Marketing Management

Case Analysis: Gillette Personal Care Division - Marketing Planning & Control

Indian Institute of Management
Kozhikode

Submitted By:
PGP/14/258 Alok Kumar PGP/14/279 Lokesh Singh
PGP/14/280 Mahtaab Kajla PGP/14/283 Naveen Vyas
PGP/14/303 Shruti Kabdal PGP/14/304 Sneha Ramteke
Submitted to: Prof. Rahul Kumar Sett



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Situation Analysis:
Each April the sales planning department and the brand managers organized a field sales and marketing manager meeting to
discuss potential changes in marketing plans for the next year.
The planning and control system was the followed to make the strategic marketing decisions.
Right guard was restaged using the planning and control system.
Right guard strategy did not work as the market conditions changed and the system was a bit rigid and could not adjust itself to
the changing market environment.
White rain was another product launched using the system. But this time the strategy worked.
The managers of Gillette were now in a dilemma weather to continue with the system as there were problems when the
market conditions changed.
Problem Identification:
The non-adherence of the management in following the systems and procedures as specified in Planning and Control
System.
Right Guards market share dropped instead of following proper planning and control procedures but White Rain, in
spite of skipping some steps was able to do well. Why?
Qualitative analysis
Pros and Cons of Structured Strategy
Pros
The system provides a powerful historical perspective in the fact books and plans that it generated.
The system fostered enough communication and information flow to keep the brand up to date.
The system required managers to step back and examine the relevant variables in their programs and interaction between
variables which protected them from making mistakes.
Cons
The system is very time consuming which is not very much desirable at times.
There was commitment issues, when compromised solutions were sought against strongly held opposition views, sometimes
resulted in lack of enthusiasm from all quarters.
The system leads to sub optimization of a lot of things.
Some of the brands may suffer due to unfair resource allocation to prioritized brands.
Right Guard vs. White Rain
Table A
Right Guard White Rain
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Money High Low
People Many Few
Time Heavy Heavy
Heroics Absent Present


Table B
Right Guard White Rain
Situation hold brand
Old fashioned
Low market share
Entry level,
Low priced product
Strategy Carried the Brand Image Pure risk and opportunism
Externals Aerosol burst (Market share
decreased 26% to 8.5%)
Was performing better than its
expectations
Expectations High Low
Effort High Increased advertising
expenditure ($13 million)
Low
Competition Advertising expenditure
increased by Mennen by 45%
Suave increase in
prices(unexpected)
Results 12.9 $ Market Contribution 3% Market Share.

Quantitative Analysis
The quantitative analysis of Right Guard is being shown in appendix A, actual values against forecasted values and the computations of
units sold is calculated.

Recommendation
The Planning and control system should be in action but steps should be taken and changes made to make it simpler and the
time lag due to complex procedures.
The time-to-time continuous system review of the system should be there to identify the right programs to allocate resources.
From the case analysis we understand that the Planning and Control system in place at Gillettes PCD had certain bottlenecks especially
the reaction time to changing market conditions. White Rain hair care product was successful as it gave a lot more freedom to the
implementation team to take decisions and react faster. This however does not take away the benefits of having a Planning and Control
System altogether. The system needs to be simplified to become more effective in responding to changing scenarios in the market.