Product Strategy for Increasing Business
Category: Marketing
These four dimensions of the product mix provide the handles for defining the company’s product strategy. The company can increase its business in four ways.
It can add new product lines, thus widening its product mix. In this way, its new lines build on the company’s reputation in its other lines.
Or the company can lengthen its existing product lines to become a more full-line company. The line is too short if the manager can increase profits by adding items; the line is too long if the manager can increase profits by dropping items. Companies who want to be positioned as full-line companies or who are seeking high market share and market growth usually carry longer lines. They are less concerned when some items fail to add to profits. Companies that are keen on high profitability generally carry shorter lines consisting of selected items.
Or the company can add more product versions to each product and thus deepen its product mix. Finally, the company can pursue more product line consistency — or less — depending upon whether it wants to have a strong reputation in a single field or in several fields.
Thus, product strategy calls for complex decisions on product mix, branding, packaging and service strategy. These decisions must be made not only with a full understanding of consumer wants and competitors’strategies, but also with increasing attention to the growing public policy affecting product decisions.