Strategic Factors to Consider When Standardizing or Customizing the Market Approach (Essay Sample)

Strategic Factors to Consider When Standardizing or Customizing the Market Approach Student Name Institutional Affiliations Instructor Date Strategic Factors to Consider on Standardizing or Customizing the Market Approach Standardization entails adopting a similar range of products, pricing, location and promotional strategies. Customization on the other hand entails adapting various aspects of the products to an extent that it meets the consumer needs in that specific market taking into account the discrepancies in different markets (Pham & Zeidan, 2014). Several factors should be considered in considering if to standardize or customize: The first factor is the cost associated with the marketing of the product. Standardization comes in as homogenization of the consumer needs following the intensifying globalization forces. Standardization allows a strong and consistent brand and benefits through economies of scale. On the other hand, customization is associated with strong financial expenses and eliminates benefits from economies of scale. Learning the specifications of a certain local culture in order to integrate the elements of the marketing mix is costly. Secondly, is the speed of implementation of the marketing strategy. Standardization takes short time to effect in any market since it ignores the integration of unique aspects of culture within foreign markets. Customization takes quite some time to implement in foreign markets simply because it is keener on the fine details of local culture which have got great impact on the perception of different components of the marketing mix (Bambauer-Sachse, 2017). If an organization wants to settle faster, then it will go for standardization at the expense of losing touch with the customer because there will be low satisfaction if products do not have the touch of local culture. Thirdly, another factor is the type of products. If the organization that is expanding globally is handling complex and sophisticated products such as computers, Ipad , IPhone and products from technical point then standardization should be preferred over customization because such products do not have an inclination towards culture (Solberg, 2017). On the contrary if the products being handled are common products such as food, drinks and more volatile products, the organization should go for customization marketing strategy because such products are highly competitive and require a personal touch. Fourthly is the flexibility of the business in new markets. Standardization minimizes how flexible a business can operate in new markets while customization encourages a business to be as flexible as possible by integrating different aspects into the product depending on the needs of the customer (Ahlfors & Fang, 2017). Global businesses which pursue standardization are less enabled to respond to changes in markets as compared to businesses which have settled for customization of their products. The factor which possesses the most significant risk for an organiza...