Marketing management

Strategy
 MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR
BUSINESS SUCCESS
• The marketing scenario in the world today is
changing very rapidly.
• The boundaries of nations are disappearing,
technological changes are taking place at the
flash of an eye, standards are undergoing
changes in no time and so are the fortunes of
various organizations.
 The Challenge before marketing
managers is two fold

• (a) How to fight competition and managers

is two fold:

• (b) How to exploit opportunities, grab more

market and forge ahead.
 Various Definitions of Strategic
Management
• Strategic management is an on-going
process of analysis, planning and action.
• It attempts to keep an organization aligned
with its environment while capitalizing on
organization strengths and environmental
opportunities and minimizing or avoiding
organizational weaknesses and external
threats.
 Various Definitions of Strategic
Management
• Strategic management is also a future-
oriented provocative management system.
• Managers who use strategic management
skills are seeking a competitive advantage
for their organizations and long-term
organizational effectiveness.
MARKET-LEADER STRATEGIES

• Expand the total market strategy

– The market-leader firms can normally
gain the maximum when the total
market expands.
– The focus of expanding the total market
depends on where the product is in its
life cycle.
– This strategy can be used when a
product is in the maturity stage. For
example, Japanese increase their car
production to enter in various countries.
– Market-leaders can look for new users,
new uses, and more usage of its
products when the product is in the
maturity stage of the product life cycle.
Defending market share strategy

• When the leader firm tries to expand

the total market size, it must also
continuously defend its current
business against enemy attacks.
• For example, Coca-Cola must
constantly maintain its guard against
Pepsi-Cola.
• Similarly, Bajaj Auto should constantly
maintain its guard against L.M.L Scooters.
• In this strategy, the leader firm must keep
its costs down, and its prices must be
consistent with the value that customers
see in the product.
• There are six ways that a market leader
might use to protect its market position.
Defending market share strategy
• (a) Position defence
– This strategy involves pouring
maximum firm’s resources into
its current successful brands.
– To overcome a position defence an
attacker therefore typically adopts
an indirect approach rather than
the head-on attack that the
defender expects.
– For example. HLL increased its ad-
spend on Clinic and Sunsilk
Shampoos and gave heavy
promotions through price reduction
Defending market share strategy

• (b) Flanking defences

– This strategy both guards the market
positions of leading brands and
develops some flank market niches
to serve as a defensive corner either
to protect a weak front or to establish
an invasion base for counterattack, if
necessary.
Defending market share strategy

• (c) Preemptive defence

– This defence strategy maneuver

involves the launching of an offence
against an enemy before it starts an
offence. For example, TITAN
launched more brands and sub-
brands called insignia Collection.
Defending market share strategy
• (d) Counteroffensive defence
– This is a strategy of identifying a
weakness in an attacker and aggressively
going after that market niche so as to
cause the competitor to pull back its
efforts to defend its own territory. When a
leader is attacked, he may base his
counterattack in the attacker’s territory.
The attacker has to deploy resources to
this territory for defence.
Defending market share strategy
• (e) Mobile defence
– This strategy involves the leader’s
broadening and expanding its territories
into new market areas by diversifying.
– The leader takes innovation works in both
these directions, e.g., a five-star hotel can
become foreign exchange dealer.
Diversification into related areas is used in
mobile defence.
Defending market share strategy
• (f) Contraction defence
– This strategy involves retrenching into
areas of strength and is often used in later
stages of product life cycle or when the
firm has been under considerable attack.
– For example, HLL decided to concentrate
on its core business areas, that is soaps
an detergents, and has emerged as the
clear leader in the toilet industry.
 Expanding the market share
strategy
• Market leaders can improve their
profitability through increasing their
market shares.
• Market leaders are successful at
expanding their market shares, like
HLL, Procter and Gamble,
McDonald’s and Titan.
• In conclusion, market leaders who stay
on top have learned the art of
expanding the total market, defending
their current territory, and increasing
their market share and profitability.
• Competing with highly aggressive
market leaders presents a formidable
challenge to all newcomers.
 MARKET-CHALLENGER’S
STRATEGIES
• The forms that occupy second and
third ranks in an industry can be
called runner-up or challenging firms.
• Some are quite large like: H.M.T.
Wathes, pepsi, and Pepsondent.
These challenger firms can adopt one
of the two competitive styles.
• They can attack the leader and
other competitors in an
aggressive bid for increased
market share and possible
leadership.
• The following strategies can be
adopted by market challengers
 Defining the strategic objective
• A market challenger must first define its
strategic objective which is usually defined
as and increase in market share.
• In essence, the challenger can choose to
attack in any one of the three types of
firms.
 These are five possible attack
strategies used by successful
market challengers
• Frontal attack
• Flank attack
• Encirclement attack
• A Bypass attack
• Guerilla attack
 Frontal attack
• This strategy is used when the challenger
masses its competitive forces light up
against those of the opponent by attacking
its competitor’s strengths rather than its
weaknesses.
• For this to succeed. The challenger needs
a strength advantage over its opponent.
 Flank attack
• This strategy is used when the challenger
sets its sights on its target’s weakest
points.
 Encirclement attack
• It is use only by well-financed forms.
• It involves an attempt to capture a vide
slice of the competitors’ market through a
grand offensive on several road fronts.
 A Bypass attack
• It avoids any belligerent move directed
against the competitors; territory.
• Involves bypassing competitors and
attacking easier markets.
 Guerilla attack
• It involves making small. Intermittent
attacks on different territories of the
opponent.
• A guerilla attacker uses both conventional
and unconventional means of attacking
the opponent.
• These might include reflective price cuts,
intense promotional bursts and occasional
legal actions.
 MARKET-FOLLOWER
STRATEGEIES
• A market-follower must be careful about
how closely it follows an leader and
challengers.
• Too close an attack could result in a
strong counter-offensive by the leader.
The following broad strategies are useful.
• Following closely
• Following at a distance
• Following selectively
 MARKET NICHERS’
STRATEGIES
• Successful market nichers own their
success to using of these strategies to
gain a solid market presence.
• Market nichers must develop specific
tactics to implement their strategic choice
to enable them to become market
specialists