Week3: Videos And Articles - My Thoughts

  The video by Hans Rosling clearly shows how quickly the world is evolving and thereby how quickly the market is changing. His message emphasizes the rapid change happening in the world, the significance of statistics and the pre-conceived ideas that people try to stick to, without doing research and leveraging the available statistical details. We often say “a picture is worth a thousand words” – the visual representation of the ideas being conveyed not only helps in getting the point across easily, but also sticks with us for longer. I can very clearly relate to his view that we need to leverage the research data available, be able to find a means to dip into all the data that is already available in the numerous databases around the world, as we really don’t want to reinvent the wheel. Better quality of data we have at our disposal, better the outcome of our research. We can start via Secondary research and based on the preliminary findings from this, start the primary research and focus more specifically on segments and criteria of interest to us.

  Malcom Gladwell’s talk clearly states the point on market segmentation very clearly  - “they were looking for the perfect Pepsi, and they should have been looking for the perfect Pepsis”. Most often we look for that single answer and it was humorous, but also real when Malcom talked about the expectation to get a bell curve back. When the collected data does not match, it is often considered a data error. But today the customers have so many options, that they can choose to be picky and thereby the need for segmentation arises. We thereby need to concentrate on those segments where we can provide the best value and benefit the most from.

  The example of Nike given in the text also clearly illustrated the segmentation principle that Prof. Talbott showed in his lecture via the Tide example. Nike, even though are in the shoes business, embedded the digital chip into their shoes and integrated it with iPOD. By thinking outside the box and integrating with the growing fitness industry, they are expanding their market based on consumer interests/needs and probably added a new segment. They might cannibalize a bit of their current customers from one of their existing segments into the new segment, but overall they will attract more fitness freaks and more iPOD users into their overall market.