Emergent and Planned Approach Strategies, Driven Markets vs Market Driven - Benefits and Drawbacks - Essay Example

Marketing Research Marketing of a product ensures that the organization may have an advantage over their competitors. This means that there are methods that they can be used to achieve this and ensures that the market is in certain equilibrium. Different strategies are employed in fulfilling the balance and some of the strategies are the emergent and planned. These approaches have various advantages and drawbacks. To have an upper hand in competing environment, there are methods that can be employed and some of them are game theory and driving market through the aspect of edging out the competitors. The edging initiatives ensure that the stability of an organization in certain playing ground is achieved even though there are strengths and weaknesses that are associated with each method. The paper discusses these issues objectively and subjectively drawing out their negative and positive sides. Emergent Approach Strategy Emergent approach of strategy is a way that strategies are developed not at the beginning of a strategy but as the organization continues to develop and incorporates any market change into their strategy. This approach is usually employed when an organization is faced with significant but small or not overwhelming change that comes with a small initial understanding of the way to work or react and therefore employs the method of trial or error (Douglas, 2002, p. 730). This means that if the approach that is taken is successful then it is replicated, but when it becomes a failure, it is not replicated. Such methods takes sometime and creates a portfolio that consists of successful approaches that are built into a coherent pattern so that it can be in the future and results into the emergence of strategic approach. It understands that an organization is complex due to behavioural association and therefore any policies or plans should not be static and not to believe that equilibrium is stable but it may be chaos (Douglas, 2002, p. 728). Hence, it is a strategy that is employed in a marketing strategy that recurs and has an incremental change over certain time with the absence of any rigid planning. This is to enable the organization to embrace any changes in the environment into their plans. Planned Approach Strategy Strategic planning is a traditional method of planning that assumes that what is coming in the future can be predicted in terms of rational, linear and pro-active plans hence strategy can be drawn. This comes into play where there is change that is coming but it is not overwhelming and therefore is a method that can be employed in taking care of it (Mintzberg, 1994, p. 108). This means that the school of planning assumes that the future is under control through knowledge of expectations of the organization, management of the journey and what is expected at the end of the journey. In most, cases this method can be employed in an organization in terms of salary; salary increment can be known and salary pattern can be planned. Generally, strategic management takes most of it policies from planning process. This means that any business objective or marketing plan and any relevant strategies are usually formulated and implemented so that the policies are fulfilled (De Geus, 1988, p. 71). In a marketing scenario, the planners may know the preferences of the customers and how the resources should be allocated to each sector. In any policy or business strategy to be chosen for implementation, there are some shortcomings and benefits that are related to each scenario. The advantages and disadvantages of emergent and planning approach to a marketing issue are: Approach Benefits Drawbacks Planning strategy approach It allows the chance of setting long term objectives and at the same time gives birth to broad plans and policies that form the backbone of survival and progression of the organization within an environment. Policies and aims can be easily be translated into targets that can form a way that performance is measured and monitored. For example an organization may plan to market certain product within a segmented time with specific objects of each segment (De Geus, 1988, p. 72). Materials and resources that are required in the project or plan can be allocated appropriately. This means that the resources that are available can be shared; priorities are given to important aspects and at the end of the efficiency of the resources that are allocated can be judged. Generally the employed of the strategy is logical due to incorporation of any resources at the right time and rational. Employing this method, in most case, cause’s major discrepancies that are within the planned objectives to the realized strategy (De Geus, 1988, p. 71). Employing the rigid method to an environment can be unproductive because of it rigidity. It believes in the linear assumptions e.g. if A then B will follow. Hence, it is not reliable when it comes to turbulence time. Business environment is changing at a faster rate and hence applying the method may not yield the required changes. The planned details or prescriptions that were originally developed may affect creativity. It causes a loss of opportunity because of its rigidity in adhering to the planning policies. Emergent Planning It is able to bring fundamental features that are associated to complex systems and their specific interaction. Hence, solve the problems of unforecastable and unforeseeable outcomes. Due to the first rate that competitive environment is witnessed in an organization, emergent approach allows the filling of the gap that is between planned and realized outcomes. This increases flexibility in a chaos environment and allows the businesses to take into control threats and is able to exploit any opportunities. It is easy for the method to be implemented because small amounts of information are required to draft the strategy. There are chances that the strategies that are developed or embraced may cause strategic drift because the objectives lack or misses the clarity of its development. The performance of any development that is associated with the strategic development cannot be quantitatively