Huffman Trucking Gap Analysis

Gap Analysis: Huffman Trucking
A native of Cleveland, Ohio, H. Huffman founded Huffman Trucking in 1936 with a single tractor-trailer (Scenario, 2009). Its mission, to be a profitable, growing, adaptive company in an intensively competitive logistical services business environment, was the direct result of World War II and the increased demand for carrier services between factories in the Midwest to ports on the East Coast. With diminishing growth over the past years, the company needs to improve growth and achieve the number one position within the trucking industry. Phil Huffman, CEO, appreciates the hard work of his organization in maintaining this stable trend, but at the same time he is frustrated that the firm has been unable to pull ahead of its competition (Scenario, 2009). To ensure effectiveness within the organization, Huffman Trucking must build a strong internal marketing culture supported by solid relationships between marketing and other departments within the company. A proper evaluation must also be done to determine the organization’s current marketing strategy and in addition determine the sustainability of the proposed strategy and the overall benefit to the organization.

Situation Analysis
Issue and Opportunity Identification
Huffman Trucking has experienced steady growth over the years, usually at or just below that of their main competitors (Scenario, 2009). Huffman Trucking currently does not have a marketing program that will ensure what the organization anticipates, meets, and even exceeds the needs of the customers. Huffman Trucking can take this opportunity to develop a marketing program that will help to market its services to customers both new and old in order to improve customer satisfaction. Effective relationship marketing strategies help marketing managers discover what prospective customers needs. According to Kerin, Hartley, Berkowitz, & Rudelius (2006), a marketing program is a plan that integrates the marketing mix to...