Introduction


Consumers adapt to various lifestyles in part through a core of values that influence their subsequent behavior patterns. These values are developed based on their heritage and life experiences. For example, consumers who value fun and enjoyment may desire a specific brand of coffee for its rich taste whereas consumers who value a sense of accomplishment may desire a specific coffee brand as a mild stimulation to increase productivity and consumers who value warm relationships with others may desire a coffee break as an aspect of group companionship (Greco, 2003). An understanding of consumer values is necessary, particularly if product consumption reflects consumer values. Recent years have witnessed consumers turning to component lifestyles whereby consumer attitude and behavior depend on specific situations rather than on overall lifestyle philosophy. A component lifestyle will allow consumers to take their children with them on holidays, share such household tasks as food shopping, or eat out on busy days (2003).


 


Lifestyle fragmentation is most noticeable among affluent consumers as they increasingly emphasize style and taste. The affluent want to express their individuality. Consumers may possess sophisticated photographic equipment and low-priced home stereo components or systems. In the future, consumers may select goods and services that best express their growing sense of uniqueness. Successful marketing strategies recognize the product-specific and occasion-specific nature of the developing consumer environment. The values of self-respect, security, warm relationships with others, sense of accomplishment, sense of belonging, self-fulfillment, being well-respected, and fun and enjoyment of life as value segments will vary in importance and priorities from decade to decade. Age, education, occupation, and gender will be variables as the assessment and significance of these values shift in importance. Marketers need to understand that consumers often purchase products for the benefit of value fulfillment and it is the function of marketers to help consumers realize their values (2003).


 


Values are learned and are responsible for determining businesses self-concept. These values extend to social, religious, family life, entertainment, and other facets of life. Values are a mode of conduct which the individual believes is either correct or incorrect. To illustrate, values can be related to consumption expenditures with some people not purchasing products of American companies that sanction adverse working conditions for children abroad. Values can also reflect television-viewing habits. There has been pressure against violent and sexually explicit programming causing corporate advertisers to reevaluate their policies (Greco, 2003). As the environment changes, consumers become more concerned about the effect of the changes thus their choices are altered according to the effect of the changes.  The behavior of consumer affects a company’s marketing segmentation and positioning strategies. The paper will discuss about the company Samsung and its marketing segmentation and positioning strategies.


Consumption Patterns


Consumption patterns have changed through history. Over the span of history, different products, or consumption items and activities, have come to correspond to different configurations of relationships along the core dimensions of consumption patterns. In the process of evolution of consumption, some of these products, items, or activities of consumption become popular and desirable. These changes were largely reinforced by major transformations and trends in modern society. As modern society developed, one major transformation was the increasing separation of the activities called production and consumption from each other. Earlier, human communities did not much separate work and play, creation and recreation.  Everyone in the household had to participate in production to ensure a decent livelihood in agrarian or hunter societies. Pure consumption or recreational social activity rarely ever existed. Every entertaining or recreational activity had a social, ritual, or functional purpose (1998).The clear demarcations between productive and purely consumptive activities seem to be products of modern society. With such demarcations, of course, came the distinctions in definitions of consumption and production, consumer and producer (1998).


 


These demarcations occurred in time and in space (1998). Economic models of consumption have rarely included variables other than costs and utility-utility being defined rather strictly in terms of satisfaction of physiological necessities, and costs in terms of prices. Attempts at inclusion of social costs and community benefits have been admired but largely neglected.  Consumer behavior discipline has tried to present integrative frameworks to provide multifaceted explanations of consumption choices (1998). It is believed that consumers behave not only in ways which minimize economic costs while maximizing economic utility but that psychological and other factors also enter into their decisions of consumption. Yet, although the rationale for consumption has been thus enlarged and made more real, it is still an individual rationale (1998).


 


That is, in mainstream philosophies the individual consumer is still the source of needs. Perceiving these needs, the consumer is still searching for maximization of utilities and minimization of costs, this time not only economic, but also psychological, social and cultural utilities and costs as well. The consumer still has a rationale but now one that is much more complex than a simple economic rationale (1998).As more and more variables enter the process of decision-making, but consumer needs and consumption patterns still remain unexplained, people ought to become skeptical of an individual rationale and wonder about the extent to which outside factors influence the perceptions of individual consumers about the utilities and costs of different consumption patterns, products, and brands (Dholakia & Fiat 1998). Consumption patterns changes over time, there is a time that a product is a success but after some time this product loses its popularity. As new products are made people find a need for new products rather than consume old ones.


Samsung Electronics


Samsung Electronics Company is a part of the Samsung Group, one of the largest cabals in South Korea, with 1993 Group sales of .5 billion. Amongst a number of initiatives, the Chairman of the company had announced that his office would become less involved in operating matters in order to focus on strategic issues. Samsung Electronics operated as a separate company, with several closely affiliated joint ventures. It consisted of four strategic business units or divisions, which were consumer electronics; information systems; telecommunications systems; and semiconductors.  In addition, there were two regionally oriented sales units, one focusing on domestic sales and the other on global business (McKeon 2003).  The global business organization included regional headquarters for North America, Europe (London), and Southeast Asia, and smaller regional headquarters for Latin America, Eastern Europe, China and the Middle East, and Africa. The company also participated in four major joint ventures with partners that included Corning, Hewlett-Packard, and GE. More recently, the company has restructured again into four major business areas, to take account of the importance of the Internet and electronic commerce. Its division’s in2002 included home networks; mobile networks; office networks; core components, supporting network products (McKeon 2003).


