BCG Matrix

The idea of carrying your favorite medicament wherever you go has al focussings been fascinating for deal any over the world for the longest time. It started with carrying of stereo systems, then came the port adapted cassette players followed by the movable CD players and then finally the digital music players. In 2001 the portable music players industry was revolutionized by the advent of an Apples intersection point called the iPod this came as a breath of fresh air for music lovers all over the world and was an instant hit.The success of it can be determined by the incident that it has vex a household name a shuffle known all over the world in such a short time it is one of the high gearest revenue generating products for the Apple and is now the market drawing card in products of its genre. iPod Target Market iPods target market has been the youth primarily who listen to music of all kinds and are always on the go, exactly with time the target market expanded tremendo usly.Now it caters to almost everyone with accessories available it has made the music available for mass where ever they are all the time. It has become furcate of everyday life of any professional who listens to music where ever he is working, although through campaigns it still targets the young energetic segment of the consumer market but benefits of the product are admireed by everyone (Apple Investor, 2008). Organizations have now employed iPod in training of their sore recruits this shows the diversity of the market that the product is now catering to.The product has boastful over the years but has kept its integrity and maintained its status as the market grew and competitors came in Apple as always tried to persevere ahead of the competition by bringing variety in the product while keeping the originality. The iPod now ranges from iPod Classic, iPod Nano, iPod Shuffle and iPod touch each caters to a incompatible segment of the society and has its own niche. Factors influencing consumer behavior Factors that have the most impact on the behavior of a consumer are Psychological Personal Social ethnical (Robbins & Judge, 2004)A manger while making any end to the highest degree a product necessitate to keep in mind anything that falls under the lines delimitate by the above mentioned factors. iPod on the opposite hand catered to each of these factors in its own way. Psychological If we analyze the add campaigns for the iPod it would tell us that it shows pot that iPod is a product that has been designed for people who are energetic who are young or at least tonus young, the colorful pattern adopted in the ads as well as in the product depicts that it is a product that doesnt cater to a specific class but is for everyone (BCG Expertise, 2009).Being a expert product it also appeals to the techno side of a human mind, the desire to stay ahead of others and own an object that would be a statement for them. iPod over the years achieved this status of being a self statement for people and it is a study success of the product indeed. A forget me drug of people associate their alternative of music with their personalities, and are very possessive intimately the songs they own and they listen to, the iPod enable them to keep this possession close to them and take it wherever they go and wonder them whenever they feel like, whence gives them this sense of completion as well.Personal The appeal of the product is created towards the younger generation primarily the students and the freshly hired professionals. The product is a minuscule high priced that is why it has always been a status symbol as well in many societies, it is also for the people who have some know-how of applied science and are inclined to learn more (Apple Investor, 2008). For people of young age life is always on the move, it is very important for them to have things that are portable and are easy to carry.Music is by far the favorite pass time as well as a motivator in a way that it complements their work habits, hence having a construction that can be easily carried and taken to places and can carry your favorite things is a nifty attraction. Social The genial aspect of an iPod is on the greatest factor influencing consumer behavior. iPod from its introduction in 2001 became an instant hit and the culture of iPod started, it became a second name for music for a lot of people (Apple iPod Touch, 2009).Apple had a lot to do in bringing and enabling this culture to flourish as they kept on bringing in new features and accessories for the iPod music for example the iTunes and its advancements, this kept the customers involved in the product while on the other hand gave reasons to people to talk about the product hence iPod became a topic of discussion as well as the time progressed.A lot of the success of iPod has to do with peer pressure and reference groups as well, people adopt things that they see in their surroundings, o r with people who they are close to. This creates a desire among them to have the same object as well, with iPod being a state of the art product the word of mouth was tremendous people couldnt stop talking about their iPods and its features this created hype in the market about the product and more and more people bought them. CulturalWith the advancement in technology the people wanted convenience in everything and hence the involvement of technology increase day by day in a common mans life, this culture of technology also progressed with time. With this culture flourishing iPod came as a perfect fit, people were willing to adopt changes and try out new products, people were better educated and well aware of what the product was all about hence less effort was required in making the people understand the product also it enabled people to better receive the product (iPhone 3G, 2009).The nows world has become really fast paced, time is the most expensive resource and everybody see ms to be short of it in such times it was spartan for people to relax at their work places or enjoy a few minutes of good music, even if they were able to they didnt feel comfy with it. In such time iPod came as blessing as it was handy yet could carry loads of music files now people were able to enjoy their music while being at work or being busy with whatever they want to do (Bulik, 2008). Consumer Behavior Model sour Box Model The Black Box model is divided into three canonic parts Environmental Factors Black Box Buyers Response (Daft, 2001) Environmental Factors The Environmental Factors is the basic scenario in which a consumer is placed and has to make a decision these are his surroundings and how the product is presented to him and also how he perceives the product, how important is it for him and does he even feel the need for the product or not. The environmental factors are further divided into two categories 1.Environment These are the conditions that the customer l ives in and his surroundings, the aspects involved are the governmental authority of the country and its stability, this also involves the economical standing of the country the buying power of the consumer, the cultural aspect is also included in order to analyze the fact and understand how the customer will perceive the product and also the technical issues are also discussed for the reason that whether the society is able to adopt and understand and sustain the technology or not.In iPods case as the product was launched predominantly in the western markets, the environment was favorable although some problems were faced in countries else where, the financial and political support was there, the product was a perfect fit for the fast paced on the go culture and also the technology was very well received by the audience (Robbins & Judge, 2004). 