Marketing research at an enterprise is carried out by marketing units in order to determine a possible increase in the marketing activity of the enterprise. To identify the strengths and weaknesses of the sales management of the enterprise, the SWOT-analysis method was applied. A matrix of SWOT analysis of company's sales activity was built, which forms squares in the form of a combination of the following factors: “Strengths-Opportunities” (SO), “Strengths-Threats” (ST), “Weaknesses-Possibilities” (WO), “WeaknessesThreats” (WT). The most significant intersections of the SWOT matrix factors of the analysis were analyzed, and it was proposed to use four types of strategies on their basis. To formalize cause-and-effect relations Ishikawa diagram was used.
The Threats of economic entity may include decrease in sales of goods (T1), decrease in the efficiency of an enterprise (T2), and decrease in the production of goods (T3).
The exposed basic factors are tabulated in Table 1.
It should be noted that possibilities from the point of SWOT-analysis are not all those that exist, but only ones, which can be used by an enterprise.
At the second stage, the matrix of sale activity SWOT-analysis of an enterprise is built (Table 2). The most essential intercrossings of factors which are marked 1 and 0 in case of absence of intercrossings are pointed out in the matrix (graph adjacency matrix). The received matrix allows to show graphically intercrossing factors and to cut off unimportant ones and to build a graph.
The built matrix forms the squares as a combination of the following factors: “Strengths-Opportunities” (S-O), “Strengths-Threats” (S-T), “WeaknessesOpportunities” (W-O), “Weaknesses-Threats” (W-T).
At the third stage, the most substantial intercrossings of factors are analysed.
Thus in the square “Strengths-Opportunities” (S-O) intercrossings of the following factors are important:
S1O1 – improvement of the competitive environment will allow to increase enterprise’s sale activity by improving the quality of advertising;
S1O2 – improvement of competitive environment will allow to promote sale activity of an enterprise by applying methods of digital marketing, namely expansion of the target market;
S2O2 – intercommodity substitution availability causes the necessity of applicating methods of digital marketing, that will result in the expansion of the target market and increase enterprise’s sale activity;
S2O3 – intercommodity substitution availability requires from the enterprise additional expenses connected with the expansion of the circle of regular purchasers, which in return is directed at increase of the enterprise’s sale activity;
S3O1 – market segmentation is considered as a process of finding optimum segments of market with the purpose of locating goods on the segments taking into account the quality of advertising, which is in its turn directed at the increase of the enterprise’s sale activity.
In the square “Strengths-Threats” (S-T) intercrossings of the following factors are important:
S1T1 – underestimation of the competitive environment within the framework of the enterprise can result in decline of commodity sale;
S3T1 – breaking up of potential users at the market into different groups without considering their interests results in decline of commodity sale.
In the square “Weaknesses-Opportunities” (W-O) intercrossings of the following factors are important:
W1O2 – increase of the commodity reliability allows to extend the target market by the application of the digital marketing methods;
W1O3 – increase of the commodity reliability allows to extend the circle of regular users.
In the square “Weaknesses-Threats” (W-T) intercrossings of the followings factors are important:
W1T1 – the commodity reliability decline reduces the enterprise sale activity; W1T2 – the commodity low reliability reduces the efficiency of the enterprise; W1T3 – the commodity low reliability results in decline of producing goods; W2T1 –the decline of the commodity quality may cause the decline of the commodity sale;
W3T1 – the increase of expenses on service (repair) may result in the commodity sale decline, which will reduce efficiency of the enterprise in return.
On the basis of the conducted analysis of SWOT-matrix squares it is possible to offer
the strategy of four types [
Highlighting basic interdependent is groups especially important for the development of marketing strategy. 2
To formalize cause-and-effect relations the Ishikawa charts is applied [
Competitive environment
Sale-advertising
quality
Xmin=0 Xmax=10 Advertising quality
Xmin=0 Xmax=10
Causes
Xmin=0 Xmax=10
Digital marketing
Xmin=0
Xmax=10
Xmin=0 Xmax=10 Commodity quality
Effects Sale activity
In this diagram sale activity of an enterprise, which influences the efficiency of work is divided by its character into 5 basic groups: competitive environment, market segmentation, advertising quality, digital marketing and quality of commodity. Each factor is presented by a proper fuzzy variable with the range of definition X and by term-set.
