Summer+2009+Section+08-PS+Week+6

Team Love's Ladies (Ly, Khen, Janna, and Tom)

 * 5th P - Participation**
 * Have customers develop the product Ex: Wikipedia

Hotelling law simply states that it makes sense for competitors to make products that are as similar as possible. This is illustrated by the beach vendor example where we saw that both hot dog vendors would end up selling the same products at the same location. This concept is also seen in destination shopping. Destination shopping is where many stores are at the same location such as a mall. The concept behind this is that more people will come to a location of many stores than a location with just one store.
 * Hotelling Law**

Usually differentiation is considered to be a business advantage if your product is different than all others, and we've learned that to break into a market have to do it by being radically different! But be careful! As Clayton Christensen says "Does it help customers do what they are already trying to do - or does success depend on them changing their priorities?" You don't want to be so different that you alienate your customers.
 * The Principle of Minimum Differentiation vs. Product Differentiation**


 * Ecosystem**
 * **Business ecosystem**

This article highlights the central importance of interdependency in business. Long gone are the days when corporations existed in their silos - independent of the market environment and other market players. Now things are flat, networked and connected (as we learned in Polly's class) and to be successful you must look at your ecosystem as a whole and understand your place in it!
 * Strategy as Ecology (article)**
 * 1) Assess the health of your company's ecosystem.
 * 2) Determine your place in the ecosystem.
 * 3) Develop a strategy to match your role.
 * Keystone: Create and share values, then capitalize on partner diversity and innovation
 * Physical Dominator: Vertical / Horizontal integration, or exploit the weak
 * Niche: High turbulence forces specialization and leveraging the assets of partners
 * Commodity: Going it alone

Question was posed --> Is Wal-Mart a keystone?


 * Ecological Cycles**
 * Ecosystems are a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.
 * Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar (article)**


 * The BOP**
 * The economic tier.**


 * Case Discussion: Natureview

Team Wiki; came out with a rockin idea. Of course it would be easy and profitable for NVF to expand into supermarkets. However if they really want to define their presence in the community - team Wiki's idea of not only forming a cooperative but also rolling out Nature View Farm mini health stores will engrain this compnay into the ecology and place in the market.

One concept that sticks with me from class was that of micro-finance. Below is a chart I found that breaks down the life cycle of a micro-loan. I think the idea of recycling money is very cool. ** Team HACK: Came up with the idea of Natureview partnering with local schools to create a script program where parents and community members could purchase dollars, at their child's school, to use at their local natural food store. A portion of the dollars used would go back to the school. This would hopefully increase the number of customers who frequent these types of natural food stores and would increase the number of customers exposed to Natureview products. Natureview would also move forward with the idea of marketing kids packs of yogurt, something healthy that would appeal to the kids and build a new generation of organic food consumers. Okay, so this article isn’t that relative to last week’s class but I think it’s worth reading. In a nutshell, new legislation was passed limiting advertising and product innovation for cigarette companies. From a health standpoint, this is a pretty good thing. From a business and marketing perspective the unintended consequence of the new law is intriguing. Since the law restricts advertising and product innovation for all cigarette companies, Philip Morris had pretty much secured its 50% market share in the industry. Read the article for more details. . . []