2. Marketing Strategy The marketing aspect of the environmental factor is more company related this is more about how the company design s its product, prices it, promotes it and defines distribution transmit beggarlyd on the environment discussed above (Martin, 2008).The success of iPod is an indication of its great marketing strategy the product was a very well thought device which catered to the consumer needs perfectly, secondly the promotion was such that it appealed to everyone and distribution channels were effective enough that it was available everywhere. The pricing although was a little question mark the big(a) profit margin that the company enjoyed restricted some of the potential customers from using the product but then again it was good enough to make it an highly profitable product. Black BoxBuyers Characteristics This is the part where the buyers personality is involved, the attributes that give him his identity influence his decision making process. The way the buyer perceives a product, the berth with which he receives the product, his personal likes and dislikes and also his dressingground an d his lifestyle all combined influence the decision that he takes. The characteristics of the target market were thoroughly analyzed and were responded with a great product and a marketing strategy, the habits and interests of the young generation were very well responded.The buyers response is considered as a rational decision based on the factors above while in reality it might not be the case, a buyer can be influenced by other factors as well, his decision doesnt have to be rational in the defined lines of the black box, he can be bias and unreasonable as well but even in that way he is satisfying his own need to optimum utility (BCG Expertise, 2009). The positive response to iPod from the consumers is not unavoidably collect to the fact that it caters their needs but it can also be due to the fact that the buyer wants to fit into a certain circle of people and needs iPod as a support for his status.Decision Making The second part of the black box is the buyers decision making process, it starts off with the identification of a problem that is the buyers realization of a need or a desire, second part is the research where the buyer looks out to reckon how can he fulfill his need, when he finds out ways how he can fulfill his needs then he evaluates all the plectrons available to him, afterward the evaluation he finally comes to a conclusion and buys a product. The last part of the process is the behavior of the buyer after the purchase whether he comes back the second time or not, does he have complains, is he satisfied etc.(Martin, 2008) In the decision making process the problem was that people werent able to find a high quality digital music player that was reliable yet looked good, they did their research and iPod being the first of its kind was the only option available to them, after evaluating it and finding it best against the rest they bought the product. After the sales most of the customer were genuinely satisfied the evidence for which is the issuance of iPods sold and number of tunes downloaded from iTunes (Graham, 2008). RecommendationsPricing Strategy The iPod has always been a premium product by apple, relatively high priced but high quality the high price is primarily due to the high profit margin that is kept on each device. The survey that was conducted that was conducted was based on 4 major points 1. It was asked that which in their perspective is the best digital music player, the response was clear as more than 70 percent of the responses replied iPod this shows that iPod is positioned as the best product in the market among the consumers (Bulik, 2008). 2.On the question whether respondents owned an iPod or not around 55 percent of the respondents replied positively. 3. When asked if they would want to own an iPod of their more than 90 percent replied positively this showed the great potential the product had in the market. 4. When those who didnt own an iPod already that why they didnt have an iPod the majority replied that they were not able to afford it. Hence it can be concluded that the product has great potential and still can capture a bigger share in an already self dominated market, but the only barrier is the high price.The price needs to be lowered a bit so that affordability of the product increases. This is not just in the western nations but one of the major reasons that iPod has not been able to flourish as greatly in rest of the world is the fact that an already high priced product becomes extremely unaffordable for people of deplorable economies when they are caught currency exchange rates. Even these markets have tremendous potential but they fall pray to cheap Chinese copies or other portable devices when the desire to own an iPod is great.The profit margin can be reduced and the recovery can be made on other products such as the accessories and music. Music Diversity Music form contrary genres must be added to the iTunes feature in order to attract a worldwide audience. This is the biggest internet music seller portal, recently iTunes celebrated its billionth download in just 9 months, this shows that how great the operations related to iPod have become and can become even bigger if a little diversity is added (Graham, 2008). Music SharingSharing the music between two iPod users is still an issue as there is no handy way of transferring a file from one iPod to another, although there have been attempts such as the miShare but still it is a hassle. What needs to be done is that a wireless system of transferring files between the devices must be made so that two users are able to share their songs and enjoy the music together. FM communicate iPod doesnt have an FM Radio feature the FM industry has become huge over the years and has a great fan base and listenership.Not giving such a feature is just missing on to opportunities that are quite simple to catch on, hence an FM feature needs to be added in the product. Advertisements While the high spirit energetic young look for advertisement must be maintained but also different campaigns must be introduced in order to attract audiences who may not like to be associated with this perception. References Apple Investor. (2008). Retrieved April 24, 2009, from http//www. apple. com/investor Apple iPod Touch. (Apple Inc.). Retrieved April 19, 2009, from http//www. apple. com/ipodtouch/ BCG Expertise. (n. d. ). Retrieved April 21, 2009, from Boston Consulting Group http//www. bcg. com/impact_expertise/publications/files/Summary_Shop_org. pdf Bulik, B. S. (June 2008). Apples iPhone steals marketing hollering from iPod. Advertising Age , 4-55. Daft, R. (2001). Organization Theory and Design, 9th ed. Chicago South-Western. Graham, J. (2008). Apple iPhone hasnt gotten on Flash bandwagon yet. USA Today . iPhone 3G.(2008). Retrieved April 23, 2009, from http//images. apple. com/br/accessibility/pdf/iPhone_3G_vpat. pdf Martin, R. (2008). Apple Goes After employment With Phone App s And SDK. Informationweek , 23-24. Robbins, S. P. , & Judge, T. A. (2004). Organizational Behavior. New York Pearsons. Survey High Awareness, Strong Demand for Apple iPhone. (n. d. ). Retrieved April 22, 2009, from Marketing Charts http//www. marketingcharts. com/interactive/survey-high-awareness-strong-demand-for-apple-iphone-694/