Management Dictionary: Cravens Model

Cravens Model Concept

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Cravens Model consists on a marketing strategy mold that makes a connection between the marketing strategy and the market context in which the company is inserted, allowing identifying consistent strategic options with a specific market context and evaluating marketing plans and proposals to verify if the strategies are the most adequate to the market situation. The indications given by the mold are based on a compilation of several marketing strategy studies that even though are not valid for 100% of the situations; they are for the biggest part.

To apply the model should, in the first place, be identified the market context, selecting one of the five strategic situations possible presented by the model itself, namely:

. Market development: situation characterized by a premature entry in the market or the technical leadership that make that this be pioneer in its market;

. Market domain: situation in which the company is leader in an already established market, detaining an advantageous and influent position;

. Differentiated advantage: situation in which the company not necessarily being the leader possesses a sustainable advantage, whether at the level of costs, technical or other;

. Market selectivity: situation characterized by the existence of numerous market segments with different demands and several small companies directed for those markets;

. Without advantages: situation in which doesn’t exist an immediate or obvious basis to create a strategic advantage.

After being identified the market context in which the company is found, recurs to the mold to identify which generic strategies are more appropriate for the context. The mold also supplies clues and advice about the tactics to follow for each one of the strategies. The generic strategies of the mold are the following:

. New products development;

. Segmentation and directed marketing;

. Positioning of the product through research and marketing;

. Productivity improvement, of sales and marketing;

. Purchase or fusion;

. Collect the benefits.

STRATEGY AND MARKETING MOLD

	STRATEGIC SITUATIONS
STRATEGIC OPTIONS	Market development	Market domain	Differentiated advantage	Market selectivity	Without advantages
New products development	Yes	Yes. Develop a range of products	Consider	Yes	No
Segmentation and directed marketing	Yes. Priority markets first	Yes. A clot of target markets	Yes. Evaluate focus	Yes. Evaluate focus	Yes. Limited focus
Positioning of the product through research and marketing	First establish marketing-mix	Cover multiple positions	Position to highlight advantages	Only if the current position is inefficient	May not be effective as to cost
Productivity improvement, of sales and marketing	Delay	Yes	Yes	Yes	Consider
Purchase or fusion	Questionable	Consider	Consider	No. Evaluate threats to purchase	Yes
Collect the benefits	No	No	Questionable	Consider	Yes

Translated from Portuguese by Susana Saraiva, Portuguese-English and English-Portuguese translation specialist. Contact: spams@sapo.pt.