The product life cycle measures the likelihood, character, and timing of competitive and market events. A product strategy that includes some sort of plan for a timed sequence of conditional moves provides an offensive rather than a reactive move. Most successful products pass through certain recognizable stages. Awareness of these stages affects decisions on marketing factors such as pricing, product identity, and sales and distribution networks...

Three key concepts are fundamental to professional services, and serve as a guide to the buying or selling of these services. First, a professional service must make a direct contribution to the reduction of the uncertainties involved in managing a business. Second, a professional service must address a specific, substantive problem of the business purchasing the service. Third, a professional service can only be purchased meaningfully from someo...

The prevailing view of multinational companies (MNCs) is that marketing strategy is a local problem which differs from country to country. There are, however, potential benefits in standardizing multinational marketing strategy. Significant cost savings, consistency in dealing with customers, improved planning and control, and the exploitation of good ideas represent potential gains with an integrated approach to marketing strategy. In view of th...

Dansk Designs Ltd., a supplier of high quality, highly designed tableware products, plans to enter a new product area in housewares. Past growth and anticipated future expansion make organizational changes necessary. Overseas operations, design changes, supplier relations, quality control, marketing strategy, and competition all have impact on the organizational structure.

Describes the decision of a battery manufacturer to diversify into the computer field through acquisition and the development of a new product. Among the issues to be discussed are the company product fit, phases in new product introduction, product positioning, and distribution strategy.

Describes the decision of a battery manufacturer to diversify into the computer field through acquisition and the development of a new product. Among the issues to be discussed are the company product fit, phases in new product introduction, product positioning, and distribution strategy.

Introduces the students to the principals of Dansk Design.

The evolution of Timex from its inception in the 1940s to its position as a leading multinational watch manufacturer in the early 1970s. Focuses on Timex's strategy for marketing, on a worldwide basis, and its line of inexpensive watches.

Involves multinational pricing policy. Should a multinational industrial products supplier, with plants on several continents, grant a single worldwide price on given products to multinational customers who purchase on several continents? If so, what should the worldwide price policy be and how should the policy be administered? What organizational issues would a shift from decentralized pricing to internationally centralized pricing involve?

Supplements the case.