Marketing Strategy Analysis: Bright Light Innovation's Starlight Stove

This report provides a comprehensive marketing strategy analysis for Bright Light Innovation, focusing on their sustainable product, the Starlight stove. The analysis begins with an introduction highlighting the importance of effective marketing strategies for businesses, particularly those offering susta...Read More

Running head: MARKETING STRATEGY
Marketing strategy
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

1MARKETING STRATEGY
Introduction
Business organizations in the current time should consider different factors in order to
gain competitive advantages in the market. Moreover, it is also important for them to have
effective marketing strategies in order to reach out to maximum number of people and to
enhance the sales volume. On the other hand, designing marketing strategy for the sustainable
products is more difficult and complex due to the reason that profitability should always be
always kept low, which reduces the business viability of the offerings (Leonidou et al., 2013).
Thus, it is important to first identify the critical marketing issues for the particular offerings and
then initiates effective alternatives to overcome them.
Starlight stove is one of the most effective sustainable products introduced by Bright
Light Innovation for the poor populations. This product will help them to conserve biomass fuel
along with having source of electricity at minimal cost. However, the lower rate of profitability
is posing challenges for them to market their products. Thus, this essay will identify the major
marketing issues that for Bright light innovation and in accordance to that some recommended
steps will be discussed.
Identification of the critical issues
Identification of the critical issue is important due to the reason that recommendations
and evaluation of the alternatives can be done only on the basis of the identified issues. This
essay will use SWOT analysis in order to identify the critical issues.

2MARKETING STRATEGY
Strengths
The major strength identified for Bright light innovation is their offerings. According to
the information in the case study, they are offering sustainable product aimed at mitigating the
need of fuel and electricity for the people from the bottom of the pyramid. Thus, the social
impression regarding the product will be positive. Another strength of them is the diverse utility
of starlight stove with having electricity generation facility and less consumption of bio mass
fuel.
Weaknesses
The major weakness for Bright light innovation is relatively new offering in the market.
Starlight stove is about to be launched in the market and thus it will be difficult for them to
compete with the already established players in the market. Another weakness of them is the
smaller profitability of their product. The less will be the profit percentage, the less will be the
option to have effective distribution system in place.
Opportunities
The major opportunity for starlight stove is the huge potentiality in the global market.
This is due to the reason that huge portion of population is still under the poverty line and they
can cannot afford conventional cooking fuels. Entering in the underdeveloped regions in Africa
will further increase the market potentiality for them.

3MARKETING STRATEGY
Threat
The major threat that will be faced by them is the entry of new competitors in the
market. Increase in the competition will reduce the profitability of Bright light innovation.
Another major threat for them will be development of newer and updated technologies. This will
cause failure of the entire venture and will lead to huge financial loss.
Analysis of the critical issues
One of the major critical issues being identified is the pricing of the products. This is due
to the reason that due to being a sustainable product, Bright light innovation will have to price
their product in such way that it will attract the people from the lower section of the society
(Dooley & Johnson, 2015). However, on the other hand, lower pricing will reduce the financial
viability of the project. Partners and suppliers will not get attracted with having lower profit
percentage. According to Hu, Li and Shi (2015), pricing decision is important in order to have
business viability. Moreover, it is also being stated by the authors that sourcing of capital from
crowd funding will cause barrier in seamless flow of the fund in the project.
Another critical issue is the location decision for manufacturing. This is also important
due to the reason that manufacturing location should be strategically located along with having
proper infrastructure and resources. Thus, Bright light innovation should decide whether
manufacturing in Nepal will be viable or not. According to Ellram (2013), manufacturing
location helps in gaining competitive advantages if taken effectively. It is also being stated by the
authors that it is important for the organizations to initiate decision regarding off shoring the
facility or not. Sustainability of the starlight stove should also be determined in order to make the
immune against entry of new players. According to Hoekstra (2015), sustainability of the

4MARKETING STRATEGY
offerings should be effectively determined in order to enhance the business potentiality. Thus,
Bright Light innovation should have policy of developing their products, which will immune
them against the threat of new entrants. Another critical issue for them is the sourcing of fund. It
is required in order to continue the manufacturing process along with driving other activities.
According to Batti (2014), sourcing of the funds is important due to the reason that it will
determine the future viability of the project. Thus Bright light innovation should have funding
policy, which will ensure future growth of the brand.
Evaluation of the alternatives
One of the most effective alternatives for Bright light innovation will be initiation of the
market oriented price. This will enable Bright light innovation to gain profit according to the
industry standards. However, the major disadvantage of this alternative is losing the cost
leadership in the market. Another alternative will be price leadership in order to gain more sales
volume (kaliappen & Hilman, 2013). This will increase their customer volume but will reduce
their profitability. Another alternative will be initiation of the premium pricing, which will help
to increase the profitability but will reduce the market penetration (Davcik & Sharma, 2015).
Bright light innovation can off shore their manufacturing process to Nepal. This will help
them to reduce the cost of production by preventing the import tariffs but will pose risk of
counterfeiting of technology (Yoon et al., 2013). They can also import the items directly in
Nepal, which is safeguard their patented technology but will increase the cost and price. Bright
light innovation can also outsource their manufacturing facility in order to save cost and risk
(Tjader et al., 2014). However, it may cause issues in maintaining the product quality.

