MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Q1. The text states that "the marketplace isn't what it used to be." List and explain five of
the new behaviors, new opportunities, and new challenges that have contributed to this
"feeling."?
ANSWER:
MARKETING REALITIES The marketplace is dramatically different from even 10 years ago,
with new marketing behaviors, opportunities,
and challenges emerging. Focus on three transformative forces: technology, globalization, and
social responsibility.
TECHNOLOGY.
The pace of change and the scale of technological achievement can be staggering. The number of
mobile phones in India recently exceeded 500 million, Facebook’s monthly users passed 1
billion, and more than half of African urban residents were able to access the Internet monthly.
With the rapid rise of e-commerce, the mobile Internet, and Web penetration in emerging
markets, the Boston Consulting Group believes brand marketers must enhance their “digital
balance sheets.” Massive amounts of information and data about almost everything are now
available to consumers and marketers. In fact, technology research specialists Gartner predict
that by 2017, CMOs will spend more time on information technology (IT) than chief information
officers (CIOs). Aetna’s CMO and CIO have already collaborated successfully for years,
launching new products and services including triage, a popular health app for the iPhone.
With I Triage, users can research ailments, find nearby physicians, and learn about prescribed
medicines.25Procter & Gamble (P&G) is determined to stay ahead of technology trends.
GLOBALIZATION.
The world has become a smaller place. New transportation, shipping, and communication
technologies have made it easier for us to know the rest of the world, to travel, to buy and sell
anywhere. By 2025, annual consumption in emerging markets will total $30 trillion and
contribute more than 70 percent of global GDP growth. A staggering 56 percent of global
financial services consumption is forecast to come from emerging markets by 2050, up from 18
percent in 2010.
Demographic trends favor developing markets such as India, Pakistan, and Egypt, with
populations whose median age is below 25. In terms of growth of the middle class, defined as
earning more than $3,000 per year, the Philippines, China, and Peru are the three fastest-growing
countries.
Globalization has made countries increasingly multicultural. U.S. minorities have much
economic clout, and their buying power is growing faster than that of the general population.
According to the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business minority buying report, the
combined buying power of U.S. racial minorities (African Americans, Asians, and Native
Americans) is projected to rise from $1.6 trillion in 2010 to $2.1 trillion in 2015,
Accounting for 15 percent of the nation’s total. The buying power of U.S. Hispanics will rise
from $1 trillion in 2010 to $1.5 trillion in 2015, nearly 11 percent of the nation’s total. One
I
MARKETING MANAGEMENT
survey found that 87 percent of companies planned to increase or maintain multicultural media
budgets.
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY.
Poverty, pollution, water shortages, climate change, wars, and wealth concentration demand our
attention. The private sector is taking some responsibility for improving living conditions, and
firms all over the world have elevated the role of corporate social responsibility.
Because marketing’s effects extend to society as a whole, marketers must consider the ethical,
environmental, legal, and social context of their activities. “Marketing Insight: Getting to
marketing 3.0” describes how companies need to change to do that.
The organization’s task is thus to determine the needs, wants, and interests of target markets and
satisfy them more effectively and efficiently than competitors while preserving or enhancing
consumers’ and society’s long-term well-being.
As goods become more commoditized and consumers grow more socially conscious, some
companies—including The Body Shop, Timberland, and Patagonia—incorporate social
responsibility as a way to differentiate themselves from competitors, build consumer preference,
and achieve notable sales and profit gains
MARKETING CHALLENGES.
1. Not knowing how to explain the product or service you want to sell.
2. Not finding your market segment.
3. Lack of commercial department.
4. Invisibility of your business.
5. Problems with the price of your product.
DRAMATICALLY CHANGED MARKETPLACE.
These three forces—technology, globalization, and social responsibility—have dramatically
changed the marketplace, bringing consumers and companies new capabilities. The marketplace
is also being transformed by changes in channel structure and heightened competition.
NEW CONSUMER CAPABILITIES.
Social media is an explosive worldwide phenomenon. In Germany, the percentage of consumers
over 65 accessing the Internet increased from 24 percent to 33 percent from 2011 to 2012; most
belonged to a social media service. The number of Germans browsing the Web wirelessly
increased to 29 million in 2012 and was expected to hit 60 million in 2016. More than 10 percent
of Germans were using tablets to access the Internet in 2012. Almost two thirds of German
companies surveyed in 2012 reported positive payback to their social media activities (Facebook,
Twitter, social media newsrooms, customer feedback communities).
