Marketing Strategy - Potential for Business - Financing
Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Marketing Strategy - Potential for Business

In 1960, Vice President of marketing services at GE authorized a large-scale project (called PROM, optimization model for profitability) to examine the benefits of the impact of marketing strategies. Several years of effort to produce a computer-based model that identified the main factors responsible for a large part of the change in return on investment. Because the data used to support the model from various markets and industries, the PROM model is often considered a crosssectional model. Even today, the cross-section models are often used in GE. In 1972, the program PROM, now known as PIMS, was moved to the Marketing Science Institute, a nonprofit organization associated with Harvard Business School. The scope of the PIMS program has increased so much and its popularity has gained the momentum that a few years ago, the administration proposes to the Institute of Strategic Planning, a new agency created to PIMS. The PIMS program is based on the experience of more than 500 companies in nearly 3800 "businesses" for periods ranging from two to twelve years. "Business" is synonymous with "UDF" and is defined as an operational unit that sells a range of products to an identifiable group of customers, in competition with a well defined set of competitors. Essentially, PIMS is a cross-sectional study of strategy on the experience of associations. The information gathered from the participating companies is provided at the PIMS program in a standardized format in the form of nearly 200 pieces of data. The PIMS database covers large and small firms, markets in North America, Europe and elsewhere, and a wide variety of products and services, ranging from candy for the heavy capital equipment to financial services. The information covers such things as

• A description of market conditions in which the enterprise operates, including elements such as the distribution channels used by the UDF, the number and size of its customers and the market growth rate and the inflation.

• The business unit's competitive position in its market, including market share, relative quality, prices and costs related to competition, and the degree of vertical integration compared to the competition.


• the annual measurements of the UDF and operating financial performance over periods ranging from two to twelve years.

Overall Results The PIMS project has indicated that the profitability of a company is affected by 37 basic factors, explaining over 80 percent of variation in profitability among the companies studied. Of the 37 basic factors, seven were of paramount importance. Based on the analysis of available information in the database of PIMS, Buzzell and Gale suggested the following strategy principles, or links between strategy and performance:

1. In the long term, the most important factor affecting a business unit of performance is the quality of its products and services over those of competitors. A quality edge boosts performance in two ways. In the short term, high-quality increases profits via premium prices. In the longer term, superior or improving the quality of parent is most effective for a company to develop, leading to both market expansion and gains in market share.

2. Market share and profitability are closely related. Business units with a very large share of more than 50 percent of their served markets benefit from the rate of return of more than three times larger than the small SBus (those serving less than 10 per cent of their markets) . The main reason for the market share, profitability link, apart from the connection with relative quality, is that large businesses from the economies of scale. They simply have lower per unit costs than their smaller competitors.

3. Intensive investment acts as a powerful brake on profitability. Investmentintensive companies are those that employ a lot of capital per dollar of sales, by dollar value, or employee.

4. Many so-called "dog" and "question mark" generate cash businesses, while many "cash cows" are dry. The principle of growth share matrix for planning (see Article 10) is that cash flows are largely dependent on market growth and competitive position (your hand compared to your biggest competitor). However, the PIMS research shows that while market growth and the relative is related to cash flow, many other factors also influence this dimension of performance. Accordingly, the estimated cash flows based only on the growth share matrix are often misleading.

5. Vertical integration is a profitable strategy for some types of businesses, but not for others. Whether increased vertical integration helps or night depends on the situation, regardless of the cost of its implementation.

6. Most of the strategic factors that boost ROI also contribute to the long-term value. These principles derive from the premise that performance is based on three main types of factors: market characteristics (ie, market differentiation, the growth rate of, the conditions of entry, unionization, capital intensity and amount of purchase), the company's competitive position in that market (ie, relative perceived quality, relative market share, compared with l 'capital intensity, and relative costs), and the strategy it follows (ie, prices, expenditure on research and development, the introduction of new products, changes in relative quality, the variety of products / services, marketing, distribution channels and the relative vertical integration). Performance refers to measures such as profitability (ROS, ROI, etc.), growth, cash flow, by value and share price.

Management Applications The PIMS approach is to collect data on the actual number of business experience as possible and search for relationships that appear most significant effect on performance. AModele of these relations is then developed so that the estimate of a return on investment can be made of the structure and strategy of the factors associated with the company. Obviously, the PIMS framework should be amended from time to time. For example, the repositioning of structural May impossible and cost prohibitive to do so. In addition, the actual performance in May to reflect an element of chance or an unusual circumstance. In addition, the results May be influenced by the effects of transition from a conscious change of strategic direction. Despite these reservations, the PIMS framework can be beneficial in the following manner:

1. It provides a realistic and consistent method for establishing levels of yield potential for business.

2. It prompts reflection on the management reasons for differences in performance.

3. It gives an overview of strategic decisions that will improve the return on investment.

4. It encourages an appreciation of more discerning unit performance. Since the mid-1970s, the PIMS database has been used by managers and planning specialists in several ways. Applications include the development of business plans, evaluation of estimates by management, and evaluation of possible strategies. The data suggest that

• For fans, the current profitability is affected by a high level of product innovation, measured by the ratio of sales of new products to total sales or spending on research and development. The penalty to pay for innovation is particularly heavy for firms ranked fourth or less in their served markets. The market leader in profitability, on the other hand, are not affected by new products or the research and development.

