Goal

Goal: The Martha Cook Building seeks to raise 10 Million dollars by 2015 (it’s one-hundredth anniversary) and 21 Million dollars by 2025.

Core Competence

Martha Cook’s core competence is a skill and relationship building. Something about the ties that residents form with their friends, small close knit community, involved alums, shared experience, women choose to live there, bonds from, people form strong emotional ties, breeds heart loyalty.

Martha Cook’s Core Competence has served it well through its first 100 years of existence. However, the physical building is aging and thus the organization’s financial needs are increasing.

Martha Cook’s “core business” is developing networks of women who interact socially and professionally throughout their lives. The “customer” benefits from college housing, alumni networks, and lifelong friends. The organization benefits from alums who desire to “give back” or ensure the experience for generations to come. Martha Cook’s board of governors is currently exploring ways to expand the “product portfolio” – as Martha Cook enters its second century on campus should it be more than just dorm? How can the building better prepare women to enter an increasing diverse, competitive, and dynamic world? How can we leverage our networks to benefit each other? These questions will not be answered in this Marketing Plan but it will likely need revision

Fundemental Entity

Fundamental Entity: The Martha Cook Building. Martha Cook is an umbrella brand that covers three primary services:
1. Housing and resident life for undergraduate women at the University of Michigan
2. Alumnae associations providing opportunities for socialization, networking, and staying connected with college friends.
3. Fundraising efforts for scholarships and the preservation and renovation of the building.
Although there are distinct sub-groups within the Martha Cook Organization – Residents, a Resident House Board, an overall Alumnae Association, Alumnae Association Chapters, and a Board of Governors, most “Cookies” don’t really differentiate anyone of those things from “Martha Cook” overall. Therefore, in the eyes of its constituents, Martha Cook is and always will be an umbrella brand. As such, care must be taken to keep each “product” that is offered consistent with the values that constituents associate with Martha Cook.
The Martha Cook “brand” brainstorm
• Tradition
• Friendship
• Home
• Leadership
• Women helping Women
• Building a network

Blog Oops and here comes a content dump

Well friends...As we've reviewed blogs in class and I've reviewed other blogs, I've come to realize my initial interpretation of the blogging assignment was a bit different than others. On the first night of class the professor described blogging about problems and issues and I've tried to do some of that. However, what most people seem to be doing is writing their paper's on their blogs. So, I'll join the fray. Here comes the DUMP of the draft I've been writing word as the class has progressed.

Porter's Five Forces and Social Marketing

Background for this post:
A discussion in class last week reminded me of the importance of analyzing industry structure and the competitive environment when setting strategy. I find Porter's 5 Forces a great way to start to get my arms around an industry. However, I was disappointed in Hasting's treatment of Porter's Five forces:

• He boiled them down to four (leaving out Industry Rivalry perhaps because the concept is unsavory when we are trying to do "good"?)
• Didn't offer much insight in to how to apply them in a Social context.
• His citation isn't to the original article by Porter but to an adaptation.

Business School students in the class will be very familiar with Porter from core strategy and any other strategy classes we've taken. But for non-B-Schoolers, I would recommend reading the original Porter article. I can't find a post-able hyperlink but you can find the article by:

1. Navigating to the Kresge Library A-Z Database listing page (http://www.bus.umich.edu/KresgeLibrary/Collections/A-ZListing/)
2. Select "Business Source Complete"
3. Use the database's search tools to search for "The Five Competitive Forces that Shape Industry" by Michael Porter.

Takeaways from applying Porter's 5 Forces:

Initially I struggled a little bit to apply Porter's 5 forces to my project -- trying to get the players mapped to the right forces. I think I was getting caught up in the donor / beneficiary problem we discussed in class.

Industry definition: The first step in an industry analysis is definition. Getting the players right relies on the right industry definition. My project has a fundraising objective. When we are fundraising we are in a market for Philanthropic Giving. When the organization is performing its other function -- student housing -- it is in a different market. The roles of the various players are different in each scenario and thus result in different 5 forces analyses.

1. Suppliers: This is where I first realized I was getting mixed-up. I tried to analyze donors as suppliers -- suppliers of funds. This would be right if I was looking at the beneficiary-side. WRONG when I'm looking at fundraising. The relevant suppliers are people and entities that supply inputs to fundraising: development professionals, donor information databases, volunteers who give their time (in support of fundraising), print shops who produce solicitation materials, mail houses engaged for direct mail campaigns, etc. The bargaining power of suppliers is a medium -- each of these services exists in essentially competitive markets absent monopoly or oligopoly pricing. Most consumers of the services are not significantly large to set prices either.

