Overview Of Product Segments : Traditional Market

We evaluated our company’s position in the industry, and found ourselves in an excellent starting position to further develop our products and match them to the industry’s needs. Our market share is adequate and we can advance further with our strategy improve and reposition our products in the coming years. We have underutilized capacity, which we intend to improve, while increasing automation to reduce costs. We have plans to improve our promotion to improve product awareness and with the appropriate product lines we will increase price to improve margins and better align our high-end product image. Our current financial position is optimistic, showing our leverage (Assets/Equity) at 2.0, when our goal is to maintain 1.5-2.0 overall. By utilizing the analysis tools we are learning what elements are driving demand, how to effectively tailor our products through R&D, how best to adjust our marketing and pricing, while lowering input costs, in order to improve margins and to ensure our stakeholders are all satisfied.

The Gap Inc. is a global specialty retailer that operates stores selling casual apparel and accessories for men, women, and children (Yahoo Market Guide, 2001). Under the Gap, are the Old Navy and Banana Republic brands (Yahoo Market Guide, 2001).

My strategy seemed to work well for the first two years but then it became evident that I was losing market share in the NiMH business. I decided to cut down R&D in that division too early and that caused me to miss my sales targets. As I lost market share in my core business, the volume effect from my decision to lower NiMH prices did not compensate enough to allow that division to remain profitable. Suddenly, I had a very tight R&D budget to work with (as it was based on sales projections) and limited cash could be allocated to the improvement of the ultracapacitors business. I also reacted too late to the shift in customers’ demand for Power Packs products from Power Tools products, which caused late and lower-than-needed investments in other products’ features such as self-discharge (high priority for both NiMH and ultracapacitors).

The business problem with the company had a company focus on customers with large investment, they manages money for pensions, governments, and other entities worldwide. They also manage money for wealthy individuals and engage in private equity investments. This business plan keeps them focus on few profitable customers but bring them a negative result of low brand reorganization. This business strategy works for a long time and bring them abundant profit, but it face challenge now since competition constantly increasing and profit margin is under pressure.

Hence, it is hard for me to recover in that situation. I only reached the cumulative profit of -10.48M for the first time I played. Reasons contributed to the results are many. Firstly, I did not have clear position at first and did not stick to my long term plan; I managed to innovate in both the NiMH and also the UC technology. External environment changes also affect the sales and profit significantly. For example, the Lithium-ion battery producers made the price deduction influenced the price I offer to my customers. The other difficulty I faced is that customers preference changes are hard to predict. For instance, the customers’ increase of importance of recharge time has led to my investment in desired energy density not generating deserved customer preference. Even worse, the constant price reduction request made my company profit shrink. The challenge is that it is almost impossible for me to innovate in the two area to try to maximum my sales for all the customers. Clayton Christensen’s disruptive innovation theory also explains my failure experience, that is: every company that has tried to manage mainstream and disruptive business within a single organisation failed. The next time I play, I will nurture the disruptive UC technology in an separate entity and try sticking to a long term plan. I should manage the two technologies separately. Another important lessen learnt was that once decide a plan or a strategy, keep sticking to the strategy

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New Product Development : the aggressive investment strategy into R&D division led to speed in releasing new products in the market. This gave the company higher ROI returns projections. The faster cycle of innovation led to multiple product availability in the market which led to further increasing the gap between them and the competitions and also the company indulged in manufacturing self brand products rather than Co-branded or Partnerships.

After analyzing the results from the previous quarter, it was determined that the prices set for each segment were not sufficient. Product sales priority were also not properly adjusted. With the R&D investments, sales priorities needed to be changed for the main focus to become the most profitable market segments. Prices were not competitive which in turned decreased revenue, market share, and profitability. To become more competitive we altered the prices in each market segment. The Workhorse product was the first to change, the price was lowered to $2500 in an attempt to increase sales; at this price Team 4 was still making a profit on this product, as well as making the price much more competitive. The Workhorse sales priority was also lowered to 3rd in Americas and 4th in APAC and EMEA. This product was not selling as well as we had hoped, and was no longer as profitable as it once was which led to this decision. Next, the Innovator product’s price was adjusted; this involved a price increase to $4100. This price was adjusted to include the new

(B) We used a combination of three market segmentation variables using two different approaches. We chose these variables because we feel that they are the best choices for differentiating between market segments. The first thing we did was use the Geographic approach to limit our scope. Using the Regional variable to divide Canada into provinces, we decided to limit our market to that of Newfoundland and Labrador; as a new start-up, it makes sense to begin small with a familiar market with the potential for growth. Then, using Market Density, we determined that since almost 40% of Newfoundland and Labrador’s population lives in St. John’s (196,965 out of 514,540), we would limit our market to that of the Avalon Peninsula, with potential for

The quest for beauty is an endless endeavour at all times. Despite the old saying cautioning us that beauty is only skin deep, billions of dollars is spent on skin care products every year for men and women, young and old alike. In this multi-million-dollar industry, every company tries hard to maximize their profit. One of the most common methods they apply is market segmentation.

(4) Absent any resource constraints, which of the four departmental directions do you think is the most viable? Which is the second best strategy? Which is the least viable? In my humble opinion the most viable option would be to follow Eric Stanger’s advice to go ‘back to basics’. In order to underwrite the new line of LR trademark and experiment with more new products, they had in effect been milking the OM lines. Their price increase on several of our more critical items had outpaced those of their key competitors, in order to always deliver more bottom line profits. They had shaved their A&P budgets for the same purpose and this was resulting in slippage in value and trust among our consumer franchise thus the declining sales and share. They thus needed to cut on

Market segmentation is usually regarded as one of the main elements of marketing, with benefit segmentation commonly referred to as the most meaningful form of segmentation. Even though the importance of segmentation is broadly accepted, limited research, do exist about cosmetic medical products (Mohr, Sengupta, & Slater 2010, 79). There are very few real examples of segmentation studies available. This article has focused on Johnson and Johnson products marketing strategy globally. The spread of global culture is normally facilitated by the rise of global capitalism, the proliferation of transitional corporations, homogenization of global consumption, and widespread aspiration for material possessions. International market researchers have discussed the breadth of convergence of cultural values across countries.

a. What process elements do you believe are critical to ensure your organization understands the target market and its needs today and remains knowledgeable and informed about trends as your business grows and technology and market forces change the market? Are there specific tools (e.g. CRM, big data tools) that should be part of your firm’s toolkit? If so, explain what value they bring, how they fit into your process, and way they are worth the investment of time, money, and mind share during the critical startup phase.

With this come different strategies to achieve growth such as through market penetration, product development, market development and diversification. When these all are broken down in details, it becomes a clearer picture. So when it comes to market penetration it is the objective of reaching higher number of sales and having a larger share with products already existing. Out of the four strategies this is the least risky one. However, there is still some low risk because prices which are low are being used to penetrate markets and it could lead to potentially damaging price wars that reduces the profit margins of all firms in the industry. When it comes to market development, it means to sell the products already existing in a market, but to sell them in a new market, this includes exporting goods to overseas markets or selling to a new market segment. When it is about Product development it is the progress made in current existing products and then sold or even new products being sold in existing markets. For example, the launch of red bull standard, they took a product which had already been in the market before, changed it a little bit and modified it and converted into a different version and sold it in the same market where red bull standard was sold. Product development is about creating something new or modifying product into its better self to attract consumers. Moving to Diversification- it means selling unrelated goods or new products, in new markets The

The products that had given the company success, were forgotten. For that reason, the new strategy was based to revive those ‘core products’ and bring with them back the values that their founders set at the beginning (Breen 2013). (See Appendix 2)