Marketing Management
By: Dr Mohamed Khaled
Assistant Professor, The Chartered Institute of Marketing - UK
Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport
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Organization Overview / Background→A4 2pages
• Organization name.
• Organization information – type of organization, size of organization, range
of products and services, customer base and main competitors.
Organization-product name- MS – revenues
To compete with (100 99 98 97……….2 1) market
To benchmark
• Stakeholders – internal and external.
• Key customer segment.
• Type:
• Multi/national
• For profit/ not for profit
• Legal status “soleproprietorship, company, limited liability”
• Size: 1- number of employees: 1-49 small, 50-249 medium, 250→L
• 2- trend analysis “growth rate”
• 2021---1m
• 2022—
• 2023---
Product portfolio
• Four dimensions:
1- Width: Number of different product lines within the company.
2- Length: total number of items in the product line.
3- Depth: Number of versions offered of each product in the line
“SKUs”Stock keeping units.
4- Consistency: closely related product line.
Unilever products
The product life cycle “PLC”
PLC
• Introduction stage
The product is launched into the market and generally sales are slow to pick up because
customers and distribution have to be found and convinced. If the product is new to the
world (e.g. the first iPad) it will face little or no competition and the company will have
a pioneer advantage and appeal to innovators. If it is an addition (e.g. the Samsung Edge
in the smartphone market) it will be targeted at a new segment and fit the ‘ideal’ of that
segment better than alternative solutions.
The key question here has to do with how quickly competitors will launch a variant. This is
normally the stage for build strategies
Investment costs are likely to be very high prior to launch.
• Growth stage
The growth stage is characterized by a rapid increase in sales as the product
starts to attract different types of customers and repeat purchases may
start. Critically, it is at this stage that competitors assess the product’s
market and profit potential and decide on their competitive moves. They
may decide to modify or improve their current offerings or enter the market
with their own new products (e.g. Microsoft Zunes as the ‘iPod killer’). If
not, they may use the other elements of the mix to detract attention from
the product, i.e. an advertising campaign or a price promotion. It is possible
that defensive attacks may be required to prevent the curve from flattening.
PLC
• Maturity stage
At this stage the rate of growth slows down significantly. This stage tends to
last longer than the previous ones and is, probably, the most challenging
one: it is a fact of life for most marketers that the markets they have to deal
with are mature! This is a stage of severe competition, market
fragmentation and declining profits, due to over-capacity in the industry.
Indeed, competitors will try to uncover untapped niches and/or enter price
wars. This leads to a clear-out and the weaker competitors will exit, possibly
becoming suppliers to the stronger ones or being bought by them (as we
are currently seeing in the car industry). The survivors will be either
companies supplying the bulk of the market, competing on a high volume–
low margin basis, or market nichers. Many firms will try to buck the trend
and revamp their PLCs or expand the market by creating a new segment,
and hence extra demand overall.
PLC
• Decline stage
This stage is marked by a slow or rapid decline of the sales of the product.
Decline may be due to better solutions (e.g. new technology such as the
USB flashdrive replacing floppy and zip disks) supplanting weaker ones, a
change in consumer tastes or an increase in competition, be it domestic or
international.
Customer Base
The Seven Markets Model “stakeholder analysis”
Cartel