COMPETITORS
Consumer electronics is a very competitive intensive industry.The industry employs a host of engineers, designers, marketers, salespeople, customer service reps, and finance gurus to continually improve familiar products as well as come up with the next big must-have gadget.We had two options to place against our competitors -1)Creating value by focusing leadership attention on opportunity management or 2) creating value by continuallyreducing costs. But captains of consumer electronics know that to survive in this global market,companies must do both simultaneously - business opportunities & new products must wed with operational efficiencies & consolidations.
Closest – Upon analysis of the corporate strategy, target segment, the pricing strategy and the R&D expense, the closest competitor to our company is Foxtrotfor the following reasons 1. Strategy – Based on the data from periods 1,2 and 3, Foxtrots focused on the smaller segments with high premium and continuous innovation in their products. The strategy seems to be positioned as a focused differentiator which is exactly the same as our company, making it our closest competitor. However, in period 4, they have produced and marketed a product for the hermits which are price sensitive and lesser demand for features and portability, which may imply as their strategy as a broad differentiator.

2. Target Segment – The target segments for Foxtrot and Golf for the first four periods is mentioned below
Period 1 Period 2 Period 3 Period 4
Golf – P,T,B. P,T,W P,T,W,B P,T,W,B
Foxtrots P,T,B P,T,B P,T,B P,T,B,H
P – Pragmatists H – Hermits
T – Tech-Geeks W – Wanderers
B – Bluebloods
Apart from the Period 4, where Foxtrots introduces a new product for the price sensitive segment of the market, the focus of both the companies has consistently been on the higher income group. 3. Pricing – Targeting the same segment, the pricing strategy for Foxtrots and Golf has been the same for each segment with only a little variation in the selling price product wise.

Distant Competitor – Our distant competitor is Juliet which can be concluded based on the same parameters as mentioned above.

1. Corporate Strategy – The focus of the company has always been on the lesser price sensitive segment of the market (ie, Hermits and Pragmatists) from the beginning. Although, they have introduced products for Bluebloods and Wanders, the sales volume is lower proving their emphasis on the higher price sensitive segment. Their strategy appears to be as a Generic Cost leader.

2. Target Segment - The target segments for Juliet and Golf for the first four periods is mentioned below
Period 1 Period 2 Period 3 Period 4
Golf – P,T,B. P,T,W P,T,W,B P,T,W,B
Juliet H,P,B P,T,B P,T,B P,T,B,H
P – Pragmatists H – Hermits
T – Tech-Geeks W – Wanderers
B – Bluebloods 3. Pricing – Being focused on cost leadership and higher price sensitive segment, their products are placed on the lower end of the range and hence being distant from golf as a brand

CHALLENGES
As consumer electronics is an intense competitive indusry,there were many challenges that we had to face.To set the right marketing mixes,distribution channels,hr forces were all challenges that we faced as all these were to be set in a perfect combination and any slight change would disturb our whole strategy.It was a challenege to modify unsold products according to the new features,portability and style and also set a new price for it such that it didn’t cause any loss for the company. * Figuring out the causality between awareness and marketing mix
Initially we reduced the expenditure on advertising and promotions as per the instructions in the pop-up window as per the receptivity of the message via various media. However, we didn’t take into consideration the maximum spending expected in various media. As a result of this our awareness has remained poor throughout.
In spite of tweaking the distribution based on historical observation of awareness to advertising expense, the awareness remained poor.
Later at the end of round 4, we realised the importance of the spending benchmarks indicated at the end of the pop-up blurb for various media. And then we went ahead and modified the value of the marketing mix as per the rates on various media and reach of the media to the target market. And we also benchmarked 5% of sales for total promotional expenditure to boost Consumer awareness and sales. We also promoted the products for the Pragmatists heavily and focussed on maintaining the brand equity and premium image for the frontier-pushing products positioned for Bluebloods, Wanderers and Tech-Geeks.

* Purging obsolete inventory off the shelves
We were left with inventory on certain categories after the first and third rounds either due to several reasons such as wrong positioning or inadequate advertising.
The leftover inventory from previous periods were was no longer suitable for the intended target market, i.e. Tech-geeks, bluebloods or Wanderers as they had aged considerably and also the target markets’ preferences had shifted outward in terms of features and portability.
Hence, we decided to position them to the Pragmatists. This made us to make the production of these products as zero and hence our revenues while pursuing this purging strategy were limited by sales from the inventory. Hence, we suffered losses due to lower revenues compared to costs.
Later, we have adopted the strategy of refurbishing the inventory and repositioning in the same intended target market.

* Provisioning the total sales force (HR)

We were facing issues with sizing up the sales force w.r.t. to actual requirements. We increased our sales force and service personnel salaries and no. of personnel to exceed customer expectations and maintain our Differentiator image and Brand equity. Hence, most of your sales force were underutilized and ran our SG&A costs up during round 2. Hence we suffered losses due to higher costs in spite of decent revenues. Later, we have cut down on the sales force expenses and have ensure their optimal utilization.