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Four Strategy Topics - not to be missed September 2005
In this issue...
  • BOOK SUMMARY: Blue Ocean Strategy
  • What the Heck Does Marketing Do?
  • Get 'Marketing-Ready' for 2006 with this Strategic Marketing Workshop
  • Market Management Fitness Assessment

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    Dear Guest,

    Welcome to the Suidan Associates Strategic Marketing e-Newsletter. In this periodic service we will provide summaries of current books and articles on various marketing and strategy topics, as well as news that may be of interest to you.


    Zuhair Suidan

    BOOK SUMMARY: Blue Ocean Strategy

    In the Blue Ocean Strategy, Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne assert that in today’s overcrowded industries, competing head-on results in nothing but a bloody “red ocean” of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool, and that while most companies compete within such red oceans, this strategy is increasingly unlikely to create profitable growth in the future.

    The authors argue that tomorrow’s leading companies will succeed not by battling competitors, but by creating “blue oceans” of uncontested market space ripe for growth. Such strategic moves – which they term “value innovation” – create powerful leaps in value for both the firm and its buyers, rendering rivals obsolete and unleashing new demand.

    Kim and Mauborgne highlight six principles that every company can use to successfully formulate and execute blue ocean strategies:

    1. Reconstruct market boundaries
    2. Focus on the big picture
    3. Reach beyond existing demand
    4. Get the strategic sequence right
    5. Overcome organizational hurdles, and
    6. Build execution within into strategy

    We recommend this book for its out of the box thinking.

    What the Heck Does Marketing Do?

    An IBM Tivoli advertisement leads with "MISSION – Keep systems running, sales selling, accounting counting and marketing doing whatever it does". It's catchy; maybe even funny. But it makes you think "What the heck does marketing do?"

    Get 'Marketing-Ready' for 2006 with this Strategic Marketing Workshop

    Is Your Technology ‘Marketing Ready’ for 2006? Practical Tools for Strategic Marketing: The Essential Workshop for Technology Marketers might be for you.

    • November 3-4, 2005 Rocky Hill Marriott, Rocky Hill, CT
    • December 15-16, 2005 Newton Marriott, Newton, MA
    A Strategic Marketing Plan is the cornerstone of all Marketing activities. It is the first step on your road to robust revenue growth and greater profits. This workshop focuses on the practical processes, tools and techniques involved in formulation of effective marketing strategies to address the challenges of today’s turbulent marketplace.

    Leveraging our unique Technology Marketer’s Strategy Toolkit you will begin applying proven methods for developing clear, distinctive and integrated strategic marketing plans that have buy-in throughout the organization.

    This program is for you if you are:
    • President, vice president / director / senior manager of marketing, sales, product management, marketing communications, strategic planning, business development or market analysis
    • Seeking to learn the processes, tools and techniques for developing a clear, distinctive and integrated strategic marketing plan that will have a real impact on your revenues and profits
    • Wanting to increase buy-in to your plans and bring order our of disorder and process out of chaos in developing them
    • A cross-functional team focused on developing a market or business opportunity
    Here are just two quotes from past participants:

    “The most focused and productive days I have spent in the past ten years in this industry sector...” -- Jezz Leckenby, Director of Marketing, Veeco

    “The process and techniques (I learned) are the best way that I have seen of building rapid consensus around a technology marketing strategy. You will go back to the office with tools that you can immediately apply”. -- Matthew Goldsbrough, Managing Director, Goldsbrough Consulting Ltd., formerly in senior marketing and business development roles with Hyperion and Informatica

    Discounts are offered for early and team enrollments.

    Tailored, on-site workshops are also available.

    Details at www.Suidan.com. Inquiries welcome at 203-972-6000.

    Market Management Fitness Assessment

    Take this assessment to get a quick reading on the status of the market management function in your organization, with focus on market planning (leading to the availability of winning offerings) and product marketing (successfully marketing the offerings in your portfolio).

    You can use the assessment in any of three ways:

    1. Take it and e-mail the results to yourself and/or us. You can reflect on the assessment and needed improvements on your own, or discuss the situation with us. We would be delighted to share with you our insights and discuss areas where we can help.
    2. Ask selected individuals within your organization to take it, and have the results tabulated by you or an independent party (to maintain confidentiality). You may be surprised by what you find out.
    3. Have the assessment taken during a staff meeting and discuss the responses and the actions which need to be taken for improvement.

    The chart at the end of the assessment illustrates the implications of your assessment to the outlook of the business. How does your company rate? What are the implications? What actions can you / will you take to improve the marketing management function?

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