Don't Forget the Market in Marketing Products...

Misunderstanding the continuing market potential of mature products can be the cause of excessive or wasted investment in product cycle development. I have noticed companies relying on what has worked in the past, failing to look at forward potential. The causes are many, but I see these as critical faults:

• companies often fail to do the necessary customer education and merchandising work to extend the life cycle of a product or technology.
• business units miss the transition to new technologies that could fit their underlying market advantages... installed base, sales and service expertise, early adopter relationships and so on.
• corporations don't fund regular market, technology, regulatory, patent, and competitive studies in order assure strategic stability of legacy products for their divisions

Frankly, I think that some companies allow their heritage of strong engineering or accounting departments to overcome the need for market intelligence. Marketing function(s) (remembering please, that marketing is not a one dimensional function) are an insurance policy for the board of directors and executive management to utilize to ensure the future is protected. Market studies; bench-marking technologies and performance data; utilizing focus groups to see the future as well as product issues; thorough analysis of competition at conventions by tech and market experts are all examples of keeping an eye on where the market is/is going.

It can be a costly error for corporate leaders to rely on the mechanics of business (accounting and engineering) to drive the future. The automobile and steel companies are not the only examples of this myopia. On the other hand, some automobile and steel companies have also used uncanny market savvy to maximize their potential by looking to green product horizontal development for their recent successes.

My point is, don't forget the market in marketing.