Sequence

Normal: Product - Promotion
If you want to include a product into catalogue, first ensure that you know the product, the supplier, the terms.

Preverse: Promotion - Product.
A company decides to act like others and includes first positions into catalogue without thinking out the supplier and terms. Result - a holy crap for communication dept to find pics, and then for buying dept to find this f#$king supplier... In the end clients want the damned product and the company still doesn't have it.

The preverse scheme occures when the CEO wants something to be included and other depts (sales, buyers) don't want to loose their time for preparation. When a smart decision comes - to make a last step to push others to act.

As to me I hate this reverse logic. Especially when I'm the last step executor.

Tradeoff

I have a tough decision to make. The simlest tradeoff between stable position of brand manager with local operational challenges and a very challenging position of strategy consultant, which gives a lot food for brains but also requires a lot personal resources (time, attention).

Yes, after MBA I feel tired. But I had 4 months of my family period and recovered a lot. And passive way of leisure is not a best way for me. Consulting offers a constant thinking process - I love it, the same to challenge. Branding offers me a stable work in a field I know, lower cost comparable to consulting (region location, less requirements to lifestyle).

The only question that is crucial is if I'm ready for stable family life now. Not a professional one, not a financial one.

Phuf...

fabrizio salvador

Two quick quotes from one of my favorite professor's class:

Sunk cost is irrelevant for future decisions (everyon knows, but tends to forget).

and

You don't make money if youalways say yes. Raise your ability to say no.

market research use

Here is the link between three key indicators we can withdraw in marketing research.
Brand awareness should lead to purchase intention and this, therefore, should translate itself into marketshare. By identifying the problem, we can find the right tool fot solving the problem.

DM

Since I'm taking two courses on decision making this term (one (msrketing strategy for DM) is finished, I posted some takaways and promised to post more), I'm going to elaborate on this topic.

We started with the very basics. One maim takaway from Drucker's article about DM is "A decision with no action is just a good intention".

marketing strategy for decision making game

Well, the first course of electives has just finished. 15 sessions in 5 days with market simulations. 6 groups competing in two markets, starting with 2 products (similar for each group, 2 different segments). We didn't manage well - I'm not experienced in those types of games, but we made several remarkable mistakes to be mentioned and got lot's of experience. Basically, we learned how to manage a company with small budgets and were recovering every time after crisises. At the same time we launched successfully the product to a new market (correct strategy, but rather low profitability).

Some ideas.
- When all the companies have the same products, the only difference can be made by the strategy is by advertising (influencing perceptions) and allocating salesforce. First is good for pull strategy (influencing ultimate consumer), second is for push (working with channels).
- When a company start launching differentiated brands, it is important to fit into segment needs/requirements (price is included). The closer the better.
- Products become obsolete, segment's requirements are changing, and marketing is all about managing perceptions.

Pricing strategy.
- Wrong pricing can kill very successfull brand (specially when it is become obsolete). The leading on the segment can turn to total loss with one wrong pricing decision. Our wrong-priced brand couldn' recover even after drop in price and remarkable (for us, not for competitors) budget.
- While launching totally new product pricing can be made upon estimates from the most similar products margins.

We also can have a remarkable market share, but low net contribution due to higher base cost and lower margin. We did it several times until discovered the problem. Common truth, but dramatic consequenses.

Managing small budgets:
- You always need to think in advance. Investing in rnd now will require a launch money. Is it possible to manage bigger brand portfolio with existing money? And with projected profits and budget? Sometimes we postponed launching and product become obsolete.
- It is better to have less brands but well positioned rather than to spread small budget among several promosing but not very profitable brands.

One more thing. We tended to create more advanced products that exceeded segments needs. Therefore we were less competitive on price (due to less margin). How could I forget about example of perfect tent - if you create tent with best materials and techs, it will cost you around 5000 eur (don't remember when and how we made those proximations), that's why producers normally go for simpler solutions.

One more remarque upon using marketing research data will follow if I can insert table.

marketing strategy decision making

The very first subject on electives for me is marketing strategy for decision making. We´re playing multyteams´game - market simulation. The very first round my team finished as the last one. Although we did quite a normal job (I can´t say that the job was good though) in terms of market contribution (at least it was positive and better than in previous perion), when being compared with others and with market figures (growth, for example), we showed the worst performance.

During my job as product manager I was always feeling that all product category´s growth is not enough, we can make it better by paying more attention, assigning more salesforce etc... But I just didn´t have any benchmarks - this information for different competitors is closed in Russian market.

Sometimes you need to run very fast just to stay at one place. But how fast should you run, you can understand only while looking on milestones.