II
MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Empowerment is not just about technology, though. Consumers are willing to move to another
brand if they
Think they are not being treated right or do not like what they are seeing, as Progressive
Insurance found out.
Expanded information, communication, and mobility enable customers to make better choices
and share their preferences and opinions with others around the world.
• Consumers can use the Internet as a powerful information and purchasing aid. From the
home, office, or mobile phone, they can compare product prices and features, consult user
reviews, and order goods online from anywhere in the world 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
bypassing limited local offerings and realizing significant price savings. They can also engage in
“show rooming”: comparing products in stores but buying online. Because consumers and other
constituents can in fact track down virtually any kind of company information, firms now realize
that transparency in corporate words and actions is of paramount importance.
• Consumers can search, communicate, and purchase on the move. Consumers increasingly
integrate smart phones and tablets into their daily lives. One study found the majority of
European smart phone owners use their devices to research products and make purchases.
There is one cell phone for every two people on the planet—and 10 times more cell phones are
produced globally each day than babies are born. Telecommunications is one of the world’s
trillion-dollar industries, along with tourism, military, food, and automobiles.
• Consumers can tap into social media to share opinions and express loyalty. Personal
connections and user generated content thrive on social media such as Facebook, Flickr,
Wikipedia, and YouTube. Sites like Duster for dog lovers, Trip Advisor for travelers, and
Mothers for bikers bring together consumers with a common interest. At [Link], auto
enthusiasts talk about chrome rims, the latest BMW model, and where to find a great local
mechanic.
• Consumers can actively interact with companies. Consumers see their favorite companies as
workshops from which to draw out the offerings they want. By opting in or out of lists, they can
receive marketing and sales-related communications, discounts, coupons, and other special deals.
With smart phones, they can scan barcodes and QR (Quick Response) codes to access a brand’s
Web site and other information.
• Consumers can reject marketing they find inappropriate. Some customers today may see
fewer product differences and feel fewer brands loyal. Others may become more price- and
quality-sensitive in their search for value. Almost two-thirds of consumers in one survey reported
that they disliked advertising. For these and other reasons, consumers can be less tolerant about
undesired marketing. They can choose to screen out online messages, skip commercials with
their DVRs, and avoid marketing appeals through the mail or over the phone.
III
MARKETING MANAGEMENT
NEW COMPANY CAPABILITIES.
At the same time, globalization, social responsibility, and technology have also generated a new
set of capabilities to help companies cope and respond.
• Companies can use the Internet as powerful information and sales channel, including for
individually differentiated goods. A Web site can list products and services, history, business
philosophy, job opportunities, and other information of interest to consumers worldwide. Solo
Cup marketers note that linking their storefronts to their Web site and Facebook page makes it
easier for consumers to buy Solo paper cups and plates
while engaging with the brand online. Thanks to advances in factory customization, computer
technology, and database marketing software, companies can allow customers to buy M&M
candies with their names on them, Wheaties boxes or Jones soda cans with their picture on the
front, and Heinz ketchup bottles with customized messages.
• Companies can collect fuller and richer information about markets, customers, prospects,
and competitors. Marketers can conduct fresh marketing research by using the Internet to
arrange focus groups, send out questionnaires, and gather primary data in several other ways.
They can assemble information about individual customers’ purchases, preferences,
demographics, and profitability. The drugstore chain CVS uses loyalty-card data to better
understand what consumers purchase, the frequency of store visits, and other buying preferences.
Its Extra Care program supports 69 million shoppers in more than
7,300 stores. Eighty-two percent of CVS’s front store (non-pharmacy) sales go through the Extra
Care program.
• Companies can reach consumers quickly and efficiently via social media and mobile
marketing, sending targeted ads, coupons, and information. PS technology can pinpoint
consumers’ exact location, letting marketers send them messages at the mall with wish-list
reminders and coupons or offers good only that day. Location based advertising is attractive
because it reaches consumers closer to the point of sale. Social media and buzz are
also powerful. Over a two-year period, Dell took in more than $2 million in U.S. revenue from
coupons provided through Twitter and another $1 million from people who started at Twitter and
bought a new computer on Dell’s Web site. By mid-2012, the @Dell Outlet Twitter account had
more than 1.6 million followers.47Word-of-mouths
Marketing agency BzzAgent recruited 600,000 consumers who voluntarily join promotional
programs for products and services they deem worth talking about.
