Google Analytics will come in very useful in doing so.

Those were the hard elements of the 7S Model, which are easier to either influence or change by

company’s management. The following soft elements are the underlying thoughts and aspects, which

are definitely as important, if not more as the hard elements. However, the only difference is that the

soft elements are not as easy to influence (Jurevicius, 2013).

Skills

As the company stated earlier they consider a functioning full-experience providing app with constant

innovations vital for the company’s businesses. For such an application to be received successfully, the

company’s IT personnel has to be skilled in app-design and current trends.

Furthermore, the amount of relationship building this company is undergoing and will have to undergo

will require decent communication skills. The ability to sell as well as negotiate will be vital when

finding new partnerships and investors, just like speaking several foreign languages.

To analyze trends, usage, and the demands of customers, it is of vital importance for Festival

Companion’s employees to have sufficient marketing and research skills. These skills will also come in

handy when handling with content for the application and for the Social Media accounts.

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Style/Staff

In Festival Companion’s case it is not of utmost importance how many employees they have and how

these employees are managed. This explains why we did not ask many questions with regards to staff,

and so we do not have much information about how the company is hierarchically structured.

However, we do believe that for the best innovational ideas, Festival Companion should stimulate

creativity among its employees, since innovational ideas are often the brainchild of creativity. As Ryan

May, writer for Business Dictionary, mentions in his article, the need for creativity has basically shifted

from painters and other artists to even business people. In a business environment where it is

extremely hard to offer a product which is different, a product that meets the customers’ demands

can only be realized through creativity both in innovation and marketing (May, 2011). Festival

Companion’s spokesperson previously mentioned the importance of constantly learning and

improving. Both employees as executives want to learn as much as possible about the festival visitors

and their searching behavior, as this is the only path that will result in better user experience and more

visitors for the application.

Shared Values

A shared value is very much a goal or more specifically a believe which is shared by everyone who is

part of the organization. As stated in their mission statement, for Festival Companion this is to provide

the most useful and up to date information to festival visitors while making profit at the same time

through an application. Innovation and technical excellence are also mentioned by the company as

core values.

Value Chain Analysis

The value chain analysis of Porter gives an insight into the value adding process that results in the

company’s end product. The model provides knowledge about how the organization creates value

though its inputs and what changes in the activities can increase the profit margin (Mind Tools, 2015).

In this chapter we will explain what primary and support activities Festival Companion knows.

Primary activities

Inbound Logistics

Inbound activities include all activities with regards to obtaining products, services or information for

the production process through collaboration with suppliers (IfM, n.d.). In order for Festival

Companion to offer their services to the market, they are bound to have a host for their application.

Google Play Store charges a one-time $25 registration fee to create a developer account (Android

Developer, 2015). Both the Apple Store and the Play Store demand a 30% transaction fee over all app

sales and in-app purchases from the developer. This direct activity adds instant value because it allows

Festival Companion to publish their services and customers to enjoy them. Festival Companion wants

to generate revenue by attracting organizations to advertise in their festival application. Apple store

charges 30% on any iAd revenue that the application makes (Kimura, 2014).

The most important suppliers of Festival Companion are the informative websites of different

organizations, where Festival Companion collects its information about festivals from. This information

flow is free as these organizations benefit the exposure that the App offers.

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Operations

Festival Companion presents customized festival information, notifications with the start of ticket

sales, offers people to personalize their timetable, and provides the customer with the option to do all

of this offline. (Festival Companion, 2015). They also inform about transportation options to the

events, and provide the acquaintance between customer and artist through music in the application

(Festival Companion, 2015). Festival companion tries to differentiate themselves by offering a user-

friendly, end-to-end app, which consists of the most complete and relevant information for their target

group. This activity creates the value of Festivals Companion’s core mission. While Festival Companion

has only very recently started with offering their system in The Netherlands, they are already looking

for opportunities to expand to different countries, for example in Eastern Europe (Festival Companion,

2015).

Outbound Logistics

To distribute the output (all the festival information), Festival Companion will have to cooperate with

the same third parties as mentioned before for the inbound logistics. In order to make the app

accessible for the market, they will need the internet and an application host. They will work with a

developing program and will adjust and add their content through the program. Quality assurance

activities ensure that all activities will meet the set standards. It is of critical importance that somebody

is appointed to control and maintain the quality of the content, and keep it updated as dated

information will increase churn.

Marketing and Sale

Festival Companion does not invest notably in marketing and promotion but relies on the word-of-

mouth achieved by the quality and accessibility of the application (Festival Companion, 2015). Like

explained in the 7S model, it is advisable for the company to engage in Social Media, as it will augment

their brand awareness and presence in the industry. Once the application gets more awareness and

satisfied customers Festival Companion can enjoy free promotion through the numerous existing

application recommendation websites.

Service

After the application is downloaded by the buyer, Festival Companion will monitor and act up on

application errors and other bugs that may occur. Festival Companion is expected to keep innovating

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and meet the desires of the (potential) customers. The hosts, whether the App Store or Play Store, will

send notifications up on any updates on the program.

Support activities

Organization

In this stage of the cycle, Festival Companion’s most important support systems would be the

investors. With support of the investors, Festival Companion will be able to form a complete

application, which is available offline and has frequent innovations, and at the same time is offered for

free. (Festival Companion, 2015) Another important group of organizations are the festival and event

organizers, who will provide the company with much required information and updates, so that the

application will be up-to-date. (Festival Companion, 2015)

Human Resources

At this point, sufficient information about Festival Companion’s human resources is not available.

However, the company consists of two people who are at the same time the executive founders. The

company’s spokesperson has previously stated that they would be interested in working with interns.

Technology

Festival Companion believes in acquiring and using feedback from customers, in order to improve the

application and the website. It is important for the company to be connected with the customers. The

application and its technical features such as a questions and feedback feature, forms the optimal

source of connection. As mentioned before, Social Media is a great way to connect to customers too.

Through a Facebook and Twitter page, customers can ask questions, give suggestions and share

experiences. Festival Companion wants to offer its service as a free –of-charge, end-to-end platform,

both on- and offline, which will increase the value. (Festival Companion, 2015)

Purchasing

Finally, the application and the website will be completed with a complementary ticket service, where

customers have the option to buy their tickets through the application. Besides for just information

and advertising purposes, relations with event organizers and ticket services will therefore serve

another great cause. By having tight and good relations, with event organizers and ticket services,

Festival Companion could have the ability to sell tickets for the best festivals through their own

application.

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Conclusion

In the process of successfully launching the application and making a successful entrance in the

Croatian market, this internal analysis will give Festival Companion a step in the right direction. It

contains some very important aspects and information to keep in mind towards becoming a successful

application.

Festival Companion’s own mission, vision, and strategy is a base where they can always turn back to,

in order to make strategic decisions and innovations. It basically serves as a guideline to whatever the

company does, since in it, it bares what the company is, will be, and wants to be.

This Internal Analysis gives a fair impression of actions and activities Festival Companion will have to

take in order to make a successful entrance in the Croatian market. For example, the daily research

and scanning that will have to be fulfilled in order to be able to answer to the customer’s demand with

the most up-to-date information. Another very important point are the groups of stakeholders with

whom Festival Companion is bound to have a good relation at all times. Investor relations are for

example one of those groups of stakeholders.

Ultimately, the goal with this Internal Analysis is to hit the spot right so when Festival Companion reads

this, they will have all the necessary information about what is already right and what needs to be

internally improved in order to realize their international goals.

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External Analysis Porter’s National Diamond In order to look into competitive advantages and to clarify the relative attractiveness of the Croatian Industry, the following factors of the Porter’s diamond will be analysed and described:

Factor conditions

Demand conditions

Related and supporting industries

Firm strategy, structure, rivalry

Government

Chance

Factor conditions The Human Resources Development is an indicator of personal, professional and educational possibilities in a country. In Croatia it has improved over the course of 10 years. While in 2008 the indicator stood at 0,801, nowadays it is 0,812 which gives Croatia the 44th place in a ranking that consists of 177 countries. This indicates that not a lot has been changing in Croatia concerning education, employment and even healthcare. (Human Development Indicators, 2015). Croatia has been member of the EU since 2013. The accession to the union was due to progresses in the last decades concerning issues like schooled personnel, jobs, social policies and skills of the overall workforce. The countries policies show and are aimed on achieving sustainable development, economic competitiveness and an inclusive society (ETF, 2012). Concerning the skills of the overall workforce, and the IT workforce, these policies will do Croatia good in many ways. While many factors dealt with in factor conditions do not directly affect Festival Companion directly, because the app is offered via mobile phones and internet, they are still important to consider while expanding. Compared to other Eastern European countries, Croatia has a stabile infrastructure. They have developed roads, the communication systems are relatively good (Infrastructure Croatia, 2007). The internet connection for example is the highest of all the Balkan countries. This is obviously very important for Festival Companion, since without good cellular connections within a country, it would be more difficult for people to download and use the app (Internet in Croatia, 2015). Still there is lots of space for improvement, and with the current policies, the country is much closer to full development than other Eastern European countries. (European Union, 2015).

