Introduction
In this report I will be comparing two businesses/organisations that I have analysed in task 1: McDonalds and Calderdale College. McDonalds is a business that is part of the private sector that is there to make a profit, whereas Calderdale College is part of the public sector where they mainly provide service and think less or even at all of profit. I will compare the growth strategy, survival strategy, branding and the relationship marketing between the two organisations.

Growth Strategy:
McDonalds and Calderdale college both have a different approach to growth strategy, due to them being in complete opposite sectors, with McDonalds being a private organisation and the college being part of the public sector, they differentiate in many ways also considering the fact that there purpose are not a like as they are specialists in different occupations.
McDonalds needs to grow like every other business out there today, no matter how big your organisation is, there always has to be a growth strategy in the plan of the business. So in order for the McDonalds organisation to grow and compete with other similar businesses who are on the same path as McDonalds, such as: KFC, Costa, Starbucks, and Burger King, they have to do what every other competing organisation is doing in order to grow and consume more customers like going into festive season, as that’s what McDonalds has done in order to grow.
McDonalds has participated in the festive season, one of the ways they have done this is by changing the appearance of their coffee cups and adding the Christmas flair to them with different images (snowflakes, reindeers, Snowmen and Christmas trees). So how is that a part of the growth strategy? This is a great factor of the growth strategy of McDonalds as we all know that Christmas is just around the corner and everyone is in the Christmas spirit so using the appearance of the cups and every other product and putting them out there with the Christmas look to them they will make more sales.
Product development is what McDonalds aimed at doing by changing the appearance of the cups. In order to compete with other organisations, they cannot risk not developing their products like other businesses have done. This will eventually decrease the sales of the products, and the company will make a loss.
However Calderdale College is completely different to the product or service that McDonalds provide to their customers. Calderdale College mostly sells service to the public as they are part of the public sector that is not out there to make a profit whereas McDonalds is totally opposite.
Calderdale College provides service such as the health and social care that has a success rate of 83.7% (white British) success rate as well as 93.7% success rate for Pakistani learners. This service is totally different to what McDonalds sell. In order for the College to grow they need as much customers as possible that are willing to take their part in the college study programme. The Pakistani learners have a 93.7% success rate, this is good for the college as they can present to the public with these success rates and luring them to the college course as they may think they have a better chance in becoming something in their career by attending Calderdale College.
By selling service instead of products they tend to differentiate in many ways than have many similarities. One similarity could be is that they both trying to sell something, in this case it would be products and service and they want as much customers possible and to compete with competitors.

Survival Strategy:
McDonald’s survival strategy basically gives them a chance of survival in the market. Every Business/organisation needs a strategy so they can keep their business alive and running. To survive they can do many things, like: they could reduce the advertising so they can save that money and put it to better use in a different sector of the business. McDonalds are using the survival strategy by going into the festive season with their hot drinks they sell for cheap prices. In order to survive they can’t risk not going festive, if other fast food places like KFC, which are rivals to McDonalds are doing festive products then McDonalds will loses the upper hand on their customers loyalty to the business.
To survive they need to do what every other business is doing in time for the festive moment of Christmas. The strategy to survive by welcoming the festive season to the McDonalds organisation they can increase their sales and survive in the open market. If they don’t do what other organisations that have a similar approach like McDonalds are doing they will fail in the public eye and this will lose loyal customers.
Calderdale College survives as they make the health and social care course available to every different nationality in the UK. Pakistanis are 18.7% of the course and have a higher success rate compared to white British who have 83.7% success rate. With a higher success rate of Pakistani learners this has a positive impact on the Pakistani learners who want to study at Calderdale college, this also gives a boost to the white British learners who can receive help from the Pakistani learners. This gives a great chance of survival as the facts and statistics support that there health and social care course success rate is brilliant.
With the success rate of the Pakistani learners being high, college can encourage more learners to come and study at Calderdale College with the outstanding success rate being presented to them.