measured because the targets are not specifically defined. Game theory Game theory is a form of mathematics that attempts to envisage behaviour in different forms of strategies or ‘strategic’ environment. These strategies range from armies in a battle field to the different trends in a financial market place (Adam & Barry, 2000 p. 57). To accomplish its intention or purpose it employs probabilistic mathematics in choosing to determine the best strategy for excellence within certain conditions that predicts the most probable mission or objective of a competitor or various opponents. It is frequently used in economics in analyzing the market trends and details that of competing company. Game theory is used to, with help of probability laws, determine the likely decisions that competing companies are planning and predicts the possibility that the market will go. In a marketing scenario or competing strategy the issue of market mix may be brought into play and used to analyze the methods in which the different competitors in the area are producing there products in what size and what are the opportunities are there that can be used to advance the benefits of the product on the view of the customer (Adam & Barry, 2000 p. 58). In this theory, the position of players in the market is assumed that it knows the equilibrium strategies of competitors, and therefore changing one’s strategy will not influence the position of a player. This means that the different players in the market use the knowledge of strategies that are developed by the competitors, hence resulting in a situation where there is benefit for each organization. Edge theory (Driven markets vs. market driven) Edge theory brings in two market scenarios: market driven approach and driving market approach (Jaworski, Ajay, & Arvind, 2000, p. 45). Market driven is the understanding, learning, and responding to the speculations of stakeholders and behaviours in relation to a market structure. On the other hand, driving markets is influencing the market aspect (structure and behaviour) of the different market players in a way that it embraces the competitive positions of the business scenarios (Jaworski et al, 2000, p. 48). Therefore, driving markets is the impact in terms of number of chances that are evident in the market and the extent that the changes will cause. Hence, the name that is coined as the driven market, and is used to advance the characteristics of a product. In most cases these methods goes hand in hand, therefore an organization can employ the driven market strategy with market driven strategy. This brings in the aspect of dual strategy since the currently strategy is used and at the same time the future strategy is being developed (Jaworski et al, 2000, p. 45). To enable the driven markets aspect there are three approaches that can be employed: deconstructionist, constructionist and functional modification. When this methods are employed the market will be influenced hence improves customer value (Jaworski et al, 2000, p. 48). Driving markets first has to understand the needs of the market and other details that concern the competitors so that they can introduce or manipulate through increasing the importance of a product into market. Theory Strengths Weakness Game Theory Employing this technique, there is the capability of understanding the competitor and customer orientation and inter-functional co-ordination hence developing a market strategy that brings all of them together (Adam & Barry, 2000 p. 70). The organization can understand the amount of resources that are at their service and enables the firm to be ahead by anticipating the requirements before the competitors hence creating a durable relation between, channel members, customers and suppliers. This is important on those scenarios that the decisions makers have knowledge on the behaviours of their competitors. However, in most cases this is not possible since the customer may not know in advance what they like. Attaining equilibrium in most cases is difficult because the strategies of competitors may be hidden and employing counter measures may be on an abstract knowledge of competitors. Market Driving The ability of analyzing the market and introducing specific market mix ensures that the organization has an edge over their competitors (Jaworski et al, 2000,). It enables introduction of a product into a specific market and changes the orientation of the market because it is easy to add value and customers needs have been incorporated The problem with this method is that there are many cases that the customer cannot articulate needs or any preferences; this causes various levels of challenges to the role and nature of market strategies. Determining the market of a product brings in different strategies. The core aim of any organization is to succeed; therefore they are forced to employ various strategies that see them successful. There are strategic approaches: emergent and planned. Emergent approach takes into account that the market is not stable and is prone to changes. Therefore the strategies that the organization should take should also be developed at the right time. Planned strategies view the market as stable and understand all factors that are in the market. Hence, the planned strategy approach has the ability of allocating resources and defining goals that the organization has to achieve. In any competition, there are ways that an organization may employ to create a niche. Game theory and driving market strategies are employed in ensuring that the organization has taken a high percentage of the market. Game theory brings in probabilistic chances in trying to increase the market share through equilibrium satisfaction. It views the market and competitors in terms of mathematics and it uses probability to determine the best step that the organization has to take. Driving markets takes into consideration the strengths that the company possess and uses them into the advantage of ensuring that they fulfil the preference level of their customers. Bibliography Adam, M. B. & Barry, J. N. 2000, The Right Game: Use Game Theory to Shape Strategy, Harvard Business Press, New York, pp. 57 – 71. 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