If you have made it through Marketing101, you have become familiar with the Ansoff Matrix. It is a strategic planning tool developed by Igor Ansoff back in 1957. Given the fact that we still talk about it and use it is amazing in itself. I use it just about in every webinar to some extent just for a demonstration on how to view the Marketing Gateway of EDCA-PDCA-SDCA. An outline of my interpretation of the matrix is below.
I think Malcolm McDonald in his book, Key Account Management: The Definitive Guide, takes the Ansoff Matrix another step further though he was discussing the Product Life Cycle as it evolves from left to right.
Reviewing Malcolm’s work I noticed the similarities between the two and my interpretation of applying the Marketing Gateway to the Product Life Cycle. I will preface my conversation saying that there is a quite a bit of overlap and intertwining of components, but by and large it follows very similar thinking to the Lean Scale-Up booklet.
One of the things that I tried to do with Malcolm’s outline is to create a story ( a short description in each block) for a customer’s product/service. Though there were a few rough spots in this attempt, it did provide enough information to create a few scenarios on what the future may hold and added a fair amount of substance to a strategic marketing plan.
I think so many times when we look at the future, we fail to paint good real-life scenarios. What will happen as out product matured? What will be our biggest stumbling blocks? How does this relate to our present capabilities and which ones will we need to develop?
Though we seem to discuss strategic plans (something over a year by the way), I believe they really are more a necessity now than they have ever been. Without, we are left to the environment to determine our future versus creating our future.
Will your product ever turn into a commodity?
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