12.6 Differentiator with Product Lifecycle Focus

A Differentiator with a Product Lifecycle Focus strategy concentrates on the High End, Traditional and Low End segments. The company will gain a competitive advantage with excellent design, high awareness, easy accessibility and new products. The company will develop an R&D competency that keeps designs fresh and exciting. Products will keep pace with the market, offering improved size and performance. The company will price above average and will expand capacity as it generates higher demand.

Mission Statement

Premium products for mainstream customers: Our brands withstand the test of time. Our stakeholders are customers, stockholders, management and employees.

Tactics

Research & Development: We will reposition our Size and Performance segment products to the Traditional segment. We will allow our present Traditional segment product to become a Low End segment product as the segments drift. We will eventually introduce a new product to the High segment and will ultimately have two products each in the High, Traditional, and Low End segments. Our goal is to offer customers products that match their ideal criteria for positioning, age, and reliability.

Marketing: Our company will spend aggressively in promotion and sales in our targeted segments (High, Traditional, and Low). We want every customer to know about our superb designs, and we want to make our products easy for customers to find. We will price at a premium.

Production: We will grow capacity to meet the demand that we generate. After our products are well positioned, we will investigate modest increases in automation levels to improve margins, but never at the expense of our ability to reposition products and keep up with segments as they move across the perceptual map.

Finance: We will Finance our investments primarily through stock issues and cash from operations, supplementing with bond offerings on an as needed basis. When our cash position allows, we will establish a dividend policy and begin to retire stock. We are somewhat adverse to debt, and prefer to avoid interest payments. We expect to keep assets/equity (leverage) between 1.5 and 2.0.