 


Although in the past there had been a significant degree of intervention by headquarters in the operations of the business units, by 1994 each of the divisions was a large business, operating with considerable autonomy and led by a managing director or vice-president. The company saw the role of headquarters as defining the broad scope of business for each of the divisions, as well as setting sales and profit targets and assisting in the development of their strategies. Corporate headquarters included corporate staff in the areas of personnel, finance, marketing, and technology. The company viewed the arenas of responsibilities shared between head office and business units (McKeon 2003).


 


For companies directly serving consumer markets, co-ordination between strategic business units (Subs) was less relevant and headquarters had little potential to add value, so that marketing and sales functions were substantially decentralized. However, in some cases, firms had established regional organizations to provide marketing services for several Subs. This was the case at Samsung Electronics, which had set up regional marketing units in the most important geographic regions to help the Subs market their products. In the USA, for example, a regional headquarters provided a central point for dealing with government, expatriate employee policy, and corporate marketing. It did not, however, direct the US operations of its global Subs, which were centered in (McKeon 2003). Samsung is one company that responded to changes in consumer behavior and pattern by introducing innovative products in the market. The company creates various products that reflect various electronic and communication related needs of clients. The company offers various products that cater to different needs of their clients and it provides alternative products that clients can consider.


Strategic issues


External analysis pinpoints major opportunities and threats posed by the environment. It analyzes those external factors the community or public sector jurisdiction cannot control but which nevertheless affect its ability to achieve strategic objectives. Internal analysis provides an objective understanding of the controllable factors in the public sector jurisdiction’s internal environment, identifying those with the greatest long-term impact on a community’s or organization’s position (Mercer 1991). The objective of this analysis is to identify the organizations or community’s major strengths and weaknesses with respect to its overall mission or relative to each of the strategic issues it faces. The usefulness of the internal analysis depends on objectivity and completeness and identifies strengths and weaknesses of the organization as it attempts to implement strategic plans, goals and objectives, and its overall mission. Organizations need to be aware of what is happening in their environment that might affect them. In other words, they should continually survey and monitor the outside as well as the inside of the organization. This is especially true during the strategic planning process (Mercer 1991).


 


Five separate but overlapping environments should be monitored. These include the macro environment, the government environment, the competitive environment, the citizen environment, and the organization’s internal environment. These areas should be surveyed in depth. Environmental scanning will also identify a variety of factors, both internal and external to the organization. In fact, one of the benefits of strategic planning is that an organization will gain a better understanding of how environmental scanning should be done and be able to manage more effectively as a result.  Factors to be considered as part of the macro environmental scanning process include social factors such as demographics, financial factors such as interest rates, and political factors such as increasing government deregulation, changing federalism and state government’s trends, and regulations (Mercer 1991).


 


            Among the factors to be considered as part of the government environment are the number and locations of other governments, the degree of federal and state government presence, the typical services being provided, and the marketing strategies of other competitive local governments. The competitive-environmental scan includes consideration of general competitor profiles, market segmentation patterns, research and development, and others (Mercer 1991).The combination of environmental assessment and forecasting, and the strength and weakness evaluations is often referred to in the strategic planning process as the situation audit or the environmental scan. The basic purpose of the environmental scan is to assess the environment within which strategic planning will be conducted and to develop a set of strategic issues (Mercer 1991). The strategies formulated by businesses will always be under certain issues. These issues helps a company determine which strategy is the best one for them to consider to use.  An issue that Samsung faces is how they use the different market segmentation and positioning strategies they have.


Development of a new strategy


Because any new arrangement is likely to decrease some valued benefits of past associations, and outcomes of new activities are often uneven, the period of affirming a new strategy continues to be unstable. Interaction among those in the middle of the organization will also bring conflicting interests and concerns to the attention of top executives, which can be an important impetus for developing new strategy. The true second order change will be more likely if people across the organization gain ownership in the new strategy by putting together pieces of it for themselves (Barr, Huff, A. & Huff, J. 2000). New assignments also divert attention to new issues. These factors, in conjunction with social norms about fair trial, help generate a honeymoon period following formal adoption of a new strategy. In the formal model, the affirmation of the new strategy is assumed to be accompanied by a reduction in stress, such situations out of the old strategy (Barr, Huff, A & Huff, J 2000). In any industry changing a strategy is a must especially if the company has difficulty in surviving in the environment.


 


Companies should have the appropriate tools and procedures that will help them determine whether their strategies are appropriate. For Samsung they have various tools that help them check the effectivity of the strategy they use.  Samsung’s market segmentation and positioning strategies are focused on making sure that the company combines the different markets that have the same needs. Through the market segmentation, the company has a better understanding of a particular market and it has a specific response to the individual needs of each market.  Market segmentation provides the company opportunities in determining what strategy is appropriate for a certain market. Samsung’s positioning strategies focus on making sure that clients in its different markets know the company because of the electronic and telecommunication products it has. The company wants to establish a name as one of the competitors of established electronics and telecommunication companies.


 


Conclusion


As the environment changes, consumers become more concerned about the effect of the changes thus their choices are altered according to the effect of the changes.  The behavior of consumer affects a company’s marketing segmentation and positioning strategies. Consumption patterns changes over time, there is a time that a product is a success but after some time this product loses its popularity. As new products are made people find a need for new products rather than consume old ones. Samsung is one company that responded to changes in consumer behavior and pattern by introducing innovative products in the market. The company offers various products that cater to different needs of their clients and it provides alternative products that clients can consider. Through the market segmentation, the company has a better understanding of a particular market and it has a specific response to the individual needs of each market. Samsung’s positioning strategies focus on making sure that clients in its different markets know the company because of the electronic and telecommunication products it has.



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