What surprised me the most in this weeks reading was the over all ineffectiveness of traditional market segmentation. I have always heard of market segmentation being used in the sort of "cut and dry" way and always assumed that it was an effective tool. What really illustrated this too me was that only 14% of the senior executives surveyed believed they received benefit from the segmentation exercise.
What confused me the most is that segmentation is still in such wide use despite the fact that it has been proven to be largely ineffective. Surely in today's highly competitive market experienced executives would understand that the techniques for identifying customer groups most be updated to match the current market conditions
The questions I would ask to the author would involve the best methods of identifying profitable customer groups. The authors indicated that one must be selective in prioritizing market groups, but in that scenario who can you be sure that a segment isn't being overlooked that could potentially be more profitable. I know in my own experiences this can be a challenge.
I did not find anything in the reading that I would say the author was wrong about. I found this article to be very informative and admittedly has changed my perception on the methods needed to understand who your customer is and what their needs are.
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