I would like to take this opportunity to speak on some of our views concerning technology and culture, particularly corporate culture. I would also like to introduce an example of bringing a product to market based on this understanding.
In view of the decline in birthrate which has occurred in industrialised countries, the companies operating in the Youths' Products Markets are faced with serious problems both with regard to the decreased number of youths and with regard to the lack of adequate and timely information about present general sociological changes in the Youths' population. This paper illustrates an initiative promoted by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore in this respect.
The last few years have seen a great development of the use of clustering in market research, either for specific operations or as part of more universal operations. These two types of approach - specific or universal - meet different objectives and constraints. The universal approaches dealt with in this paper in most cases correspond to a policy wish within the firm to develop strategies within its own scale and not limited to one class or range of products regardless of the others, in the same sector of economic activity.
Today many companies prefer to enter into partnerships, cooperation arrangements or joint ventures even in industrially advanced countries, and these are often the only ways for a permanent market presence in the East European socialist and in some of the developing countries. Cooperation may also contribute to the solution of some domestic production or procurement problems. Several surveys show that the most important motives inducing a company to seek cooperation are in the marketing field. Cooperation has become a marketing strategy, although a company may derive a number of other - not strictly marketing - benefits from cooperation. Once the strategic decision has been taken the tasks of formulating the cooperation objective, selecting the most suitable country and finding the partner must be solved. A number of institutions already exist for this purpose, but do not make up for the services that market research organisations can provide. Industrial cooperation is a fast growing new form of international economic relations. It is worth the attention of marketing experts, as the best methods for promoting cooperation are still being worked out.
Company management is often faced with the problem of choosing between strategies with a multitude of consequences whose overall effects are difficult to assess. The manager is liable to overestimate the importance of some factors of which experience or temperament have rendered him more aware, and to neglect others, thereby being prompted to make the wrong choice. This risk can be diminished by the use of strategy models which express the relative profitability of various options in terms of parameters, the latter being less difficult to assess or else easily measured by surveys. Our point of departure is a simple example of a model as applied to a proposed joint marketing venture between two competitor firms which will be followed by an outline of the wider implications. First, we shall present our example; next, we shall describe how the model was built; and finally, we shall show how the model was used to arrive at a decision.
Company management is often faced with the problem of choosing between strategies with a multitude of consequences whose overall effects are difficult to assess. The manager is liable to overestimate the importance of some factors of which experience or temperament have rendered him more aware, and to neglect others, thereby being prompted to make the wrong choice. This risk can be diminished by the use of strategy models which express the relative profitability of various options in terms of parameters, the latter being less difficult to assess or else easily measured by surveys. Our point of departure is a simple example of a model as applied to a proposed joint marketing venture between two competitor firms which will be followed by an outline of the wider implications. First, we shall present our example; next, we shall describe how the model was built; and finally, we shall show how the model was used to arrive at a decision.