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Unbiased Comparison: First-Mover or Late-Mover in Marketing

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The managers of your company are deciding whether to develop a brand new product not yet seen in the marketplace or a version of a competitor's product that has already been launched into the marketplace.

Management has called a meeting to discuss which way to go. They want to know if they should follow the "first-mover" theory or "late-mover" theory. You have been assigned the task to develop a neat and organized report for this meeting that will give evidence that describes and discusses either supports or disagrees with these theories. You may use the Library or other Web resources to find more information on these terms as well as examples to support your position.

As a new consultant, you really don't know much about the company involved, the potential products that the managers want to discuss in their meeting, nor the personalities of the managers who will be attending the meeting. The very best that you can really do within the given scenario is to thoroughly and factually explore both of these theories in your report as input for their discussion during the remainder of the meeting.

You should provide an unbiased comparison of the two theories.

1.Identify at least four advantages and four disadvantages for each theory and comprehensively show how each advantage or disadvantage affects the use of that theory (a minimum of 16 pros/cons in all).
2.Identify at least four examples of real firms who have been successful and four examples of real firms who have been failures using each theory (a minimum of 16 real firms in all).
3.Provide a definitive and unbiased recommendation of which theory to use. You should provide the specific attributes which constitute the most advantageous context in which the chosen theory operates and justify your recommendation with researched support, logic and examples.

Need assisting with providing a well-researched and analyzed comprehensive response to the following questions above, must be original, APA Format, in-text citations, references, and a minimum of three (3) scholarly sources.

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Solution Summary

This solution provides a detailed discussion of the given question first-mover and late-mover theory in marketing.

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The first Mover Theory:

In the business realm, the competition levels have skyrocketed due to changes in the market economy. Organizations are now adopting new strategies that will ensure that their organization obtain large market shares in their target market. The first mover theory is a strategy of competitive advantage that a company acquires through the act of being the first in the market. The product placement of this company will be unique due to the presentation of new commodities in the market environment. The act of being the first in the market gives the company the upper hand of obtaining superior brand recognition. This will propel the organization to obtain great customer loyalty levels that will increase the profit making abilities of the company.

Advantages of the First Mover Theory:

The business environment has the limiting characteristic of having scarce resources with agents that are competing for the same resources. This gives the first movers the advantage the benefit of enjoying the resources at the entry point into the market. This brings about the first movers advantage to the organization. This theory is backed by the early adoption principle where the organization that gains the first market entry attains a lot of customers. The first mover will capture the largest percentage of market share due to the increase numbers of consumers. The establishment of a strong brand loyalty will be attained by the first mover adoption. The cost advantage of the first movers enables the organization to utilize extensively the existing infrastructure without any high levels of competing for the scarce resources. The distribution system that will be utilized by the organization will not be clustered by virtue of the organization being the only company with the commodity in the business market.

The Disadvantages of the First Mover Theory:

The first mover is expected to set the standard of operation so that the organization gets the economies of scale. This speed into the market economies has some disadvantages that will make the operations of the company not to be successful. It has been noted that the first-mover companies become less profitable over the long haul. The organization also suffers from persistent high costs of the products in the market economy which affects those sales levels of the commodity overtime. This leads to the reduction of the greatly attained ...

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