Guideline 1 Understanding the sources of competitive advantage
SUPERIOR
POSITION- Costs
- Differentiation
- Protected niche
SUPERIOR
SKILLS
SUPERIOR
RESOURCES
- Specialized knowledge
- Customer orientation
- Trade relationships
- Technical expertise
- Flexible organization
- Coverage
- Economies of scale
- Financial experience
- Share experiences
- Global / international
Strategic marketing planning: theory and practice 103
3 Understanding the environment
Guideline 3 spells out what is meant by the
term environment in the context of companies.
There is now an overwhelming body of evi-
dence to show that it is failure to monitor the
hostile environmental changes that is the big-
gest cause of failure in both large and small
companies. Had anyone predicted that IBM
would lose billions of dollars during the last
decade, they would have been derided. Yet it
was the failure of IBM to respond sufficiently
quickly to the changes taking place around
them that caused their recent problems.
Clearly, marketing has a key role to play in
the process. For all organizations, this means
devoting at least some of the key executives’
time and resources to monitoring formally the
changes taking place about them. Guidelines 3,
4 and 5 comprise the research necessary to
complete a marketing audit. This leads on
naturally to the next point.Guideline 2 Understanding differentiation
- Superior product quality
- Innovative product features
- Unique product or service
- Strong brand name
- Superior service (speed, responsiveness, ability to solve problems)
- Wide distribution coverage
Continuously strive to serve customer needs more effectively