Winning Market Leadership: Strategic Market Planning for Technology-Driven Businesses

Robert W. Sexty is a professor of commerce and business administration
at Memorial University of Newfoundland and the author of Canadian
Business: Issues and Stakeholders.

This book is aimed at executives and managers in technology-intensive
businesses who are grappling with complex planning issues. According to
the authors, technology-intensive businesses have a number of
characteristics that make strategic planning a challenge. These include
complex and dynamic market chains, network effects, high speed of
change, blurred market boundaries, and global markets and competition.
To help managers respond to this type of environment, the authors
propose a strategic market-planning approach, defined as a process by
which a company selects and creates the business opportunities it will
pursue, and develops the marketing plans that will project it to market
leadership in its targeted markets. Each step in this 10-step process is
examined in a separate chapter.

The authors point out that their planning process is different in three
ways: it is an integrated process, it applies to new and existing
business opportunities, and it is written for a managerial rather than
academic audience. A model reproduced at the beginning of each chapter
guides readers through the book, while a “Key Questions for Executives
and Managers” section at the end of each chapter stresses the
applicability of the process.

The authors, on the faculty of the Ivey School of Business, University
of Western Ontario, have relied on academic sources; some managers may
not be familiar with the theories, concepts, and models provided.