Expanding a Business into Services

This Competency Assessment assesses the following outcome:

MT450M6-6: Apply Marketing Mix principles to business or consumer services.

Environmentalgear is an office and home products company available online, through a catalog mailed out every 6 months, and advertising via business magazines. “We make life healthier” is their motto.

Founded 2 years ago by a scientist, a product engineer, and a retail marketing expert, they started out with office products and have moved on to home devices since this startup is such a success.

Their newest home product is a sleep-enhancing bed, which involves a soft, but supportive bed with a detachable eye mask and neck collar that are both recyclable. The neck collar is preset to be the right temperature to induce sleep. The bed provides a choice of soft mantras or meditative sounds on very low volume for the best amount of time per scientific sleep research. The consumer can set the sleep time and soft volume choice of sounds that begin to gradually wake them up. The temperature of the bed adjusts automatically throughout the night to be the right temperature. It comes in navy blue, black, grey, pale green, and white, as do all their products.

Current home products:

  • Indoor doghouses that have environmentally friendly bedding and autofill water and dry food bowls with adjustable dispenser settings.
  • Window shades that auto-adjust to your time schedule and the light and provide insulation.
  • Kitchen mats that are supportive, sustainable, and natural, while providing cushioning for joints.
  • Outside house lighting fixtures that are solar powered and adjust to the light outside. They also store extra light, which is then transmitted to inside light fixtures that provide general ceiling or wall lighting.

Current business products:

Office lighting fixtures that adjust to the light outside, the time of day, and work or shift schedule to reduce blue light as you head towards sleep time and provide optional lighting for winter climates.

Screens for all types of monitors that protect your eyes from blue light, especially needed for those at computers all day.

Office furniture (i.e., desks, bookshelves, ergonomic chairs that auto-adjust to the occupant’s needs and body weight and/or height and provide support, depending on the product).
Desks that can adjust to any height at the push of a button or remote control.

The company now wants to expand into services:

  1. Consumer service: They want to add an at-home service whereby a home ambience consultant will visit you at home to help you adjust their home products and make other recommendations for improving the home environment.
  2. Business service: They also want to add office consultants who can improve the office ambiance so it is more conducive to the company’s goals, comfort, and productivity.
  • Choose business service or consumer service from above.
  • Provide a synopsis of your research on the Internet regarding any competition.
  • Explain why they might want to add services to their business.
  • Using the marketing mix, provide the 4 P’s of this new consulting service for home or office, developing the particulars that make sense based on the scenario and the real world.
  • Describe how they might want to launch these services and associate them with their branding.
  • Respond in a minimum 600-word paper with additional title and reference pages in APA format and citation style.

Minimum Submission Requirement

  • Respond to all the checklist items in a thorough manner.
  • Submit your response using correct English grammar and spelling.