Overview
TOPIC 1:You will note in the Writing Assignment due this week that you will be finding a product that can benefit from a strategic marketing plan for growth in one of three ways:
- Marketing penetration (find more customers like your current customers, generally with current products)
- Market development (find different customers, generally with current products)
- Product development (make new products for current or new customers)
** There is a fourth way to grow identified by Ansoff, diversification, but this means finding ways to grow that are not totally related to the organization's current products and markets, but rather take advantage of its core competencies and find related industries to explore.
Following is a primer on the model, which you have probably seen in other courses. After you refresh your memory, give us an example of a product/market match that you believe has been the result of one of these strategies. For example, Coke Zero is a product development strategy to further penetrate the male market for diet cola products (increase the product range) as identified in the lower right-hand side of the model.
TOPIC 2: Relevant Criteria for Competitive Analysis
You are being asked this week to fill out a chart and identify the relevant criteria for comparing the competition.
What are relevant criteria for determining competitive positions?
There are many possible criteria and they won't always be the same for every product category. Just mention one and why it is a relevant criteria and perhaps some ideas of how to find it, how easy or difficult it is to find, etc.
Please limit your response to only one so other students have an opportunity to post something original.
To get the ball rolling, here is the most obvious criteria: total revenue.
Comparing competitors' total revenue can demonstrate who is the
market leader and who isn't. But, total revenue should not be the only
indicator and can be a little misleading by itself without some other
indicators.