What was the most valuable thing that you learned in BUS656 this term - Essay Example

Marketing What was the most valuable thing that you learned in BUS656 this term The term concerning BUS656 has been extremely insightful in many ways. The topics in this term emphasize various aspects of marketing strategy and planning. Marketing strategy was elucidated in various ways by which an organization could improve its profits and performance by focusing on specific areas of business and/or resources and opportunities. This topic, which was focused on the concept of segmentation, has been the most significant learning because segmentation is the most appropriate market strategy for any new and/or old business.

Segmentation helps in allocating demand or creating demand for goods and services. This concept provides numerous ways to create market segments that can be used to leverage business potential. The highlighted point is that of defensible market segments, which would actually help in capturing market share for a large as well as small business. The defensible market segments not only create business but also sideline competition from others in the industry. Creation of defensible market segments allows a particular business to stay on the top until competitors surpass the defensible segments with better products and/or customers’ needs change.

Defensible segments can be of value with the positioning strategy of the business, especially in weak market segments. Understanding customers’ buying behavior and needs help in creating defensible segments. In addition, customer behavior in terms of frequency of purchase, attitude towards a particular product and a new product of the same brand can be advantageous to creation of defensible market strategy. Positioning strategy of products aimed at defensible segments provides opportunity to increase market share of new products.

Greater product differentiation and an established brand automatically increase purchase size of customers, but cannot create defensible segments. This module highlighted the significance of defensible segments and acquiring market share as well as identifying market segments that can be used to find a slot for a particular product. Understanding markets will also help in designing products to meet the market/customer demands, which may be used for positioning the products. Once the market and customer needs are identified, it becomes simpler to find positioning strategies accordingly.

It is difficult to capture greater market share of products that create defensible segments. Here, a strong positioning strategy would be of great value for the business. Positioning strategy helps in putting forth propositions through various promotional strategies. Defensible segments allow successful positioning of products and services; however, competitors’ intrusion cannot be disregarded. Segmentation becomes difficult in two cases, firstly, competition and second is changing customer needs, attitudes and behavior which render the segment no longer defensible.

In conclusion, defensible market segments allow creation of specialty products for specific target customers. This is advantageous for large and small businesses, and even startup businesses. Defensible segments are captured with unique positioning strategies for the new products. It is also clear that defensible segments remain viable only until absence of competition and till customers’ preferences remain unchanged, and hence short-lived.