Case Summaries

Strategic Marketing Cases

Lapox A & B

• Lapox A

– Atul Ltd. and its divisions

– How a company evolves

• Collaborations like JVs with MNCs

• Break-up with MNCs

• New set of MNCs forming JV with Atul

• Cycle of collaboration

• International or new market entry strategies

– Orientation

• Product Orientation to Market Orientation

Lapox A & B

• Growth Strategies

– Each divisions past, how it has shaped its present and

the future plans of each division to reach a goal of Rs.

5000 cr. for Atul Ltd as a company

• SBU Structure – Formation of Divisions

– Centralization (Production)

– Decentralization (Product – Marketing)

– Partial centralization (Purchase, logistics etc.)

Lapox A & B

• Lapox B

– Polymer Divisions

– Possible growth strategies to achive a turnover of 1000 cr.

• Challenges

– Market size or potential

– Entry into B2C requires huge investments in marketing

» Branding, Communication, Product and Distribution

– Mindset or culture of the company (Product Focus)

» “Change: “We are not married to the chemistry”

Lapox A & B

• Lapox B

– Low hanging fruits (B2b)

• Firozabad like markets with specific applications where major

national brands do not have a strong presence

– Local regional brands are popular in these markets

• What are the limitations of these markets?

– Do not give any special opportunity in B2C

– Margins and Price are important factors

– Acquisitions and New JV with application specific

products/brands

Lapox A & B • Lapox B

– WD40

• How to leverage the strong reputation of WD40 to

strengthen Atul and Lapox Brands

– Brand Architecture Problem

• WD40, Atul, Lapox (and its variants), Lalbhai Group

– What is the advantage of having collaboration with

strong brands like WD40 ?

• Distribution channel – shelf space in A class outlets

Wang’s Fortune Tea

• Chinese Tea Company

– Growth strategies

• International market entry

– Brand Positioning

• Effect of country of origin

– Environmental factors

• belief about product and its qualities

– Tea and its effect

» SARS

» Helps in fighting sars etc.

Colgate Precision

• Marketing Plan

– Toothbrush Market Challenges

• High vs low involvement product

– Role of marketing activity in H vs. L involvement

• A complementary product to toothpaste

– With a perception of Toothpaste being the primary product and

toothbrush as a delivery device

• Understanding the market and the company

– Competitors, segments, own brand and its strengths

Colgate Precision

• Decision

– Niche vs. Mainstream Market

• Quantitative/Financial Analysis

– Revenue, Cost, Cannibalization and Profit for 2 years

• Qualitative Analysis

– Based in Niche vs. Mainstream decision

• Decide on Four P’s

Amway Japan• Porter’s Five Forces Analysis – What business are you in?

• Product, Distribution, Career Opportunity?

– Amway’s challenges in changing environmental context of Japan• Legal, political, socio-cultural, economic

– How to sustain the market share when you are the biggest player and to grow at desired rates

– Other issues • Pricing of products (currency fluctuations), new product

development etc.

Airborne Express

• Express Cargo Industry Analysis

– Fedex, UPS and Airborne

– Porter’s five forces

• Economies of scale

– Changes due to actions of players

• How to survive in presence of strong players like Fedex and

UPS

– How Airborne crafted a place for itself in a highly competitive market

dominant by 2 strong players

Angels & Devils – Best Buy

• Understanding and Classification of customers

into profitable and non-profitable ones

– How to deal with non-profitable customers

• Can you serve non-profitable customers of

other company?

• Is it a good idea to fire customers?

Pilgrim Bank

• Customer Profitability across banking channels

– Offline vs. Online Banking and profitablity

• Can you decide whether online customers are

more profitable ? Is it the channel that affects

profitability?

• Data analysis and CRM

EMC2

• Customer Centricity

– When is it a competitive advantage

– Effect of centricity on price sensitivity

• Classification of customers into different types and

then crafting strategies to reach these customers

– Fortune 500, large companies, small companies,

individual customers (Iomega)

– VARs role and how to train them fro customer centricity

Tanishq

• Tanishq vs. Gold Plus

– To launch Gold Plus or not?

– Positioning of Tanishq and Gold Plus

• How Tanishq is different from Gold Plus in terms of

positioning

• If Launch GP: What should be product and location

decisions?