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Demand conditions Festival Companion is an application of which multiple groups can benefit e.g. customers and strategic festivals. Besides the festivals and their visitors, the application will also offer an option for brands to advertise. Since the application is already functioning in the Netherlands, they can gain experience the upcoming festival season and use this experience for future international encounters. Croatia might host many festivals that return annually, however for a small country like the Netherlands, its festival scene is very active as well. (Festival info, 2015). Therefore, the market which they are currently active in makes for a perfect opportunity to gain experience. Unfortunately, the current government does not stimulate new and innovative companies as much as they could. However, in order to live up to its promises during the accession, the European Union recommends and requires Croatia to stimulate national innovations. This could be a perfect opportunity for Festival Companion. A company which, according to current government policies, will be gladly and successfully welcomed to the ever improving Croatian technology market. (Business Innovation Centre of Croatia, 2015). In the conducted field research, it appeared that the majority of our 106 respondents would actually make use of the application. Out of the total of 106 respondents, only 6 stated not to visit festivals. Of the 100 respondents that do, 55% also visits international festivals. Only 3% of all the festival visitors stated they would not use such an application, while 71% of them answered that they would definitely use the application. The final 26% says that it depends on the features whether they would use it or not. It is a great opportunity that 26% says that it depends on the features, since they were also asked about the kind of extra features they would like to see. This is where Festival Companion could look for future improvements and innovations. Related and supporting industries Roughly speaking, the amount of festivals being held in Croatia makes for a great country to expand to. The application would be in use for some of the biggest festivals in Europe. If Festival Companion could eventually succeed in turning major Festivals into partners, they could substantially benefit from the free publicity that comes with it. When offered through for example App Store, the application will be available for millions of people not just in Croatia but over all of the world (iTunes, 2015). Therefore, these software based digital stores are one of the biggest supporting businesses.

Firm strategy, structure and rivalry Corruption is still one of the bigger problems in the Croatian politics and society. The levels of corruption and unethical behavior of companies in Croatia will constitute a competitive disadvantage for doing businessin Croatia (Croatia general information, 2014).

Currently, there is no application in Croatia that has similarities with Festival Companion. However,

there is a free mobile application called Timeout Croatia, which enables you to find activities, including

the biggest festivals (Timeout Croatia, 2015). At this point, Timeout Croatia’s application does not

stimulate further innovation or form a threat to Festival Companion’s considering its design and user-

friendliness. However, there is no available information on Timeout’s plans of expansion or innovation.

Government Festival Companion has to apply and obey the rules of Personal Data Protection Act and the Electronic Communications Act. These are two agencies who have rules relating to the collection, use and care of personal data ( Legislation and Guidelines, 2014). They govern individuals and organizations. This

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will not influence any of the above factors, since Festival Companion is already obeying these rules in order to do business in the Netherlands ( EU Data Protection Regulation, 2015). Chance With Chance Porter means events that can happen outside of the control of a firm. Out of all external issues, the unemployment of the youth between 15 and 24 can be a problem for Festival Companion. The unemployment rate is 43, 1% (Croatia, 2014).

PESTLE Analysis The PESTLE analysis is a marketing tool that is commonly used to analyze the macro environment of a

country, in which a company is planning to launch their products and services in. This model consists

of six factors, namely Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental. We will give

a thorough description of relevant matters of each factor for Festival Companion about expanding to

Croatia.

Political The republic of Croatia experienced four years of war after it declared its independence from the

Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991 (BBC, 2015). When the Croatian War of Independence

ended Croatia joined the Council of Europe and filed its application for European Union membership

in 2003. Due to Croatia’s slow progress in EU membership requirements, the country only recently

became a member, in 2013 (BBC, 2015). Croatia has a parliamentary democratic government with 15

major political parties (Balkanalysis, 2015). This means the power is in the hands of the citizens that

choose representatives for their country’s parliament. Ivo Josipović served as president of Croatia in

2010 till 2014. He had a social democratic ideology (Predsjednik, n.d.). His aims were to standardize

Croatia’s relations with its neighboring countries in South-East Europe; the realization of cultural and

political cooperation; strengthening Croatia’s economic connections with non-European countries,

such as Russia, China, India and Latin-America, and the further democratization of Croatia. He also

pledged to meet the requirements to join the European Union quickly (Predsjednik, n.d.). However on

January 11th 2015, Josipović lost the election against his opposition Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, who

became the first female president of Croatia (The Economist, 2015). The dominating reason for his

defeat has been the failure of the Social Democratic-led government, to get the country out of the

recession it has been in the past few years. The new president says to assure economic recovery as

Croatia is still part of the poorest countries in the EU (Deutsche Welle, 2015).

Corruption remains a big barrier for organizations who want to do business in Croatia. It has come to

the extent that Small and Medium enterprises perceive that the majority of public servants expect to

be bribed when they meet with companies. However, in most cases the SMEs do not report these

bribery incidents (Business Anti Corruption, n.d.). Due to the long court processes finding a solution

without seeking juridical remedies becomes more favorable. This does not contribute to resolve the

corruption problem in Croatia. According to the Eurobarometer Survey in 2013, 89% of the Croatian

respondents admitted that bribery and the use of connections is usually the easiest way to benefit

from public services. This was 58% in The Netherlands (TNS Opinion & Social, 2014). The Netherlands

has had a good political relationship with Croatia since 1992. They actively support different projects

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with government bodies and Non-Governmental Organizations. They also put in effort to fight

corruption and improve the juridical system of Croatia (Government of the Netherlands, n.d.).

Economical The Croatian government has been aiming to increase its competitiveness to compete in the European

markets, and benefit from the big subsidies which EU Structural Funds provide since 2013 (World Bank,

2014). Croatia and Greece were the worst economical performers in 2014 (Radosavljevic, 2014).

Diplomats say the country was unprepared for membership of the EU and enjoys minimal benefits

from it. They are lacking in overall planning and have uncompetitive companies as they import

substantially (Radosavljevic, 2014). Croatia offered 60,000 of its poorest citizens the chance to start

over by wiping out their debts of no more than the equivalent of $5,000 per person. In this way the

government wants to increase and assure consumer spending in the future (Pyke, 2015). The currency

rate of the Croatian Kuna is set at $1 US dollar = 7,187 Croatian Kuna on March 18th 2015 (XE, 2015).

The country has a GDP of $78.9 billion per year with a real growth rate of -1% (Cia.gov, 2013). Its GDP

per capita is set at $21,350.5 in 2014 (World Bank, 2014). Croatia is not doing very well in regards to

their public debt, since it is at its highest of all times with 80, 6% of their GDP (Trading Economics,

2015).

Since October 2014 Croatia has not been experiencing any inflation; the deflation rate in February

2015 was 0.4% (Trading Economics, 2015). Croatia’s disposable income per capita in 2014 was

approximately $107.18 per month (Y Charts, 2014). Croatia has an income tax of 12-40%, depending

on the scale of the income. This makes their income tax one of the highest in Europe. The Croatian tax

system is very similar to other European countries, where you are obligated to pay taxes when living

in that particular country or when receiving an income from a Croatian company (JustLanded, 2014).

The consumption tax on goods is set at 22% (JustLanded, 2014). Croatia does not have any wealth tax,

what means you don’t pay for possessions such as savings or houses. According to the Global

Competitiveness Report 2013-2014, tax rates and regulations are seen by businesses as the biggest

barriers for doing business. Croatia is challenged with a growing rate in youth unemployment, in 2014

the rate grew to a dramatically 49.2% (Brenner, J., 2014). The unemployment rate over the total

population is 20.3% (Trading Economics, 2015). The European Social Fund granted the country 60

million euro to help reduce the number of unemployed citizens, which has not experienced a

substantial change ever since (Croatia Week, 2012). According to the 2013 Barometer Business Survey

on Corruption, 81% of the local businesses believe that favoritism and corruption hinders competition.

This is an important aspect of the Croatian business culture to keep in mind when expanding.

