Traditional view of marketing is to produce the good or service and then market the value.

But, this strategy works for the market where there are not many substitutes. The contemporary idea is to create a value after identifying the gap. Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning (STP) takes center stage for this activity. Once the creation of value is determined, the next step is to communicate this value to the segment of customer. Marketers today are in constant pursuit of this intrinsic, differentiated and specific value creation and delivery phase.

Michael Porter of Harvard Business School proposed that every firm has five primary and four support activities as their Value Chain: Primary Activities:

Inbound Logistics Operations Outbound Logistics Sales & Marketing Service Support Activities: Procurement Technology Human Resource Infrastructure

Success of a firm depends on how well it manages the core business processes. Market-sensing Process This is to identify the market intelligence and disseminate it within the organisation. New-offering Realisation Process This is to research, develop and launch new high-quality offerings fast. Customer Acquisition Process This is to define target markets and prospect new customers. Customer Relationship Process This is to build deeper understanding, relationships and offerings to customers. Fulfillment Management Process This is to receive and approve orders, ship the goods on time and collect the payment.

Traditionally, companies owned and controlled many resources labor, materials, machines, information, energy. Most of these resources, activities or services are being outsourced to reduce cost and bring in expertise. The key is to own and nurture the resources and competencies that make up the essence of the business. A core competence has three characteristics:
It is a competitive advantage to bring home significant contribution
It has its application in a wide variety of markets as an extrapolation It is difficult for competitors to imitate or build

Finding new value opportunities is about understanding the relationships among three spaces: The customers cognitive space:
This reflects the existing and latent needs of the customer in terms of

customers willingness to participate.

The companys competence space:

This reflects the physical and knowledge-based capabilities of the

company such as innovation, unique features etc.

The collaborators resource space:

This refers to the vertical and horizontal partnerships with suppliers

and complimentary service providers.

These skills for marketers include identifying

new customer benefits from the customers view utilizing core competencies from its business domain managing business partners from its collaborative networks

To create new customer benefits, marketers must understand

what the customer thinks what the customer wants what the customer worries about

The factors which affect or influence the decision making process of the customers is a critical decision attribute.

Delivering value often means making substantial investments in infrastructure and capabilities. The company must become proficient at customer relationships, internal resources and business partnerships. Customer relationships allow the company to discover who its customers are, how they behave and what they want. It also enables the company to respond appropriately, coherently and quickly to customer opportunities. To respond quickly and effectively, the company requires internal resource management. Business partnership management allows the company to handle complex relationships to source, process and deliver.

Corporate headquarters undertake four planning activities:

Defining the corporate vision and mission Establishing strategic business units Aligning resources to each SBU Assessing growth opportunities

Peter Druckers classic questions mission of the company.

answer the vision and

What is our business? Who is our customer? What is of value to the customer? What will our business be?

These are simple questions yet very difficult to be answered at any point of time. These statements are shared with the employees, suppliers and customer. These statements provide a deep sense of shared purpose, direction and opportunity.

A target market definition tends to focus on selling a product or a service to a current market. A strategic market definition focuses on potential markets with the possibility of various products or services. Large companies normally manage quite different businesses, each requiring its own strategy. An SBU is a single business or collection of related businesses that are planned separately from rest of the product group. It has its own set of competitors, nuances, rules, economics and capabilities. The SBU head has the role of managing all such planning and profit performance.

BCG Matrix:

It includes planning new businesses, downsizing and terminating older businesses. In this scenario, the organisation reviews the opportunities for improving existing businesses. Market-penetration Strategy:
current products for current markets

Market-development Strategy:
current products for new markets

Product-development Strategy:
new products for current markets

Diversification Strategy:
new products for new markets

Innovation is the single most critical differentiator in a cluttered market of products and services. It can help the company scale new heights when bring in a solution which touches the lives of the customer. Of course, more of them declare this and yet to realise the importance of doing this. This also grows and gets nurtured in an organisation where it is adopted as the part of the culture. This is not an accident, but a conscious and rigorous choice to pursue excellence. This is going to become the significant difference between the good and the great.

External Environment (Opportunity & Threat)

macro-environment and micro-environment opportunity for marketing to create categories converging industry trends and hybrid products or services convenience and efficient models to buy and sell customization or personalisation in offerings interactive platforms to co-create value speed is one of the key attributes as innovation low-cost products or services

Internal Environment (Strengths & Weaknesses)

strength - the intrinsic value of being good at something position of advantage to do something, nobody else can match to leverage such points for market leadership it may be people, innovation, skills, capital etc. weakness something which is lacking this may become the biggest barrier to grow this may become the difference between the leading and lagging it may be capability, scale, innovation, culture etc.