The QB and One That Builds with Blocks

This week I am comparing Justin's and Alexis blogs.  Justin has made it into the blog of fame as well as Alexis which is demonstrating their strength of analysis in this class. Justin relates his blogs back to what he knows, football.  This is great as it allows for the reader to see how marketing is applied to all businesses and those that we are more service based than product based.  Justin's blog also integrates what is learned in class to the core of his discussions. In the most recent one, Justin detailed the week of the coaching staff which helps to show more personalized side of the blogger. He then compares the competitor analysis discussed to the competitor analysis of the upcoming components.

Alexis on the other hand blocks out her blog to the discussion questions she has developed for the week.  She takes the class and then relates it to what she has seen in her consumerist tendencies.  I liked how she has the recent news articles on the side of her blog that relate to the different companies, +Google and +Microsoft Windows 8.  This helps the reader see what can be relate able to blog topics.  In her most recent blog, she talked about Lowe's and use of the Lowe's home app which allows for the consumer to store purchases which allows for Lowe's to track consumer habits and focus on personalized advertizements.

They both have been writing blog of fame worthy posts but approach it from different sides. I think that they have both been writing insightful blog into what the class has been about.

Who would buy this stuff anyway?

 How do you make a decision when you are looking to buy something?  Do you takes weeks to evaluate every little aspect of the product?  Is there instant comparison or is it routine?

There are three different types of decision making: nominal, limited, and extended.  Each of these types leads themselves to very different products and usage of analytical thinking.  We make decisions everyday on what to buy for food or where to put gas in our cars. These are the habitual purchased that do not require a lot of for thought.  Then there are the moderate decisions that are not everyday but occur when we have to book airline fights, hotel and have certain pros and cons.  The high thought decisions often have large risk and potential of buyers remorse (more to come).  These decisions require much forethought and include houses, appliances and which college to attend.  The high computing decisions do not happen everyday and need to be analyzed intently. 

So what beer would you chose as you sat down by yourself.  I know for me, I would go with the Fat Tire as it is rare here in NE and a smaller brewery size, then Sam Adams is always a good pick and lastly would be Coors.  But how does this change when I am with other people... well it doesn't as I prefer a better beer. In college though, it would change with the group as parties dictated quantity over quality so Coors, etc would have been the choice instead of drinking the select beers.  This brand selection depending on the situation can be scene a when visitors come over as the nicer plates, etc are used.  

Or incentive based items, where you choose to have Kleenex in your home but by the cheapest brand tissues for your class room. 

How do you feel when you satisfied with a purchase of  a product.  It is based on the value (benefit over cost) or is it the intangible qualities of customer service, delivery time, etc.  Each of these characteristics leads to value creation. ie: Are satisfied when you receive a value – need/want satisfied vs the  price?  Companies work very hard to create value and seek that relationship with customers.In the articles by Oracle and McKinsey Quarterly, customer service and social media were discussed. From this it was shown how in today's market how creating that value is very important because a person is more likely to share a bad experience (8-10 people) compared to a good experience (3-4 people).  Today’s social media affect a company due to instantaneous response for a customer to good and bad customer service. People are able to share their opinion of the value of the product instantly so the response from a company must be switch and satisfactory to support their good customer value.

What are your consumerist tendencies? Does your buying behavior lean yourself to certain segments and certain conditioning? I know when I am looking at buying certain items I can certainly be put into the "young out door adventure" category.  My streaming ads on Facebook and other sites lean towards, EMS, Subaru, cycling, skiing and others.  This use of certain segments is applied heavily on the internet.  I know that this shapes my decision to some extent and opens up new suppliers for my out door equipment. 

All of these are aspects of consumer analysis as corporations look to see how consumers make their decisions, assess their decisions and then return or move on to a new corporation.  Additionally, the mind of the consumer has been heavily evaluated to help marketers create better ways to reach the customer and their decision process. 

Conjoined Twins? Conjoint Analysis

This week was a busy week in Pharmsim. Competitor analysis and consumer analysis can to the forefront as I delved into more reports, the conjoint analysis specifically, and how to review consumer wants and how to formulate business challenges from them. 

The first part looked at it was how the conjoint analysis can be used to see how the consumers view the product price and formulation of the product. This chart quantitatively shows the value of changing the price (first column) and then the change in formulation of the product. from this the market survey was conducted for the change in price (it was limited to +/- 10 % of the current price).  The drop in price showed an increase in market share and share of manufacture sales.  The increase of price showed the opposite.  The session was than ran for a best and worse case.  Which shown in the chart is keeping Allround original while increasing the price and the best is dropping alcohol and dropping the price.  Both of these choices caused havoc to the stock prices and affected Allrounds market share.