Branding:
Branding is used by every organisation, mostly to publicise the company, McDonalds branding technique involves first of all introducing there brand logo to the public, by doing this they will be able to get through to their target audience, and accomplish customer awareness.
McDonald’s has come up with the name “McCafe” for their hot drinks, the name McCafe relates to the businesses name with the two letters before it which are “M” and “c”. The brand is specifically put on the cups so that the customers will remember the coffee by its name as well as recommend it to other resulting in McDonalds getting more customers.
Calderdale college branding is used to attract as much students as possible. They achieved this by advertising the college on the backs of buses, by doing this they will succeed in getting their logos printed in the brains of the public, so when they see the logo they will instantly know which college it is and what is it is aiming to get across to the public.
The colours used on the college logo is blue, orange, red and green, these colours are very vibrant and standout in public so it gives the college a better chance of catching the eye
Relationship Marketing:
McDonald’s use their cheap prices to keep a good and smooth relationship with their customers. They price their coffee cheap compared to other cafes like Costa and Starbucks, the cheap prices will lure customers to the McCafe special that McDonalds sell to their customers. McDonalds probably make the same quality hot drink like Costa does and McDonalds sell it for cheaper, this will keep the competition going between the businesses on price and it will eventually reduce customer amounts that go to other cafes and McDonalds will consume more sales and make better profit, for other businesses they will need to tweak their prices even if they don’t want to, In order to regain their customers.
Calderdale College, as we already know, are a public sector organisation out there to provide service to the public. The college try to keep up with the demand of the public in order to keep up with other colleges. The college is ranked in the top 15 in the UK and to remain there they will need to match the satisfactions and needs of the public.
They will always need to introduce or develop courses, as this will allow the college more of an advantage over competitors, if other colleges introduce a new course to the college and a lot of people have an interest in the course, with the research conducted, the public will decide the other college over Calderdale college as due to the course being more useful and meeting the public’s demand.

McDonalds
McDonald’s use of techniques is brilliant, from growth to relationship marketing; they are professionals at what they are doing. They developed their exciting products in order to get more sales and loyal customers.
McDonald’s growth technique is very effective, they pretty much developed on their exciting product which is the McCafe hot drinks, they decided to develop it into a festive look/appearance to attract more customers and sell more products as possible. This is a good way of growing the business and getting to the people’s attention,
The main reason of the techniques being really effective is that McDonalds is including themselves in the festive look and contributing in the festive season, if they took the risk to not get involved in the festive appearance they could may as well lost a lot of customers. Not only the appearance matters, the price of the Christmas specials is very cheap compared to other cafe’s like Costa, who are known for their costly yet tasty hot drinks. Costa may as well charge their customers a lot of money but McDonalds is opposite, they want to get through to as many people as possible to persuade them to come to McDonalds instead of the other organisations as they do the same quality taste but less costly which will benefit the customers as well as the business. The fact is that the public need to see the benefit of themselves and then they consider the others benefits, so seeing that McDonalds has gone with the Christmas look, with tasty hot drinks like Costa and very cheap, they will definitely consider going to McDonalds instead of the other businesses out there who are specialists in the cafe industry.
So McDonalds didn’t only think about themselves they also included the public in their plan, people will want to go to McDonalds for their new look and cost of their products and the McDonalds business will make money by selling them products to the customers who may have transferred over to McDonalds from another businesses they went to, to get some hot drinks. The public will see the benefit in going to McDonalds and the business will get the outcome they wanted, so everyone will be happy including the public.
The facts/statistics given below show that McDonalds is now the number 1 coffee selling business compared to other giant high street businesses like Costa and Starbuck:
“Relatively low prices when compared with other chains such as Starbucks or Costa Coffee. A small cappuccino from the fast food chain costs £1.39, compared with £1.99 at Pret a Manger or £2.10 at Starbucks”
Harry Wallop, McDonald’s now biggest seller of coffee in UK, [Online] Available: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8016918/McDonalds-now-biggest-seller-of-coffee-in-UK.html last accessed: 09/12/14.