Expansion in the Mozambican market

: TECAP’s case : the Farmers Home

Abstract

The economic recession and the armed conflicts are holding back the investment and consumption in the Mozambican economy. In that context, we explored how strategies of marketing planning can ensure an efficient expansion of a primary sector firm in Mozambique – The Farmers Home. The present study was developed in the Mozambican business reality, in the TECAP’s Group, particularly in Farmer’s Home subsidiary. The main goal was the restructuration of processes and procedures in an inefficient old company, with a good reputation, but which needs to integrate the new brand and expand geographically throughout the country, risking to lose the commitment with NGO’s investors which nowadays fullysupports the project. This case study of explanatory character was supported by a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative methods used were the research and analysis of historical data of sales as the inquiries made to final consumers and store customers. We used several qualitative data as observation, interviews made to the main customers, big producers and agro dealers, team meetings, company documents of USAID’s project and governmental documents analyses. Afterwards, the results were interpreted and strategies were defined to a marketing plan for the expansion project. Initially, an internal and external analysis of the company was carried out, and later, strategies were developed to mitigate the risk and increase the probability of creating a sustainable project. The geographical expansion project from 1 to 20 stores in 3 rural provinces in 5 years, to avoid the market’s saturation and to accomplish USAID’s goals of financial results, needed to be allied to a widening of the range of products and a rebranding. The main conclusionof this case study was the need to invest essentially in the attraction of customers, in customer loyalty and in the increase of the wallet-share of the current customers. This should be accomplished through a larger and specialised offer to in the agro-pecuary sector, the improvement of the relationship marketing strategy and rebranding.

Date of Award	24 Jul 2017
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Joana Machado (Supervisor)