www.globalmarketingcompetition.com Síguenos en:

Author: Antonio Urcelay 

Theme: Presidente de Europa Continental de TOYS RUS  

Article Title: Markets, products r+d 

 

"Within a market I think we need to fundamentally analyse three parameters: the consumers, products and competitors. The correct understanding of these aspects will depend largely on success.

First I have to meet potential customers. If I don’t understand their tastes, needs and possibilities, I won’t be able to offer them something they can buy. Factors such as fashions and trends, geography or climate, purchasing power or other available technology that ensure that my products will meet a need or desire or aspiration of potential customers. Selling sports cars in third world countries is as pointless as selling snow sledges in the Canary Islands, except that I want to become a supplier to a small niche market. To get to know our clients well, we must devote resources, which won’t be availale if an investment isn’t made that will avoid the much higher costs of failure.

Analyse my products and you will find that the place they occupy in the market is equally as important. If we don’t meet consumer needs, if we do not fit the tastes or trends in that particular market, we will have to reconsider our launch plans. Products that create new categories of consumption or expendituredon’t come very frequently, which alone are capable of generating new consumer needs of which they were not aware of until that time. If we want to position ourselves well, we must be very confident that the strength of the product or brand, that its appeal and innovation is so great that with good a communication campaign it can be imposed on existing trends. In most cases, the product must respond to the here and now, as well as looking at growing trends and not those that are completing their life cycle.

But my products are not alone on the market. My competition will have similar products, and I must be able to justify, objectively or emotionally, why consumers should prefer mine. Objective comparisons of quality, price, design and other factors of the product are necessary. If my product is better, I must let potential customers know through effective communication, whether through advertising or another method. I must enhance my competitive advantages and the distinguishing features with competing products. If I don’t make a difference, if I admit that all products are equal, the the lowest pricedproduct or the one with better distribution will sell more.

www.globalmarketingcompetition.com Síguenos en:

Distribution is vital in all cases. Although my product is better, if the customer doesn’t find it in shops or online, it won’t be purchased.

Convinced, therefore, that my product can not, must not be the same as those of the competition (unless I want to position it exclusively at a lower price), the work of R & D is fundamental. I continuously update my products both to differentiate from today’s competition and to continue being different in the future. Usually, my differences (competitive advantages) have a short life span and are replicated by competitors. I am therefore forced to constantly innovate and generate new and different products. Innovation involves costs and failures.This implies short-term investments that do not generate performance. It means accepting that some of the routes taken, some of the products investigated, never come to light. However, there is no success without innovation and without R & D there will be no innovation. In addition, innovation must be real. Call range extensions and simple additions to a successfully developed product serve to prolong its life somewhat, but ‘makeovers’ do not change the real age of things. The development of new products becomes the engine of the future of the company. No new products can make for a bright present, but there will be no future "