MKTG 6200 Sales Management

1.What factors are effecting competition, product development and marketing requirements in the 3D printing market?

 

2.Briefly discuss the Pros and Cons of FormPrint, a leader in high-end 3D medical printing systems entering the low-end segment of the market with the Ortho500. What is the role of this product in FormPrint’s product portfolio and marketing strategy?

 

3.Analyze the trade offs of how FormPrint might pursue this new market segment. Through the Ortho Division’s sales force? Through independent sales reps (ISRs)? List the Pros and Cons of each option from a sales management perspective.

 

a.Economic – cost-to-serve, average unit sale, geographic dispersion of buyers? 

 

b.Organizational – fit with existing sales force, diffusion of their focus away from core market, compensation issues, potential for channel conflict? 

 

c.Buyer behavior / Selling Effectiveness – different decision makers, purchasing of oneoff items vs. buying many products from a single supplier

Introduction

Innovation is the key to the business success in this global competitive world. The business marketers often face some of the considerable challenges while developing the advanced technologies. Especially, the “down market” product offering evolves from early stage innovations to the high quality products in the mainstream business (Kietzmann, Pitt and Berthon 2015). The study would reflect on the complex dynamics involved with the FormPrint. The study would develop ideas about the major factors that are creating consequences on several segments like competition, marketing, and product development process associated with 3D printing. On the other hand, the brief discussion about the underlying pros and cons of FormPrint would also be discussed in this study. The necessary trade-offs and the future changes made to the manufacturing process of FormPrint would be analyzed as well.

1. Factors affecting product development, competition and marketing requirement

The experts from the 3D printing industry sometimes perceived as highly disruptive. On the contrary, it is argued that the technologies are decades away from the actual viability. Some of the specific factors have the significant influence on the 3D printing manufacturing process. it has the potential to make the manufacturing process clear and precise (Tuan Rahim et al. 2015). The technological advancement is one of the major effects to be concerned in this case. The associated employees sometimes do not have the sufficient ideas about the use of these advanced technologies for 3D manufacturing. Moreover, the emerging competitors are introducing more innovativeness by using the highly advanced technologies while manufacturing the 3D printer. Eventually, the value propositions are evolving as per the changing customer demands (King and Babasola 2014). Hence, it can be interpreted that the advancements of the technologies, emergence of the new competitors, and the evolvement of the value propositions are the considerable effects created on the product development, marketing requirement, and competition of 3D printing market.

2. Pros and Cons of high-end 3D medical printing systems entering the low-end market

The 3D print technologies are highly advanced and these have the promising future ahead. However, before making the use of 3D printer in practice, it is necessary to develop the ideas about the pros and cons of this high-end technology.

Pros:

• The products can quickly advance from the design to a structured prototype with the help of the 3D printing. This technology helps in manufacturing the products more quickly (Gao et al.2015).
• The initial set up of the 3D product is much costly whereas the technology is decreasing the price of the products in different countries.
• One of the most helpful attribute of this technology is the effectiveness of 3D printer in the medical sector. 3D printing has become much important for resolving the issues with the human organs.
• Entering to the low-end market would reduce the price as well.

Cons:

• In current time, the increasing popularity of 3D printer has become much threatening. It is notable that it is quite easier to misuse or build the counterfeit items, which are difficult to differentiate (Stansbury and Idacavage 2016).
• 3D printer ensures the limitation in creating the small sized items. However, the future improvements can be found in this segment. In future, the easier manufacturing process can be adopted.
• Many of the companies in the world usually rely on the low skill jobs. Therefore, the manufacturing jobs are reduced.
• Entering low-end market would affect the brand value and the value propositioning segments.

3. Analysis of the Trade-offs for pursuing FormPrint in the new market

While entering from the high-end market to low-end market, it is necessary to identify the buyers’ purchasing behaviour. FormPrint can enter the new market through the independent sales reps since the different marketing segments influence the customers. Considering the sales management perspectives, it is notable that the economic segments, such as average unit sale, cost-to-serve, and geographic dispersion have the significant influence on buyers (Oropallo and Piegl 2016). When the customers would receive the perceived products and services from a convenient place and affordable charges, they would be more interested in using this technology. However, it is even necessary to develop the charges with the existing sales force and channel conflict (Zeltmann et al. 2016). The effectiveness of the buyers and the decision-making process helps in increasing the sales force. The appropriate decision-making is also essential in such matter. However, misuse of the process can equally be harmful in such context.

4. Contrasting Consequences

If the sales were made by using internal sales, many changes were thus needed to be taken into consideration. The use of the advanced technologies is essential for every organisation. It would have been necessary to develop the expertise advice regarding the use of these technologies. Gathering the adequate ideas about the technological specifications would help in using these printers in an appropriate way. In fact, the distribution costs would have been lesser (Petrick and Simpson 2013). The internal sales would have provided the opportunities to establish the proper relationships. However, the evolving value propositions might have created some of the difficulties in understanding the basic needs and requirements. The sales ratio would have reached to the breakeven point when no profit or no loss would have been made. Hence, the contradictory consequences would have been found in the process of internal sales.

Conclusion

The study analyses the consequences faced while manufacturing the 3D print media. The effective high-end technologies are quite helpful for developing the innovative approaches. On the other hand, the misuse of these highly advanced technologies can affect the industry much significantly. The technological advancement is one of the major effects to be concerned in this case. The associated employees sometimes do not have the sufficient ideas about the use of these advanced technologies for 3D manufacturing. Moreover, the emerging competitors are introducing more innovativeness by using the highly advanced technologies while manufacturing the 3D printer. The internal sales would have provided the opportunities to establish the proper relationships.

References

Gao, W., Zhang, Y., Ramanujan, D., Ramani, K., Chen, Y., Williams, C.B., Wang, C.C., Shin, Y.C., Zhang, S. and Zavattieri, P.D., 2015. The status, challenges, and future of additive manufacturing in engineering. Computer-Aided Design, 69, pp.65-89.

Kietzmann, J., Pitt, L. and Berthon, P., 2015. Disruptions, decisions, and destinations: Enter the age of 3-D printing and additive manufacturing. Business Horizons, 58(2), pp.209-215.

King, D.L. and Babasola, A., 2014. Mobile open-source solar-powered 3-D printers for distributed manufacturing in off-grid communities. Challenges in Sustainability, 2(1), p.18.

Oropallo, W. and Piegl, L.A., 2016. Ten challenges in 3D printing. Engineering with Computers, 32(1), pp.135-148.

Petrick, I.J. and Simpson, T.W., 2013. 3D printing disrupts manufacturing: how economies of one create new rules of competition. Research-Technology Management, 56(6), pp.12-16.

Stansbury, J.W. and Idacavage, M.J., 2016. 3D printing with polymers: Challenges among expanding options and opportunities. Dental Materials, 32(1), pp.54-64.

Tuan Rahim, T.N.A., Abdullah, A.M., Md Akil, H., Mohamad, D. and Rajion, Z.A., 2015. Preparation and characterization of a newly developed polyamide composite utilising an affordable 3D printer. Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites, 34(19), pp.1628-1638.

Zeltmann, S.E., Gupta, N., Tsoutsos, N.G., Maniatakos, M., Rajendran, J. and Karri, R., 2016. Manufacturing and security challenges in 3D printing. Jom, 68(7), pp.1872-1881.