Ontela PicDeck

• Segmentation for a service of Easy sharing/transfer

of pictures taken from mobile to email/pc/facebook

• Qualitative

– Personas

• Quantitative

– Use of clustering technique for segmentation

• Demographic, attitudinal or mixed ?

The Fashion Channel• A round the clock fashion oriented channel

• Move from traditional ‘one-size fits all’ approach to segmentation of

market

– Reasons for the need to segment • Declining revenue

• Increasing competition

• Comparison of Segment vs. Mass-Oriented approaches

• Development of market segmentation options using consumer and

market data, financial analysis and inputs from various stakeholders

• Other learning– 1) Use of analysis and numbers for informed decision making however doesn’t

mean that it can replace the qualitative analysis;

– 2) Change management – traditional to new way of looking at your market.

Eli Lilly – Developing Cymbalta • Case on New Product Development – How is it different from Cialis?

• There was an option of changing the core funtional benefits of the

product (anti depressant or pain reliever or both) based on input from

marketing. Products attributes can still be changed

– Similarity with Biopure: Launch or Hold as one type of product

(oxyglobin vs hemopure) • If launch what are the related marketing decisions (4 p’s)

– Need for NPD• Patent protection on established product expiring soon

• Two Broad Strategies inPharmaceuticals – Generic: Production efficiency and volumes – no protection

– Patented/Branded Molecules: R&D, margins, protection from competition

Harrington Collection • Fashion Industry – Women’s apparel market

– Need for new product line – Active Wear• Company has established brands in high quality formal wear which is a

mature and competitive market

• Customers were becoming more price sensitive and the sales and profits

were stagnating

– Plans to enter into Active Wear – a new fashion trend• Product & Division fit – Vigor division

– Channel (own outlet, specialty, departmental stores; role of sales force; role of

advertising etc.)

• In-house manufacturing vs. Outsourcing – Calculations possible only for in-house manufacturing from a rented facility in Mexico

– Using demand and cost information to predict the financial implication of adding new

product line

Modu – Optimizing the Product Line • Innovative product idea – already finalized

– A basic phone (network and contact info) with a range of jackets

or sleeves with different functionalities

– An ecosystem around Modu

• Use of quantitative and qualitative analysis in arriving at the

decision to launch product line extensions – Each segment (YP, FY, GG) has its profiling along with the revenue

potential; best fit between jackets and segments

• S-T-P: Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning

• Resource constraints of a start-up: if there were no

constraints, all jackets - all segments was also an option

LFG – A, B, C• Product vs. Market organization structures • Linkage between top management’s strategy or

philosophy to the execution at lowest level

– Corporate strategy (customer intimacy)

– Organization structure (LFG to LFD), compensation, skill

– Sales process and outcome

• Customer Intimacy vs. Traditional trade-off (Low Cost or High Differentiation)

Radiohead• Radioheads model of ‘name your own price’

– Free, Flexible (discrimination) or Fixed Price models

– Radiohead’s Revenue model – concerts, merchandises etc. along

with online sales of album

• Music Industry and its challenges – Piracy, disintermediation due to online channels etc.

• Type of customers – Fans vs. Non-Fans – Product, Price, Bundles

• Channels – Traditional: Artist Label RetailerConsumer

– Online: Direct from artist to consumer • Will this model work for everyone?

Marketing $100 Laptop • Non profit marketing & Bottom of Pyramid Marketing

– Issues faced by various players of different size/strengtht and intent in the BOP market

– Can a non-profit organization meet the needs of consumers ignored by the profit-

oriented organizations?

• Marketing and Non Marketing Challenges faced by OLPC

– Technology (new product with severe price constraints)

– Marketing: public perceptions, competition, positioning of $100 laptop

• Difficulties involved in marketing a product when your customers are

governments/ministries

– Politicians(Ministers) and Bureaucrats as different customers

– Bulk orders (scale), cumbersome buying process, no traditional channel

intermediaries involved (like retailers etc.)

• When competitors offer lower cost laptops, what are OLPCs options ?

• Why was all this done by Negroponte?

Strategic Marketing Course

• Ability to integrate the concepts learnt in different

subjects – marketing core, electives and other areas

– Inter-disciplinary nature of marketing decisions

• Use quantitative as well as qualitative analysis for

taking informed marketing decisions

– Pure qualitative or pure quantitative (without

qualitative reasoning) information based decisions

should be avoided – preferably use both

Thank You