Page 140 - DMGT547_INTERNATIONAL_MARKETING

Unit 7: Product Strategy for International Markets

Your product strategy will change over time as you learn more about your market, and as (if) Notes
you decide to enter different markets. Listening to your market and developing your product
strategy is a circular process; as you learn more, you will evolve your product strategy and the
problems you solve.

Example: Product Strategy
The following is a brief example of a product strategy. Your product strategy will vary, and will
probably be longer, but should follow the theme of the five questions above.
We build quality kitchen hardware for residential kitchen customers.
Our customers are young North American families who want kitchen hardware that can
stand the wear and tear of young children. They are interested in materials that are safe for
children and eco-friendly.

We sell our products through a retail channel.
Our products are priced per unit, and are considered “high-end” hardware solutions.

7.9.4 Power of the Product Strategy

The power of a product strategy comes from what you define as well as what you exclude. By
identifying a particular target market in your product strategy, you are also excluding other
markets. This helps your company to understand which projects fall outside the product strategy
and distract from strategic goals.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

11. The .................................... of a product strategy comes from what you define as well as what
you exclude.
12. During ...................., the product may become obsolete in most developed countries, or the
price is driven so low that the market becomes close to 100% saturated.
13. The .................... product life cycle is a theoretical model describing how an industry evolves
over time and across national borders.
14. Product .................... is an essential business process in which a company alters or “adapts”
an existing product.
15. The growth stage is also marked by an emerging product .................... based on mass
production.

Case Study Tinker with Care

abur tinkered with the product proposition for Lemoneez even after test marketing
had cleared it. The reason lay in the choice of the city for test marketing: Bangalore.
DSourcing the extract from a Bangalore-based plant, Dabur chose to test the product
in the city in 1996.

Contd...

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