The Case of Raleigh Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

The Case of Raleigh - Essay Example The company evidently as its humble beginning started from nothing to something. However, Raleigh was able to survive tough times due to its implementation of competitive strategies. It was able to survive the Great Depression due to its introduction of value-for-money products. Not only that, even if in between 1950 and 1962, Raleigh was still able to consider a competitive strategy which involved focusing on bicycle sales. Focus is a generic strategy which was then applied to Raleigh. This strategy particularly includes concentrating on a certain segment of product line that at some point would benefit the entire organisation in reaching its competitive advantage in the international market (Porter, 1998). By then, Raleigh started to acquire other rival groups in order to dominate in the market and then it started to expand overseas where there were potential for its product offerings. Not only that, Raleigh was good at ensuring promotion of its product line by sponsoring road raci ng team in Europe. Raleigh survived as it continuously obtained subsidiaries which in 2005 came to be around six in all, which include Derby Cycle Werke, Raleigh America, Raleigh Canada, Raleigh Taiwan, Raleigh UK Limited, and Raleigh International. This simply shows how marketing at Raleigh has become more complex as it continues to expand in the international market. 1.1 Q1 1.1.1 Marketing issue... 1.1 Q1 1.1.1 Marketing issue Marketing today is about creating a need or demand for certain product or service offerings and various firms are actually good at doing this for this is an essential step in order for a certain business to survive (Boone and Kurtz, 2006; Kotler et al., 1999). Although the basic idea of marketing is about meeting the needs of the customers, firms actually have significant influence in order to create a need for their service or product offerings. Raleigh was good at doing this stuff. In fact, its ability to create a significant sale amidst tough economic times just proved that it was essentially good at creating a need for its product offerings. 1.1.2 Keegan’s approaches to the study of culture However, modern marketing tries to integrate the idea of understanding the entire market and its prevailing language, religion, values and attitudes, manners and customs, aesthetics, technology, education, and social institutions which are dynamic variables that are integral components of culture (Czinkota and Ronkainen, 2007). Keegan (1989) had different approaches in the study of culture and these include anthropological approach, Maslow’s approach, the Self-Reference Criterion, diffusion theory, high and low context cultures and perception. In the case of Raleigh, all of these can possibly be applied, but on a general or universal context, it is much applicable to use the Maslow’s approach which is entirely about understanding the hierarchy of needs. Modern marketing after all, is about understanding the needs of the customers and even trying to create them on the part of the firm (Kotler et al., 1999; Boone and Kurtz, 2006). Thus, the decision to standardised or adapt a customised approach