Preserve Toothbrushes Essay

Strategic planning is an important aspect for any problem or corporation. Without it, an organization has no way to achieve a stated goal. They have no way to march towards their vision. In the case of Eric Hudson, an entrepreneur with a vision, he successfully created a business with a goal in mind and implemented a strategic plan to make it happen. Every downhearted business startup has to have some edge in order to compete otherwise they will be forced out by larger, exist competitors.For pull through, this meant identifying and filling a ceding back in an industry largely consisting of multinational conglomerates. For Eric Hudson, this meant thinking critically, having a plan, and implementing it in order to carry out his vision. come to implant its niche in environmentally friendly toothbrushes. Preserve created an environmentally friendly toothbrush manufactured from recycled plastic. Further enhancing the product was a unique 45 arcdegree angled head designed by Hudson s father, an industrial engineer.At the time, the green movement was largely a niche in itself. While not a first-mover, others were already in the green products industry Preserve had a modified approach of the second-mover strategy. It did not create the green industry, but it did create a new product. It was often a small market for green products, and the products that existed were often less effective and of poor quality. However, for Eric Hudson, he made it his vision to provide an environmentally friendly product without sacrificing quality or performance.Initially, Preserves toothbrush was marketed through grassroots movements and sampling. However, it was at one of the sampling events, that an employee from Stonyfield Yogurt, an organic yogurt company, approached Preserve and relayed the information that they consistently had leftover plastic from producing yogurt containers. With this bit of information, Preserve had a new strategic alliance that provided them with the raw materials to produce its product, and Stonyfield had the ability to set ahead tself as an environmentally friendly corporation as a result of its efforts. Preserve is a small, niche brand, and like most other small niche brands, their marketing budget pales in comparison to its larger competitors. In Preserves case, they focus on generating publicity to promote and advertise their brand. The best advertising is free advertisement, and Preserve tends to generate a lot of magazine articles and television appearances. This in turn generates word of mouth testimonials, the most effective form of advertising.Businesses in general should continually strive to enhance their business model and update their strategic plan. A SWOT analysis is a useful tool for examining a business and how it is meeting its basic mission. By comparing the firms strengths and weaknesses with external opportunities and threats, a SWOT analysis provides managers with a view of the organizations internal and ex ternal environments. In turn, this analysis can be used to determine if the firm is meeting expectations or if it is on track to meet expectations.Preserves director of marketing, C. A. Webb, admits that she doesnt actually perform SWOT analysiss, but certainly uses that form of thinking consistently when implementing new products, distribution channels, designs, or other decisions. In fact, it was this style of thinking that led to Preserve to focus its effort on packaging its unknown product in order to draw to a more sophisticated market and consumer. It was crucial to target a specific audience because retailers could not devote large amounts of shelf space to a small brand such as Preserve.So Preserve made it their mission to go up against their large competitors in the only way thinkableout marketing them. Business strategy and strategic plans are crucial for any business, small, medium, or large. Preserve certainly provides an excellent example of the necessity of a strateg ic plan and how following one can lead to success, provided the organization has the necessary strengths and environment as can be determined by a SWOT analysis. Preserves success can certainly be attributed to a successful business plan, as well as careful planning. some(prenominal) are important lessons to be taken away from Preserves market presence.