Customer Segmentation, Marketing Mix and Creation of Value

Customer segmentation, Marketing Mix and Creation of Value

Introduction of the organization: Larsen & Toubro is a major technology, engineering, construction, manufacturing and financial services conglomerate, with global operations. The Company’s manufacturing footprint extends across eight countries in addition to India. L&T Heavy Engineering is one of the verticals of this company which manufactures and supplies custom designed equipment & critical piping to process industries such as fertilizer, chemical, refinery, petrochemical, and oil & gas, as well as to sectors such as thermal & nuclear power, aerospace and defence. I belong to the Defence & Aerospace (D&A) Group of L&T Heavy Engineering.

L&T is one of India's leading companies for supply of Defence Equipment and Systems in the private sector, with over 30 years of experience in this field. We provide indigenous, design-to-delivery solutions across the defence spectrum – from land-based weapon launch systems, air defence and artillery systems and upgrades, to naval weapon launch systems with fire control solutions, bridging systems, communication, avionics, C4I and missile systems. L&T also offers specialised turnkey defence construction solutions like underground structures, military bases, storage depots, smart infrastructure and modernization of existing facilities. Our Infotech offering provides seamless integration of solutions that enhance both administrative and tactical efficiency of the armed forces.

Customer Segmentation: The purpose of segmenting the customer or end user is to bifurcate the bigger market into smaller units of demand groups which have similar characteristics like usability, cost, technology readiness, innovation and so on. We, at Defence & Aerospace (D&A) Group of L&T- Heavy Engineering, have segmented our customers/ markets for the same objective in addition to understanding the customers better and establish long-term loyalty relationships.

Before the customer segmentation could be done, it is important to own an effective marketing strategy. First and foremost, it is always a good idea to be aware of the present capabilities as well as scope of capability enhancements as a company. As a Marketing Manager at L&T D&A, a lot of marketing intelligence needs to be collected from the real world. The most obvious means of such a process is through direct interaction with the end user like Ministry of Defence, etc. in order to get insights on the latest need areas. For this, both internal and external networks have to be strong. That is, it is necessary to keep an eye on all work being done by the potential competitors, attend regular expositions/ trade fairs/ seminars and consult with potential collaborators on new upcoming opportunities. A market study might also reveal some demand trend, basis which sales can be forecasted for certain smaller, standardized products from the portfolio. On the basis of product needs, the broad customer segmentation which has been established over the years is as under: