Customer Tiers outside Target Market

Customer Tiers outside Target Market

                    Organizations such as General Electric, Siemens and British Petroleum focus their resources on how to increase their market share and profit in order to survive in the global market. To maximize the size of their blue oceans, companies need to take a reverse course. Instead of concentrating on customers, they need to look to noncustomers.(Kim & Mauborgne,2005 p.102).The goal of expanding sales and increasing revenues is to reach out to noncustomers that are not in the companies’ existing target market.

         There are many factors that will attract customers outside the target market; these include price of products, quality of the products, product innovation, age difference, geographical location and desire for clean energy.

               Price of products is a great determinant for attracting customers outside target market because customers want to buy product that is affordable and readily available. General Electric continues to make products that will meet the need of people either rich or poor. An increase in gas prices may make wind more competitive. Gas futures have risen almost 15 percent this year, which would be their first annual increase since 2007 (Martin & Goossens, 2012). The increase in gas prices has driven a lot of customers to alternative energy that is cheaper and environmentally friendly with low carbon emission. Whether the economy is strong or weak, developed market consumers tend to buy across the price spectrum. (D’Andrea, et.al. 2012).It is the priority of General Electric,BP and Siemens to make products that is cheap and affordable in order to attract customers outside the target markets.

              Quality of products is another factor that is important to customer. All necessary measures have been taken by General products, Siemens and BP to improve the quality of products to meet customer satisfaction.In a competitive energy industry, all organization strive hard to meet the needs of their customer within U.S. and other parts of the world.

                Product innovation is a great tool that helps an organization to compete in Blue Ocean and that has added a competitive advantage to General Electric in many perspectives. Product evolution is one of the things GE does best. Especially when it comes to the next generation of wind turbines. (General Electric, 2012).General Electric continues to invest in research and development which has been its secret to success. We will continue to invest in products throughout our businesses, because technical innovation-more specifically advanced manufacturing and materials processes –is the other key to America’s manufacturing revival. (Immelt, 2012, p.45). Hydrogen fuel has been a great product of innovation at General Electric; hydrogen fuel cell has been produced using electrolysis technology to provide electrical energy to power cars on the road. Hydrogen is a cleaner, odourless and colourless gas that is economical and environmentally friendly. It is a cleaner and more sustainable form of energy for our growing population. A fuel cell can convert water into hydrogen and oxygen producing usable electrical energy like the energy powering car (General Electric, 2012). General Electric must find a way to increase production of hydrogen fuel at a cheaper cost that will attract more customers and maximize the company revenues.

         Age difference is another areas of consideration in targeting energy market.Younger population  are more prone to outgoing lifestyles than older age because they have plan to marry and start a family and buy a car and that will definitely increase energy consumption to power their cars and other vehicles. 

        Geographical location is a driven factor to global energy consumption because population of the world continues to grow tremendously. The demand for energy to power cars and household appliances most especially in China with a population of over 1 billion will definitely increase. General Electric and BP must strive very hard to target customers in Asia and Africa market for energy consumption due to increase in energy demand in the two continents.

            Desire for clean energy is very important to customers in developed countries which include United States, Canada, Britain and France because they understand health hazards associated with environmental pollution caused by carbon emission from natural gas. Wind power is clean, safe and increasingly affordable supported by government policies, it has grown rapidly in many countries and is now growing at a rate of 30% a year globally (BP, 2011).The awareness of clean energy or green energy continues to increase because of the benefit and cost of production.

           General Electric, BP and Siemens have greatly invested a lot of resources in alternative energy in order to provide quality and affordable energy supply to customers and that will attract noncustomer and increase sales and revenues of the companies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

BP. (2011). BP The Annual Report 2011.Retrieved from:                 http://www.bp.com/assets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/set_branch/ST.....20                                   11.pdf.

D’Andrea,G.,Marcotte,D., & Morrison, G.D.(2010). Let Emerging Market Customers Be Your Teachers.Harvard Business Review .Retrieved on January 12,2013 from http://kucampus.kaplan.edu/library

General Electric. (2012). Wind Turbines. Retrieved on January 12, 2013 from http://www.ge-energy.com/wind

Kim, W. & Mauborgne, R. (2005).  Blue Ocean Strategy.  Harvard Business School Press:

Boston, MA.

Immelt, J.R. (2012). How We Did it. The CEO of General Electric on Sparkling an American Manufacturing Renewal.Harvard Business Review. Retrieved on January 10, 2013  from http://kucampus.kaplan.edu/library

Martin, C. & Goossens, E. (2012). Wind Power Generation Beating Natural Gas in US in 2012.Bloomberg News. Retrieved on January 12, 2013 from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-21/wind-power-generation-beating-natural-gas-in-us-in-2012...html