GE to replace incandescent bulbs....

In just a few years, incandescent light bulbs have become a thing of the past — replaced by more energy efficient and affordable compact fluorescent bulbs. But now General Electric says it has a technology that could kill the standard light bulb altogether: A new light-emitting diode bulb that performs just like a 40-watt incandescent, but lasts more than 17 years.

Marketed as the Energy Smart LED Bulb, the product should hit shelves by the end of 2010, GE says. Not only does it last 25 times longer than the bulbs consumers are used to, it also substantially cuts energy use (requiring only 9 watts to emit the same 450 lumens) — presumably saving homeowners cash off their energy bills for more than a decade.

The one catch? Its price tag exceeds $40. Who will be willing to pay that much when people are used to buying a four-pack of bulbs at the grocery store for under $10? GE says it has faith that consumers will weigh potential savings against upfront cost, but this has never been a strength of the mass market.

The GE bulb is revolutionary for several other reasons. One of the reasons LEDs haven’t been widely adopted for general home and workplace lighting is because their beams tend to be focused, rather than diffuse. One of the companies working on this problem is Bridgelux, which just came out with its own screw-in LED bulb, called the Heleion. The Energy Smart LED bulb uses plastic structures wrapped around the glass to more evenly distribute the light.

Flanking and Guerrilla warfare strategies...

Well both of these strategies are performed by players with small market share...

Flankers are generally attackers whose market shares are around 15%... The difference between the flankers and guerrilla's are that flankers operate close to their rivals but guerrillas attack by staying away...

For example US when GM and Ford enjoyed 80% market together, American motors came up with special convertible cars at a price close to rivals, attacking their territory...

Example of Guerrilla is Rolls Royce...Do you think any company like GM,Ford,Honda,Toyota would look into that segment as an category extension of their cars??? Definitely no..

Their segment is too narrow to risk...

Points to remember:

Flanking attack should be a surprise for others to defend..So companies need to avoid big test marketing..Other examples of flanking is Volkswagen small car concept by launching Bettle("Think small campaign") etc...

Guerrillas should never come too exposed and should never try to act like leaders...

Since their markets are small size they should never make big tycoons to feel that the segment being served is large or impressive...Brand extension should not be done(for example mercedes Benz deluxe @ 3 crores...)etc.

Guerrillas are more often found locally...They compete with national brands..like a chitalle bandhu(pune sweet shop) with big chains(if existed) etc.. Ramkumar

Countries started emulating Indian processes(Amul)

t may have been content so far with milk powder as a substitute, Nigeria now intends to replicate the Amul model in the near future. The Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) is planning to send a team to study the co-operative model."We had visited GCMMF on Tuesday and were impressed by their co-operative model and the way they produce milk. We intend to replicate this model in Nigeria," Reuben Kifasi, director - investment promotion, NIPC, on the sidelines of '3rd Nigeria - India Business & Investment Forum (NIBIF - 2010)' in Ahmedabad. Currently, the African country uses milk powder as a substitute to milk.

However, according to Mustafa Bello, executive secretary, NIPC, Nigeria may not be able to replicate it fully. "It is not easy to replicate the Amul way of producing milk. We are importing milk powder as of now. It would be difficult to suddenly stop those imports and that may also encourage smuggling. We will have to take it up in phases," said Bello.

The Nigerian team is expected to visit Anand, GCMMF's headquarters, in the following months soon.

"We are looking at possibilities of opening up our own dairy farms and initially supply milk to schools. Later when we have convinced the government to increase the cattle, Nigeria can look at replacing milk powder with milk. Plus, we may not be able to go the co-operative way completely but would want to study Amul's milk production and technology aspects to replicate something," Bello added.

The 4 strategies!!!!!

Namely are defensive, offensive, flanking and guerrilla...
Defensive strategies are used by the leader to protect its market share to its close rivals...
It can be done through many ways..
Example: Microsoft enjoys undisputed leadership in operating system(Windows) but it doesnt enjoy its laurels rather keep reinventing new things leaving no scope for their customers to try Machintosh. Keyword here is reinventing..
Another classic example is Gillette. It had rivalry from Wilksword etc but followed Wilksword to produce disposable razor so as to not leave any stone unturned..Now that the market is shared by both Gillette and wilksword, Gillette's new step was to introduce adjustable disposable razors making the earlier one obsolete through which it captured its lost marketing share...Leader should be bold enough to attack its own products...

About the offensive strategies, it should be used by close number 2 and number 3 players..
Offensive strategies should aim at not leaders weakness but weakness in its strengths..
Examples: One exquisite example in this regard is that of Avis(car rental company which is number 2 in US, Hertz was number 1).. We have read about its positioning in Kotler(reverse positioning) which says that "We are number 2 so we work hard than others." this is offensive... Another one by Avis was, Our waiting line lengths are shorter, so we serve fast. This is an example where they looked into weakness in Hertz's market share which is their strength..

This principle is also used in attacking a monopolistic market..
Example: Wall street journal had a monopoly in business news magazines.. Company like Business Times tried entering into the market with an offensive plan which came out to be very successful.. Wall street journal had a hair breadth difference between its content..One was financial (shares, debentures etc) and the other had business news(strategies etc.).. Now since Wall street positioned itself as financial newspaper BusinessTimes came up with Business newspaper..

I would be discussing the other 2 strategies in the next blog.. Ramkumar