Growth Dynamics in New Markets

INTRODUCING A DURABLE PRODUCT IN A NEW MARKET

1.1 Introduction

This chapter introduces your challenge as a responsible manager at the telecommunication company NewTel. You have to introduce a durable product in the new market ‘Plutonia’. You will use the SellPhone‐Simulator (described later in the chapter) that provides you with first‐hand experience in dealing with your new situation. You are faced with difficult questions as the unfolding sequence of decisions that are required to manage your company unravels in a highly dynamic market with the major competitor RivTel. One hint: to manage is to convert information into decisions. In this sense, a manager is a decision maker; we will use both terms interchangeably. This book will help you to answer these questions systematically, so that you are better equipped to develop a successful strategy. After completion of the first chapter, you will have covered the following learning outcomes:

• You will have become acquainted with your decision task and the SellPhone‐Simulator.
• You will know the concepts ‘policy’ and ‘variable’, which are fundamental concepts that will accompany you throughout the book.
• Your first attempt at growing NewTel in Plutonia will have yielded expected, and also unexpected, outcomes that require consistent explanations.
• You will have practiced the use of ‘behaviour‐over‐time graphs’ displaying the behaviours and trends of variables over time, to identify important aspects of how these variables develop. ...