2. Customers: This is where my donors fit! (If I had an objective around service beneficiaries, they would go here.) The bargaining power of customers in the market for philanthropic giving is high: although they are not concentrated, they face an almost infinite number of substitutes. The "product" they are offered is intangible and thus tricky to differentiate.

3. Threat of New Entrants: When viewed with a traditional "Porter's" lens the threat of new entrants is relatively high. There are low barriers to entry and low capital requirements. However, incumbent players do have the advantage of established donor lists and track records for responsible use of funds. (For beneficiary objective, I'd be looking at the probability of new entrants providing the same service.)

4. Threat of Substitutes: The threat of substitutes is very high. Potential donors face an almost infinite number of alternate ways to spend their money -- other causes, goods and services for themselves, saving, creating a trust or other financial mechanism to pass wealth to their heirs. (For a beneficiary objective, I'd be looking at other ways the beneficiaries could meet their housing needs: other dorms, campus apartments, living at home, etc.)

5. Industry Rivalry: Competition for donor funds is high but not necessarily acknowledged as competitive. The risk of retaliation and head-to-head competition is relatively low.

In Search of Core Competence

Step 1: Address the Business Objective Box on the Big Picture



Fundemental Entity: The Martha Cook Building. Check.

Goal: Raise $X million for preservation, renovation, and an endowment. Check.

Core Competence: Hmmm...well it's....uh....hmm...not it's.....uh....hmmmm

And so the internal monologue went as I tried to work out MCB's core competence. Certainly the organization has many competences: providing housing, meal service, an academic environment, etc. But what is the CORE competence -- that thing we do better than anyone else. I pondered, I made lists, I scratched my head, I walked away from the computer, I took a walk, I did all the things I do to get the ideas flowing. Finally, I gave in...I consulted the Big Picture textbook. As my grandfather likes to say "when all else fails, read the instructions."

Although I was searching for Core Competence, I found my answer in the Fundemental Entity section as I re-read the topics on branding strategy. Specifically, the paragraph on heart loyalty unlocked my mental freeze. The section prompted me to re-cast my lens: instead of trying to name a core competence, I thought about how the residents and alumnae of Martha Cook -- the customers -- think about the building -- the product. We think of it not as a building or a place to live but as an integral part of our college experience. In fact, we often refer to it as our "home" or "college home." It's where we spent some of our best times at Michigan and made some for ou best friends. Unlike other residence halls as Michigan, Martha Cook has a very active alumnae group -- imagine that: a dorm that is special enough that people want to stay connected to it AFTER graduation. Heck, people don't even want to return to some of the dorms for second semester but Martha Cook Alums have Almnae Organizations and events; raise money for the buliding; flock to campus for reunions when the building celebrates major milestones. As I thought about the "heart loyalty" the MCB engenders, I realized the core competence is not in providing shelter and food but rather in some secret sauce that engenders lasting ties between people. Now the challenge is to distill that in to words!


So how can this help others? Although I'm sure you enjoyed my walk down memory lane, you're probably thinking: "what is this post going to do for me?" I think the take away is to approach each problem in the Big Picture from several points of view: The Marketer's POV, The CEO's POV; the Shareholder's POV; and yes indeed -- the Customer's!

Proect Background

Disclaimer: The views represented on this blog are mine alone and do not represent official statements by the Martha Cook Building, the Martha Cook Building Board of Governors, or the University of Michigan. This blog is being written as part of a class -- Marketing 614 -- and is an educational exercise. The content is therefore a work in progress rather than fully edited representation of fact or idea.

Project Background:
The Martha Cook Building is a women's residence at the University of Michigan. The building, a gift to the University from William Cook, opened its doors in 1915 and has been in continuous operation as residence hall for nearly 100 years.

Financial Management
Cook's deed of gift stipulated that the "occupants shall have sole and exclusive charge of its income, expenses, and management (subject to the approval of a woman or board of women apppointed by the Regents.)" In other words, the building's residents and board of governors have responsibility for the management and finances of the building -- it is not run by University Housing.

The Building's Needs
Although the residents of MCB have been great stewards of the building, over the past 100 years, time has caught up with us and the building is in need of updates to its infrastructure and furnishings.