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Lesson#2
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INETRNATIONAL MARKETING PROCESS
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INETRNATIONAL MARKETING PROCESS
Defining International Marketing
Under the marketing concept, the firm must find a way to
discover unfulfilled customer needs and bring
to market products that satisfy those needs. The process of
doing so can be modeled in a sequence of
steps: the situation is analyzed to identify opportunities, the
strategy is formulated for a value
proposition, tactical decisions are made, the plan is
implemented and the results are monitored.
1. Situation Analysis
A thorough analysis of the situation in which the firm finds
itself serves as the basis for identifying
opportunities to satisfy unfulfilled customer needs. In addition
to identifying the customer needs, the
firm must understand its own capabilities and the environment in
which it is operating.
The situation analysis thus can be viewed in terms an analysis
of the external environment and an
internal analysis of the firm itself. The external environment
can be described in terms of macroenvironmental
factors that broadly affect many firms, and micro-environmental
factors closely related to
the specific situation of the firm.
The situation analysis should include past, present, and future
aspects. It should include a history
outlining how the situation evolved to its present state, and an
analysis of trends in order to forecast
where it is going. Good forecasting can reduce the chance of
spending a year bringing a product to
market only to find that the need no longer exists.
If the situation analysis reveals gaps between what consumers
want and what currently is offered to
them, then there may be opportunities to introduce products to
better satisfy those consumers. Hence,
the situation analysis should yield a summary of problems and
opportunities. From this summary, the
firm can match its own capabilities with the opportunities in
order to satisfy customer needs better than
the competition.
There are several frameworks that can be used to add structure
to the situation analysis:
5 C Analysis - company, customers, competitors,
collaborators, climate. Company represents the
internal situation; the other four cover aspects of the external
situation
PEST analysis - for macro-environmental political,
economic, societal, and technological factors. A
PEST analysis can be used as the "climate" portion of the 5 C
framework.
SWOT analysis - strengths, weaknesses, opportunities,
and threats - for the internal and external
situation. A SWOT analysis can be used to condense the situation
analysis into a listing of the most
relevant problems and opportunities and to assess how well the
firm is equipped to deal with them.
2. Marketing Strategy
Once the best opportunity to satisfy unfulfilled customer needs
is identified, a strategic plan for pursuing
the opportunity can be developed. Market research will provide
specific market information that will
permit the firm to select the target market segment and
optimally position the offering within that
segment. The result is a value proposition to the target market.
The marketing strategy then involves:
Segmentation
Targeting
(target market selection)
Positioning the
product within the target market
Value
proposition to the target market
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3. Marketing Mix Decisions
Detailed tactical decisions then are made for the controllable
parameters of the marketing mix. The
action items include:
Product
development - specifying, designing, and producing the first units of the
product.
Pricing
decisions
Distribution
contracts
Promotional
campaign development
4. Implementation and Control
At this point in the process, the marketing plan has been
developed and the product has been launched.
Given that few environments are static, the results of the
marketing effort should be monitored closely.
As the market changes, the marketing mix can be adjusted to
accommodate the changes. Often, small
changes in consumer wants can be addressed by changing the
advertising message. As the changes
become more significant, a product redesign or an entirely new
product may be needed. The marketing
process does not end with implementation - continual monitoring
and adaptation is needed to fulfill
customer needs consistently over the long-term.
The fundamental concepts involved in marketing process are as
follows;
• Need
arises with the state of felt deprivation. This happens when a situation, of an
individual or a
group of individuals or a business, is less than the desired
situation and there is an urge to achieve the
desired situation. Such needs can take many forms, including the
following;
– Physical
(food, clothing, warmth & safety
etc...)
– Social
(belonging, affection)
– Individual
(knowledge, self expression)
The needs are basic part of human make-up, while some are also
created by marketers
•
Wants
– Once needs are
felt, humans and businesses look for solutions (or manifestations – physical
shapes of solutions for removing the states of felt
deprivations). Wants are the manifested
solutions of needs. Wants are thus, forms taken by human needs,
shaped by culture, individual
personality etc.
• Demands
– Human wants
backed by buying power & choices translate into demands – what is chosen as the
desired solution from among the various available and viable
options.
• Products
– Products are the
offering of a firm (or individual/s) to a market or consumer to satisfy a need
or
want. Products can be physical goods, services or other forms of
satisfyers.
• Quality
– The term quality
is expressed more too often in the context of market transactions. Customers
prefer to acquire quality products and firms strive to offer
better quality products than
competitors can to remain successful. Quality is referred as the
ability of a firm (or individual) to
satisfy customer needs & expectations.
• Exchange
– Marketing is
concerned with exchange of products and services. Exchange is the act of
obtaining
a desired product from someone by offering something in return.
• Satisfaction
– Focus of any
marketer is to meet customers’ expectations when providing product solutions.
The
term ‘satisfaction’ in the context of marketing refers to the
extent to which a product’s perceived
performance matches a buyer’s expectations
• Relationship
– It is the process
of creating, maintaining and enhancing strong value-laden relationships with
customers & other stakeholders (build good relationship &
profitable transaction will follow)
• Value
– Another term that
is often used in the context to marketing is ‘value’. It refers to the perceived
net
benefits one gets from acquiring / owning a certain product
(solution).
– ‘Value’ refers to
the differences between the values the customer gains from owning and using a
product and cost/effort in obtaining the product. Often this is
a perceived value rather than an
objective one. The sense of value of any product to anyone is
subjective – in the opinion of the
one according to ones own situation and perspective and this
sense for the same product often
differs from person to person.
– In perceiving
value of a product the buyers consider functional benefits as well as emotional
benefits. Costs of owning and using any product include
monetary, time, energy and psychic
costs.
– Value can be
enhanced by;
• Raising benefits
for same costs
• Reducing costs
for same benefits
• Raise benefits by
more than the raise in costs
• Lower benefits by
less than the reduction in costs
Defining marketing:
Marketing is a process by which individuals and groups obtain
what they need & want by creating and
exchanging products and value with others.
“
International
Marketing” refers to such exchanges across national boundaries for the
satisfaction of
human needs and wants
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