This Focused Performance Weblog is a "business management blog" containing links and commentary related primarily to organizational effectiveness with a "Theory of Constraints" perspective. TOC is noted for its applications in Project Management and Multi-Project Management (Critical Chain) and Operations Management (Drum-Buffer-Rope), as well as in Marketing, Strategic Planning and Change Management (TOC Thinking Processes). If you are on an archive page, current postings are found here.
In the TOC approach to marketing and strategy (first introduced to wide audiences in Goldratt's It's Not Luck, and which is really probably only a restatement of Marketing 101 -- but a required, reminding restatement for many), the two key premises are based on segmenting the market and tweaking the product "at the edges" to appeal to the segments as they relate to a variety of price points. The idea is to offer special capabilities, but at a price, making those willing to pay for those capabilities do so willingly, maximizing the financial throughput for the high-end presentations but also maximizing the financial utilization of capacity by not being forced to turn away those of more modest means and needs.
This piece looks at a venerable and innovative company in the high tech arena, and lays out an excellent example of such a market strategy. The company in question (disclaimer -- I'm a fan, a customer, and a shareholder) has, at it's core (heh, heh), two products -- two software operating systems -- one useful for general purpose applications ranging from high end animation to simple text manipulation, and the other dedicated primarily to a quite limited, but popular, consumer application.
The "tweaks" in this case exist in the form of a range of various collections of electronic componentry that serve as the delivery systems for the real products, on one hand primarily adding speed to the presentation of one product, and on the other hand, primarily adding size (plus one feature at the extreme high end). The linked analysis of this firm's six markets -- high end, middle market, and mass market for both of the two products -- converge, according to the author with the latest offerings from the company in question --
These things do not happen by accident. The graphic...illustrates extreme patience and foresight from [the firm] to bring users to the platform by innovating increasingly towards the mass market over time without sacrificing the middle or high-end markets.
-- a beautiful example of segmentation of offerings that I'm sure they hope to be "fruitful."
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