Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning pdf ebook

Expert systems for marketing decision support
Developments in computer hardware and software offer exciting opportunities for mar-
keting management. The developments in expert systems and artificial intelligence that 
enable not only the modelling of marketing phenomena but also the decision-making 
processes of ‘experts’ in the field promise to revolutionise the whole area of decision 
support.
The directions in which these developments will move are still evolving at present 
(Wierenga, 2010). What is certain, however, is that marketing decisions will become 
more data based (there is already a data explosion in marketing) and there will be an 
increased need to organise those data in meaningful ways to enable them to be used 
quickly and effectively. In particular, increased computing and modelling power will 
enable decisions to be tested in simulated environments prior to implementation in the 
real world.

---

111
CASE STUDY
Summary 
Understanding customers is central to developing a coherent positioning strategy. This 
chapter has examined, first, the types of information about customers that can be useful in 
determining competitive position and, second, the marketing research methods available 
for collecting that information. The process typically undertaken to identify potential market 
segments and their needs was then discussed. Finally, developments in organising and pre-
senting data were examined.
Summary 
Technology groups look to build 
alliances to distribute Alexa and 
Assistant platforms
It is often said that the most interesting part 
of the Consumer Electronics Show is not the 
technology on show but the conversations 
that happen behind closed doors. 
At this year’s CES, deal making has taken 
centre stage as tech companies, carmakers, 
appliance manufacturers, chip providers and 
start-ups race to strike alliances for the ‘inter-
net of things’ era. 
Nowhere is that more obvious than in the 
world of virtual assistants, with Amazon and 
Google leading the way on recruiting part-
ners to help them distribute and activate 
their artificial intelligence platforms. 
After focusing on ‘smart home’ technol-
ogy last year, Amazon is now moving on to the car. 
The US company has struck deals with Panasonic, 
one of the largest players in in-car infotainment sys-
tems, Chinese electric car start-up Byton and Toyota, 
which showed off a futuristic, versatile autonomous 
vehicle called ‘e-Palette’ that the ecommerce group 
plans to use for package deliveries. 
Amazon is also trying to diversify the types of 
products that incorporate its digital assistant, bring-
ing its Alexa service to cookers from Whirlpool and 
GE, as well as Bluetooth-enabled portable devices 
such as headphones, smartwatches and even smart-
glasses from New York-based Vuzix. 
Case study 
‘We basically envision a world where Alexa is 
everywhere,’ Priya Abani, Amazon’s director of AVS 
enablement, told Wired magazine. 
Although Amazon does not have its own public 
presence on the show floor, it has rented a sizeable 
private space in Las Vegas’s Venetian hotel for meet-
ings with partners. 
Google, by contrast, is unmissable to CES attend-
ees: advertising for Assistant appears on giant digi-
tal billboards up and down the Las Vegas Strip, 
its branding is plastered inside and outside the 
city’s monorail train carriages, and it will for the 
first time in several years have a huge booth at the