In Your Position as a Marketing Manager for a Small

question 10

Essay

In your position as a marketing manager for a small industrial company, you have been asked by the president to help differentiate the company's product from its competitors. In reviewing your marketing management notes, you note that the text stated that physical products could be differentiated in nine ways. These nine areas comprise the "meat" of the memo you are writing to the president of your firm. What are the nine ways that physical products can be differentiated?

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Definitions:

Joint Production Costs

Costs incurred in the process where two or more products are produced together and the costs cannot be readily assigned to individual products.

Contribution Margin

A measure of profitability calculated as sales revenue minus variable costs; used to evaluate a product's contribution to covering fixed costs.

Machine Hour

A measure of production time or operation, calculated as the total hours a machine is run in the production process.

Net Realisable Value Method

A valuation method where the estimated selling price of goods is reduced by the completion and disposal costs.