Input term-set corresponds to linguistic variables describing marketing characteristics, while sale activity of the enterprise is the output term-set. Each of the set can be presented as ( ) ]〉, where
= 〈 , ∈ [ , = 1, ; = 1, ; n – is the amount of term-sets, characterizing a certain variable.
The management sale activity of the enterprise is carried out on the basis of the expansion of the target market, related to the factors (by linguistic variables) of competitive environment (T1), market segmentation (T2), advertising quality (T3), digital marketing (T4), quality of commodity (T5) and sale activity (T6). 3
In this case, the problem of managing sale activity is related to the large ambiguity of
influence factors. Therefore enterprise sale resource planning is based on introducing
the system as a fuzzy cognitive map [
Unlike the traditional cognitive modeling the fuzzy cognitive maps (FCM) are fuzzy
oriented graphs [
The fuzzy cognitive map is a graph G=(T, W), where vertex set T={Ti}, and W={w(ui, vj)} is a set of connections between them. Each vertex is assigned to a concept, characterized by a term-set of linguistic variables, determined by the data tuple.
Establishing connections between input (T1, …, T5) and output (T6) vertex allows to build the fuzzy cognitive map of the enterprise management sale activity process as the oriented graph on the basis of adjacency matrix (Table 2), presented in Fig. 2.
However the model of FCM as oriented graph (Fig. 2) suggests that all influences of factors (vertices) on each other are on the interval [0; 1]. Therefore this model can be presented as a structural model of the enterprise management sale activity process.
A more accurate model can be developed by giving the oriented graph arcs numeric values (weight), that will allow to get a weighted oriented graph. The given weight of arcs can be interpreted as action force of factor, and the sign can be either positive (increase of influence) or negative (diminishing of influence).
The weights of arcs of a weighted oriented graph are determined on the basis of the experts’ conclusions on the general laws of the marketing management process (Table 3). where vj(t) – vertex weight j at time t, w(ui, vj) – arc weight of ui to vj at time t.
Since the pulse in j-th vertex: vj(t+1)–vj(t)=pj(t), then from the expression (1) the value of the pulse can be written in the following form: ( ) = ∑ , ( ).
In the digraph in Fig. 2 we study the dynamics of five simple impulse processes, each of which begins independently of the other at the vertex T1, T2, ..., T5 corresponding to the sales factor.
Then the matrix of weights of NKK will have the following form Table 4. (2) Thus, we have five vectors of initial impulses:
Vertex T6, indicating the level of marketing activities of the enterprise, is targeted at each stage of this process. The results of calculations of the dynamics of the pulse at the vertex T6 at different initial vertices of simple impulse processes are presented in Table 5.
Here pi(t) denotes the value of the pulse at the vertex T6 at the moment t of the action of a simple impulse process with the beginning at the i-th vertex.
Graph simulation of the dynamics of the pulse at the top T6 with the corresponding impulse effect is presented in Fig. 3.
Thus, as a result of modeling the sales activity of an enterprise with a pulse effect on a weighted oriented graph (Fig. 3) and modeling the dynamics of weight, it has been established (Fig. 4) that improving the quality of advertising work (vertex T3) and applying digital marketing (vertex T4) lead to higher levels of marketing activities of the enterprise.
Fig. 4. Modeling the assessment of the marketing activity of the enterprise (vertex T6) with a pulse effect on a weighted oriented graph.
The results of calculations of the dynamics of weight at the vertex T6 at different initial pulses are presented in Table 6 where vi(t) denotes the weight value of the vertex T6 at the moment t of the action of a simple impulse process with the beginning at the i-th vertex. Thus, the model of intercrossings of strong and weak sides was built on the basis of SWOT-analysis; it is suggested to use effective strategies for the corresponding intercrossings on the basis of the model. Recommendation for the use of strategies of four types for development of company marketing were developed. The Ishikawa charts reflecting cause-and-effect relation of sale activity of enterprise is built.
On the basis of the received data it is possible to build the model of fuzzy cognitive map, that can result in determining how the modification of factors will influence the sale under different initial conditions and it is possible to analyse interrelation of advertising quality, application of the digital marketing with the change of the enterprise sale activity level.