Customers and direct marketing

Groupon is a deal-of-the-day website that features discounted gift certificates usable at local or national companies. Groupon was launched on November 2008, the first market for Groupon was Chicago, followed soon thereafter by Boston, New York City, and Toronto. As of October 2010, Groupon serves more than 150 markets in North America and 100 markets in Europe, Asia and South America and has amassed 35 million registered users.

In August 2010 Groupon was featured on the front over of Forbes Magazine and listed in TIME magazine as one of the Top 50 Websites of 2010, Groupon (www. groupon. co. uk) is not only the fastest growing internet company ever, but in only 17 months it is the first company in history to reach £1 billion in sales faster than any company in history. Nope, these aren’t tall tales and it’s not too good to be true.

Groupon is active in more than 45 countries and 450+ cities worldwide. With more than 64 million global subscribers and more than 1 million active users in our online communities (Facebook, Twitter) in the UK alone, Groupon maximizes the customer flow for small to medium sized businesses by providing them with affluent customers via direct marketing. Groupon is a very entrepreneurial type organisation and consists of 600 employees in the UK alone. The organisation is led by a CEO, 7 Directors and 14 Head of departments. The HR team is quite large and consists of a Head of HR, 15 Recruiters and 5 HR Administrators.

There is a very diverse culture within the organisation and it is very creative. There are employees from multicultural backgrounds and the office is has a very laid back approach. The main area of this report will be evaluating the Human Resource Planning within Groupon. Aim Evaluate HR Strategy used within Groupon Objectives Critically evaluate how to what extent HR Strategy us used within Groupon identify improvements that are required to improve this Context Groupon has core values which the organisation works towards.

These are set out below: We are here to help Working on the Internet for the chance to positively influence millions of lives. For customers, deals are an excuse to stop being internet potatoes and go explore their cities. For small business owners, one Groupon feature can give them exposure and an influx of customers that lifts their business to a new level. Making money is great, but only when it’s a side effect of helping people. Nothing is worth compromising that.

We cultivate trust Trust is a crucial part of their brand. Customers buy Groupons from businesses they’ve never heard of because they know we reliably deliver quality. That means when we talk about businesses to our customers, we speak in plain language – the way we’d like to be spoken to. We avoid hyperbole – every spa can’t be the best spa. If there are downsides of a deal – like fine print – we want you to hear them directly from us – no surprises.

This also means that we try to communicate the motivations behind our policies and decisions to our customers, merchants, and employees – we don’t do things that we’re not comfortable sharing. Creativity is at our core Some call it innovation, we call it creativity – both get to the same point. Our best product ideas are formed because our employees feel they have permission to think creatively – and know that if they come up with something cool, we’ll give it a try.

We make space for creativity because it is part of what makes us love Groupon – and we think it makes our customers love Groupon too. Tenaciously customer focused Nothing is more important to us than delivering an experience to our customers and merchants that feels too good to be true. We didn’t invent Groupon by thinking about how we could beat other local advertising companies or deal websites – we did it by listening to the needs of consumers and small business owners and inventing something that bridged that gap.

What is Strategy? (Johnson and Scholes, 1996) Strategy is concerned with the long –term direction and scope of an organisation. It is crucially concerned with how the organisation positions itself with regard to the environment and in particular to its competitors. (Child, 1972) also says that strategy is a set of fundamental or critical choices about the ends and means of a business. HR Strategy is important within an organisation as it helps the organisation concentrate on the long term direction and lets them concentrate on the things that they are able to do in order to meet the business objectives. It provides a competitive advantage for the organisation as formulated by Porter (1985).

Porter developed a framework of three generic strategies that organisations can use to gain a competitive advantage. These are: Innovation – being the unique provider Quality – delivering high-quality goods and services to customers Cost leadership – the planned results of policies aimed at ‘ managing away expense’ This links with the business strategy of Groupon as they are the unique provider of a daily deals products that enables then to provide quality products at a discounted rate to their customers. Their product is cost effective and enables them to achieve the results and be the leader in costs. Johnson, G., Scholes, K. and Whittington, R. (2005) Exploring Corporate Strategy, Seventh edition, London, Prentice Hall Porter, M E (1985) Competitive Advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance, The Free Press, New York