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#M4BW Japanese companies use technology to create value for an aging population

September 23, 2019 by Joe Cannon Leave a Comment

Japan is concerned about how it will care for its elderly—especially those with dementia. The Japanese population is aging quicker than most of the world. Already, a quarter of the Japanese population is 65 or older (compared to just 15 percent of Americans). By 2025, Japan predicts a shortfall of almost 400,000 senior caregivers. Some companies are developing different intelligent agents to help fill the void.

Robots are particularly popular. Sony’s robotic pet dog Aibo, and SoftBank’s Paro, a robotic baby seal, have been shown to elicit emotional responses and yield benefits similar to live animal therapy (without all the owner responsibility). SoftBank Robotics’ humanoid companion “Pepper” recognizes faces and human emotions and asks and answers questions; seniors enjoy chatting with Pepper, which also monitors patients’ mental health for doctors and family members. Advances like these can provide health care at lower costs and make for better experiences for an aging world.

For some more background you can have your students read “Japan Lays Groundwork for Boom in Robot Carers,” The Guardian, February 5, 2018 and “Toyota, SoftBank Join Forces to Build Self-Driving Cars That Deliver Meals, Health Care,” Wall Street Journal, October 4, 2018 (subscription may be required).

This describes a demographic trend (part of context and the external market environment in Chapter 3). It might also tie into a discussion of market segmentation (Chapter 4) or product (Chapter 8).

Filed Under: #M4BW, Chapter 03, Chapter 04, Chapter 08, Demographics, External market environment

Focus and Approach…

December 13, 2017 by Jon Firooz Leave a Comment

I saw this cartoon and it reminded me of many meetings I was in while working in various marketing roles.  As marketers we often have an abundance of information to consider and goals to achieve.  Figuring out where to start and how to create a cohesive strategy is a challenge many businesses, large and small, struggle with.  In Essentials of Marketing we provide a framework and process for creating a marketing strategy.  It all starts with bringing in information from your customers, company, competitors, and external market environment (context).  From there the process organizes and filters that information, applies segmentation and positioning approaches, and at that point creating your marketing mix becomes much more straightforward.  A diagram of the process is shown below and more information can be found in our book.  Chapter 2 provides an overview of the process and then each subsequent chapter dives into detail on one of the components.

Filed Under: Chapter 02, Chapter 03, External market environment, Marketing strategy planning, Strategy planning Tagged With: marketing mix, marketing strategy, planning, strategy

What’s Now? Chapter 3 – BMW Faces the Future of the Driverless Car

June 23, 2016 by Joe Cannon Leave a Comment

BMWVisionThe future of the automobile industry, while still blurry, is beginning to come into focus. Experts agree that self-driving cars are the future. But will we own one of these cars? Or will a self-driving Uber pick us up and take us where we want to go as needed? Planning for these potential futures are challenges facing all carmakers.

Chapter 3 briefly explores the influence of technology with the example of the driverless car. “The Ultimate Driving Machine Prepares for a Driverless World” (Fortune, March 1, 2016) digs deep into this future from the perspective of German carmaker BMW. The image on the right is a BMW Vision concept car.

Conduct a SWOT analysis on BMW as it looks at this future. Identify two strengths, two weaknesses, two opportunities, and two threats.

Filed Under: Chapter 03, External market environment, What's Now? Tagged With: Technology

Mercedes Benz’s driverless car prototype

April 29, 2015 by Joe Cannon Leave a Comment

The driverless car is a reality. This video might be fun to drop into a lecture on the external market environment — to stimulate a discussion of technology. What markets will the driverless car influence? How will it change law enforcement? What about bars and restaurants — which may have more demand as people can stay out and drink without having to drive home? There are predictions that driverless cars will have many fewer accidents? What are the implications for the automobile insurance industry? What about demand in hospital emergency rooms?

These discussions will help students see the need to monitor technological changes that may not immediately appear to impact their business. The emergence of the driverless car (which now seems inevitable) will impact many different product-markets. There might also be a discussion of consumer behavior (some consumers may love this idea, it may be a challenge for others) or the product life cycle (how do you introduce this product to the market) or new product development (the role of prototypes).

The video shows Mercedes Benz’s driverless car prototype.

Filed Under: Consumer behavior, External market environment, New-product development, Product, Product life cycle, Video Tagged With: Technology

Technology Is Changing Our Relationship With Driving

June 30, 2014 by Joe Cannon Leave a Comment

Screen Shot 2014-06-30 at 7.18.05 AMSome technological and social cultural trends are beginning to have an impact on how Americans drive. Think about smartphone based services like Uber and Zipcar — which may make car ownership much less necessary. Google’s self-driving car is on the horizon. And people are more and more interested in city living. This Fortune article “The end of driving (as we know it)” (June 12, 2014) highlights these trends.

I like to encourage my students to anticipate trends and think about the future. I will have them read this article and ask a series of questions:

  • What industries could see these trends as threats?
  • What industries might see these trends as an opportunity?
  • What new goods or services might leverage these opportunities?

Encourage your students to move beyond the immediately obvious examples — automobile manufacturers — and encourage them to consider other industries (say hospital emergency rooms that do a lot of business from automobile accidents — which should decline significantly with self-driving cars).  These questions are designed to help them recognize and anticipate change. You might use this when you cover the external market environment, demographics, consumer behavior, or marketing strategy planning.

Filed Under: Consumer behavior, Demographics, External market environment, Marketing strategy planning, Sustainability Tagged With: Technology

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