5MARKETING STRATEGY
Bright light innovation should invest in research and development, which will help them
to develop the starlight stove frequently and according to the market trend. However, the major
demerit of this strategy will be the cost that will be involved in the process (Brones, de Carvalho
& de Senzi Zancul, 2014). Another alternative that should be initiated by them in terms of
product sustainability is extending the product life by entering in new country. However, it will
also involve in cost and risk in entering in new country. The last alternative in terms of product
sustainability is diversifying the product line and catering to different sets of customers
(Kistruck, Qureshi & Beamish, 2013). However, in this case, the basic objective of providing
low cost product to the lower end customers will get diluted.
Bright light innovation can have the option of considering aids and donations. This will
upheld their social development activities but it will also be unreliable in nature and may pose
challenge in sourcing fund in future. They are also having the option of attracting investments
from the angel investors (Festel & De Cleyn, 2013). This will pose seamless funding source for
them. However, one of the major demerits of this policy will be the liability of huge divided and
dividend. The last alternative that they can initiate is to have business loan from the financers
(Buchuk et al., 2014). This will help to have their capital requirement met effectively but in the
long term Bright light innovation will incur more cost by repaying them along with interest.
Recommendations
It is recommended that Bright light innovation should initiate affordable pricing strategy
in order to reach to maximum number of customers. It will reduce the financial viability, but in
the long run it will help Bright light innovation to have established market share. This will help
them to further enter in the foreign countries by established market in the existing market. it is

6MARKETING STRATEGY
also recommended that they should have their manufacturing facility in Nepal in order to
mitigate the added cost in international transportation. This will further help in offering the
products in more competitive price. They should have investment in research and development in
order to update their products frequently. It will cause extra cost for Bright light innovation but it
will also help them to be more competitive in the market. They should source their fund from
angel investors in order to have seamless flow of capital. Moreover, if the projects get failed,
then they will not have to repay the investments. Thus, it will be more secured option for Bright
light innovation.
Conclusion
Thus, it is concluded that Bright light innovation should consider different elements and
factors in order to have effective marketing strategy. This essay identified number of critical
issues that will determine the effectiveness and performance of Bright light innovation. In
addition, different alternatives are also being discussed along with recommending the most
effective process for them. It is expected that the recommended process will help Bright light
innovation to market their products effectively.

7MARKETING STRATEGY
Reference
Batti, R. C. (2014). Challenges facing local NGOs in resource mobilization. Humanities and
Social Sciences, 2(3), 57-64.
Brones, F., de Carvalho, M. M., & de Senzi Zancul, E. (2014). Ecodesign in project
management: a missing link for the integration of sustainability in product
development?. Journal of Cleaner Production, 80, 106-118.
Buchuk, D., Larrain, B., Muñoz, F., & Urzúa, F. (2014). The internal capital markets of business
groups: Evidence from intra-group loans. Journal of Financial Economics, 112(2), 190-
212.
Davcik, N. S., & Sharma, P. (2015). Impact of product differentiation, marketing investments
and brand equity on pricing strategies: A brand level investigation. European Journal of
Marketing, 49(5/6), 760-781.
Dooley, K. J., & Johnson, J. (2015). Product Category‐level Sustainability Measurement: The
Sustainability Consortium's Approach to Materiality and Indicators. Journal of Industrial
Ecology, 19(3), 337-339.
Ellram, L. M. (2013). Offshoring, reshoring and the manufacturing location decision. Journal of
Supply Chain Management, 49(2), 3-5.
Festel, G. W., & De Cleyn, S. H. (2013). Founding angels as an emerging subtype of the angel
investment model in high-tech businesses. Venture capital, 15(3), 261-282.
Hoekstra, A. Y. (2015). The sustainability of a single activity, production process or
product. Ecological indicators, 57, 82-84.

8MARKETING STRATEGY
Hu, M., Li, X., & Shi, M. (2015). Product and pricing decisions in crowdfunding. Marketing
Science, 34(3), 331-345.
Kaliappen, N., & Hilman, H. (2013). Enhancing organizational performance through strategic
alignment of cost leadership strategy and competitor orientation. Middle-East Journal of
Scientific Research, 18(10), 1411-1416.
Kistruck, G. M., Qureshi, I., & Beamish, P. W. (2013). Geographic and product diversification in
charitable organizations. Journal of Management, 39(2), 496-530.
Leonidou, L. C., Leonidou, C. N., Fotiadis, T. A., & Zeriti, A. (2013). Resources and capabilities
as drivers of hotel environmental marketing strategy: Implications for competitive
advantage and performance. Tourism Management, 35, 94-110.
Tjader, Y., May, J. H., Shang, J., Vargas, L. G., & Gao, N. (2014). Firm-level outsourcing
decision making: A balanced scorecard-based analytic network process
model. International Journal of Production Economics, 147, 614-623.
Yoon, B., Lee, J., Park, I. S., Jeon, S., Lee, J., & Kim, J. M. (2013). Recent functional material
based approaches to prevent and detect counterfeiting. Journal of Materials Chemistry
C, 1(13), 2388-2403.