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InvestorSoft is preparing to launch its one and only product, a subscription-based software service that will make it convenient and economical for companies to manage the investor relations portion of their Web sites. The company's founder faces an uphill battle in establishing InvestorSoft as a credible supplier to buyers who prefer dealing with large, reputable firms. His immediate challenge is to settle on a set of target customers and determine whether InvestorSoft would be better off selling to them directly or through resellers who would bundle the software with other services. He must also develop pricing and promotional strategies that will secure a strong base of customers early on, to position the company for future growth.

Two young entrepreneurs have started a tour company at Whistler Resort in British Columbia. Two years into the operation, they face some critical decisions about their service offering. The major issue centres on expansion. They could grow by forging a partnership with a European destination service, by focusing on their current target market, or by expanding beyond premium winter vacations at Whistler. Students will learn lessons about what it takes to offer and maintain a premium level of service.

The chief executive officer and the marketing director of Saku Olletehase AS of Estonia must decide on the company's product portfolio plan. Saku enjoyed market leadership in Estonia with its brand Saku Originaal; however, the strength in market share has weakened in recent years due to increasing competition and greater marketing acumen from other domestic producers. While domestic beer sales have fallen, the company has experienced increases in other product lines such as alcoholic long drinks, cider and non-alcoholic beverages, which compliment its existing agreement to sell Pepsi and 7Up. For the last three years, the company has had the exclusive right to resell three well-known international beer brands (Guinness, Kilkenny and Carlsberg) in Estonia. With so many options and finite marketing resources, the company needs to decide where to focus its effort.

Sante Fe Relocation Services was a premium provider of relocation services based in Hong Kong. Founded in 1980, the company had built a reputation as a reliable, high-quality packer and mover of household goods. By 2000, the company also offered a full range of relocation support services including visa and immigration applications, home searching and cultural and language training. Santa Fe relocated expatriates and their families between Asian countries and between Asia and other regions. The company had its own staff and assets in Asia and managed its international operations through a network of partners. In 2005, the chief operating officer faced three key challenges: differentiating and positioning the brand in a crowded and often price-driven market; incorporating an expanded service line under the original brand and gaining market recognition for those additional services; and managing the brand across the Asian region with an effective balance of standardization versus local adaptation.

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The MTR Corporation Limited, the semi-privatised railway company in Hong Kong, was transforming itself from a local transportation company to become a global player. Despite MTR's proven rail-property model in Hong Kong, the company was faced with a new set of economic, cultural, regulatory and operational challenges abroad, particularly in China and Europe where it was expanding into. This case illustrated the growth model of a local company during internationalisation and analysed the trade-offs of different strategic decisions when entering into new markets.

The highway logo signing program has existed for over 20 years. Since its inception, most motorists have become accustomed to relying on these blue signs to provide information on services available at each highway exit. However, there is little, if any, literature that examines the program as an advertising source and no formal literature that addresses the signing program from the perspective of the independent business owner. Provides service business owners with information about the highway logo signing program. Describes a five-step process that owners can follow to determine whether the venue is viable and the investment value added.

The publisher of an 18-month old, controlled-circulation weekly newspaper, The Londoner, is contemplating the addition of a web-based searchable data base of classified ads for used cars. It would seem to add value to the readership but it does appeal to readers well beyond the original trading area for the weekly, and it also offers some new timing issues for a weekly paper to create a feature with large weekend readership. The issue is whether or not the publisher should add this auto classified feature section and if so, how to market it to the greatest advantage. This case may be used with The Londoner (A), product 9B05A007).

An upscale ecolodge in southern Nicaragua hopes to achieve a 53% occupancy rate within three years of opening and has hired a management company to prepare a marketing strategy. Despite its proximity to Costa Rica and its focus on providing a unique luxury vacation retreat for one of the fastest growing segments in the travel industry--the ecotourist--the hotel faces numerous hurdles. The greatest challenge is to overcome Nicaragua's negative reputation, based on its recent history of political and social unrest, still fresh in the minds of tourists. The hotel must also operate within the country's rural infrastructure, characterized by interruptions in the power supply, poorly maintained roads, and below-standard sanitation. Additionally, Nicaragua does not have a pool of skilled employees to work in the high-end service industry. Preparation of the marketing strategy addresses the effects of these factors on the hotel's market positioning and market penetration rate.

Inventec Corp., with $4.5 billion in annual revenues, was one of Taiwan's leading original design manufacturers (ODMs). Inventec designed and manufactured electronic products such as computers, servers, MP3 players, PDAs, and cellular telephones for client companies that marketed the products globally. Inventec moved production to mainland China to lower costs in this highly competitive, low-margin business. But with its competitors also setting up shop in China, Inventec had to find another way to remain profitable. Could Inventec break its dependence on powerful clients by branding and marketing its products in China and other Asian markets? Was there a way for Inventec to separate and market the software that it designed for use with its hardware products.

