Marketing Simulation
Managing Segments and Customers
A Reflective Essay
Debanjan Mal
As the newly appointed CEO of Minnesota Micromotors, I was responsible for designing and executing the company’s marketing strategy. This was my opportunity to integrate and apply the mantra of marketing that I have learnt during my course: “Create, communicate and deliver value to a target market at a profit”.
Before I started the simulation, I needed to understand the big picture and try to figure out the following in order to come up with my marketing strategy and execute it during the simulation:
• Understand the overall market and the competitive landscape where Minnesota Micromotors has to operate.
• Understand my company’s marketing
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Moreover, C being the least price sensitive, it would be the most willing segment to pay the premium for the superior product performance. At the beginning of the simulation, Minnesota Micromotors’s market share for this segment was just 4% - there was a huge potential for growth. Moreover, Segment C consistently had the highest gross margin per unit ($58.36 for 2012 Q3) which indicated that Segment C could be the most profit generating customers for Minnesota Micromotors.
Improved efficiency in my sales salesforce and effective marketing communications were very critical in communicating Minnesota Micromotors motors’ value to customers, and formed the key differentiators in managing Minnesota Micromotors’s dual sales force and distribution channels – hence I planned to invest adequately in the “Integrated marketing communication and training” in every quarter. Also, having the market ‘intel’ and customer feedback were ever critical to make any changes to pricing, budget and sales force allocation – hence I always invested on Market
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While we limited investments on thermal resistance to improve company financials, we were able to manage the thermal resistance performance against customer expectations such that sales and customer satisfaction of our product were not affected. In addition, I also regularly invested in manufacturing efficiency in order to keep the cost of goods sold (COGS) under control in the long run. However, during my 13 quarters of simulation, I was unable to find recognizable improvements in COGS in spite of investing moderate amounts in this