The product markets competition activities demand simultaneously:
- A strategic vision at different levels for market strategy, product strategy and if necessary project strategy: e.g. product, product line, key account, market segment, global market levels
- Coordination between technical and non-technical activities
- investments in the medium term and money available in the short term.
Essential coordination with major internal processes
As such, they are not “weightless” but must be coordinated with several of the company’s “major processes”, whose periodic elaboration or revision punctuates the annual calendar and deadlines of each company with variable periodicity.
Indeed, there is no question (or should not be) of entering a new market or developing and launching a new product if this does not correspond to the company’s strategy, if the necessary investment, which may be multi-year, has not been foreseen, if the necessary expenditure in the year has not been budgeted, etc.
Depending on the company, its size and its internal processes, this coordination may be carried out in a different way or at different levels, but it will be carried out simultaneously at least with the strategic plan, the plans for the technical sphere (research/innovation plan, technical product development plans), the investment plan and the budget. It may also involve the commercial forecasts if certain contracts involve technical developments.
Other coordinations, for example with the human resources plan, the industrial plan or the IT plan, can also have a significant impact on the possibilities for action in terms of competing products and markets. They may concern the availability of technical or service resources in terms of volume and skills, the availability of industrial resources to carry out tests or increase production capacity, and the possibilities of the IT system to offer computerised services to customers.
- With the strategic plan (often three-year), the aim is to ensure that the product/market/competition actions envisaged are consistent with the company strategy.
- With the investment plan, it will be ensured that the necessary investments have been planned and scheduled on a multi-year basis
- with the annual budget, that the necessary expenditure for the year is budgeted
- With the technical plan(s), it will be necessary to ensure that the necessary technologies are available, that the availability of products and their evolutions is planned with the level of performance required to outperform the competition, within a timeframe that will allow the product to reach the market on time and with the required level of quality (coordination with the quality plan(s)).
- Specifically for project-based companies integrating products into their projects, it will be necessary to coordinate the product development process with the project capture process to prevent projects with their “tailor-made” dimension from causing the products to drift too far away from the guideline assigned to them so that they remain suitable for the market as a whole and not just for one or more particular projects.
All of these coordinations are essential with the company’s major processes, both to integrate the market, product and competition strategies into the company’s or activity’s overall strategy and to give them the resources and means to be implemented in practice.
