Company and Marketing Strategy: Partnering to Build Customer Engagement, Value, and Relationships

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering company-wide strategic planning, portfolio analysis (BCG Matrix), growth strategies (Ansoff Matrix), customer value-driven marketing strategies, the marketing mix, and marketing management functions.

Strategic Plan

A long-term roadmap that aligns an organization's resources and actions with future opportunities and challenges, providing overall direction, strategic fit, decision support, and competitive advantage.

Mission Statement

A statement of the organization's purpose—what it wants to accomplish in the larger environment—acting as an 'invisible hand' that guides employees within the company.

Business Portfolio

The collection of businesses and products that make up a company.

Business Portfolio Analysis

A major activity in strategic planning in which management evaluates the products and businesses that make up the company to allocate resources and shape future strategy.

Strategic Business Unit (SBU)

A key business or product line within a company for which management decides how much capital to invest, determining whether to build, hold, harvest, or divest.

Growth-Share Matrix

A portfolio-planning method developed by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) that evaluates a company's SBUs based on market growth rate and relative market share.

Market Growth Rate

The vertical axis measure in the BCG matrix that assesses market attractiveness by evaluating whether a market is growing quickly or slowly.

Relative Market Share

The horizontal axis measure in the BCG matrix that assesses company strength by comparing its market share against its largest competitor.

Stars

High-growth, high-share businesses or products in the BCG matrix that require heavy investment to finance rapid growth and eventually turn into cash cows.

Cash Cows

Low-growth, high-share businesses or products in the BCG matrix that are well-established and successful, requiring less investment to maintain their market share.

Question Marks

Low-share business units in high-growth markets in the BCG matrix that require substantial amounts of cash to hold or build their market share.

Dogs

Low-growth, low-share businesses or products in the BCG matrix that may generate enough cash to maintain themselves but do not serve as large sources of cash.

Product/Market Expansion Grid

A portfolio-planning framework used to identify company growth opportunities through market penetration, market development, product development, or diversification.

Market Penetration

A growth strategy that focuses on increasing sales to current customers without changing the original product, such as adding new stores in existing market territories.

Market Development

A growth strategy that involves identifying and developing new demographic or geographic markets for existing company products.

Product Development

A growth strategy of offering modified or completely new products to existing customer markets.

Diversification

A growth strategy that involves starting up or acquiring businesses outside of the company's current products and markets.

Downsizing

The reduction of a company's business portfolio by pruning, harvesting, or divesting products or business units that are unprofitable or no longer align with overall strategy.

Internal Value Chain

The series of internal departments within a firm (including marketing, finance, operations, purchasing, and human resources) that carry out value-creating activities.

Value Delivery Network

A network made up of the company, suppliers, distributors, and ultimately customers who partner with each other to improve the performance of the entire value-delivery system.

Market Segmentation

The process of dividing a total market into distinct groups of buyers who have different needs, characteristics, or behaviors and who might require separate products or marketing mixes.

Market Segment

A group of consumers who respond in a similar way to a given set of marketing efforts.

Market Targeting

The process of evaluating each market segment's attractiveness and selecting one or more segments to enter and serve.

Differentiation

Actually differentiating the company's market offering to give consumers more value than competitors provide.

Market Positioning

Arranging for a market offering to occupy a clear, distinctive, and desirable place relative to competing products in the minds of target consumers.

Marketing Mix

The set of controllable, tactical marketing tools—product, price, place, and promotion (the four Ps)—that the firm blends to produce the desired response in the target market.

SWOT Analysis

An overall evaluation of a company's internal Strengths and Weaknesses along with external Opportunities and Threats.

Marketing Implementation

The process of turning marketing strategies and plans into specific marketing actions to accomplish strategic objectives, addressing who, where, when, and how.

Operating Control

A type of marketing control that involves checking ongoing performance against the annual plan and taking corrective action when necessary.

Strategic Control

A type of marketing control that involves examining whether the company's basic marketing strategies remain well-matched to its available market opportunities.