• High rates of lower marketing expenditure return on investment for the followers and not leaders.

• Low-ranking market followers benefit from high inflation. For companies ranked first, second and third, inflation has no connection with the return on investment.

The measure of the value of marketing strategies in recent years, a new criterion to measure the value of marketing strategies has been suggested. This new approach, called value-based planning, marketing strategies by the judges of their ability to improve shareholder value. It focuses on the impact of a strategic decision on the value investors place on the shares of a company asset. The main feature of the planning based on the value that managers should be evaluated on their ability to make strategic investments that produce returns above their cost of capital. Value-based planning ideas attracts contemporary financial theory. For example, an enterprise of the principal obligation is to maximize the return on capital appreciation. Similarly, the market value of an action depends on investor expectations of the capacity of each unit's business to generate cash. The value is created when the financial benefits of a strategic activity that exceed the costs. To account for differences in the timing and risks of costs and benefits, the value of planning based on estimates of the total value by discounting all cash flows. Accompanying this has been using the value of the approach based on a certain time is based on the Connecticut Dexter Corporation. Its value-based planning uses four sub-:

Dexter • The financial system of decision support (DSS), which provides strategic business segments (SBS) with financial data. DSS offers a month's profit and loss account and balance sheet for each segment of activity. All divisions expenditure, assets and liabilities are assigned to SBSs.

• A system based on micro-computer, which processes the data for use in the two subsystems of the system of financial reporting and the value of the system planner. Financial data generated by the DSS should be transformed to meet the input specifications of these two subsystems.

• The financial reporting system of enterprises is estimated that the cost of capital of the SBS. To estimate the cost of capital, Dexter uses two models. The first is the obligation rating model simulation. This model is used to estimate the appropriate capital structure to each of its SBSs, given his six years of financial history. Each SBS is assigned the highest debt to total capital ratio that would allow him to receive a quote A. The second model, which is used to calculate the cost of capital, is the model for estimating risk. This model allows the cost of equity to be estimated for the segments that are not publicly traded.

• The value of the system planner estimates a company's future cash flows. The basic principle of the planning system is that decisions should be based on a rigorous examination of expected future cash flows. Dexter uses the last 12 quarters of these statistics to produce a first cut projection of future cash flows. As information on a new quarter becomes available, the oldest neighborhood in the model is deleted. These historical trends are used for projecting financial ratios in the future. The following assumptions were made to calculate future cash flows: Sales growth based on the hope that each SBS maintain market share. Based on net plant growth rate in unit volume considered necessary to maintain the market share of Dexter.

Unallocated costs projected for each division SBS using the same percentage of sales for the division as a whole. The appropriate time horizon for cash flow projections based on the number of years that companies can invest at a rate of return. These assumptions are controversial because they do not allow cash flow projections to be tailored to each SBS. Dexter terms of managing its history provides a naive projection and uses it to challenge its managers to explain why the future will be different from the recent past. The next stage of value-based planning process is to calculate the value of estimated future cash flows and delivered by the cost of capital for SBS. If the estimated value of a SBS is higher than the value of his article, SBS contributes positively to the wealth of shareholders Dexter, which means it makes sense to reinvest in it. The main strengths of Dexter's SBS value planner system have been stated as follows:

• The emphasis on the line to be intelligible to managers aValues-based planning model that can indicate SBSs are not creating value for shareholders. However, it is the manager of SBS, which must take action to correct the problems that the analysis reveals.

• Its degree of accuracy the real dilemma in the design of planning models based on values is to make them easy to use, while improving the precision with which they reflect or predict the market value of the company.

• Integration with existing systems and databases by developing a system that works with existing systems, costs are reduced and upgrades are easier to implement. Also, it is easier to gain acceptance frames valuebased if the planning system is presented as an extension of decision support that they currently use. In the seven years since Dexter has used the method based on value, he made important contributions to decision making. Using this approach, managers Dexter made the following decisions:

• Do not invest in a SBS with prospects for growth to its evaluation, based on the performance increases considerably.

• To reduce the size of the harvest and a SBS with a negative value.

• To sell SBS with a negative value to its employees for the item of value.

• To sell an SBS with a value higher than the item of value, but for which a tender was received which was significantly greater than any that could be reasonably modeled in the hands of Dexter. The interesting feature of these decisions is that they can work a little against the requirements that flow from a portfolio-planning approach. The first decision, for example, refers to a star business, probably worthy of further investment. Unlike the planning portfolio, where growth is desirable in itself, under planning based on value, growth is healthy only if the company is creating value. Dexter uses the value-based planning as a guide for decision making, not as an absolute rule. The approach is generally understood and accepted, but many managers question its relevance. They now know that their divisions to create value for the company, but they do not understand how they can use this information to create or modify important business decisions. Top management understands the value of planning needs more time before it is fully accepted.

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Marketing Strategy - Potential for Business Reviewed by Reko Srowako on 7:37 PM Rating: 5 In 1960, Vice President of marketing services at GE authorized a large-scale project (called PROM, optimization model for profitability) to ...

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