The Core Competency of the Company Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The Core Competency of the Company - Case Study Example Brand strategies define buyer experience-through the products offered, the advertising messages conveyed, indeed through every interaction between an organization and a buyer-and through that experience buyers develop an understanding of brand differences (perceptions), form judgments about the value of brand differences (preferences), and create a logic for choosing among brands (brand choice strategies).We refer to strategies that teach buyers as market-driving strategies (Bearden et al 77). Because of the Japanese consumer's traditional focus on corporate reputations, Japan has been considered a tough market for individual brands. This rising importance of branding, segmentation, and positioning has created new opportunities. In addition to Asahi and Honda, other nimble companies are taking advantage of the changes in the market to identify and capture specific segments of the market. Given the need to balance corporate and product-level branding, Sharp is applying a variety of approaches. These range from the more traditional corporate branding to two-story branding to narrow individual brand positioning. Companies are also using more Sharp -style branding (Boone and Kurtz 72). High technology continues to have an intense attraction for consumers, who recently favored such products as wristwatch PCs flat-screen TVs, and satellite cellular phones. New product development in Japan used to be technology and shelf-driven. In this environment, Japanese firms developed an unparalleled capacity for rapid product innovations, churning out new products and variations at a breathtaking rate (Collis and Noda 5). Japanese companies continue to have tremendous capabilities in rapid product innovation. of new product launches is greater in Japan than in the United States. In other categories, such as household products, the number of new product launches relative to the size of the market is larger in Japan than in the United States. In a few categories, such as foods, Japan lags behind the United States in producing new products (Kotler and Armstrong 92). Core competencies of Sharp are unique approach to products and entrepreneur spirit, innovative and state-of-the-art solution. The choice criteria of Japanese consumers is complex and changing rapidly. The approach to such cross-sectional variability would be niche marketing. United States marketers would find segments of the market in which the company has advantages over rivals and concentrate on those markets. But because Japanese consumers have traditionally been hard to segment and consumer choices have changed quickly-and, in many cases, randomly- Japanese firms instead developed a "rapid fire" approach to marketing to deal with the tremendous variability of their markets (Kotler and Keller 62). 2.In what ways does being a Japanese company contribute to Sharp's success Traditionally, Japanese companies have focused on building large, ambiguous corporate brands, so the "what" of brand positioning has been very difficult to pin down. In a market perceived to be homogeneous, the "whom" of brand positioning has also been very difficult to determine. In effect, the "what" and "whom" of Japanese