Quarter # 2 Simulation Marketing Strategies

The decisions or strategies one company chooses will likely motivate other competitors to respond. Using the game theory allows a company to assess and understand more about itself and its competitors so that it can adjust and shape the competition to maximize its win probability (Johnson, 2014). Some examples of how A&D companies apply the game theory in their decision making are:

There is a growing threat from generic competition due to their global operations that can achieve lower-cost of supplies. Also the threat

For the past couple of weeks, I engaged in a marketing simulation. This Simulation was extremely fun while challenging as it taught me the right way to advertise and market a new brand, specifically a computer, that you are putting out to the world. The targeted markets were Chicago, Sao Paulo, Paris, and Shanghai. There were three different segments that were related to PC’s and laptops. Those three were Mercedes, Workhorse, and Traveler. Below, I am going to mention what specific decisions I made in each of the six quarters as well as why I made each decision.

To achieve these objectives with a limited budget, MM’s marketing strategy had to centre on value provision. Building on MM’s original strengths, we saw the opportunity to delight customers with superior power-to-size ratio. We identified Segments A and C as our primary and secondary target segments, as their needs fell within the optimal zone where our product positioning could provide a difference. With the need to reverse declining market share and boost customer satisfaction, aggressive investment in MM’s R&D was necessary to build a strong and positive brand name for our power-efficient motors and manage internal costs. This allowed us to price our motors to create value for customers while extracting value for our business. Enhanced increased in our sales representatives and marketing communications were identified as critical in communicating MM motors’ value to customers, and formed the key differentiators in managing MM’s dual sales force and distributor channels.

In the next section the book presents two types of theories: game theory and behavioral theory. Game theory was created over 2,500 years ago by the Chinese military (Ho & Weigelt, 1997). It has only entered the business environment recently but still uses the same concepts and is a tool for doing strategic analysis. Game theory is essentially a way to make decisions. How will it affect your company? How will it affect your competitor? It takes into account cause and effect, considering all possibilities and what resources will be needed. The second theory offered is behavioral theory. This theory investigates why it is that managers often make irrational decisions that may negatively affect the future of the organization. Often, managers make decisions based on their own biases and not necessarily rational like the game theory.

When dealing with several segments, a product can target one segment to specifically to exactly what

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

A number of competitive strategies have been stated by studies, such as the classification system created by Chrisman et al (1988). However, the generic strategies identified by Porter (1985) remain the most popular theory over the years (Allen et al, 2007).

Another one of Porter’s five forces is the threat of new substitutes, which is the main problem in the generics market. A new firm must be cognisant of the fact that every company in the industry will be able to produce the same

In addition, companies speculate strategies in order to respond to the main competitive forces in any industry by different organizational strategies.

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

Game theory cannot always predict reliable outcomes for real-life situations as it is more an

Who are the companies or brands with which the organization or brand competes? What are their sales and market share trends? How do their approaches to the market differ from the organizations, and from each other? Are there any specific weaknesses in any competitors that can be turned into opportunities? Are there any specific strength that are major threats? What adjustments have been made? Succeeded or not? What other changes are being contemplated? Why?

considered relative to those of close competitors and with one eye to the likely reaction of rival

From these analysations, there will be the opportunities where the company can use as the advantage compared to other competitors.