Porter’s Five Forces Model

Strategy

Porter’s five forces model helps in accessing where the power lies in a business situation. Porter’s Model is actually a business strategy tool that helps in analyzing the attractiveness in an industry structure. It let you access current strength of your competitive position and the strength of the position that you are planning to attain.

Porters Model is considered an important part of planning tool set. When you’re clear about where the power lies, you can take advantage of your strengths and can improve the weaknesses and can compete efficiently and effectively.

Porters model of competitive forces assumes that there are five competitive forces that identifies the competitive power in a business situation. These five competitive forces identified by the Michael Porter are:
Continue reading →

Product Life Cycle (PLC)

Marketing, ,

Product Life Cycle (PLC)

A new product passes through set of stages known as product life cycle. Product life cycle  applies to both brand and category of products. Its time period vary from product to product. Modern product life cycles are becoming shorter and shorter as products in mature stages are being renewed by market segmentation and  product differentiation.

Companies always attempt to maximize the profit and revenues over the entire life cycle of a product. In order to achieving the desired level of profit, the introduction of the new product at the proper time is crucial. If new product is appealing to consumer and no stiff competition is out there, company can charge high prices and earn high profits.

Continue reading →

Marketing Mix | 4 P’s of Marketing

Marketing

Marketers use different tools in order to get the desired response from the customers or best satisfy their needs. These tools are known as The Marketing Mix. Marketing Mix is probably the most famous term in marketing.

Marketing Mix

Marketing Mix is a combination of marketing tools that a company uses to satisfy their target customers and achieving organizational goals. McCarthy classified all these marketing tools under four broad categories:

  • Product
  • Price
  • Place
  • Promotion

These four elements are the basic components of a marketing plan and are collectively called 4 P’s of marketing. 4 P’s pertain more to physical products  than services.  Below is an illustration for marketing mix. Continue reading →

Market Segmentation | Bases for Market Segmentation

Marketing, , ,

Market Segmentation

Market segmentation can be defined as the process of dividing a market into different homogeneous groups of consumers.

Market consists of buyers and buyers vary from each other in different ways. Variation depends upon different factors like wants, resources, buying attitude, locations, and buying practices. By segmentation, large heterogeneous markets are divided into smaller segments that can be managed more efficiently and effectively with products and services that match to their unique needs. So, market segmentation is beneficial for the companies serving larger markets.

Criteria for selecting Market Segments

Measurable
A segment should be measurable. It means you should be able to tell how many potential customers and how many businesses are out there in the segment.

Accessible
A segment should be accessible through channels of communication and distribution like: sales force, transportation, distributors, telecom, or internet. Continue reading →

What is Marketing? and Basic Marketing Concepts

Marketing, ,

What is Marketing? (Marketing Definition)

There are a lot of marketing definitions available but the right ones are focused upon the key to marketing success i.e. customers. Following are some of the marketing definitions available.

American Marketing Association defines marketing as:

Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. (Approved October 2007)

The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) says:

Continue reading →

The Seven C’s of Effective Business Communication

Business Communications, , ,

The message is said to be effective when the receiver understands the same meaning that the sender was intended to convey. For any communication in business, in order to be effective, it must have seven qualities. These seven attributes are called seven C’s of effective business communication. (All these attribute starts with the alphabet ‘C’ so are called 7 C’s)

Seven C’s of Effective Business Communication

  1. Correctness
  2. Clarity
  3. Conciseness
  4. Completeness
  5. Consideration
  6. Concreteness
  7. Courtesy

Continue reading →