Ten day mba pdf free download

Distilling the material contained in most popular business courses presently offered at Harvard, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago, Northwestern, and the University of Virginia—including leadership, corporate ethics and compliance, financial planning, real estate, and all the latest topics—this invaluable volume will teach you how to:The Ten Day MBA by Steven Silbiger PDF.

The information, the expertise, and the confidence you need for success are all in the pages of this remarkable book—at the rate of one easy-to-follow chapter per day. Share this:. Leave a comment. Review of the Distribution Channels 5.

Evaluation of the Economics 7. Revision and Extension of Steps until a consistent plan emerges Although there are seven steps, their order is not set in stone. Based on circumstances and your personal style, the order of the steps may be re- arranged. This chapter could get bogged down in a morass of marketing theory, but to make it practical, I will outline the questions and areas that should be considered when developing a marketing plan.

I will present the MBA models in the same seven-step order in which they are taught at the best schools. This chapter offers a generic structure to apply to whatever marketing issue you may encounter. I have not neglected to use the vocabulary taught at the schools, so you can pick up on the MBA jargon and speak like a real MBA marketer. Marketing is an area especially rich in specialized vocabulary. With the correct vocabulary, even your mediocre marketing ideas can appear as brilliant ones.

People do not have the same needs or desires. The objective of consumer analysis is to identify segments or groups within a population with similar needs so that marketing efforts can be directly tar- geted to them. Starting anywhere else tends to restrict your thinking and all subsequent analysis. Several important questions must be asked to find the market that will unlock untold marketing riches: What is the need category?

Who is buying and who is using the product? What is the buying process? How can I segment the market? What is the need category? Who needs us and why? What is the need or use that your product addresses? The question may seem unnecessary, but in answering it you may uncover a potential market for the product that was previously overlooked.

They have made use of their powder in their own brand of toothpaste, air freshener, and carpet freshener. In addition, they profitably recommend their raw baking soda powder for hundreds of uses. Marketing Strategy Development Who is buying vs.

Buyers many times are different from users. Determining the buyer as well as the user provides the essential initial insights to create a marketing plan.

Marketing research is a prime source of information, but just as valid are your own observations, investigation, and intuition. Understanding the buying process is critical because it will lead to the possible routes to reach buyers. The buying process includes all the steps that a person takes leading to a purchase. It is also called the adoption process and the problem-solving process by some academics. I have read extensively on this topic and have boiled the theories down to five steps. Advert- ising may trigger that need.

Prestige products such as designer clothes and fragrances trigger desire. They meet emotional needs such as love and group acceptance. For example, store displays play that role at the point of purchase POP. Cover Girl Cosmetics has a display in drug stores to help buyers select colors. Evaluate the Alternatives. Which one is best for me? This includes not only products within a category, but substitutes as well.

When confronted with the high prices of automobiles, a college student may end up buying a motorcycle, a moped, or a bicycle. Depending on the importance of the product, consumers may seek additional information and advice.

Car pur- chases often include a trip to the local mechanic or the neighborhood car buff. Placing positive information where your buyers are likely to look is one key to marketing success. In the golf industry the club pro is a key influencer in the equipment-buying decision of golfers. Distribution is also crucial at the evaluation stage of the buying process.

If a product is not readily available, a comparable substitute may be chosen just for convenience or immediacy of need.

Even if you crave Dr. The Purchase Decision. This is the big sale. With many big- ticket items, such as ocean cruises and appliances, a trial is not possible. In those instances the decision process is more time-consuming and difficult to make because there is more risk involved. It is very important for the marketer to understand risk. Evaluate Postpurchase Behavior.

Did I make a mistake? In trying to understand the buying process, the first sparks of a marketing plan can be ignited into a tentative idea about advertising or promotion to be considered later in Step 5 of the strategy development process.

Consumer research is a major tool in helping make the buying process theory useful. Research can show a marketing director where he has succeeded and where his efforts need to be redirected.

For example, if the marketing director of The National, a sports newspaper that failed in , had conducted a survey that would have shown him that 50 percent of men were aware of the paper, but that only 1 percent had read it, that could have been useful.

That finding could have led the director to increase his efforts to gain wider newsstand distri- bution and to give more trial subscriptions. Research is valuable because it can be translated into tangible marketing actions.

