Launching a newly superior product does not necessarily mean that the product will automatically gain the leading market share or ensure the stable, positive growth in the years to come. Today's business is profoundly characterized by tough competition among players, thus compelling the companies to assign the priority on the strategy either of marketing or business itself. There are several important things in introducing a new product in the market, comprised of marketing mix (4P) and the mapping (STP) that we need to devise delicately. The customers themselves will then perceive the value of that product as compared with other products competing in the market. In turn, we could map the strategy of the business, as referring to the proper business strategy around the world, such as Porter's 5 forces and Porter's generic business strategy.

Nexcare, whose former antiseptic product of 3M, Avagard, has widely been used as recommended antiseptic in the hospital, is viewed as a prospective product of antiseptic, given the current Nexcare-branded bandage products have conceivably been valued as the premium bandage products in Indonesia. Even so, it turns out that Nexcare's brand awareness is pretty low in the eyes of customers. This is due in part to significantly lower above the line promotion carried out by 3M Company to promote its products in Indonesia. In addition, there is only a single distributor assigned to distribute Nexcare bandages.

In this study, we find out that availability is the most important thing in customer's mind when it comes down to buying an antiseptic product. It implies that basically, customers tend to buy the antiseptic products on the go. This acknowledgement may lead to several findings that reveal the current condition of antiseptic market that is monopolistically dominated by a giant player, Betadine. Analyzing the customer preference in details, we stumbled upon a fact that basically, the package prices count more than the volume prices do, entailing that customers tend not to pay close attention to the volume prices, rather, they see the package prices to buy antiseptic products. Given the higher volume price of Nexcare antiseptic, this entails another tantalizing glimpse of how to compete with existing players without having to compete solely based on prices, which eventually could hurt the company due to low profitability or even loss. We turn to think about a newly volume-based desig!1, intended to bring on a competitive yet best quality products by reducing the volume of each package. Introducing the smaller package at roughly the same price, 3M could put Nexcare at an advantage of not competing based on prices yet on quality.



Regarding the business strategy; as a- potential new entrant, seemingly 3M should find a niche market at which Nexcare is targeted. For that reason, we collected the average spending of year 2008 (surveyed by ACNielsen), encompassing 9 big cities in Indonesia, as an effort made to estimate the sensible market share of Nexcare antiseptic. In the future, once Nexcare gain the brain awareness that 3M is seeking out, it will be reasonable for Nexcare to be more positioned as a mass product, rather than a customer-segmented products. This is to benefit from the economic of scale by producing more, at the same time slightly cutting prices to ultimately gain better profitability. It does not come out without consequences. 3M should keep an eye on the promotion strategy, availability-related issues, as well as fostering the brand awareness of Nexcare antiseptic.

After all, in this particular s,1udy, we have proposed several recommendations for 3M in

.'

order to delicately penetrate the antiseptic market in Indonesia, taking into account marketing and business strategy wises with the eventual goal of optimally grab the remaining opportunity in the market.





Research Location : PT. 3M Company

Supervisor : Alex Iskandar Munaf

Date Accepted : 08 November 2008



Read at Library Only.