Duck scarf price

MKW 3444
International Marketing

Group Assignment:
International Market Entry Plan
of
dUCK Group
Group Members:
Lamees Ariefdien - 27179168

Eirwan Merican - 29346460

Mahle Yolisa Sijovu - 28077504

Shannon Zo Ee Wong- 27918858

Jan Yeremia - 28017765

Tutor:

Mr Dinesh Sundaselom

Tutorial time and day:

Thursday 14:00

Table of Contents
Executive Summary 2 1.Introduction 3 2. Company Appraisal 4 3. Potential Country Market for First Time Entry 4.Environmental Assessment of the Foreign Market 4.1 Swot Analysis 6 4.2 Pestle analysis 7 4.3 Competitive Forces Analysis 10 5. Market entry strategy 11 6. Marketing Strategic Plan 12 6.1 Product 13 6.2 Distribution 14 7. Future Challenges and Contingency Plans 15 7.1 Technological Challenge 15 7.2 Economic Challenge (Shannon) 16 8. Conclusion 16 Reference List 17

Lists of Tables
Table 1: SWOT analysis

Table 2 : Market Entry Strategies Risks & Returns

Executive Summary
Current Word Count = 4214

1.Introduction Comment by Mahle Sijovu:
324

dUCK Group was founded in May 2014 in Malaysia by Vivy Yusof and is mostly based as a successful online fashion company(The dUCK Group, 2017). The company was successful enough online that it opened four physical stores in Malaysia mostly in the KL region and opened one store in Singapore("dUCk | FashionValet", 2019; "The Duck Cosmetics Store – dUCk", 2019). Through its online platform dUCK was able to reach most Southeast Asian countries as well as MENA Regions additionally as providing global shipping to multiple countries(FashionValet, 2019). dUCK’s main product line is their scarves collections which can range from basic designs to extremely colourful and exotic designs, additionally, their product line also includes cosmetics, stationeries, home & living products and lastly handbags(The dUCK Group, 2017). The company positioned itself as an affordable luxury lifestyle brand for the modern city girl who is classy, playful and fashionable(Abdul Aziz, 2016). However, as the success of the company grew the company repositioned itself to appeal as a high-end luxury fashion accessory(Adreena, 2017). Therefore the main customer market that dUCK would want to attract would mostly relate to career women who would purchase their scarves or other products as an investment to their wardrobe as well as view their purchase as rewarding(The dUCK Group, 2017). Due to The dUCK Company’s success, there is potential for the company to expand its market beyond online sales by opening a physical store in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Thus, the essay will firstly discuss an appraisal of the company’s competitive advantages and challenges for intended expansion into the UAE. This is then followed by discussing the potential market entry strategies available to the company when expanding. Thirdly the essay will provide an assessment of the foreign market and will then address the market strategic plan that they would use and lastly the essay will address a number of future challenges the company might face since entering the UAE market.

2. Company Appraisal 428
One of the key strengths of dUCK as a company operating in a business-to-consumer product market is its success especially with its luxury scarf product line (Adreena, 2018). dUCK scarves is not only one of the leading brands for premium Muslim headscarves in Malaysia but has attracted a global following among Muslim women in other countries through the e-commerce platform site in which the brand is exclusively sold in known as FashionValet (The dUCK Group, 2017). For example,sixty percent of dUCk scarves market share comes from within Malaysia and the remainder from buyers abroad in Singapore, Brunei and the United Kingdom that is with more than a million scarves sold worldwide in total since its inception four years ago (Ihsan, 2019). The company has also seen revenue growing by more than hundred percent each year and has attracted significant capital funding with the latest being an undisclosed amount of funding from Khazanah nasional Berhad which is the Malaysian arm for investment (Salikha, 2018). In addition, despite negative growth in retail in recent years, the company has also seen double digit growth annually which makes it one of the fastest growing Malaysian companies (Ihsan, 2019). Thus, with its domestic success, growing global following and new sources for capital funding, the brand is looking at expansion into other Muslim markets such as the UAE which Basaruddin (2018) asserts is a move to protect itself against growing competition from rising domestic brands for headscarves and to take advantage of the growing global demand for Muslimah fashion to increase its revenue streams which the Global Islamic Economic Report 2017-2018 predicts that by 2020, the industry for Muslimah fashion would be worth US $373 billion (Badarudin, 2018).That being said however, possible challenges that the brand could face in expanding into the UAE is the lack of an understanding of how to manage offices in different regions and a tendency to move too quickly without the right connections to establish in a foreign market which ultimately, led to the failure of the brand’s expansion into Jakarta in 2015 (Salikha, 2018). However, this failure can also be a useful learning experience as the brand moves forward in its long-term strategic plan to expand into the Middle East with carefully planned mitigation strategies which will be explained in the sections below and as shown by their recent successful expansion into Singapore ("Singapore Got dUCk-ed - Lifestyle Muslim Magazine", 2018), its past failure in managing its international marketing activities can serve to be a reminder of a threat and an opportunity to grow if managed carefully.