Marketing Decisions and Business Strategy Essay Example

with suitable quality, competitive prices, and an intensive distribution strategy. To defend against competitors, Cost Leaders compare their value chain costs to those of the competition. On the other hand, Customer Centrics provide high-quality products with outstanding customer service at prices lower than Pioneers but higher than Fast Followers or Cost Leaders.

Customer Centrics focus on specific customer segments to establish strong customer relationships and offer top-notch products. Understanding customers is a key priority for them. What qualities define a thriving Pioneer? A thriving Cost Leader? A thriving Pioneer is characterized by their customer and innovation-focused approach, patience, and a decentralized marketing organization with a large number of marketing specialists. Pioneers target innovations and early adopters, driving their proactive efforts in product development. This necessitates devoting substantial resources to marketing research. Moreover, a successful pioneer allocates resources for customer education and stimulating demand through advertising.

The Cost Leader has a contrasting strategy to the Pioneer. Cost Leaders prioritize internal-cost orientation over product innovation and have a decentralized marketing organization. To achieve success, Cost Leaders should concentrate on process innovation for enhancing production efficiency, rather than solely focusing on product innovation.

Fast Followers must defend their market from competitors by benchmarking their value chain costs against those of competitors. They should also minimize the biggest risk they face, which is the timeliness of their product entry into the market place. Although life is easy for the fast followers because they can simply follow in the footsteps of pioneering entrepreneurs who have established a dominant design or product platform, the timing of their entry is crucial. However, fast followers can overcome this risk by leveraging a proactive market strategy and

taking advantage of the learning and education that has already occurred in the market. Their focus should be on improving the product and speeding up the time it takes to go from concept to factory floor to the market place, as speed to market is at the core of their business model.

I agree that Starbucks demonstrates the ultimate customer-centric business strategy. Customer-centric strategies aim to enhance customer satisfaction, loyalty, retention, and ultimately, the bottom line. Offering a differentiated customer experience is crucial for attracting and retaining customers, and customers are willing to pay a premium for it. Starbucks has achieved sales growth by providing quick service, comfortable seating, music, wireless internet, and other unique elements that enhance the customer experience. Additionally, Starbucks values its front-line employees by paying them well and empowering them to make customer relations decisions independently without seeking approval from higher-level managers.

All these actions are aiming to go beyond their customers' expectations, making Starbucks the ultimate customer-centric company. How could you challenge Starbucks? Starbucks has structured their business to sell a common product in a distinctive manner. To compete with Starbucks, one would need to carry out market research and examine the needs of customers, especially those that are currently not being fulfilled by Starbucks.

Once the target market segment is identified through market research, the competition must find a way to appeal to those customers. A Starbucks competitor should focus on essential aspects that customers will remember, such as clean facilities, friendly employees, and consistent business transactions. This will help build customer loyalty. Should a company have different fundamental business strategies for each strategic business unit (SBU)? Yes, a company should have

different fundamental business strategies for each SBU. Management should select strategies that align with the company's mission and take advantage of its unique strengths to gain a competitive edge. It is important to establish a methodology to allocate resources among the various SBUs of a business.

Various portfolio models, such as the Boston Consulting Group Portfolio Model and the General Electric Portfolio Model, can be employed to categorize an organization's SBUs. This assessment helps in estimating the future cash contributions and resource needs of each SBU, thus enabling the organization to formulate suitable business strategies for each.