Abstract
Using primary and secondary data, this case study analyzes the issue KORFEZ must face during the COVID-19 pandemic and demonstrates how KORFEZ may deal with its lack of digital marketing-related initiatives and digital communication weaknesses throughout the pandemic. It highlights the need of making judgments while considering all promotional instruments in marketing, including digital ones, and provides a real-world example that can be addressed from both an academic and a practical standpoint. The teaching case's subject field is marketing, specifically marketing communication. The teaching case may be utilized at the undergraduate and MBA levels. Successful students will be able to improve their theoretical knowledge of strengths and weaknesses analysis, critique elements of the promotional mix in integrated marketing communication, critique a digital marketing strategy, and learn how to lead unusual situations such as a pandemic in terms of marketing-related issues after completing this case study.
TopIntroduction
KORFEZ is a B2B firm that was founded in Turkey in 1988 and has since provided business solutions for the cement and mining industries. KORFEZ’s major business is alloyed steel castings, with an emphasis on heat resistance, wear resistance, and impact resistance. The items are manufactured and supplied according to client designs and specifications, with extra processes including machining, surface treatment, and assembly. Figure 1 illustrates the KORFEZ milestones.
Figure 1. Source: Case authors KORFEZ relocated to the Organized Industrial Zone in 1996. The first shipment to Belgium was produced the same year that the first international strategic collaboration was created. In 1999, KORFEZ took part in its first trade show. KORFEZ has centrifugal casting management expertise in 2005. In 2010, as part of its worldwide strategy, KORFEZ created a France office and a sibling business, KORFEZ Centrifuge, to increase its footprint in Turkey. In 2011, the engineering office in Germany was formed, followed by the sales office in Italy in 2014, and the sales office in Russia in 2017. In 2019, robots were introduced into manufacturing, and the KORFEZ Machining plant was founded at the same time. KORFEZ is now operating in the Dilovasi facility, which has a total area of 40.000m2 and is covered by a 20.000m2 roof. They now export 95% of their goods to over 78 countries across five continents, and their archive has over 40.000 designs. They can create items with unit weights ranging from 0.5 to 8,000 kgs and have a monthly capacity of 800 tons. According to KORFEZ’s General Manager, the company’s competitive edge is having the best quality manufacturing owing to its know-how and innovative technology, as well as giving rapid and effective solutions to its clients via its extensive sales network.
The aim of this study is to emphasize the importance and necessity of digital marketing by highlighting a fundamental flaw in the marketing approach in the pandemic, which is an unusual occurrence for a company that has won awards for its local and global production and service understanding and can be described as successful in this regard. This firm is said to have overlooked the need of digital marketing owing to the nature of the industry in which it works, but when the pandemic struck, it had considerable difficulty interacting with customers. Secondary data regarding the firm was included in the research, as well as in-depth interviews performed inside the company. Cagdas Alan, the company’s general manager, was interviewed twice in detail at separate periods. First and foremost, an interview was made with Mr. Alan. The goal was to learn about the company’s characteristics and marketing strategşes. After the archive was studied, the second step was to conduct an interview in which each of materials used until the pandemic was appraised. The outcomes of the research indicate how strict adherence to established procedures might actually push events to occur at inopportune times. Despite the fact that numerous activities were carried out using the traditional techniques, digital was mostly disregarded, and the constant communication provided by digital could not be profited in this way. However, the pandemic has shown that maintaining engagement with the target audience is one of the most important aspects for a company.
TopBackground
The Foundry Industry in Turkey
Casting is one of the oldest and most well-established industries of Turkish industry, as well as the whole globe, and is regarded as a necessary component of the country’s economy (TUDOKSAD, 2020). In terms of casting production, Turkey has a growing potential. Since 2008, Turkey’s casting sector has exported more than 60 percent of its output. Since then, the rate has been steadily growing, and it is projected to continue. When looking at global casting production, Turkey has consistently ranked in the top 10 for many years. Turkey ranks tenth in the world and second in Europe in casting production, according to statistics from 2021 (TUDOKSAD, 2020). In this regard, it can be seen that KORFEZ, on the one hand, continues to operate in a market where local rivalry is fierce, and on the other hand, it has a geographical advantage in terms of maintaining its global presence.
Key Terms in this Chapter
B2B Firm: A firm that targets other companies rather than individual customers when it engages in marketing or sales operations.
Synopsis: A text that outlines the fundamental concepts that will be discussed in the case study as well as the primary focus of the investigation.
Strategy: All of the strategies and procedures that companies put into play in order to accomplish the goals they have established for themselves.
Direct Marketing: A kind of marketing in which the company does not go through any third parties in order to present the product or service that is being provided on the market, instead, the company engages in direct interaction with the customer.
Marketing Communication: The combined efforts of businesses to connect with members of their target customers via various forms of marketing tools and approaches.
Personal Selling: Sales activities are carried out by making direct contact with the intended customers via face-to-face interaction.
Advertising: Bringing a product or service to the attention of a large number of people using a variety of different forms of media in order to advertise, remind, sell that product/service or provide information about it.
Digital Marketing: The sort of marketing in which a company connects with its consumers and maintains engagement via the use of digital methods and techniques in order to provide its goods and services to the market, communicate with said customers, and so on.
Sales Promotion: Incentives used in the near term to capture the attention of the consumer in the hopes of persuading her to buy a product or service and, as a result, complete the transaction.
Public Relations: The coordinated series of activities that are carried out by the company in order to win the support of the public.