The problem is that, in this low-price car segment, it has had too many car models, too many brands, too much cross-divisional product replication, too many product variations and customer choices, slow product redesign cycles, too many dealerships, and too many divisions competing for the same customers in the same segment. Over these years, GM lost significant cash flow. In past years, different divisions of GM have made a long and difficult series of many product entries into this market segment, including an entirely new Saturn division. For GM, particularly in the critical low-priced, small-car segment, the loss of market focus has become a major problem. The challenges facing General Motors and Nortel illustrate the importance of market focus. This article will describe why market focus is so important in today’s complex global environment of business and suggest how organizations can create and manage market focus. For others, acquisition by stronger, more market-focused companies becomes the only solution. For some, the question of survival has become very real. Not surprisingly, numerous companies are losing their market focus and falling into negative cash flow, loss of competitiveness, loss of market shares and very tough competitive positions. In such difficult environments, the need for market focus has become critical. And in many global markets, aggressive, innovative new competitors are attacking both global and traditional domestic markets with high-quality, high-value new products that challenge the market’s competitive status quo. In such a hyper-competitive, rapid change atmosphere, managers are constantly faced with complex and difficult choices of new and changed products, services, customer segments, technologies, and market networks. There is little doubt that competition is dramatically heating up in virtually every major product/market and business in the world. Companies in crisis: The loss of market focus This Ivey professor describes why market focus is imperative today and how managers can create and sustain it. So were positive cash flow and a customer who, instead of seeing clear choices and remaining loyal, became confused and bought a competitor’s product. The dustbin of business failures is full of once sharply focused companies that lost their way because they diversified across too many markets.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |