Brand Positioning Of Sap Erp Marketing Essay

What positioning strategy does is to create an image for the product that a company wants to bring in the mind of customers, in order to make them realize the current situation of market and competitors.

Positioning is a strategic tool which is applied at all levels and which also makes marketing and its functioning less tedious. With Competitors and opportunities as a point of view the process which helps in identifying the consumer’s use of product and its patterns, attitudes and perceptions will help us to determine the best place for product or organization. (Karadeniz, 2009)

Brand positioning of SAP-ERP

SAP started as an ERP software vendor and today they are players in the ERP market. SAP to help themselves and to be provided with arms and ammunitions to build ERP, built a strong relationships with a variety of alliance partners. And today there are ample number of third-party developers who are suppliers of numerous add-on programs that work in conjunction with SAP products. SAP also offers ERP solutions appropriate for all sizes of companies and geographical needs are also sufficed.

According to SAP their functional strengths includes:

• Strong product development

• Ease in supporting Make-To-Order processing

• Integrated retail module

• Clear visibility to goods-in-transit orders

• Good quality control and quality assurance functionality

• Good compliance with SOX and tax regulations

• Strong cash management functionality

SAP ERP Comparison with competitors:

According to recent survey by panorama consulting they compared the offerings of SAP, Oracle and Microsoft Dynamics which showed that each of the companies has both strengths and weaknesses.

It is important to remember that the suitability of a particular ERP solution for an organization is wholly dependent on the specific needs and requirements of that organization.

Our positioning strategies:

Keeping in mind the marketing techniques, for our product positioning we have made slogan which can be easily positioned in consumers mind i.e.,

“Customization up to your Satisfaction is what we sell”

Customization by our Competitors?

Be the first to leave a mark of your own, so it is always to help ourselves by being first. We can easily penetrate into everyone’s mind by a good first impression. As an old saying says ‘First impression is the nest impression’, when you are the first it is very easy to create an impression which lasts long. There are always second in the race and yes they create an impression but the first one to make a remarkable move wins attention. And it’s also known that the best one and the first one wins with more confidence irrespective of the environment.

“By being the first to claim a unique position in the mind the consumer, a firm effectively can cut through the noise level of other products.” (Trout, 1981)

Manufacturing Market

Positioning strategy: Use and Application

Manufacturing market is a vast area with different sized firms dealing with that for many years now. And with the current economy which is diminishing everyday it is important to note that small sized and mid-sized markets are the most affected.

Positioning of SAP ERP here has to be done with respect to the Use and Application for the customers in the market, when we talk about use and application we mainly are concerned with how well the customer knows to make use of ERP and how they can apply to make themselves jump up to a better position.

This now can be achieved by spreading knowledge about the product in order to reach the requirements and to serve the purpose of SAP ERP.

Summary: A product can expand itself by making itself better known to customers and by increasing consumption by developing its uses and applications. The product has to be positioned accordingly in the minds of the customer with respect to individual target market.

Service Industry

Position Strategy: Product Class

Service industry is a sector which contains business organizations in themselves which are working depending on cohesive information systems. ERP for this has to be able to deal with multiple aspects like billing, CRM, HR, supply chain management and so on. When we are using the product class, what we do is define the nature of the product and its services offered so as to serve the needs which are branded to be a part of particular market.

When we divide the market keeping size and geographical conditions in mind, it is so done that each product designed for a market is capable of serving the purpose of the customers who buy it. So positioning by product class can be done if two products lie in the same product class. Positioning by product class mainly uses sales promotion as it tool. Example – Get a toothbrush with a toothpaste free. Both of these products lie in the same product class and hence can be positioned accordingly.

So what we do here is when the customer buys SAP ERP, we offer him few services they need for a trial and try to prove ourselves that we are the best for them to rely on.

Once such a strategy is implemented and the product is released company simultaneously gains recognition in the market and the special offers steal people’s attention. Thus the company would have a better positioning once it advertised itself in its own product class.

Henceforth, being in your own product class where your major target customers are is very important.

Retail Industry

Positioning: Characteristics and Customer benefits.

Retail industry majorly deals with problems like requirements of stocks and placing orders and dealing with the wholesalers. Positioning can be done by using product characteristics or the customer benefits associated with the product to suit this market. In essence, the strategy relies on providing a superior product to the customers to have a better positioning.

A strategy which is capable of positioning the product so that the customers can deal with all their issues at one single point. Characteristics and customer benefits show them that it is achievable to handle all the works by using one product. SAP ERP should be positioned as one such product, which helps in many ways with advantages. Few of those advantages are retail components, storeroom maintenance, workflow automation and technology integration.

We agree there will be presence of few restrictions but it is also not deniable that the purpose won’t be served.

What we try to do here is just a plain strategic development blue print for our product which we portray as the best for them and we prove it by providing all possible characteristics there should be and the benefits that we can offer at no cost for self.