Social

The official language in Croatia is Croatian, a South Slavic

language of the Indo-European family. Croats use the Latin

alphabet, which consists of 30 letters. The Croatian

language has German, Hungarian, Italian and Turkish

influences (Every culture, 2015). 80% Of the Croatians are

bilingual, and the majority of them speaks English. They are

true nationalists as they are very proud of their heritage and

culture (Kwintessentials, n.d.). The biggest part of the

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population is Roman Catholic (Every culture, 2015). Other religions are Eastern Orthodox Christians,

Protestants, and Muslims. Traditionally, the Croats are very superstitious and believe in the evil eye

and casting spells through magical acts (Every culture, 2015). Croatia has a collectivistic culture where

families and communities are valued more than personal successes. Due to the high power distance,

the Croatians accept that not all individuals in societies are equal. The restraint culture that Croatia

has, results in a cynical and pessimistic attitude (Geert Hofstede, 2015). This perception means that

people’s actions are restrained by social norms and feel that satisfying own desires is wrong. The high

uncertainty avoidance of Croatia leads to a cautious and reserved approach towards changes (Geert

Hofstede, 2015). The Croatians prefer direct and straightforward communication. However, it depends

on the relationship to what extent this is realized. It is advisable to choose words correctly and always

be diplomatic to prevent unnecessary upset and commotion (Geert Hofstede, 2015). Relationships are

very important and you should make time to build and maintain good contacts with Croatian business

partners. Online shopping has become more popular amongst consumers in Croatia. Impulsiveness

and recreational factors make up the main incentive to shop online as they find it more convenient

than other traditional forms of purchase (Matic, M., 2013). However, there is a possibility that Croatian

consumers will experience negative feelings during the impulsive online purchase, which will stimulate

emotional conflicts such as buyers’ dissatisfaction, guilt and regret. According to the Purchasing

Behavior of Croatian Consumers, impulsiveness of consumers will not influence their online purchase

intention (Matic, M., 2013).

Technological

The internet usage of the Croatian population has increased over the years from only 4.6 % of the

households in 2000 to 68% in 2014. However, the connectivity within the country performs the worst

within the EU. Despite the fact that there is broadband availability for 97% of the population, a huge

percentage of 39% does not make use out of it. Among those who have broadband only 22% have

access to high speed connections. The digital skills of the inhabitants are not sufficient, and this

together with the low internet usage could form an issue for Festival Companion. 59% of the internet

users communicate through social media. This paves a way for festival companion to reach out to their

target group through social media. Furthermore, Croatia has to improve their modern public services

because these are among the lowest of the European Union (Statista, 2015).

Source: (Group., 2015)

Legal

The protection of personal data in Croatia is regulated by the Personal Data Protection Act and the

Electronic Communications Act. This means that Festival Companion has to apply and obey the rules

of these agencies. The PDPA contains rules relating to the use, collection, disclosure and care of

personal data. Not only the rights of individuals, but also that of organizations are governed by the

PDPA (Government of Singapore, 2015). The Electronic Communications Act regulates everything in

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the field of electronic communications. A few examples of the things that are included in this field are:

the protection of the rights of users of services, data protection, the provision of communication

networks, and services (Luka Bébic, 2008). Furthermore, they have to obey to the same European data

protection regulations which they already obey to in the Netherlands (Hrvatski Telekom, 2015).

Environment

Croatia is situated in Eastern Europe and has mutual borders with Bosnia, Serbia, Hungary and

Slovenia. Croatia has two climate regions, namely a Continental climate region, and a Mediterranean

climate along the coastline of the country (Meteorological and Hydrological Institute of Croatia, n.d.).

Summers in the Mediterranean region are dry, which have led to fires in the past. They have mild but

rainy winters with temperatures ranging from 2⁰C to 7⁰C. Snowfall is a rare occurrence in this region.

The Continental climate is completely different with colder winters and warm summers

(Meteorological and Hydrological Institute of Croatia, n.d.). Croatia’s natural environment experiences

frequent earthquakes, pollution from industrial and domestic waste and forest damage (Lampe, J.,

2014). In May 2014 continuous and heavy rainfall caused extensive flooding in Croatia, which caused

over a €30 million worth of damage nationwide (Assessment Capacities Project, 2014). Croatia has a

serious pollution problem in urban and industrial areas. Approximately 40% of the cities has moderate

or excessive polluted air (European Environment Agency, 2015). Croatia’s natural resources are oil,

calcium, asphalt, clays and salt that they mainly export to their neighbor countries. (Lampe, J., 2014).

All of the information mentioned above, gives an impression of Croatia’s geological situation. This

information might also come in handy when speaking of infrastructural matters.

Porter’s five forces model The power of suppliers

Since Festival Companion’s main service is an informational platform in form of an application, the

company does not have direct suppliers. However there may be external groups, with whom the

company should have a stable relation, such as data hosting facilities. In order to get their application,

but more importantly their website running, and to have it accessible for a higher number of unique

visitors, Festival Companion is likely to use the help and services of a data hosting facility. Croweb is

an example of a Croatian web hosting company (Croweb, 2015). Luckily, for Festival Companion in

today’s creation web market, there are many other companies like Croweb that offer such supporting

facilities. These companies can, in some way, be considered a supplier to Festival Companion. As a

well-functioning network, a website, and of course the application is of crucial importance for Festival

Companion’s existence, it is safe to say that these suppliers have some power over Festival Companion.

However, due to the huge amount of Croatian hosting facilities, that power is in turn minimalized

(Hostsearch, 2015) (Whtop, 2015). One other group of service providers that cannot be fully

considered a supplier in some ways are telecommunications companies. For Festival Companions

services to be used, cellular and data network is required. At this point, there are no other supplying

organizations that could influence Festival Companion’s business directly. Their potential partners and

clients will be described further on.

The power of the buyers

The buyers, who are in this case the users of Festival Companion’s application, have many options to

choose from for comparison purposes. Obviously, when there are many market players a customer

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can choose from, this automatically gives this customer power over its options. The different

competing companies or services will in some way have to engage with their potential customers.

However, since an application like Festival Companion is for now a total new concept in the Croatian

market, Festival Companion could take advantage of this situation. How and in what ways Festival

Companion could benefit from this situation will be thoroughly described in our operational marketing

plan. Since the competition for Festival Companion consist mainly of substitutes, we will come back to

those later on in this analysis.

Substitutes

Comparatively seen, in Croatia there are no applications which offer the exact same, broad service as

the Festival Companion app does. However, as previously mentioned, there is an important series of

substitutes that have to be kept in mind. Event organizers for example, have their own app with all the

necessary information about just their own event. Or websites that are comparable to Festival

Companion to some extent, such as visit-croatie.co.uk, with all the festivals in Croatia listed on one

page. The websites of the festivals also have all the important information. These are not per se

complementary to what Festival Companion offers, because instead of downloading the Festival

Application on their smartphones, people will just look up particular festivals through the web.

Additionally, official websites tend to have a very strong SEO strategy, which automatically means that

they are one of the top listed results when using search engines. It is clear that Festival Companion will

have to deal with many substitutes, and adjust their strategy to this. Nevertheless, like mentioned

earlier there are still no comparable applications in Croatia which offer the same opportunities and

features to the festivals and its visitors.

What this comes down to is that Festival Companion is entering an already existing market, with an

entirely new concept. With proper management, and by thinking through the demands and the current

services, Festival Companion’s application could grow out to be a very popular service, for locals as

well as foreign festival visitors.

Threat of new entrants.

Current competitors for Festival Companion are agenda applications, agenda websites, template

applications and application developers. As there is a serious amount of annual festivals, there are

some of them who have their own application, such as the Garden festival and the Moondance festival

(Visit Croatia, 2015) (The Garden festival, 2014). However, the majority of the festivals do not own an

application. The few festivals who do own an application still form potential partners for Festival

Companion to feature on their app. Festivals abundantly creating their own applications forms a

barrier for Festival Companion’s entrance to the Croatian market, for each of those Festivals might not

want to be featured on Festival Companion’s own application. This requires a lot of technical and

general knowledge, and might, at one point, require financial resources.

For now, the application is exclusive and there are no competitors who compete one the same level.

Nevertheless, it is needless to say that if this idea succeeds others will follow. Other application

developers are likely to follow and to innovate upon the base that Festival Companion has currently

set. This brings up a topic which Festival Companion has to bear in mind at all times. To be one step

ahead of the competitors to be, Festival Companion has to have a stable financial assurance as well as

sufficient knowledge at all times to set through constant innovations.