I can assure you that many marketing research companies will be glad to help you waste money. As the discussion of buyer behavior indicates, different products elicit dif- ferent purchase behaviors because of their inherent importance to the buyer and user. They are usually higher priced and at times difficult to compare.

Determining the differences between alternatives makes high- involvement purchases difficult, especially if the buyer is not an expert. Thus, the information search can be quite extensive. When litigating a damage claim, for example, usually there is no second chance to take the case to trial.

Therefore, the choice of a lawyer is a high-involvement selection. With low-involvement products the decision is simpler. A helpful matrix on page 10 captures the possible behaviors resulting from the interaction of the levels of involvement and product differences. By understanding the possible behaviors, you, as a marketer, may be able to take advantage of this knowledge to sell your product. This academic model does have real-world implications for action.

A high- involvement product, such as a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, would appear in the upper left-hand corner of the matrix.

Athletic shoes are a prime example. The conversion of a low-in- volvement product to a high-involvement product can make a simple com- modity product stand out against an undifferentiated field of competitors.

There are four generic ways in which this can be accomplished. Link Product to a High-Involvement Issue. Use Involving Advertising. If the advertising creates a value-expressive message about the product or service, then a product can become import- ant. Such messages link values, such as social status and love, instead of promoting physical product attributes to differentiate the product from the competition.

Pepsi tries to link being modern and youthful with its products by using singers in elaborate commercials to sell its soda. Change the Importance of Product Benefits. Products as well as services provide a variety of benefits.

If through marketing action a benefit can be raised to a heightened level of importance, buyers are likely to become more involved. The beer wars of the s made calories an important competitive issue. Introduce Important Characteristic to Product.

A marketer can also tinker with some of the elements of the product itself to distinguish it. When childproof caps were introduced on household cleaners, the involve- ment of parents in this purchase decision was heightened. The first products with protection caps stood out on the store shelves. But once all competitors copied the cap, new avenues of differentiation were needed and the purchase returned to its low-involvement status. Truly low-involvement products often are that way because a minimum level of acceptable performance is required.

A thumbtack, for example, does not have a very difficult job to perform. If the cost of trial is low, such as for a pack of gum, involve- ment is difficult to stimulate.

Related to involvement is the level of purchase planning. Is the purchase planned or an impulse buy? High-involvement products are usually planned while impulse products are bought on the spur of the moment. If a purchase is planned, then a buyer is likely to seek information. If not, the proximity of the product to the need is very important. Snack foods are an example of impulse buying. Midday hunger leads to the nearest junk food. Do I intend to segment the market?

If you think you have something that is for everyone, then a mass market strategy is appropri- ate. If your product satisfies the masses, then feed it to them. If not, you must choose a segment or segments of the market to target. Segments are homo- geneous groups of similar consumers with similar needs and desires.

Orangina appeals to a special segment of the soft drink market. To identify segments that can be efficiently reached by marketing efforts. To help develop marketing programs. By having a definite segment in mind, you can effectively aim and effi- ciently execute your marketing activities to yield the most sales and profits. Without a target, you risk wasting marketing dollars on disinterested people. Divides the market by country, state, region, county, and city. Arbitron, a large media research firm, has defined a similar measure to capture the major television markets of the country, called Areas of Dominant Influence ADIs.

Demographic Segmentation. People may have different hot but- tons that advertising can try to trigger. Psychographic segmentation is difficult. Personality variables are tougher to identify and quantify than demographics, but they can be very valuable. Behavioral Segmentation. Divides the market by observable purchase behaviors: Usage—Amount of use, manner of use, benefits sought Purchase Occasion—Gift, vacation, seasonal, etc. Brand Loyalty—Loyalty to one product indicates receptiveness to others.

Responsiveness to Price and Promotion—Some groups respond to special marketing efforts more than others. Housewives use more coupons than single professional women. However, the ability to target just brown-haired men with effective advert- ising is limited and its usefulness would be dubious. Is brown hair a neces- sary segmentation variable?

There are no magazines exclusively targeted to brown-haired males. Besides, blond and redheaded men may also be a reasonable market for Corvettes. You should use the following criteria to evaluate possible marketing segments: Measurability—Can you identify the segment? Can you quantify its size? Accessibility—Can you reach the segment through advertising, sales force or distributors, transportation, or warehousing?