• Companies can improve purchasing, recruiting, training, and internal and external
communications. Firms can recruit new employees online, and many have Internet training
products for their employees, dealers, and agents. Blogging has waned as companies embrace
social media. “We want to be where our customers are,” said Bank of America after dropping its
blog in favor of Facebook and Twitter. Farmers Insurance uses specialized software to help its
15,000 agents nationwide maintains their own Facebook pages. Via intranets and databases,
employees can query one another, seek advice, and exchange information. Seeking a single
online employee portal that transcended business units, General Motors launched a platform
called my Socrates in 2006 to carry announcements, news, links, and historical information.
IV
MARKETING MANAGEMENT
GM credits the portal with $17.4 million in cost savings to date. Popular hybrid
Twitter/Facebook-type products designed especially for business employees have been
introduced by [Link], IBM, and several Start-ups.
• Companies can improve their cost efficiency. Corporate buyers can achieve substantial
savings by using the Internet to compare sellers’ prices and purchase materials at auction or by
posting their own terms in reverse auctions. Companies can improve logistics and operations to
reap substantial cost savings while improving accuracy and service quality. Small businesses can
especially unleash the power of the Internet. Physicians operating a small practice can use
Facebook-like services such as Dimity to connect with referring physicians and specialists.
MARKET OPPORTUNITIES.
1. Consumer segmentation.
2. Purchase situation analysis.
3. Direct competition analysis.
4. Indirect competition analysis.
5. Analysis of complementary products and services.
CHANGING CHANNELS.
One of the reasons consumers have more choices is that channels of distribution have changed as
a result of retail transformation and disintermediation.
• Retail transformation. Store-based retailers face competition from catalog houses; direct-
mail firms; newspaper, magazine, and TV direct-to-customer ads; home shopping TV; and e-
commerce. In response, entrepreneurial retailers are building entertainment into their stores with
coffee bars, demonstrations, and performances, marketing an “experience” rather than a product
assortment.
• Disintermediation. Early dot-coms such as [Link], E*TRADE, and others successfully
created disintermediation in the delivery of products and services by intervening in the
traditional flow of goods. In response, traditional companies engaged in reintermediationand
became “brick-and-click” retailers, adding online services to their offerings. Some with plentiful
resources and established brand names became stronger contenders than pure-click firms.
V
MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Q2. Good mission statements have five major characteristics? List and discuss each of
these?
ANSWER:
CRAFTING A MSSION STATEMENT A clear, thoughtful mission statement, developed
collaboratively with and shared with managers, employees, and often customers, provides a
shared sense of purpose, direction, and opportunity. At its best it reflects a vision, an almost
“impossible dream,” that provides direction for the next 10 to 20 years. Sony’s former president,
Akio Morita, wanted everyone to have access to “personal portable sound,” so his company
created the Walkman and portable CD player. Fred Smith wanted to deliver mail anywhere in the
United States before 10:30 am the next day, so he created FedEx.
Good mission statements have five major characteristics.
1. They focus on a limited number of goals. Compare a vague mission statement such as “To
build total brand value by innovating to deliver customer value and customer leadership faster,
better, and more completely than our competition” to Google’s ambitious but more focused
mission statement, “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and
useful.”
2. They stress the company’s major policies and values. Narrowing the range of individual
discretion lets employees act consistently on important issues.
3. They define the major competitive spheres within which the company will operate.
Table given below summarizes some key competitive dimensions for mission statements.
4. They take a long-term view. Management should change the mission only when it ceases to
be relevant.
5. They are as short, memorable, and meaningful as possible. Marketing consultant Guy
Kawasaki advocates developing three- to four-word corporate mantras—like “Enriching
Women’s Lives” for Mary Kay—rather than mission statements.
Table. Defining Competitive Territory and Boundaries in Mission Statements.
• INDUSTRY. Some companies operate in only one industry; some only in a set of related
industries; some only in
Industrial goods, consumer goods, or services; and some in any industry.
• Caterpillar focuses on the industrial market; John Deere operates in the industrial and
consumer markets.
• PRODUCTS AND APPLICATIONS. Firms define the range of products and applications
they will supply.