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Finally, Festival Companion as well as other possible new entrants have to be aware of the fact that if

they want to enter the Croatian market and become successful with such a new concept, this will

require a serious amount of promotion.

Rivalry As vaguely explained earlier on it this analysis, the competition of Festival Companion does not consist of applications that are on exactly the same level of Festival Companion. To clear things up, Festival Companion’s current competitors are organizations or applications that only offer a certain part of what Festival Companion offers, such as a ticket service or just information etc. See tickets See Tickets is one of the largest ticket services in Europe and they provide tickets for some of the biggest European events, among which the majority of the festivals held in Croatia (tickets, 2015). The ticket of major festivals, such as the Outlook Festival and Soundwave Croatia are in the hands of See Tickets. However, except for basic information See Tickets does not provide Festival information (Tickets, 2015). Festival Companion’s competitive edge over SeeTickets is the combination of services as information, ticket sales, and even listening to music. Timeout Croatia Timeout Croatia is a mobile application which provides information about main sights and activities Croatia. Technically speaking, this is a direct competitor since it is an informational application, which carries festivals as well. However, unlike Festival Companion festivals are not the main focus of this application. With that, there are also other services that are not featured by Timeout Croatia, such as ticket sales for events and thorough information about artists. However, a strategic way to convert Timeout Croatia from a threat to an opportunity might be a partnership between the two applications.

Market Attractiveness

The attractiveness of the market is partially dependent on the different parties that are discussed in

the Porter’s Five Forces model. Another very important aspect is the attractiveness of the market,

statistically seen. What is meant with that is the amount of festivals, their capacity and size, and the

amount of people who actually visit festivals.

Festival Companion’s target group is people between the ages of 18 and 35 years. Over the past

decade, Croatia has grown out to be a favourable vacation destination. With that growth the country’s

music and festival scene has been flourishing. Every year, Croatia welcomes tourist from all over

Europe for annually held festivals. In Croatia there are a number of big festivals during the year, such

as the Sonus festival, Garden festival, Moondance festival etc. Generally speaking, these festivals last

four to five days and in some cases like the Garden Festival even eight days. The festivals have visitor

capacities ranging from 2500 to 15.000. There are twenty large scaled, annual festivals in Croatia which

attract people from all over the world (Festival guide, 2015). This forms an indication that the market

Festival Companion is aiming for in Croatia is a big market with very attractive statistics.

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Conclusion Croatia had a rough start since their accession to the European Union in 2013. The country experienced slow economic progress and a high rate of unemployment. Slowly but surely Croatia is improving their international position. The Croatians have a relatively low disposable income in comparison with other Central Eastern Europe countries. The majority of the Croatians speak English as their second language. The internet usage has increased enormously but Croatia is still improving its connection speed. Croatia lacks experts who are schooled in technology and together with the necessary internet connection development can form an obstacle for Festival Companion. What this competitive analysis has made clear is that there is no direct rivalry in form of the same or very similar applications. However the barriers to entry this market are low and therefore the threat of new entries high. It is relatively cheap, easy and fast to develop similar applications. The majority of the market players are services that only feature some or even one of Festival Companions services. Therefore, the biggest challenge for Festival Companion seems to be arranging partnerships with the festivals of whom some have already started to turn to the development of their own application. An application that might not offer the same level of services that Festival Companion does, but still stands closer to the customers. Arranging partnerships with the present festivals will be a time- and money consuming process. Luckily, there is no shortage of festivals as well as potential visitors. This is an important indicator of the attractiveness of the market Festival Companion is aiming to enter.

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Entry strategy

According to Svend Hollensen before recommending an entry strategy, a particular strategy for

deciding on an entry strategy has to be chosen. The three different strategies are referred to as the

rules; the naïve, pragmatic and the strategy rule. In Festival companion’s case the strategy rule would

be the best option, for Festival Companion could maximize the profit after comparing and evaluating

the entry modes systematically.

Choice entry strategy

The choice of entry mode should be based on the internal and external factors. While deciding, there

is a set of internal and external factors that have to be taken into account. A list of factors that need

to be considered are: the firm size, international experience, the product and/or service, intensity of

competition, country risk/ demand uncertainty, market size and growth and direct and indirect trade

barriers.

Internal factors

Firm size

With Festival Companion’s current situation and size, it is not of high importance how many employees

they have and how these employees are managed. However, this makes it difficult to determine the

firm size. Since Festival Companion is working with an online application the firm size does not matter,

what does matter is a well-functioning, end-to-end application.

International experience

Festival Companion does not have international experience. The solution for this can be seeking for

partnerships with companies who do have experience on an international scale. Because Festival

Companion is a Dutch start-up company, it is better to collaborate with companies operating on an

international scale with mutually shared or similar mission or vision.

Product/service

Festival Companion offers an extra service for festival visitors. Direct export and franchising both drop

out in this scenario, since there is not a particular product or service that needs to be directly exported

to Croatia in order for the application to function. The application should be perfectly manageable

from the Dutch headquarters, since the application is offered on digital software stores e.g. App Store

and Google Play. Additionally, the language will be offered in only English anyway. It is advisable for

Festival companion to start a collaboration with partners that have previous international experiences.

Potential partners for Festival Companion could be the festivals in Croatia, but also companies like

MTV Croatia, and other commercial business who are looking for advertisement opportunities.

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External factors

Intensity of competition

Festival Companion’s competitors do not consist of applications, which are on exactly the same level

of Festival Companion. Extensive explanation is found in the meso part of the external analysis. The

current competitors of Festival Companion only offer a part of the service that Festival Companion

offers, such as ticket services or festival information. See Tickets and Timeout Croatia are some of

those companies, which provide information and tickets for the biggest festivals in Croatia.

Market size and growth

We do not have concrete numbers about the size of the European and the Croatian market. However,

the research done by our team has resulted in very promising statistics. According to our external

analysis, the average amount of visitors per festivals is between the 2,500 and 15,000 visitors. This in

general is a big indicator for the attractiveness of the market. There is a multitude of festivals in Croatia,

which attract many visitors from all over the world. Our field research shows that 28.3 % Of the

Croatian festival visitors, visit Festivals at least twice a year. Only 6.6% of the respondents visit festivals

less than once a year. Looking to the general European market, our field research shows that 100 out

of the 106 respondents, which is 94.3%, visit at least one music festival a year. While 71% of the 100

respondents stated they would definitely use Festival Companion’s application, 26% stated that it

would strongly depend on the features of the application. Our sample consisted of European youth

residing in countries such as, Croatia, Serbia, Germany and the Netherlands.

Direct and indirect trade barriers

There will not be any barriers for Festival Companion in Croatia, this because Festival Companion will

be operating via an Application and the headquarters will still be located in the Netherlands. By

appointing a contact person in Croatia, Festival Companion can communicate with their potential

partners.

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Conclusion

Since Festival Companion’s service solely consists of an application which can be operated from the

home country, it does not require a specific entry strategy to operate in Croatia. The internal and

external findings that have been discussed throughout our report, conclude that even though Festival

Companion does not need a particular market entry strategy, there are internal and external factors

that Festival Companion should keep in mind and adapt its strategies to.

Festival companion is a very young start-up that has just been launched in the Netherlands, with barely

any (international) experience. Despite the previous experiences of the founding partners, Festival

Companion will need partners in the form of financial resources, as well as publicity and advice. As the

company has previously mentioned, a big part of Festival Companion’s profit will come from

advertisement. Therefore, its monetizing strategy should be adapted to finding and maintaining

important partnerships, ranging from Festivals and commercial partners to external companies that

are just looking for advertisement possibilities. To gain the customer’s attraction and to raise

awareness in the festival industry, they should maintain the strategy of looking for partnerships in

Croatia. However this strategy should be boosted up to established companies, who have gained brand

awareness and popularity over the years.

Obviously, Festival Companion will have to consider some barriers when expanding to Croatia. The

country has been dealing with a staggering economy during the crisis years, of which the Croatian

customer has only just started to recover from. Furthermore, the corruption among political and

commercial institutions has been stated as one of the biggest barriers in expanding to the Croatian

market. However, with its accession to the European Union, the general standards of the European

Union have started to implement changes on the country which are definitely for the better. Even

though there are still some internal problems, there are many macro external factors that make for a

perfect opportunity. For instance, the tourism in Croatia has experienced an exponential growth in the

past decade. The country ranked 4th on the list of best travel destinations of 2014. It goes without

mentioning that the technological development has been experiencing a growth as well. While there

were still connectivity problems in the past years, the number of internet and cellular users has more

than doubled in the past years.

