MGMT 5091 Module 4 Marketing and Operations Plan Example

Selling to the Lakes Where Gasoline Is Not Allowed: The Marketing, Dealer and Operations Plan Lakemont's Electric Line Has to Fund

Student Name

American College of Education

MGMT5091: MBA Capstone Experience

Module 4 Assignment

Instructor Name

October 18, 2027

The Constraint This Plan Must Meet

Module 3 found that Lakemont's electric line is worth about $6.8 million over five years at a wholesale price of $76,000 but close to nothing at $70,000, while Module 2 found that most pontoon buyers have accepted a retail premium of about $25,000 over gasoline rather than the $38,000 the higher price implies. The marketing plan therefore has one job before any other: to find enough buyers who will pay close to $76,000 wholesale to reach the volumes in the assumptions register, 140, 300 and 470 boats in the first three years (A2, version 2). A marketing plan for this line is really a plan for which customers to ignore.

Target Customers and Positioning

Smith (1956) described market segmentation as adjusting a product and its marketing to the differing needs of distinct groups of buyers rather than trying to win the whole market with one appeal. The segment that fits this line is the owner on a lake where gasoline engines are prohibited or restricted to low horsepower. Module 2 counted 412 such lakes in the target territories (E1), 64 of them with more than 200 shoreline homes. For these buyers the alternative is not a cheaper gasoline pontoon but a small electric fishing boat or no boat, and dealer reports indicate they have accepted premiums well above the median (E6). A secondary segment is second-home owners on quiet lakes without restrictions who value silence and low maintenance; they will be served but not targeted, because their price tolerance is lower.

The line will be positioned as the full-size family pontoon for lakes where gasoline cannot go. It will not be marketed as a green alternative to Lakemont's gasoline boats. That choice protects price, since a buyer comparing the electric boat with a gasoline one sees a $38,000 gap, while a buyer on an electric-only lake sees the only full-size pontoon available, and it limits the loss of gasoline sales assumed in A10.

Product, Price and Dealers

The line will launch with one model, a 23-foot pontoon with one battery configuration giving about six hours of cruising at moderate speed, which covers a typical day on a small lake. A single configuration keeps engineering and dealer training simple. Every boat will include a portable dock charger, because many restricted lakes have shared docks, and a five-year limited warranty on the battery system. Wholesale price will be $76,000 (A3), with no dealer discounts in the first model year.

Dealer selection follows the target segment. The 30 dealers in the register (A5) were chosen for restricted-lake territories and service capacity; the plan adds four Florida dealers whose territories include lakes and canals with motor restrictions, bringing the program to 34. Each participating dealer must send two technicians to a 40-hour high-voltage service course run by Lakemont with the propulsion supplier, stock one demonstration boat and hold at least two demonstration days a season on a restricted lake. Lakemont will pay the floor-plan interest on each dealer's first demonstration boat for six months.

Promotion and Adoption

Rogers (2003) identified five characteristics of an innovation that shape how quickly it is adopted: its relative advantage, its compatibility with existing practice, its complexity, its trialability and its observability. The electric pontoon's relative advantage is large on restricted lakes, and it is compatible with how families already use pontoons. Its weakness is perceived complexity, above all doubt about range and charging, and the plan answers that with trialability. Demonstration days on restricted lakes let buyers run the boat for an afternoon and watch the charge indicator. Observability then does the rest: on a small lake, an electric pontoon is seen by every shoreline home.

Promotion will therefore be local rather than national. The plan budgets for lake association newsletters and events on the 64 larger restricted lakes, dealer demonstration days and short videos of real outings recorded by early owners with their permission. Lakemont will not buy national boating media for the line in its first two years.

Operations: A Dedicated Bay

Skinner (1974) argued that a plant focused on a narrow set of tasks, with its own equipment, workforce and controls, outperforms one that tries to serve conflicting demands at once. The electric line will be built in a dedicated bay within Lakemont's second assembly building, the investment covered by A6. Hulls, decks and furniture will come from the existing fabrication and upholstery shops, since those capabilities are shared, but battery installation, high-voltage wiring and testing will take place only in the bay, with its own trained staff, fire suppression, battery storage and an end-of-line test that runs every boat's system under load before it ships.

The bay is designed for 2.5 boats a day on a single shift, about 600 boats a year over 240 working days. That covers the register's volumes through year four. Staffing will begin with 22 assembly workers, two test technicians and a bay supervisor in year one, rising to 38 assembly workers by year three; direct labor is part of the variable cost in A4. The product manager, dealer training manager and supplier engineering support are the fixed costs covered by A7.

Supply

As Module 3 recommended, one supplier will provide the whole motor, battery and control system as a single package at about $27,000 a boat (A4), with a paid engineering-support agreement for the first two model years. A single supplier reduces integration risk but increases the supplier power that Module 2 identified. The plan manages that risk in two ways: the supply agreement will run three years with prices tied to published battery cell cost indexes, so that the decline assumed in A9 is shared rather than kept by the supplier, and Lakemont's engineers will qualify a second supplier's package on one boat in year two so that a switch becomes possible by year four.

Who Does What, and When

The plan assigns each part of the launch to a named role. The vice president of operations owns the bay, the supplier agreement and the end-of-line test; the sales director owns dealer selection, the demonstration program and lake association outreach; and a new product manager for the electric line, hired in the first quarter of 2028, owns the product specification and reports progress monthly to the owners. The dealer training manager, hired in the third quarter, builds and runs the high-voltage service course with the supplier's engineers.

The timeline works back from first shipments in July 2029. The owners approve the line by January 2028; the supply agreement is signed by March; the bay is built and equipped between April and September; the first prototype is tested on a restricted lake in October; and three pilot boats go to dealers for a winter of testing in the South. Dealer training runs from February to April 2029, and production begins in May. Any slip in the supply agreement moves every later date, which makes it the first milestone the owners should watch.

References

Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). Free Press.

Skinner, W. (1974). The focused factory. Harvard Business Review, 52(3), 113-121.

Smith, W. R. (1956). Product differentiation and market segmentation as alternative marketing strategies. Journal of Marketing, 21(1), 3-8. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224295602100102