Fighting With Personality - How New Businesses Compete
When entering the Japanese market, it is inevitable for those new to the market to be forced to come up with a well thought out game plan to differentiate themselves from already established companies. The situation perhaps may be different if your company's product had never before been developed, but since most of the time this is not the case, there is no way to rise to the top but to carefully plan for success. This is especially true in the electronics industry where there are already too many established companies in Japan to simply compete with the same methods for the same customers.
For example, if a well-known Japanese electronics company such as Panasonic or Sanyo developed a new portable electric stove, it would be marketed towards the growing elderly population. These stoves can be advertised as safe for the elderly compared to a gas stove, and these established companies could utilize their brand name to market reliability. For a company less known by the elderly population, this same marketing strategy would not work.
Following the footsteps of Tescom & Co. Ltd., a newcomer in the electronics industry, would perhaps provide hints to compete against already established companies. A twenty-something woman designed Tescom's IH electronic stove for young women using a sleek silver design. The price and marketing strategy was also set to appeal to young women keeping the price low and using colorful store displays. However, interestingly, 50% of those who purchased the stove were senior citizens, 40% were families, and only 1% were young women.
As you can see, the company's product development and marketing strategy targeting young women were really not setup to attract the attention of these female customers. But use of these different means served to differentiate themselves from the more established electronics manufacturers. Tescom succeeded by focusing on their strengths as a women friendly electronics manufacturer to eventually attract the same customers as their larger competitors.
B.A. in International Affairs from the University of Puget Sound in Washington.