• St. Jude Medical’s mission is “develop medical technology and services that put more control
into the hands of those who treat cardiac, neurological and chronic pain patients, worldwide. We
do this because we are dedicated to advancing the practice of medicine by reducing risk
wherever possible and contributing to successful outcomes for every patient.”
VI
MARKETING MANAGEMENT
• COMPETENCE. The firm identifies the range of technological and other core competencies
it will master and leverage.
• Japan’s NEC has built its core competencies in computing, communications, and components
to support production of laptop computers, television receivers, and handheld telephones.
• MARKET SEGMENT. The type of market or customers a company will serve is the market
segment.
• Aston Martin makes only high-performance sports cars. Gerber serves primarily the baby
market.
• VERTICAL. The vertical sphere is the number of channel levels, from raw material to final
product and distribution,
In which a company will participate.
• At one extreme are companies with a large vertical scope. American Apparel dyes, designs,
sews, markets, and distributes its line of clothing apparel out of a single building in downtown
Los Angeles.
• At the other extreme are “hollow corporations,” which outsource the production of nearly all
goods and services to suppliers. Metro newspaper is published in 56 editions in 22 countries on
four continents and is read by
More than 17 million people every day. It employs few reporters and owns no printing presses;
instead it purchases its articles from other news sources and outsources all its printing and much
of its distribution to third parties.
• GEOGRAPHICAL. The range of regions, countries, or country groups in which a company
will operate defines its Geographical sphere.
• Some companies operate in a specific city or state. Others are multinationals like Deutsche Post
DHL and Royal Dutch/Shell, which each operate in more than 100 countries.
Q3. The holistic marketing framework is designed to address three key management
questions. List the questions and briefly discuss the issues involved?
ANSWER:
A holistic marketing orientation can also provide insight into the process of capturing customer
value. One conception of holistic marketing views it as "integrating the value exploration,
value creation, and value delivery activities with the purpose of building long-term, mutually
satisfying relationships and co-prosperity among key stakeholders."16 According to this view,
holistic marketers succeed by managing a superior value chain that delivers a high level of
product quality, service, and speed. Holistic marketers achieve profitable growth by expanding
customer share, building customer loyalty, and capturing customer lifetime value.
(Value exploration, value creation, and value delivery) helps to create, maintain, and renew
customer value.
The holistic marketing framework is designed to address three key management questions:
1. Value exploration - How can a company identify new value opportunities?
2. Value creation- flow can a company efficiently create more promising new value offerings?
3. Value delivery- How can a company use its capabilities and infrastructure to deliver the new
value offerings more efficiently?
VII
MARKETING MANAGEMENT
VALUE EXPLORATION.
Because value flows within and across markets that are they dynamic and competitive,
companies need a well-defined strategy for value exploration. Developing such a strategy
requires an understanding of the relationships and interactions among three spaces.
(1) The customer's cognitive space.
(2) The company's competence space.
(3) The collaborator's resource space.
The customer's cognitive space reflects existing and latent needs and includes dimensions such
as the need for participation, stability, freedom, and change.17 The Company’s competency
space can be described in terms of breadth—broad versus focused scope of business; and depth
—physical versus knowledge-based capabilities. The collaborator's resource space involves
horizontal partnerships, where companies choose partners based on their ability to exploit related
market opportunities, and vertical partnerships, where companies choose partners based on their
ability to serve their value creation.
VALUE CREATION. To exploit a value opportunity, the company needs value-creation skills.
Marketers need to: identify new customer benefits from the customer's view; utilize core
competencies from its business domain; and select and manage business partners from its
collaborative networks. To craft new customer benefits, marketers must understand what the
customer thinks about, wants, does, and worries about. Marketers must also observe who
customers admire, who they interact with, and who influences them. Business realignment may
be necessary to maximize core competencies.
It involves three steps:
(1) (Re) defining the business concept (the "big idea").
(2) (Re) shaping the business scope (the lines of business).
(3) (Re) positioning the company's brand identity (how customers should see the company).
This is what Kodak is doing as sales from its traditional core businesses of film, camera, paper,
and photo development have sagged, and consumers have abandoned film cameras for
increasingly cheaper digital equipment, products, and services. On September 25, 2003,
Chairman and Chief Executive Daniel A. Carp stood in front of shareholders and unveiled the
company's new strategy. He announced that Kodak was "determined to win in these new digital
markets." In order to do that the company plans to expand its line of digital cameras, printers,
and other equipment for consumers, who are now using the Internet to transmit and display their
digital images. Kodak also is stepping up efforts to deliver on-demand, color printing products
for business and wants to increase its market share of the lucrative medical images and
information services businesses.
