Visa Inc - Marketing Audit Approach for Digital Global Payments Technology

Visa, Inc. Marketing Audit Approach for Digital Global Payments Technology

Marketing Management

Visa, Inc. Marketing Audit Approach for Digital Global Payments Technology

Introduction

Visa, Inc. (Visa) is one of the leading global payments technology companies that operates as the middle-man in connecting consumers, banks, businesses, and the government in the use of digital currency transactions. Compared to its competitors (MasterCard, Discover, and American Express), Visa is able to manage more than 10,000 transactions per second with high-level security and convenience to all of its customers. Visa has offices around the world and employs approximately 5,500 people with three data centers in different continents. In this day and age, most people utilize credit cards and debit cards for purchases and bank transactions. Checks are out-dated and are not accepted by most merchants. Around the world, transactions in every form are becoming paperless. What people do not realize is that Visa does not issue credit/debit cards nor extends credit to customers, Visa simply provides away for its customers, as stated above, to offer digital payments at the time of the transaction.

The ability of a business to sustain a profitable existence in any industry can be an extreme challenge. Learning how to survive in the industry as a business for longevity relies on the decision-makers in the business in which, various techniques are considered in order to maintain a marketable competitive edge within the market. When deciding the future plans for a business, decision-makers would need to review the internal and external conditions that have an effect on management of the business as well as its operations. External conditions are important to evaluate due to the fact that it's an integral part in determining the businesses strengths and weaknesses in the market. "Perhaps one of the most important principles for business success is strong momentum in the sales department. This requires an emphasis on marketing that permeates the entire organization" (Kerin, Hartley, & Rudelius, 2009). It is imperative for the management team of the business to review the strategies of the marketing plan to decipher whether improvements need to be made to the plan or how the business can grow and maintain market dominance through the strengths of the plan which would be identified through a marketing audit.

The Marketing Audit Approach

The marketing audit will be conducted by an independent auditor who will analyze and assess the business's marketing strategies, environment, and activities in the market and identify weaknesses and strengths of the business's operations relevant to the marketing plan. The results of the audit would be for the auditor to recommend courses of action to improve the marketing plan of the business as well as the marketing performance in comparison to the business's competitors (Motiwala, 2010). The purpose of the marketing audit approach is to present an active plan that will serve as a guide in the process of understanding the following areas: brand personality, trends of the market, culture of the business, behavior of the target audience, and the business's competitors. The plan will also include various analysis to be performed such as strengths/weakness/opportunities/threats (SWOT), a time budget, and challenges that may arise in completing the audit.

Objectives

Visa promotes its products and services to be choice, convenience, and control for its customers. With choice, Visa designed payment opportunities to meet diverse lifestyles and needs. The convenience is by offering payment options virtually anywhere. The control is over spending in ways that could not be done through cash and check transactions. Globally, 64 billion total transactions, $4.6 trillion total volume, and $2.9 trillion payments volume. The pricing strategy that Visa uses is that it charges a set fee that merchants must pay the cardholders bank. The higher the fees helps the bank have a higher profit in which the merchant directs the cost to the consumers. MasterCard similar to Visa is in competition to win over banks that issue the credit lines and credit/debit cards.

Markets

The approach would be to research