Marketers planning promotional campaigns ask questions to boost the odds that the messages will be accepted: Who should receive each message? What should be its content? How should we deliver it? The one question they rarely ask is: When should we deliver it? That's too bad, because in marketing, timing is arguably the most important variable of all. Indeed, there are moments in a customer's relationship with a business when she wants to communicate with that business because something has changed. If the company contacts her with the right message in the right format at the right time, there's a good chance of a warm reception. The question of when can be answered by a new computer-based model called "dialogue marketing," which is, to date, the highest rung on an evolutionary ladder that ascends from database marketing to relationship marketing to one-to-one marketing. Its principal advantages over older approaches are that it is completely interactive, exploits many communication channels, and is "relationship aware," that is, it continuously tracks every nuance of the customer's interaction with the business. Thus, dialogue marketing responds to each transition in that relationship at the moment the customer requires attention. Turning a traditional marketing strategy into a dialogue marketing program is a straightforward matter. Begin by identifying the batch communications you make with customers, then ask yourself what events could trigger those communications to make them more timely. Add a question or call to action to each message and prepare a different treatment or response for each possible answer. Finally, create a series of increasingly urgent calls to action that kick in if the question or call to action goes unanswered by the customer. As dialogue marketing proliferates, it may provide the solid new footing that Madison Avenue seeks.

There has been a lot of research on marketing as an offensive tactic--how it can help companies successfully launch new products, enter new markets, or gain share with existing products in their current markets. But for nearly every new product launch, market entrant, or industry upstart grabbing market share, there is an incumbent that must defend its position. And there has been little research on how these defenders can use marketing to respond to new or anticipated threats preemptively. John H. Roberts outlines four basic types of defensive marketing strategies: positive, inertial, parity, and retarding. With the first two, you establish and communicate your points of superiority relative to the new entrant; with the second two, you establish and communicate strategic points of comparability with your rival. Before choosing a strategy, you need to assess the weapons you have available to protect your market position--your brand identity, the products and services that support that identity, and your means of communicating it. Then assess your customers' value to you and their vulnerability to being poached by rivals. The author explains how Australian telecommunications company Telstra, facing deregulation, used a combination of the four strategies (plus the author's customer response model) to fend off market newcomer Optus. Telstra was prepared, for instance, to reach deep into its pockets and engage in a price war. But the customer response model indicated that a parity strategy--in which Telstra would offer lower rates on some routes and at certain times of day, even though its prices, on average, were higher than its rival's--was more likely to prevent consumers from switching. Ultimately, Telstra was able to retain several points of market share it otherwise would have lost. The strategies described here, though specific to Telstra's situation, offer lessons for any company facing new and potentially damaging competition.

Marketing tends to view technology as a means to meeting customer needs and desires. This view has led some marketers to focus perhaps too exclusively on the customer to the detriment of a deep understanding of technology and its interaction with society. Drawing on the ideas of the philosophers Heidegger and Popper, this article contends that technology is more than a means to the end of satisfying consumer needs and wants--it is an active force that frequently escapes the control of the marketer. Explores the ways in which technologies, firms, customers, and society interact and suggests how firms might adopt different strategies toward technology to take advantage of these emergent interactions.

While many researchers have made contributions to the now extensive literature on service quality, there is much less research on what constitutes delight in service quality and how organizations can delight customers. Examines the differences between customer satisfaction and customer delight, notably the benefits of delighting rather than merely satisfying customers. Describes how to delight customers and outlines how to implement a successful customer delight program as well as how to measure customer delight. Also discusses the potential pitfalls of doing so.

The most dubious business plans can appear solid, even smart, when illustrated with snappy circle-and-arrow graphics. Look closely, though, and you'll see that many of these diagrams are full of it.

Sun Microsystems President and COO Jonathan Schwartz explains how blogging has enhanced public perception of his company and fostered loyalty within.

This note is about customer care: what it is and how to manage it in a retail operation. Customer care, often referred to as customer service, has become a very popular subject for retail consultants and commentators because retail managers and customers alike have discovered that customer care just doesn't happen; retail customer care must be designed, delivered and controlled.

Perelson Weiner LLP, a successful accounting firm in New York City, is re-evaluating its incentive strategy as it makes plans to grow its business.

The retail value proposition (RVP) is the package of benefits, the value offering, that a retailer delivers to its customers. In other words, the RVP is what the retailer offers to customers in exchange for their money, time, effort and loyalty. One way to think about RVP is to equate it to the retail brand or identity, that is, what the retailer stands for in the marketplace. This note describes a way of thinking about how all retailers differentiate themselves from one another on their customer value propositions.

This note is about customer care: what it is and how to manage it in a retail operation. Customer care, often referred to as customer service, has become a very popular subject for retail consultants and commentators because retail managers and customers alike have discovered that customer care just doesn't happen; retail customer care must be designed, delivered and controlled.