The dialogue is built using frameworks like the 4P’s and the 5 C’s, and uses microeconomics concepts like the horizontal demand curve, demand elasticity, price sensitivity, profit maximization during perfect competition (Marginal Revenue = Marginal Cost), extraction of available consumer surplus, through price discrimination, etc. Branding and advertising strategies are also discussed.

If you are interviewing for a job in this tough economy, you should read Strategic Case Analysis by Sam Mishra. If you are not sure about marketing as a career track for MBAs (including brand management, strategic marketing, product marketing), you should read Strategic Case Analysis: Business Concepts, Strategy Frameworks, and Solved Business Cases as Socratic Dialogues. The book’s ISBN number is 978-0-9798354-0-7, and it is currently priced at $15.99 on Amazon.com. If you buy two copies, Amazon.com waives shipping and handling fees.

In the podcast, the author announces his second book: The 20 Trillion Dollar Value Drain: How Goldman and Other Banks Looted America and Why They Will Do It Again, which is an outgrowth of his published articles and weekly podcasts on FRANCONOMICS.COM. We also break this important news:STRATEGIC CASE ANALYSIS (ISBN-13: 978-0-9798-354-0-7) is now a prescribed text-book in UNLV - University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a large accredited University in the United States. The book, nonetheless, can also be a great refresher business book for practicing business owners and start-up CEOs. In addition to theoretical frameworks like the Porter’s Five Forces, the Five C’s, etc., the book also contains practical frameworks like the Pareto Negotiation Frontier, Relational Contracts, NPV (Net Present Value) & CAPM (Capital Assets Pricing Model), and the VALS-2 Segmentation in the Advanced Frameworks Section. Most of these frameworks have immediate application not only in business, but also in handling your day-to-day human relationships, so buy the book today from Amazon.com.

Listen to this Socratic Dialogue to understand how the high-flying consultant effortlessly solves this tough case while giving all the credit to the CEO (as it should be, if you want that job in a CASE INTERVIEW setting) and thunders towards the end of this Socratic Dialogue: YOU HAVE JUST LAID THE STRATEGY TO INCREASE REVENUE, INCREASE GROSS PROFITS, INCREASE PROFITABILITY, DECREASE COSTS, AND KEEP THE TOTAL HEAD-COUNT UNCHANGED. I DON'T THINK THERE IS A BETTER CORPORATE STRATEGY, EVEN BY THE BOOK!

In the podcast, the author also announces that STRATEGIC CASE ANALYSIS (ISBN-13: 978-0-9798-354-0-7) is now a prescribed text-book in UNLV - University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a large accredited University in the United States. The book, nonetheless, can also be a great refresher business book for practicing business owners. In addition to theoretical frameworks like the Porter’s Five Forces, the Five C’s, etc., the book also contains practical frameworks like the Pareto Negotiation Frontier, Relational Contracts, NPV, and the VALS-2 Segmentation in the Advanced Frameworks Section. These later frameworks have immediate application not only in business, but also in handling your day-to-day human relationships!

Listen to this Socratic Dialogue to appreciate the fact that business cases typically don't have a right or a wrong answer. Also, this is a case on profitability, and in the course of the dialogue, the particiants touch upon a lot of standard business concepts: the Pareto 80-20 rule, the Second Mover's Advantage, Sunk Costs, etc.

In the podcast, the author also announces that the book is now a prescribed text-book in UNLV - University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a large accredited University in United States.

Listen to this Socratic Dialogue to appreciate the fact that solving ANY business problem requires giving the needed attention to the pertinent details…

This seemingly simple business problem has a lot of complexities underneath it, ranging from supply chain bottlenecks in China to sales forecasting in USA. The consultant finds out about these problems by engaging the client in a Socratic Dialogue. Once the consultant unearths the major problems, it proposes the solutions as part of this dialogue.

In the podcast, the author also announces that the book is now a prescribed text-book in UNLV - University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a large accredited University in United States.

Listen to this Socratic Dialogue to appreciate solving a business case at its analytical best. In the process, you will also learn about CRM (Customer Relationship Management) / sales forecasting, supply chain automation / lean manufacturing, shipping container loads by sea vis-à-vis air-shipping, the Pareto 80-20 rule (as opposed to the Pareto Negotiation Frontier), etc.

1. The Chasm: Apparently, a chasm exists between the various user groups, but the chasm that needs to be really crossed for the technology based product to win in the market place is the one that exists between the early adopters and the early majority. There are a lot of reasons why a tech product can’t go past this chasm. For example, if a product is tied to the economy, and the economy sours (as is happening right now at the time of broadcasting this podcast, i.e., mid-2009), then the product can very well fall into the chasm. Another example is the scenario where a bigger competitor with more resources comes and kills your product before you have been able to sell it to any Early Majority users.

2. What strategies one should use while selling a technology based product to the early majority (clearly, the early majority will pursue the product / technology if it can given them a competitive advantage) vis-à-vis the late majority (this group can be sold the idea that since everyone else is using it, they should use it too; otherwise they will have a competitive disadvantage).

3. Explains how the different stages of the PLC (product life cycle) and the S-Curves frameworks map into the five user groups or the five segments of TALC. For example, mathematically speaking, the S-Curve is the INTEGRAL of the TALC bell-curve, or if you plotted the area under the normal bell distribution, you would get the S-Curve!