B2B Marketplaces: How Segmenting Industries According to their Fit to Marketplace Formats?

The case describes a series of blue ocean strategic moves made by Salesforce.com in the CRM application market. In particular, the case addresses the concern of business executives over the applicability of blue ocean strategy in the B2B area. B2B managers often find that they are locked into providing products of certain types and specifications to their immediate customers.

This note provides an introduction of strategy tools for the analysis of the business environment. The note covers tools for analysis of the macro-environement (PESTEL analysis, scenario development), analysis of industry attractiveness (market size and growth drivers, industry life cycle, industry value chain, five forces), and analysis of customer segments and specific competitors.

“The Neuromarketing Toolkit” provides an introduction to the nascent field of neuromarketing for interested practitioners and participants of MBA and executive education programmes. It begins with an overview of why and when neuroscience can be useful as a market research method, what tools exist, and what they can bring to the table.