Substantiality—Is the segment large enough to bother with? Is the segment shrinking, maturing, or is it a growing segment? Compatibility with Competition—Are your competitors interested in this segment? Are competitors currently investigating it or is it not worth their trouble?

Effectiveness—Does your company have the capabilities to adequately service this segment? Consequently, many large coffee companies continue to target it. Even in markets that appear hopeless, there may be a segment that others overlook. Xerox controlled 88 percent of the copier market in the s. The majority of its sales came from large and medium-sized units. But by , Xerox had lost more than half of its market share. What happened? Xerox ignored the small-copier market.

Thousands of small companies with light copy needs had to run to the local copy shop every time they had a copy job. Canon, Sharp, and Ricoh seized this market by selling a smaller and less expensive copier.

With a foothold in small copiers, the Japanese competitors proceeded to topple Xerox in the large-copier segment of the market. Do it first so as not to stifle your cre- ativity with the quantitative analysis you will perform as part of the strategy development framework. After the other steps are completed it can be altered to fit an evolving marketing strategy.

Market analysis also includes a review of the competitive and regulatory environment. By closely examining the market, a marketing manager can determine if the segment selected is worth the trouble of a targeted marketing effort.

MBAs ask three important questions to evaluate a market: What is the relevant market? Where is the product in its product life cycle? What are the key competitive factors in the industry? What is the relevant market?

In between the first and second years of my MBA education, I worked for an international trading company. I investigated the possibility of selling a Mexican gourmet ground coffee in U. It would have been misleading for me to assume that all coffee sales were in my relevant target market. However, 60 percent of that total was sold in stores, while the other 40 percent was sold to the institutional markets, including restaurants and vending machines.

But within that larger coffee market there were additional sub-markets to investigate before arriving at my final relevant market. Within the gourmet coffee market, only 60 percent of the coffees sold had no artificial flavorings. My Mexican coffee had no additives and the producer refused to artificially flavor his coffee. That was my relevant market. Once a market segment is identified, you have to ask if it is large and ac- cessible enough to justify your marketing effort. Only marketable products make money.

These questions are difficult to answer and involve marketing research. If it is a new product, the answers will not be readily available. Test markets may have to be used to obtain that information. This step may lead to further segment investigation. The growth and decline of consumer segments within a market should also be noted.

When the market is growing, future sales growth can come from new users or existing customers. Where is the market in its product life cycle? Markets can be characterized by the stage that they are at in their product life cycles PLC. Cellular phone service began in the early s with fewer than ten thousand users. The PLC concept is important because the process of diffusion or adoption by the population has major implications for how a product is marketed.

Each product develops its own unique PLC as it matures. If possible a trial is important. High advertising costs may be incurred to get the word out.

Some vendors opt for an exclusive distribution of their products in a few select outlets at first. The first buyers are called the innovators, followed by the early adopters. They freely take purchase risks because their personalities or pocketbooks allow them to do so. When companies introduce new products, managers must make difficult pricing decisions because there is frequently no basis for comparison.

The level of initial prices and profits has great implications regarding the outcome of future battles with competitors as well as your ability to perform additional research and development as with products like high-definition TV and DVD. The early majority becomes interested. As more consumers become familiar with a product they examine the new models to decide which to buy, not whether they should buy.

When buyers get to the store they start comparing features. To make the product more accessible, marketers often choose a selective distribution to gain a greater number and variety of outlets.

At this stage it is important to boost your sales volume ahead of the competition in order to reduce costs through production and advertising efficiencies. This helps a company gain the competitive advantage in the next stage of the PLC e.

Because people are accustomed to buying the product and the differences are few, brand loyalty plays a dominant role. Price competition often becomes heated in stable markets because additional market share comes directly from your competitors. Because there is less differentiation on product attributes, advertising is used as a vehicle to differentiate products.

In mature markets competitors are ferreting out all possible segments. All possible channels of distribution are also considered using a mass market distribution strategy e. Even the most timid consumers, the laggards, find it safe to buy the product at this late stage. If it does cause cancer, the FDA usually has found out by now. Consumers turn a deaf ear to advertising because they know that all competing products are the same.

