Question 1: Beyond Telecommunications should focus on two existing market segments: C due to its needs for a User Friendly Phone Interface and segment D due to its needs for International Access. These two segments comliement Beyond’s key competitive advantages in the market they are currently serving. Customers today are willing to pay a premium, in order to receive the benefits of the reliability of service when using their devices internationally; in addition the user-friendly devices and up to date technology is really well received by their current customers. Beyond positioned to market it’s existing international reputation and strong infrastructure in Europe, to emphasize its international capabilities. Also, from a market penetration perspective, those two segments have a smaller representation from a competition given the size of the market itself. The two segments combined represents less than 25% of the overall market in the US, however have strong CAGR with segment D at the top with 20%, and segment C with 12%.
A general qualitative analysis like the one above may be good enough to determine the segments Beyond should pursue, however, we recommend a more detailed analysis of segment attractiveness such as the “3C Framework”, to assesses customer, competitor and company factors.
Question 2: Being profitable by servicing a particular segment is possible when a company is able to design a strategy that capitalizes on the current mix of customer (i.e. segment size, growth potential), competitive (i.e. unmet customer needs, intensity of competitors, and barriers to entry) and company (i.e. firm’s capabilities and objectives) conditions. As discussed in Question #1, the most attractive segments for Beyond to pursue are segments D and C, or a combination of both.
If Beyond chooses to pursue customers in segments D and/or C, by providing either a