VALUE DELIVERY. Delivering value often means substantial investment in infrastructure and
capabilities. The company must become proficient at customer relationship management,
internal resource management, and business partnership management. Customer relationship
management fallows the company to discover who its customers are, how they behave, and what
they need or want. It also enables the company to respond appropriately,
VIII
MARKETING MANAGEMENT
coherently, and quickly to different customer opportunities. To respond effectively, the company
requires internal resource management to integrate major business processes
(e.g., order processing, general ledger, payroll, and production) within a single family of
software modules. Finally, business partnership management allows the company
to handle complex relationships with its trading partners to source, process, and deliver products.
HOLISTIC MARKETING CONCEPT.
Without question, the trends and forces that have defined the new marketing realities in the first
years of the 21st century are leading business firms to embrace a new set of beliefs and practices.
The holistic marketing concept is based on the development, design, and implementation of
marketing programs, processes, and activities that recognize their breadth and interdependencies.
Holistic marketing acknowledges that everything matters in marketing—and that a broad,
integrated perspective is often necessary. Holistic marketing thus recognizes and reconciles the
scope and complexities of marketing activities.
Overview of four broad components characterizing holistic marketing:
Relationship marketing.
Integrated marketing.
Internal marketing.
Performance marketing.
RELATIONSHIP MARKETING. Increasingly, a key goal of marketing is to develop deep,
enduring relationships with people and organizations that directly or indirectly affect the success
of the firm’s marketing activities. Relationship marketing aims to build mutually satisfying long-
term relationships with key constituents in order to earn and retain their business.
Four key constituents for relationship marketing are customers, employees, marketing
partners (channels, suppliers, distributors, dealers, agencies), and members of the financial
community (shareholders, investors, analysts).
IX
MARKETING MANAGEMENT
INTERNAL MARKETING. An element of holistic marketing, is the task of hiring, training,
and motivating able employees who want to serve customers well. Smart marketers recognize
that marketing activities within the company can be as important—or even more important—
than those directed outside the company. It makes no sense to promise excellent service before
the company’s staff is ready to provide it.
Marketing succeeds only when all departments work together to achieve customer goals when
Engineering designs the right products, finance furnishes the right amount of funding, purchasing
buys the right materials, production makes the right products in the right time horizon, and
accounting measures profitability in the right ways. Such interdepartmental harmony can only
truly coalesce.
Internal marketing requires vertical alignment with senior management and horizontal
alignment with other departments so everyone understands, appreciates, and supports the
marketing effort.
INTEGRATED MARKETING. Occurs when the marketer devises marketing activities
and assembles marketing programs to create, communicate, and deliver value for consumers
such that “the who le is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Two key themes are:
(1) Many different marketing activities can create, communicate, and deliver value
(2) Marketers should design and implement any one marketing activity with all other
activities in mind.
When a hospital buys an MRI machine from General Electric’s Medical Systems division, for
instance, it expects good installation, maintenance, and training services to go with the purchase.
The company must develop an integrated channel strategy. It should assess each channel option
for its direct effect on product sales and brand equity, as well as its indirect effect through
interactions with other channel options.
All company communications also must be integrated so communication options reinforce and
complement each other. A marketer might selectively employ television, radio, and print
advertising, public relations and events, and PR and Web site communications so each
contributes on its own and improves the effectiveness of the others. Each must also deliver a
consistent brand message at every contact. Consider this award-winning campaign for Iceland.
PERFORMANCE MARKETING. Requires understanding the financial and nonfinancial
Returns to business and society from marketing activities and programs. As noted previously, top
marketers are increasingly going beyond sales revenue to examine the marketing scorecard and
interpret what is happening to market share, customer loss rate, customer satisfaction, product
quality, and other measures. They are also considering the legal, ethical, social, and
environmental effects of marketing activities and programs
X
MARKETING MANAGEMENT
When they founded Ben & Jerry’s, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield embraced the performance
marketing concept by dividing the traditional financial bottom line into a “double bottom line”
that also measured the environmental impact of their products and processes. That later expanded
into a “triple bottom line” to represent the social impacts, negative and positive, of the firm’s
entire range of business activities.