Therefore, Croatia appears to be a perfect country for Festival Companion to expand to. As long as all

the resources are used for the appropriate purposes, the application stays updated with the best and

latest information, and useful partnerships are constantly established, Croatia and its market seem

very promising for Festival Companion.

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Operational Deployment: Marketing plan

Product Festival Companion should ensure that all information on the application about festivals is accessible and up to date. The offered festivals in the application have to provide a relevant and complete overview about actual festivals in Croatia. The company has to implement all the features that they pitched in order to differentiate themselves and have a successful entry. Custom information was valued as the most favorite feature according to the Croatian respondents who took part in our questionnaire, which makes it a necessity to perfect their content. Furthermore, the app should have a clean design and has to be user friendly for the consumer to minimize any possible confusion. The company needs to monitor the function of the application and have a rapid response to bugs or other errors the application may experience. To enter the Croatian market, Festival Companion does not have to adjust any product or service specifications. Festival visitors tend to share upcoming and attending events on social media frequently. Festival Companion should meet this need of its customers by integrating the option to share customer’s personal calendars on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram through the application. This can easily be done by adding logo buttons or by having users log in to the application with their Facebook accounts. This option will certainly lead to the attraction of more customers for Festival Companion in general. Another way to attract people into downloading the application is to add a photo album to each festival where people can upload their festival pictures afterwards. This will create curiosity amongst more potential customers of Festival Companion.

Place As Festival Companion’s application does not yet have any awareness among the Croatians, the company has to put in effort to achieve this. They could, for instance, stimulate leaving reviews and positive ratings among customers on the Play or App Store. This will ensure them to achieve a higher ranking in the App and Play store and accordingly improve visibility. However, to convert reviews into positive ones, the company has the make sure the product should meet criteria as described in the product section of the marketing plan. In order to maximize in-app activity, Festival Companion should invest time and effort in replacing current ticket services as official ticket vendor. This should be done through partnership with festivals, who redirect customers to the application for ticket purchases in return for a strategic advertisement on the application. This will replace substituting competitors. However, in order for this to succeed, Festival Companion should retain attractive user numbers, which is where this integrates with promotional activities.

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Price Downloading Festival Companion’s application in Google Play and App Store will be free of charge. However, Festival Companion will receive fixed fees for every festival ticket sold through their application. Furthermore, the collection and sales of user data and advertisement through the application play a major role in Festival Companion’s monetising strategy as well. In our report, it is mentioned multiple times that Festival Companion’s application is the only one of its kind. However, in the Porter’s five forces analysis it appeared that there is competition in the form of festivals creating their own applications. Therefore, Festival Companion should consider and handle competitive prices for advertisement and features, since too high pricing might possibly push off event organizations. Additionally, it is worth considering whether small festivals should be charged the same fees as big organizations in order to be featured in the application. Since again, fixed inclusion prices that are way too high for small organizations, might cause those smaller event organizations to look for advertisement opportunities elsewhere.

Promotion First of all, in order to be able to promote its product, Festival Companion should make sure its product meets the recommendations and requirements that have been given through this marketing plan in the section place, product, and price. This in order to make sure that customers are satisfied the first time they experience the application. If this is not the case, it will be extremely hard for Festival Companion to win this customer back, especially after a customer has already deleted the application from their phones. Depending on Festival Companion’s promotions budget, a giveaway campaign in return for likes, could potentially attract many likers to the social media accounts. After a perfectly functioning, and end-to-end application has been realized, then Festival Companion has to undergo certain steps to spread the word about their application and the gain brand-awareness. Considering a limited budget, one of the most important tools from promotion and brand awareness will be social media. As described in the Product section already, the application and several social media platforms e.g. Instagram, Facebook, and twitter should be integrated with each other. One should be able to share their personalized calendar with their followers on social media. This will create curiosity in the minds of the people who come across these social media messages. As we have emphasized the importance of word-of-mouth already, social media also plays an important role in this. Affiliate marketing is also a recent marketing strategy that attracts many people to Festival Companion’s application and websites. When found the right websites and partners, such as blogs and main websites this can be a relatively cheap solution, since the rewards often go by costs-by-click. Furthermore, we also advise to make use of classic media solutions, such as print media. Resources like flyers and posters have the potential to attract many first-time customers to the application. Again depending on the promotions budget, a possible sampling campaign is advised. By handing out simple inexpensive products like pens, key-chains or USB-sticks which carry Festival Companion’s logo, many first time users can be attracted.

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Luka Bébic. (2008, July 19). Electronic communications act. Retrieved March 15, 2015, from mppi: http://www.mppi.hr/UserDocsImages/Electronic%20Communications%20Act%20OG73-2008.pdf

Matic, M. (2013). Online Retailing: Purchasing Behaviour of Croatian Consumers . Rome: MCSER Publishing. Retrieved from http://www.mcser.org/journal/index.php/mjss/article/view/528/553

May, R. (2011, November 1). Creativity and Innovation in the Workplace. Retrieved March 30, 2015, from http://www.businessdictionary.com: http://www.businessdictionary.com/article/657/creativity-and-innovation-in-the-workplace/

Meteorological and Hydrological Institute of Croatia. (n.d.). Climate and weather. Retrieved from studyincroatia: http://www.studyincroatia.hr/about-croatia/climate-and-weather

Mind Tools. (2015). Porter's Value Chain. Retrieved May 02, 2015, from mindtools: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_66.htm

Predsjednik. (n.d.). Ivo Josipović Biography. Retrieved March 15, 2015, from Predsjednik: http://www.predsjednik.hr/PRESIDENT

Pyke, A. (2015, February 3). Croatia Cancels Debts For Tens Of Thousands Of Its Poorest People. Retrieved March 18, 2015, from Thinkprogress: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/02/03/3618405/croatia-debt-forgiveness/

Radosavljevic, Z. (2014, May 4). Croatia's economy sends troubling message to neighbouring EU wannabes. Retrieved March 20, 2015, from Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/04/croatia-economy-eu-idUSL6N0N827Z20140504

Statista. (2015). How often do you use the internet for personal reasons? Retrieved March 15, 2015, from Statista: http://www.statista.com/statistics/367806/frequency-of-private-internet-usage-croatia/

The Economist. (2015, January 17). A new Croatian president: Barbie wins. Retrieved March 2015, 15, from Economist: http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21639580-grumpy-electorate-turfs-out-incumbent-barbie-wins?zid=307&ah=5e80419d1bc9821ebe173f4f0f060a07

The Garden festival. (2014). Retrieved March 29, 2015, from Croatia wave: http://croatia-wave.com/the-garden-festival-2014-preview/

tickets, S. (2015, 01 01). About us. Retrieved from See Tickets: http://www.seetickets.com/content/about-us

Tickets, S. (2015, 01 01). Paloma Faith. Retrieved from See Tickets: http://www.seetickets.com/event/paloma-faith/roman-amphitheatre/852805

TNS Opinion & Social. (2014). Corruption Report. Retrieved March 15, 2015, from http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_397_en.pdf

Trading Economics. (2015). Croatia Inflation Rate. Retrieved March 18, 2015, from Trading Economics: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/croatia/inflation-cpi

Trading Economics. (2015). Croatia Unemployment Rate. Retrieved March 18, 2015, from http://www.tradingeconomics.com/croatia/unemployment-rate

Twitter fstvlcompanion. (2015, June 2). Retrieved from Twitter: https://twitter.com/fstvlcompanion Visit Croatia. (2015). Festivals in Croatia. Retrieved March 29, 2015, from Visit Croatia:

http://www.visit-croatia.co.uk/index.php/festivals-croatia/ World Bank. (2014). Croatia Overview. Retrieved March 17, 2015, from Worldbank:

http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/croatia/overview#1 XE. (2015, March 18). HRK Croatian Kuna. Retrieved March 18, 2015, from XE:

http://www.xe.com/currency/hrk-croatian-kuna

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Y Charts. (2014). Croatia Real Household Personal Disposable Income. Retrieved March 18, 2015, from http://ycharts.com/indicators/croatia_real_household_personal_disposable_income

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Attachments

Research Report

Afaf El Hendouz 0860779 Aron van Stijn 0860301 Jacky Agyemang 0863554 Soufiane Kasri 0869015 Turan Babayigit 0863408

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Table of contents

Table of contents .................................................................................................................................. 31

Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 32

Methods and Materials ........................................................................................................................ 33

Results and Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 35

Attachments .................................................................................... Fout! Bladwijzer niet gedefinieerd.

