The Land of Technology

The first logical step in defining the market is to determine customer need. Based on need, the market emerges. Because customer need provides a broad perspective of the market, it is desirable to establish market boundaries. Traditionally, market boundaries have been defined in terms of product/market scope, but
recent work suggests that markets should be defined multidimensional.

The market boundary delineates the total limits of the market. An individual business must select and serve those parts, or segments, of the total market in which it is best equipped to compete over the long run. Consider Polaroid. It started as an instant photography firm. As such, it had only a 7 percent stake in the $15 billion photography industry. Over the years, it carried out a multi-billion dollar market for itself. But in the 1990s, the company realized it had little chance of any further growth. The developed world was already saturated with cameras, and photography itself was beginning to lose out to home video making.

Tags: customer needs