Many firms have failed to live up to their legal and ethical responsibilities, and consumers are
demanding more responsible behavior. One research study reported that at least one-third of
consumers around the world believed that banks, insurance providers, and packaged-food
companies should be subject to stricter regulation.
Q4. For an MBO system (manage by objectives) to work, the business unit attempting to
implement the process must meet four criteria. What are those criteria?
ANSWER:
Most business units pursue a mix of objectives, including profitability, sales growth, market
share improvement, risk containment, innovation, and reputation. The business unit sets these
objectives and then manages by objectives (MBO).
For an MBO system to work, the unit’s objectives must meet four criteria:
1. They must be arranged hierarchically, from most to least important. The business unit’s
key objective for the period may be to increase the rate of return on investment. Managers can
increase profit by increasing revenue and reducing expenses. They can grow revenue, in turn, by
increasing market share and prices.
2. Objectives should be quantitative whenever possible. The objective “to increase the return
on investment (ROI)” is better stated as the goal “to increase ROI to 15 percent within two
years.”
3. Goals should be realistic. Goals should arise from an analysis of the business unit’s
opportunities and strengths, not from wishful thinking.
4. Objectives must be consistent. It’s not possible to maximize sales and profits
simultaneously.
Other important trade-offs include short-term profit versus long-term growth, deep penetration of
existing markets versus development of new markets, profit goals versus nonprofit goals, and
high growth versus low risk. Each choice calls for a different marketing strategy. Many believe
adopting the goal of strong market share growth may mean foregoing strong short-term profits.
Volkswagen has 15 times the annual revenue of Porsche. But Porsche’s profit margins are seven
times bigger than Volkswagen’s. Other successful companies such as Google, Microsoft, and
Samsung have maximized profitability and growth.
XI
MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Q5. Many strategic alliances take the form of marketing alliances. These fall into four
major categories. Explain and give an example for each category.
ANSWER:
STRATEGIC ALLIANCES Even giant companies—AT&T, Philips, and Starbucks—often
cannot achieve leadership, either nationally or globally, without forming alliances with domestic
or multinational companies that complement or leverage their capabilities and resources.
Just doing business in another country may require the firm to license its product, form a joint
venture with a local firm, or buy from local suppliers to meet “domestic content” requirements.
Many firms have developed global strategic networks, and victory is going to those who build
the better one. The Star Alliance brings together 27 airlines, including Lufthansa, United
Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Air New Zealand, and South Africa Airways, in a huge global
Partnership that allows travelers in 193 countries to make nearly seamless connections to
hundreds of destinations.
Many strategic partnerships take the form of marketing alliances. These fall into four
major categories.
1. Product or service alliances one company licenses another to produce its product, or two
companies jointly market their complementary products or a new product. The credit card
industry is a complicated combination of cards jointly marketed by banks such as Bank of
America, credit card companies such as Visa, and affinity companies such as Alaska Airlines.
2. Promotional alliances one company agrees to carry a promotion for another company’s
product or service. In 2011, VIBE urban music and lifestyle magazine announced a promotional
alliance with Hoop It Up, the world’s largest participatory 3-on-3 basketball tournament
program, with competitions in 35 cities. The multi-platform partnership included VIBE digital,
VIBE City guide App, editorial coverage and promotion in VIBE, and a highly
Integrated social media campaign with a strong VIBE branded presence at all Hoop It Up live
events nationwide.
3. Logistics alliances one company offers logistical services for another company’s product.
Warner Music Group and Sub Pop Records created the Alternative Distribution Alliance (ADA)
in 1993 as a joint venture to distribute and manufacture records owned by independent labels.
ADA is the leading “indie” distribution company in the United States for both physical and
digital product.
4. Pricing collaborations one or more companies join in a special pricing collaboration. Hotel
and rental car companies often offer mutual price discounts.
Companies need to give creative thought to finding partners that might complement their
strengths and offset their weaknesses. Well-managed alliances allow companies to obtain a
greater sales impact at lower cost. To keep their strategic alliances thriving, corporations have
begun to develop organizational structures to support them, and many have come to view the
ability to form and manage partnerships as core skills called partner relationship
Management (PRM).After years of growth through acquisition and buying interests in two dozen
companies, the world’s biggest wireless telecom operator, Vodafone, has looked outside for
partners to help it leverage its existing assets.
───────────────────────────────────────────────
XII