Terms and Concepts in Reading #1

• Why do strategic management?• Market research tools

– Segmenting– Targeting– Positioning

• Competitive research– Importance of benchmarking

• From single product marketing to niche marketing to particle marketing

• Criticality of life cycle marketing• Justification of capital construction funds• Single provider—implications for strategic management

More terms and concepts

• Trends in communication– Preference for bundled packages– “new media households’—high income

consumers in early phases

• Jumping the S-curve

• First to market acceptance versus first to market

• Need for qualitative and quantitative data

PEST

• Political-economic-sociological-technical variables

• “a telecommunications-based provider should never just consider its immediate environment but also those of its suppliers, customers, and analogous areas . . . The main strategic issues identified by telecommunications companies in general are: competition, deregulation, falling costs and prices, downsizing, adding value, globalization, market focus, strategic alliances, and what to do about the Internet.”

--F. Mi

S-Curve

Units sold

time

Product diffusion curve

Innovators

Early adopters

Early majority

Late majority

Laggards

2.5% 13.5%34% 34% 16%

Emergent economic developments

• Aggregation: how firms expand and retain their customer base

• Complementation: synergy of two or more firms cooperating to develop new products or markets

• Consolidation: mergers or acquisitions of competitors• Disintermediation: loss of traditional distribution markets

—lack access to customer base because of new firms that directly link producers with consumers

• Tertiary analysis: study of externalities aimed at forecasting development of new markets precipitated by advance of technology

• Convergence: traditional sector of communication is either invaded by or invades an unrelated sector as result of tech innovation

Dynamics of consumer demand

• Shift from producer to consumer control• Production cost reductions• Mass customization• Product life cycle contraction• Value of time and convenience• Sensitivity to discounting• Consumer service and post-purchase

satisfaction• Quality• Value-added design