At this stage many companies focus their efforts on reducing price if com- petition remains, or slowly increasing prices if the competitive field thins. The effort to sell the trade is popularly called relationship marketing e.

With some products the maturity phase does not necessarily mean death. Products can be reinvigorated after a period of maturity and a new growth phase can begin. Baseball trading cards underwent such a revival, encouraged by Topps Inc.

In some cases, lingering death throes produce large profits for the last manufacturer. In the vacuum tube business, which supplies electronic tubes for old TVs, radios, and other equipment, Richardson Electronics is the sur- vivor in an industry once dominated by GE, RCA, Westinghouse, and Sylvania. Using an end game strategy, the remaining producers can extract large profits from customers since they have nowhere else to go for their replacement parts.

What are the key competitive factors within the industry? The basis of competition in each industry or market tends to be different. It has a major impact on how a business attacks its market. In industries providing raw materials to others, price and service are key.

In my investigation of the coffee industry, I found price and quality to be the basis of competition. When developing a marketing plan, you may want to try to change the basis of competition to one that favors your firm, but the key underlying competitive factors cannot be ignored. Now, a plan to beat the competition must be developed.

You need to look at yourself and at the competition with the same level of objectivity. What are your advantages? What things do you do well? MBAs call them core competencies. What are your weaknesses?

The following questions help to flush that out. What is your company good at and what is the competition good at? Barriers are conditions or hurdles that new com- petitors have to overcome before they can enter the market.

The availability of cash and specialized knowledge are such barriers. To be a player, a company needs a large sales force, research labs, and a large bank account to pay for it all. Because of these barriers, most small companies team up with large ones if they have a promising new drug to peddle. If in an industry the barriers to entry are low, the playing field becomes very crowded.

Savvy marketers should plan for that eventuality by trying to form a marketing strategy that new competitors cannot easily copy. This is more fully discussed later in the book in the Strategy chapter.

During my coffee investigation, I looked at what my company had to offer. We lacked distribution, advertising expertise, a reputation, and cash. The only thing my Mexican employer had to offer was quality packaged coffee. After much questioning, and feeling a little ill, I hoped that there might be a large food company that would like to enter into a joint venture.

We would supply the coffee and the partner would do the distribution and marketing. We could piggyback, not unlike what small pharmaceutical companies do, recognizing that some profit is better than none.

What are the market shares of the industry players? Many tracking services are available for consumer products such as Selling Areas Marketing Inc. SAMI and A.

Checkout scanners and warehouse tracking collect supermarket sales data. However, for industrial products, such as manufacturing equipment, the information is less access- ible. Trade associations are a good source. The shift of share over time is extremely important. Little was left for a new entrant. Market share leverage is a key concept to consider when examining market shares within an industry.

Larger competitors can produce more cheaply on a per-unit basis because they can spread their costs over more units. A smaller competitor cannot afford to spend as much on either research or more efficient equip- ment, because the smaller sales volume cannot support the burden. If I had been charged with a new instant coffee to sell, I would have had to reconsider entry into the declining instant-coffee market dominated by bigger, lower- cost competitors.

And that share had increased from 16 percent in This constituted a far more favorable environment for a new entrant such as my Mexican ground coffee. How does my product perceptually map against the competition?

A commonly used grid is price and quality, but many others are possible and useful. Maps are another MBA technique to generate ideas for marketing for your product, and perceptual maps may highlight an unserved market segment by showing how the consumer per- ceives competing products, regardless of the physical reality of performance. Perceptions are paramount in marketing, just as they are in politics. In the paper towel industry, for example, towel strength and decorator appeal are very important.

Notice that Bounty found itself a very profitable market segment by providing strength and a pretty pattern. By visualizing how your product maps versus the competition, you may gain an insight into how to market your existing product, make product changes, or add additional products in a comprehensive marketing strategy.

If your company has many products within a category, then you are said to have depth of line. In the paper towel market no one producer dominates the category. Free trial account for registered user. Brittney I dislike writing reviews on books I had a hard time putting it down.

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PDF Free Download Windows 10 This internationally acclaimed guide more than , copies sold in the United States and around the world distills the material of the most popular business-school courses taught at Harvard, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, Author : Steven A.