The increase in priced caused the market share to drop though the profits increased because of the price increase.  The drop in price with changing the formulation increase unit sales while dropping the revenue and market share.  When the analysis was run with just changing the formulation the revenue increased, the stock price increased and market share of cold increased.   This appeared to be the best tested decision.  I think a small price drop due to less ingredients could have helped change the market share as well.  The conjoint analysis is help to show what the consumers are looking for in the product and help quantify the affects of changing the price and formulation of a product.  

The competitor analysis workbook helped to organize the data provided in the analysis. The workbook provided ways to define the competitor set, do an industry analysis and detailed analysis with future strategies. The industry analysis is helpful when determining if there is a need to create a second product for Allround and the possible barriers for the product. The competitor analysis is important to help see how Dryup, Besthelp and Extra are performing in the market.  The competitor analysis helps to benchmark Allround and determine what the next steps are going to be.  

Now that I have restarted the analysis, it will give another opportunity to see the best way to attack this market of cold medicine and the decisions needed to be made.  I know that in team play the problem will be slightly different but at least all of the tools will be known by then.  

Electric Slide

This week I looked to review Marty's Blog. I always enjoy Marty's commentary on the electric industry as I know many people in the industry at ISO New England, Iberdrola USA (Central Maine Power, Rochester Gas and Electric Etc) and Central Vermont Public Service.  My father is a project manager at CMP as well as Storm Response Manager so I have been exposed to the electric industry since I was small.  So last week when Marty referenced http://www.kjonline.com/news/Wholesale-electricity-prices-lowest-in-decade.html, I was pumped because that is my hometown paper.

So for looking at this week, I hoped there was more about the New England power industry.  Alas this week it was not all about it. I like how Marty was able to analyze the competitive market as being defined from the   customer and company. "Therefore, in a sense, the company can choose what industry and who it competes against for customers, but it must always keep the customers’ needs in mind. " Additionally the description of secondary and primary sources helped to detail how companies can get their information.

Oddly enough, Marty (I tried to tag you @martin flynn but could not )chose to mention my blog this week as well.

Pharmasim Market Potential

First the market must be defined for Allstart. Allstar brand competes with Besthelp, Dryup and Extra in the OTC cold remedy market.  This definition is important because it allows for a specific market (cold) not the overall reaching cold, allergy, nasal as that would increase the amount of data for competitive analysis.  There are many different area of data that need to be determined before creating a competitor analysis.  Knowing that there are 263.9 million people in the Land of Pharamsim helps to determine the potential market and market demand.  This is determined by the possible number of total purchases at 712 million divided by the average number of purchases of 2.7.
 But the total number of purchases is not known so that needs to be calculated from the total unit sales and market penetration.  The market penetration is 64% with total unit sales of 457million. 

With these values is can been that the market demand is 457 million units with a market potential of 12 million units. The market penetration can then defined by diving those two numbers which produces the 64%. 



In the past few simulation attempts, I have made some misguided decisions in my marketing strategy. I switch which competitor I was comparing too which was a bad idea.  I should have stayed with Besthelp who has the next largest market share of the cold remedy market. So I switched it and replayed the session. I also utilized the marketing sales report with the pricing report to choose to create a second market brand.  I first mistakenly tried a 12hr multicapsule as that ate into Allarounds cold remedy market share.  So I then looked to enter the cough remedy market as there were only two competitors in that market, End and CoughCure.  I used the pricing report to help set the MSRP and the discounts for Allaround+ in the cough market.  The Allaround+ was able to get about 7% of the market in this round of the simulation.

With an additional product for all around the market definition become two fold with the addition of competitor of End and CoughCure. Allstar brand competes with Besthelp, Dryup and Extra in the OTC cold remedy market and competes with End and CoughCUre in the OTC cough suppressant market.

While trying to evaluate the market demand and other competitors statistics, the survey of decision making criteria is important.  As stated above, this supplies the market penetration and average number of purchase.  These values can then be selected for each specific market of cold, cough or allergy.  With this Allstar brand can be evaluated for the market penetration, demand and potential of just the cold market. The values can help to see how Allstar is doing in its specific market as well as the overall market.