Buskirk Et Al

7/27/2019 Buskirk Et Al

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Buskirk et al. say that a business competing with high-technology strategy succeeds

by combining its technical expertise, its ability quickly to gain knowledge about its

customers' problems and needs, and its ability to give the customer sufficient

technological expertise to evaluate and choose product.

Regis McKenna emphasises that there is need to draw a distinction between

marketing-driven and market -driven approaches. They are in his opinion very

different from each other. Marketing-driven approaches are based on advertising

and promotion, while market-driven approaches are based on developing strong

products, understanding the structure of the market, and building relationships

with other people and companies in the marketplace.

Marketing methods

Product

Zangwill proposes an interesting extension to the marketing method concerning

the introduction of new high-technology products. He introduces the concept

of "rapid-cycle" learning. This is described in the following figure:

The flexibility that the rapid-learning cycle involves, is essential in the launch process

of new-high-technology products. The idea in the rapid-learning cycle is following.

The company throws a new product into the marketplace. Based on the feedback, the

company learns and then revises the product. According to Zangwill, rapid-cycle

learning produces faster learning, as the following figure indicates.


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The major product strategies, as far as entering foreign markets based on Zirkle's

extensive literature review, are the following:

domestic product line extension

product adaptation

standardised or global product.

In the domestic product line extension strategy the company takes standard domestic

product into the foreign markets without making literally any changes. This strategy is

according to Zirkle a low-cost, low-investment and a low-risk plan chosen by the

novice or smaller firm entering into the international trade for the first time. The

second major product strategy is product adaptation. It demands the product to match

each foreign market the firm is entering. This strategy may require relatively minor

changes or major changes depending upon the type of product and/or market to be

entered.

The third strategy is standardised or global product strategy. It requires products to be

developed to meet the needs of a significant group of international markets or

possibly an entire group of countries, or even all markets world-wide. The decision

whether to standardise or adapt, can mean the difference between success and failure.

This has been discussed in literature quite extensively. Kacker for example speaks

about fundamental product adaptation and minor adaptation to characterise effortsmade by a company to modify its products to meet the needs of a foreign market.


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Terpstra found out in his study that the consumer products enjoyed normally a much

greater penetration in the Common Market if modified according to the market needs.

Also in the case of industrial products, he found that adaptation was necessary

because of national regulation or other specific requirements. Cooper, on the other

hand, states that in the case of export strategy, product strategy translates into product

adaptation policy, or the degree to which a firm adapts its products to foreign markets:

at the one extreme, the firm simply sells its domestic product abroad with minimum

adaptation; at the other extreme, the firm develops products specifically for its export

markets. The results of Cooper's study were quite clear. Designing products

specifically to suit target export market segments is an appropriate strategy.

It has to be remembered that adaptation involves costs. In the words of Kacker "The

often-repeated exhortation that in international marketing a company should always

adapt its products, advertising and promotion is clearly superficial, for it does not take

into account the cost of adjusting or adapting products and communications

programs"

Thus it is clear for the researcher that the marketing method "product" has to be

included into the study. It plays a major role when exporting into the foreign markets.

Additionally, minor or to certain extent major product modifications are necessary, if

success is to be expected. In the case of a global achievement, global product seems to

be important, at least in the case of high technology challengers. Also it seems to be

quite important to take advantage of the so-called rapid cycle learning.

Distribution

The distribution concept is one of when and how to get the product to the market in an

acceptable and efficient manner. In the normal product marketing, there is a stockpile

of the commodity from which a measurable amount can be delivered at a specified

time and place. According to Rashi and Clazer, this is not perhaps applicable to

technology. Distribution of technology is analogous to information flow within a

communication channel.

They claim that " to protect the value of the asset being communicated, technology

channels are likely to be rather short. Key distribution problems are field-of-use

restrictions- market segment decisions based on geography, end-use application, and

other segmentation variables - and licensee decisions".


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Again, the researcher decided to include also this marketing method in this study in

order to measure the extent to which distribution is used as a marketing method and

how efficient it is perceived to be.

Promotion

As indicated earlier, the four main elements of promotion are personal selling,

advertising, publicity and sales promotion. As mentioned by Shanklin and Ryans, the

largest number of marketing personnel in high-technology companies is involved in

personal selling and sales promotion efforts.

As far as personal selling is concerned, the industrial salesperson has been virtually

ignored as an integral part of the marketing mix. Many studies of buying practices in

industry have shown that personal selling is 2 to 3 times more accepted by industrial

customers than any other marketing method.

It has been also stressed that the salesperson of high-technology products needs to

have technical training.

A further point to this, however, is that many technology-based companies try to sell

their products based on quantitative specifications. McKenna emphasises a qualitative

approach in sales, since many customers make their decisions on more qualitative

factors, such as service, reliability and reputation. Personal selling is thus included in

the research. In the traditional approach in marketing, especially in the consumer side,

advertising and promotion are important marketing methods. In the high technology

industries they are only in the supportive role. By putting resources in advertising, one

can only reinforce positions in the market place, but creation of positions is not

possible. Advertising, therefore, should be one of the last parts of a marketing

strategy, not the first in marketing high-technology products. As far as exporting is

concerned, it has been stated that it is a rare exporter who does not use advertising of

some type, even if it is no more than being listed in an export directory. The media

used in marketing of high-technology products is perhaps different from in other

products. The emphasis seems to be in trade journal and magazines and direct mail.

Advertising is, inspite of its perhaps a lesser meaning as a marketing method, also

included in the research.

Publicity is one of the means of promotion. The lesser meaning of publicity has been

already stated. The problem in the marketing of high-technology products could be

the possible overstatements in publicity. By having publicity as a very important


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marketing method, too optimistic expectations can built. Thus publicity could, if not

properly done, even be counterproductive.

It is important to know, however, to which extent publicity has been used by the

high-technology companies when launching new products into the foreign markets

and thus publicity was included into this study as a marketing method.


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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Philip Kotler: Marketing Management: Analysis , Planning and Control, p.9.

Bruce D. Buskirk: Industrial Market Behaviour and the Technological Life Cycle,

p.9

Harry Nystrm: Technological and Market Innovation, p.159.

Willard I. Zangwill: Lightning strategies for Innovation, p.180-183

Willard I. Zangwill: Lightning strategies for Innovation, p.180 and Regis

McKenna: The Regis Touch, p.48.

Willard I. Zangwill: Lightning strategies for Innovation, p.182

Edward J. Zirkle: The Role of Marketing in New-Consumer-Product Development

for Foreign Markets, p. 31-33

Madhav. P. Kacker: Export-Oriented Product Adaptation - It's Patterns and

Problems, p.63.

Vern Terpstra: American Marketing in the Common Markets, p.43.

Robert G. Cooper, Elko J. Kleinschmidt: The Impact of Export Strategy on Export

Sales Performance, p.39.

Adrian B. Ryans: Strategic Market Entry Factors and Market Share Achievement

in Japan, p.404

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