Attachment: Questionnaire .............................................................................................................. 38

32

Introduction

For the research which we have been assigned to do by the Rotterdam Business School, in collaboration with Festival Companion, we have agreed to conduct a research in potential target country Croatia. The research was set to be carried out based on a predetermined main research question, complemented by supporting relevant sub questions. The extensive research consisted of two main types, first of which was desk-, also referred to as, secondary research. Parts of our main research question and sub questions were answerable by solely secondary research. By finding and analyzing already existing, reliable sources, answers on some parts of the main questions have been found. However, in order to give a useful and accurate recommendation to Festival Companion, some information was still to be conducted and collected by ourselves. This part of our research was referred to as field research. In the following report the second part of our research, so the field research, will be described and explained. To finish off, the main results of the desk research will be explained and discussed.

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Methods and Materials

Type of research The field research part of our research consisted of a quantitative research in the form of an online questionnaire. The reason behind the decision for an online questionnaire was rather simple. There were raw hypotheses that needed confirmation from a sample of Festival Companion’s target group, in order to do judgments about Festival Companion’s potential chances in Croatia. A very easy example of one of those hypotheses is: Considering the amount of popular festivals in Croatia, a brand new concept like Festival Companion’s will be rather successful. By phrasing the questions that were included in the online questionnaire in such a way, confirmation on for example this hypothesis was successfully acquired. Another reason for choosing an online questionnaire over other types and possibilities of research was the ease of its distribution. Since the aimed respondents were Croatians living and working in Croatia, distributing in this case would have been harder when for example using on-street or telephone questionnaires. Facebook has been of major help while conducting the questionnaire. First of all, it enables one to easily seek for people who fit the right profile for your sample, within your own network. Even more helpful were announcements through the Facebook pages of Croatian events, calling for potential respondents to participate in a small questionnaire. Beneath you will find an example of such an announcement:

Finally, conducting a questionnaire through online techniques often leaves the decision to stay anonymous up to the respondent. This sense of anonymity, in turn, stimulates more people to actually participate in a questionnaire. Obviously, this again helps us as acquire more participants as long as we have do get some key information about the participant.

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Respondents In total, 106 respondents have participated in the questionnaire, of whom all 106 acquired through Facebook. 30 of which officially have the Croatian nationality, 3 German respondents, and 5 people from Serbia. With 68 respondents, by far the majority of the respondents are Dutch. However, we have found out that within the group of 68 Dutch respondents, there are 15 Croatians who have Dutch as their official nationality. Considering our resources in the form of money, time, and information, it was very hard to approach and find Croatians who fit the profile of our target sample group. At first we were able find 30 Croatian respondents. Due to difficulties with finding more Croatian respondents, some changes to our research approach had to be made. After much discussion about how to find more respondents and keep our research representative at the same time, the decision fell on looking for respondents who fit the profile elsewhere. From that moment on, the approach was to look for respondents who fit the profile elsewhere. We have approached people coming from our own network, who fit the profile. Our criteria was however that we would only approach people who are planning to visit a festival in Croatia, or internationally. Luckily, after this strategic change, we have been able to conduct the questionnaire among 106 respondents.

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Results and Discussion

On March 13th 2015 we set up a questionnaire to project the view of the potential customers on a mobile festival application for Festival Companion. The survey attracted a total of 106 respondents distributed over four different countries with an age ranging from 18 to 26. The results of the questionnaire estimates the market attractiveness for the expansion to Central Eastern Europe of Festival Companion. Below you see the findings of the survey with a specific focus on the Croatian market.

Country of Residence * How often do you visit Festivals Cross tabulation

Count

How often do you visit Festivals

Total

(At least) once

a month

Once half a

year Once a year

Less than once

a year

Country of Residence The Netherlands 45 13 6 4 68

Croatia 4 14 10 2 30

Serbia 0 2 1 0 3

Germany 0 2 1 2 5

Total 49 31 18 8 106

The survey was filled out by respondents from The Netherlands, Croatia, Serbia and Germany. The information enables us to compare customer preferences and festival behavior between people from these countries. 28.3% of the respondents are currently living in Croatia. We see that the majority of the Croatians visit festivals twice a year and only 6.6% less than once a year. The Dutch respondents are more active visitors of festivals since over 66% visits them at least once a month but both Croatia and The Netherlands have less than 7% in comparison 5.88%. We have little data about the countries Serbia and Germany so we cannot evaluate their results accurately.

We see that students are popular festival visitors since 60.4% of the total respondents were students and 57.5% of them visit festivals frequently (at least once a year). The second biggest group are the employed respondents that make up one third of the festival visitors. The people that visit festivals less than once a year are equally distributed over students, employed and unemployed respondents. Unemployed people visit festivals the least.

Count Occupation * How often do you visit Festivals Cross tabulation

How often do you visit Festivals

Total

(At least) once

a month

Once half a

year Once a year

Less than once

a year

Occupation Student 32 20 9 3 64

Employed 15 11 7 3 36

Unemployed 2 0 2 2 6

Total 49 31 18 8 106

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The top three most important features that the respondents shared were the line-ups, custom festival info and a shared third place of ticket service an information about the artists. Offline usability came out to be the least important features among the Croatian respondents. Ticket offices remain the most popular place where Croatians buy their tickets followed by official websites of the festival events. Other places that they buy their tickets from are ticket vendor websites, Ticket Swap, Facebook and advertising and C2C websites. The respondents find their desired information about festivals through forums or friends, Facebook or via flyers and posters. There is an equal amount of respondents that visit music festivals and movie festivals. Another festival that was mentioned was a food festival. 78.5% of the Croatian festival visitors are between 20 and 23 years old. The biggest group are students of 20 years old. We asked the Croatians if they would consider using a mobile application platform for festivals and 66.7% answered with a definite ‘yes’. 26.7% said it would depend on the features that the application has. As seen in the previous table people prefer artist information, ticket service, custom festival and line-up information. It is advisable that Festival Companion uses this data to win over these 26.7% of people. If they do so they will have a market of 93.4% of the respondents.

Would you consider using an application platform

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid Yes 20 66,7 66,7 66,7

No 2 6,7 6,7 73,3

Depends on features 8 26,7 26,7 100,0

Total 30 100,0 100,0

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As we can see in the table above the majority of the Croatian festival visitors is female. However, due to the limited respondents from Croatia we cannot generalize this for the entire population. The majority of the total of respondents are men. Conclusion We can see that there is not a big difference between the Croatian and Dutch market in terms of attractiveness. The vast majority of the Croatian festival visitors has a habit of attending festivals once or twice a year. The potential customers are students and employed people between the age of 18 and 28 years old. The unique selling point ‘offline usability’ of Festival Companion came out to be their least favorite feature of a festival Application. That might change because people are not familiar with it but may become important when the feature is introduced to the Croatian market. The respondents do value the custom festival information that Festival Companion offers. Tickets are traditionally bought from brick and mortar ticket offices in Croatia. 66.7% would consider using an application as Festival Companion offers and they should be able to win over the other 26.7% by implementing the most valued features. As we see in the findings of the survey Croatia does have an interesting and upcoming market for Festival Companion.

Gender * Do you visit Festivals Crosstabulation

Count

Do you visit Festivals

Total Yes No

Gender Male 11 2 13

Female 17 0 17

Total 28 2 30

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Attachments

Attachment: Questionnaire

1. What is your age? ……….. 2. What is your gender? A. Male B. Female 3. What is your country of Residence? .......... 4. What is your occupation? A. Student B. Employed C. Unemployed 5. Do you visit festivals? Yes No 6. How often do you visit festivals? A. (At least) once a month B. Once half a year C. Once a year D. Less than once a year 7. What type of festivals do you visit? A. Music festivals B. Movie festivals C. Other, namely.... 8. Where do you visit Festivals? A. Domestic B. International C. Domestic and International 9. How do you find information when visiting festivals? A. Flyers & Posters

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B. Website of the event C. Search Engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask, etc.) D. Platforms and forums E. Other, namely..... 10. How do you purchase tickets for festivals? A. Ticket vendor websites B. Advertising and C2C sites (eBay, Craigslist etc.) C. Ticket offices D. Event's official website E. Other, namely.... 11. Would you consider using an application which serves as an informative platform for festivals? A. Yes B. No C. Depends on features 12. Which features do you consider most important in such an app? (Multiple answer possibility) - Personal Calendar - Festival Information - Line Ups - Artist Information - Ticket Service - Music Player Option - Offline usability

