Describe why a market-oriented approach is advantageous

Marketing Assignment 1

Your company president has decided to restructure the firm and become more market-oriented. She is going to announce the changes at an upcoming meeting. Outline the points she should make to describe why a market-oriented approach is advantageous.

• Since the market-oriented approach is customer focused it will help increase market share, and improve customer-relations. Becoming a market-oriented business helps customers perceive more value from your company and its goods, which leads to customer retention and the formation of good, lasting relationships with customers.

Give an example of a company that might be successfully following a production orientation. Why might a firm in this industry be successful following a production orientation?

• One example that comes to my mind is the PlayStation brand. They are ahead of the game when it comes to innovation. They continue to produce more advanced products knowing that their current followers will continue to buy them. Even if they’re customers do not agree with their new innovations. I have heard that their newest machine the PlayStation 4 is no longer going to use disks for their games. It will all be stored on internal memory, which eliminates the market for other companies such as GameFly that provide rental of videogames. It also makes things less flexible, by not allowing players to exchange or borough games from friends.

Your cousin wants to start his own business, but he has decided not to write a marketing plan because he thinks that preparing such a document would take too long. He says he doesn't need a formal proposal because he has already received funding from your uncle. Explain why it is important for him to write a plan anyway.

• Writing a marketing plan would still be beneficial because it allows you to examine the marketing environment in conjunction with the goals of your business. It can also serve as a point of reference for future business activities. Marketing plans also help make you aware of any future problems or alternative possibilities.

Imagine that your boss has stated that the marketing objective of the company is to do the best job of satisfying the needs and wants of the customer. Does this meet the criteria for good objectives? Explain why or why not.

• This is very broad, and does not meet the criteria for a good objective. To improve this objective it should be revised to include a specific or a few specific goals, a way to make the goals measurable and include a specific time for when the goals should be met.

Name any product that you have purchased recently where you had different options to choose from. What specific strategies were used by that product/firm to achieve competitive advantage? Is that competitive advantage sustainable against the competitors?

• Before starting school at Globe I purchased a new laptop computer for all of my online class work. I decided to by a Samsung notebook. Although they do not have the most known name in laptops I choose to purchase their product over others because of the name their company has. They have many products and all—in my experience—show great quality. They also had the features I was looking for: a large screen, good battery life, and a 10-key pad. The features they have as well as the name held by the company are part of the product marketing strategy. It was also conveniently found at Best Buy and available for me to take home that day, which is part of the place marketing strategy.