respond to customers not competitors This is the first of five articles addressing strategies – other than discounting – that can be applied to increase market share. Of course, prior to implementing one or more of these strategies, businesses should determine whether increasing market share is desirable. Profits are generally more important than market share, […]

respond to customers not competitors This is the first of five articles addressing strategies – other than discounting – that can be applied to increase market share. Of course, prior to implementing one or more of these strategies, businesses should determine whether increasing market share is desirable. Profits are generally more important than market share, and increasing market share does not always increase profitability. Indeed, Venture Capitalist, Mark Cuban, talks of the advantages of identifying the smallest possible market. Research in the United States in 2018 found that businesses satisfying an accepted criterion for being considered ‘customer focused’ were on average 60% more profitable than business not considered customer focused. A second study suggested that 90% of marketers in the United States were developing or implementing strategies that would enable them to offer a more customer focused and ‘individualised’ product. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, contends that, ‘the most important…