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Plan of Approach

1-3-2015

Afaf El Hendouz 0860779 Aron van Stijn 0860301 Jacky Agyemang 0863554 Soufiane Kasri 0869015 Turan Babayigit 0863408

41

Table of Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 42

Chapter 1: Project and Background ...................................................................................................... 43

Background ........................................................................................................................................ 43

Festival Companion ........................................................................................................................... 43

Objectives .......................................................................................................................................... 43

Assignment and Associated Activities ............................................................................................... 44

Requirements for the Assignments ................................................................................................... 44

Possible Resources ............................................................................................................................ 44

Chapter 2: Research Plan ...................................................................................................................... 45

Problem Statement ........................................................................................................................... 45

Sub-questions & Methodology .......................................................................................................... 45

Chapter 3: Project Members and Organization Staff ........................................................................... 47

Chapter 4: Planning ............................................................................................................................... 47

Chapter 5: Costs and Benefits ............................................................................................................... 48

Chapter 6: Risks ..................................................................................................................................... 49

Appendices ............................................................................................................................................ 50

Appendix 1: Rules and Agreements ...................................................................................................... 50

Other Internal & Practical Agreements: ............................................................................................ 50

Appendix 2: Agreement......................................................................................................................... 51

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Introduction

As part of the third year specialization in Central and Eastern Europe of the International Business and Languages program, Festival Companion and the Rotterdam Business School agreed on a collaboration. We, five students of the Rotterdam Business School have been given the assignment to carry out an extensive research for Festival Companion. Together with the assignment, we have been assigned a particular Eastern European country, which in our case will be Croatia. Our research will consist of both desk- and field research. In our final report, we will describe all our findings and the various processes of our research. To conclude, we will provide Festival Companion with an implemental recommendation on whether they should expand their services to Croatia or not. In the following plan of approach we will create an image of how we are planning to carry out our research in order to give Festival Companion the best recommendation possible. We will also describe basic information like the formation of our group and planning. Throughout our project group, it is our mutual goal to find the right solution for our problem statement.

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Chapter 1: Project and Background

Background Our project group consists of five International business and Languages students who by order of the Rotterdam Business School and Festival Companion, are going to look in to possibilities for Festival Companion to expand their services to Croatia. As a result of qualified field and desk research we would like to come up with an appropriate recommendation. Festival Companion Festival Companion is a Dutch firm that will soon launch an application for festival visitors. Users of

this application will have the ability to discover new festivals and artists. Users will have access to an

overview with all the festival data in one platform and, they will even be able to create their own

personalized timetables.

Festival Companion is a startup company with limited resources. Since the expected launch date of the

app is May 2015, and the festival season is about to kick off, Festival Companion consulted us to look

in to possibilities for expanding their operations to Croatia.

The application also has advanced search options that enable users to only find festivals or information

that meets their interests. For every festival, the user can find a line-up. A big advantage in comparison

to other similar apps, is the fact that the application also works offline so users can visit the application

in the absence of internet or poor connection.

One of Festival Companion’s many great features in the application is that users can buy their tickets

via the application directly. By buying their ticket through this application, users can eliminate

problems and costs of printing tickets. To enter the festival users can easily scan their ticket at the cash

register.

The application is not just meant for festival visitors. It is also a great opportunity for festival and event

organizers. Organizers could develop a custom-made page in the application for their own festivals

that will provide information about their festival but still maintain their theme and feel.

Objectives We will offer Festival Companion a specific and comprehensive recommendation. We will examine

whether it is favourable for Festival Companion to introduce the Croatian market to their app.

Furthermore, we will look for the entry strategy that will be the most efficient and which marketing

activities will be most effective. By expanding, the company will obtain more brand awareness

internationally and that will enlarge their customer base. Expectedly, Festival Companion’s sales as

well as their turnover shall increase as a result of their expansion.

Based on the above mentioned, we have set the following SMART goal, namely: By June, 17, we will

finish our research by presenting our research results and final recommendations, which will be

useable in Festival Companion’s operational practices. This will give them an impression of whether it

will be attractive for them to launch their app in the Croatian market or not.

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Assignment and Associated Activities Below you will find a specific description of our assignment and associated activities given to us by the Rotterdam Business School. “Be able to analyze the international marketing environment with the CEE region and based on the analysis advice on how to entry the market, which must be deployed in an operational marketing plan. “ Our problem statement is:”How can Festival Companion enter the Croatian market and successfully position?” Based on the answer of this question we can give our final recommendation which is applicable for the company. To get reliable results and a fine solution for the problem statement, it is important to proceed structurally. To do so, the assignment has been divided in several deliverables. The deliverables are:

1. Plan of Approach

2. Analysis

a) Internal

b) External

i. Macro (country level)

ii. Meso (market environment)

3. Field research report

4. Strategic advice (market entry strategy) & operational deployment (detailed plan on next steps

for the company to implement the entry strategy)

5. Presentation

6. Final report

The outcomes and results of the field research that is still to be conducted by our team, will be used for the creation/design of our market entry strategy and operational deployment plan. Requirements for the Assignments The plan will be conducted to advice our client Festival Companion on their possible expansion to Croatia. It is our responsibility to give our client a strategic advice on whether to enter the Croatian market or not, and how to position their product in a tactical manner. Only relevant information with a link to the problem statement will be mentioned in the plan. In order to realize in depth information about the Croatian market we have to contact local authorities and experts for our research. Festival Companion expects a clear distinction between the types of clients that are foreseen to use their festival app; particularly the number of (festival) organizations versus the festival visitors in Croatian. The Rotterdam Business School requires our desk research to consist of a minimal of two sources in a foreign language for our external analysis. Possible Resources For this plan we will use secondary data (desk research) to assist us in our research. The various databanks on Hint have useful information on European countries and markets that we will process in the plan. Valid Internet sources are also very important for our desk research. For our field research we will use social media and possibly e-mail to get response from the Croatian authorities and experts for our analysis. Actual Festival Organizers, we choose to contact via telephone. Information about Festival Companion will be provided by themselves. During this project we will communicate with Festival Companion through Ms. De Vos, in case of any uncertainties or questions.

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Chapter 2: Research Plan

Problem Statement By writing a brief and concise problem statement we want to come up with a recommendation for Festival Companion as soon as possible. The problem statement should give us a correct image of all the important issues and aspects that matter for this project. Through the project it should keep the project members focussed. The results of our project are supposed to serve as an answer or solution to the problem statement. Our problem statement is as following: “How can Festival Companion enter the Croatian market and successfully position their application within 6 months after the launch date?” Sub-questions & Methodology Our problem statement, which serves as theme to this research, has to be answered in order to give Festival Companion a proper recommendation about expansion to Croatia,. However, to carry out the research more specifically, we divided our main research questions into sub-questions. Each of those sub-questions carry a different aspect of the main research question. The answers to the sub-questions will together form and support the answer to our problem statement: “How can Festival Companion enter the Croatian market and successfully position their application within 6 months after the launch date?” In the following paragraph you will find our sub-questions to our main research question, together with an explanation of why we think these sub-questions are important per sub-question. Furthermore, there is an explanation on how the information per sub-question is acquired following which rules.

1. Is festival companion capable of expanding their services to Croatia, under the given

situation with regards to organizational matters and resources?

We find it of utmost importance to analyze Festival Companion’s internal organization. Besides financial resources, an expansion is going to require a fair amount of time and also the necessary human resources. Through analyzing the internal organizational, we aim to map out whether Festival Companion needs internal changes or improvements to do such an expansion. Information for this sub-questions will be gathered through our contact person which is our tutor and the contact person of Festival Companion. Since Festival Companion is a relatively new company and it concerns such internal and specific information, we think it is best to acquire all the necessary information straight through our contact persons. We will not make assumptions nor will we thicken the information provided, which in turn will affect the reliability of our research for the better. The answers to the questions 2-6 are for the biggest part to be found in secondary sources, which makes it a matter of desk research. However, when using secondary sources which are mainly accessed through the web, it is important to use sources that are valid. Therefore, we have to keep in mind and regularly control whether we find the information we are actually looking for. Furthermore, while analyzing the information and sources we find, it is of crucial importance to stick to facts and figures to in the end provide Festival Companion with a reliable advice. An example of two very useful and reliable sources for external desk research on the web are The CIA Factbook, and The Data Worldbank. Even though most of the sub-questions 2-6 can be solved through desk research, we would like to carry particular aspects in our field research too. For example, we could use the opinion of Croatian authorities as well as that of the respondents on economic stability and satisfaction in Croatia.

