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Introduction
The essay intends to discuss why it is necessary to understand competitors and how
understanding of competitors can help successful planning of marketing activities. The essay
intends to determine the importance of strategic marketing planning and its need of understanding
a company’s rival. Through the essay a better understanding of strategic marketing planning, and
Sony designs, manufactures, and sells electronic equipment. It is a leader in the development of
consumer electronics goods, such as videocassette recorders, cellular and cordless telephones,
compact disc equipment, and television systems. Sony also manufactures computers and related
devices ( 2003). Sony actively encourages innovation by its employees. Design engineers are
given budgets and time for innovation and experimentation. The company holds an annual contest
in which engineers show off their prototypes; bonuses are awarded to those whose prototypes are
selected for eventual manufacture and marketing. Sony continually makes and offers new
products, most of which are tested in the Japanese market. Sony has been particularly successful
in the United States market; however, it is outsold in Japan and elsewhere by Matsushita, another
Management of a firm needs strategy, to make sure that everything goes well in the
company, through the use of strategic management everything done in the company is well
organized and no detail is being left out. The company needs strategic management to make sure
that the company is doing well internally. The term strategic management originates from the
Greek language, where the word means the art of a general. The person who makes strategies is
the strategist who is the leader of an army ( 1991).Strategic management decisions have
multifunctional and multi-business consequences, this kind of decision require broad consideration
of the firm's external and internal environments, and it may affect the firm’s chance of prosperity. It
is important to know what strategy is about, what can it do help the company prosper, what will
happen if not used properly, what are the advantages and disadvantages of having a strategy.
Strategy is a plan that assimilates the company’s major target; policies and rules; decisions and
sequences of action into organized whole. It can apply at all levels of organization and pertain to
unsystematic reasoning (1988). It is incomplete search for strategic alternatives, and bounded
objectives, policies and decisions to be done in unison or contingent upon each other. Marketing
strategy thus refers to how a company’s products or services its trade is presented to consumers
in an effective manner as to gain loyal costumers. Strategy can be used in different ways, one of
which is through marketing. Using strategy in marketing makes it more convincing and effective.
Strategy makes sure that nothing wrong happens in the marketing process in the company.
Marketing strategy is a way to capture a niche in the consumer market. Businesses utilize it to
gain following and exploit their maximum and/or optimal profit capabilities. Strategic marketing is
the way company sells the product it has with less difficulty and more readiness to face
competitors. Strategic marketing makes sure that the company uses all of its resources to counter
its competitors. Strategic marketing planning is a procedure wherein the strategies used to sell
product is carefully studied and analyzed so that the company can compete well and have
All firms have strategic windows and some of these windows open out on to markets that
are shared with other firms. Where windows share views over the same market, competition
exists. It is important to understand how different firms view the same market since their perceived
and actual windows of opportunity will not all be the same. The nature of competition and the
factors which influence it are explored along with how firms identify competitors and how they use
product positioning to obtain a competitive advantage. Attention is paid to how firms define their
marketing strategies and analyze the competitive positions of rivals ( 2000).Consideration is given
to the various sources of information available to firms that enable them to gauge competitors’
strengths and weaknesses. Success in the market place depends not only on an ability to identify
customer wants and needs but also upon an ability to be able to satisfy those wants and needs
better than competitors are able to do. This implies that organizations need to look for ways of
achieving a differential advantage in the eyes of the customer. The differential advantage is often
achieved through the product or service itself but sometimes it may be achieved through other
elements of the marketing mix (2000). An important thing the company should be wary of is to
gain advantage against competitors. To know and have an in depth knowledge of the competitors
the company can use different kinds of strategy such as porter’s generic strategy. Determining
and having added knowledge about the competitors help in planning marketing activities through
distinguishing and forecasting what activities rivals may use and what strategy they might
implement. Having added knowledge creates a way for the company to prepare for anything
competitors might do and it helps in planning marketing activities that focus on having contingency
Sony although already a well known and successful company still uses strategic marketing
planning that keeps the company alive in its industry. This strategic marketing planning keeps
Sony alive against its competitors. Sony should still know and acquire all information they can with
regards their competitors. The competitor’s activities, background and actions should be known by
the company so that in planning marketing activities they know which things will be done by the
competitors, what kind of actions the competitors will do in certain situations, and what future
things the competitors might do. Sony should not be complacent with the things they know about
the competitors. They should strive to find out things about the competitors that cannot be visibly
noticed. Through the use of certain strategies like porter’s generic strategy the company might be
able to know more about competitors and through such information they can plan strategies to