Marketing Management Case
9.1 What are the bases for tradeoffs between conflicting wants and needs of different customers with respect to the same product? How important is it to emphasize product quality when a new and unique product is launched?
When a costumer look in the market, same product between brands, they always take in account the quality versus price, sometimes a segment of costumer prefers to pay a little more but get better quality, other point of is the post sale service. the products can have a good price and functionality versus the competitor, but the post sale service is really bad they will lose clients. Today the most important things for the costumers is the price, quality and post sale service.
Be the first in the market is more important that the quality and the price and more when the product is unique in his class, after the product are in the market the manufacturer can improved the quality and price of the product with the generated feedback by the consumer and distributors.
9.2 Is it better to market a new product quickly and then upgrade the design later or to incorporate all design modifications or improvement before launching the product?
Hit the market first than other is always the best option, its create a customer retention and loyalty , as soon the product are in the shelves, the manufacturers start obtaining feedback from the consumer, in other words, improvements in the quality and functions before the competitors. also the product will have better change of acceptance in the market than the same kind of products. it is important to bear in mind always a new and unique product enter in the market it needs to have a minimum of Quality Control (QC), if this does not happen the competitor would have advantage this weakness to displace the product and win market acceptance.
9.3 How can product-development costs be minimized by entering the market late?
Other strategy in the world of manufacturing is follows the best companies, Wait until the products are in shelves, you can watch the initial acceptance and do reverse engineer , copy the style or technology to introduce in the market a new product with the same functionality or similar, but with a lower price. the followers strategy makes smaller gross margin.
9.4 Customer’s wants and needs are regionally different for products intended for global markets. How can a centralized, concurrent engineering team develop a product that will serve as the common “platform” for global markets?
The products need to be flexible to change some function and aesthetic aspects to adapt to the local requirements and satisfy the local costumer (names, colors, function , etc..). Outsourcing is a great way to reduce import duties and to satisfy local content laws (example: all the cell phones sold legally in Argentina needs to be manufactured