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2. To which extents is the demographic target group that festival companion is aiming for,

represented in the Croatian population?

The answer to this question will create an image of the Croatian demographics. An overview of the Croatian demographics will help our group figure out whether the age group festival companion is aiming for, is represented in the Croatian population. Furthermore, it will enable us to map current developments in the Croatian population such as urbanization and ageing.

3. How could the economic situation in Croatia affect festival companion’s business and

success?

We consider this sub-question to be one of the most important, since it carries some vital aspects such as: purchasing power, economic stability, (un)employment, and possible domestic and/or regional crises. These are all aspects that could affect festivals for the worse, which equals Festival Companion being negatively affected.

4. Is the use of mobile phones and cellular network in Croatia as developed as necessary?

Since Festival Companion’s main service is provided through a mobile app, it goes without saying that this is a vital aspect. For Festival Companion to successfully expand to Croatia, it is even almost a requirement.

5. Are there any competitors in the current Croatian application market, and who are they?

Since competition has the power to change a company’s entire strategy, this may be the most important sub-question. To give Festival Companion a successful recommendation we aim to analyze the Croatian application market to find the biggest competitors. We want to figure out whether Festival Companion has any (dis)advantages in comparison to those big competitors and carry this in our recommendation and operational plan.

6. Which festivals are currently organized in Croatia?

This particular sub-questions will give an overview of possible partners for future cooperation. Furthermore, it will tell something about the drawing power of Croatia and its festivals in general. Questions 7 is where our primary research will be most necessary and useful. To get answers on this particular question, we will de both quantitative and qualitative research. Our quantitative research will be as following: We want to find out what the demand would be among the Croatian target group for an application like Festival Companion. For that we have to take a proper sample out of the potential group of users and ask them whether they would use the application or not. We could include the outcomes of our quantitative research in our final recommendation. The qualitative research will mostly consist of semi-structured interviews which will be held among potential partners. By asking them about their opinions, demands, and possible interests, we want to find out whether Croatian partners would be interested.

7. What are the demands for the application and complimentary services among Festival

Companion’s target groups and future partners?

This is not only demand from customers but also demand from future partners. We want to figure out whether potential users would actually start using the app when positioned well. Furthermore, it is

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important to find out whether potential Croatian partners would be interested in cooperation, such as advertising through the application.

8. Is there an actual demand and market for the product that festival companion will be

offering?

This question will give insight in the attractiveness of Croatia and the market in Croatia Festival Companion is aiming for. First of all the results of the internal and external analysis play a major role in this question, since we have to take these into consideration for a valid recommendation. Besides the internal- and external analysis, the outcomes of the field research will be of great importance. Since we can base a recommendation about this particular sub questions based on what the sample for our questionnaire will indicate. Obviously, the respondents, so our sample, will be a sample that fits the profile or Festival Companion’s target group.

9. Since Festival Companion solely consists of an application, are there any privacy and data

collection regulations other than ones present in the Netherlands, which should be

considered by Festival Companion?

Despite the Netherlands and Croatia are both port of one and the same union, namely the European Union, in today’s digital world every country has different rules and regulations about privacy and data collection. Since Festival Companion operates in the digital market in the form of an application, and since their monetizing strategy partially consists of data collection, this seems to be a very relevant question for Festival Companion. By answering this question, we can recommend Festival Companion about whether they have to change something about their application so legal issues can be prevented in the future.

Chapter 3: Project Members and Organization

Staff During the first week we have created a project group and the members are:

Name Role Phone Number

Mail Home Address

Turan Babayigit Project Leader 06 36476918 0863408@hr.nl Leendert Langstraathof 14

Jacklynn Agyemang Timekeeper 06 30980079 0863554@hr.nl J Reintjesstraat 78

Afaf El Hendouz Planner 06 23967381 0860779@hr.nl Camphuysenlaan 38

Soufiane Kasri Planner 06 54763101 0869015@hr.nl Gimbergpad 15

Aron van Stijn Planner 06 53465303 0860301@hr.nl Banjaard 2

During the first week every member of the group has agreed with rules that have been set up together and acknowledged every possible consequence of deficient behavior or lacking performances.

Chapter 4: Planning

A detailed planning of our project related activities can be found in the MS Projects file which is attached to the email. We chose to display our planning in a different MS projects file to maintain its clearness and detailed overview.

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In our planning you will see that the field research is scheduled for after the expected finishing date of the external analysis. We understand that this can come over rather confusing. However, we have deliberately chosen to conduct the field research after the external analysis, so when necessary, additions could be made.

Chapter 5: Costs and Benefits

To every project there are costs and benefits. In the graphic below you will find an overview of costs and benefits both for Festival Companion and for our project group.

Costs for Festival Companion

Costs for Project Group: -Printing costs € 26,- -Binding costs € 10,- - Total: € 36, -

Benefits for Festival Companion - Well-reasoned advice on expansion in Croatia.

Benefits for Project Group: - Relevant Experience - Gain knowledge about Croatia - Ability to formulate and argue an effective recommendation for a business or organization. - Gain knowledge of market research

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Chapter 6: Risks

Even though we do our bests to organize and carry out our tasks as well as possible, there are many risks that could form a threat for our general progress and cooperation. When not managed well enough, these risks could lead to failure or even to unsuccessful results. By mapping out the following risks or influencing factors, we will have an advantage in anticipating risks early on in the process.

Possible Risks:

Inaccurate planning could become a serious risk. In case particular deliverables or tasks are planned inaccurately, or we run behind on our planning, this could mess up the whole planning. Therefore it is of great importance to keep up with our original planning and to work ahead to reduce this particular risk.

Planning too optimistically could lead to underestimation of the amount of time a particular task or deliverable is actually going to consume. This also means vital decisions have to be considered and made timely. Calculating time wisely could easily prevent this risk from happening.

Efficient communications between members is vital. In case of inefficient communication, tasks and separate parts which have been carried out by different members, could get disintegrated. By reading through our own and each other’s work we want to guarantee a well-integrated end result.

Errors and mistakes are also events we have to take into consideration during the project. The corrections and improvements. We agreed to make sure that we hand in our individual parts in time so that we have time to correct them in case of any errors or imperfections.

Illness or personal circumstances that could lead to deficient behavior or lacking performances are also a big risk. This would stir up the whole planning and the workload for every other member would become more and heavier. Even though this would require an adjusted planning and harder work, we are convinced this particular risk should not lead to very big problems.

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Appendices

Appendix 1: Rules and Agreements To ensure a successful cooperation between the team and its members there are a set of rules and regulations that every member of the group is expected to obey. Through these rules and regulations we want to create a nice working environment in which people but also deadlines are treated according to accepted standards. General Rules and Regulations:

1. Every participant of this professional project group threats his or her fellow project-members in a professional and respectful manner. Discrimination, harassment, or other inappropriate behavior will not be tolerated. He or she will be subject to organizational consequences.

2. Internal communication goes via direct conversations either via Email, phone conversations or private messages. The WhatsApp group will not be used for important matters and/or vital decisions that immediately affect the project.

3. Unless there are personal and special circumstances, it is mandatory for every group member to be present at project related meetings and events at all times.

4. Project members are expected to hand in all deliverables or individual tasks or assignments before the mutually agreed deadlines.

5. Leave of absence for meetings, or extra time for assignments and tasks is only granted upon discussion with group members and the project leaders.

Other Internal & Practical Agreements:

1. Every member is expected to help out and support their fellow team members in case one is expecting to lack time, unless they have reasonable excuses. However, the person who is lacking time is expected to communicate this with their team members timely.

2. All individual work and assignments are expected to be sent to the person who is assigned to do a grammar and layout check, at least 24 hours prior to the actual deadline.

3. There are agreements concerning font and layout that all work should be adapted too, those agreements are as following: - Font: Calibri - Font Size: 11 - Heads and footers: cursive

4. As professionals, we attach importance to preventing plagiarism. Therefore, each member is expected to act responsibly while using and providing sources for their desk research or works. Any member lacking sufficient and/or valid sources, will be subject to an official warning.

5. Every group member is expected to obey and adapt to each one of the agreements mentioned above.

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Appendix 2: Agreement

Through this Plan of Approach you agree to have understood the assignment and associated activities that are to be carried out by this project group, to realize the goals that have been set. If so, please sign the agreement below. Date: Date: ……………………………….. ……………………………. Print & Signature: Tutor Print & Signature: Project leader ………………………………… ………………………………… Notes: …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….