Market forecasting remains one of the most critical dynamics in the marketing context. Market forecasting offers a viable platform that allows business entities to develop novel products that suit the consumer’s needs. The current article “Market Forecasting for High-Tech vs. Low-Tech Industrial Products” by Lynn & Green (1998) offers critical insights on an array of concepts aligned with market forecasting. Precisely, Lynn & Green (1998) article is based on an empirical research done with the sole intent of investigating the differences between market forecasting when dealing with high-tech and low-tech products. While much has been hypothesized regarding marketing forecasting, it is of the essence to note that it is mainly based on different market techniques. There are certain market techniques suitable for high-tech business entities, which may not be suitable for low-tech enterprises. The vice-versa may also occur whereby certain techniques are better suited for low-tech than high-tech enterprises. In most cases, internal market forecasting techniques guarantee success in the marketing of high-tech industrial products. On the contrary, success in the marketing of low-tech products is dependent on conventional external market-based techniques (Lynn & Green 18).
Compared to the marketing of non-durable products, marketing of industrial products is relatively challenging. This is because little is known with regards to market forecasting for industrial products (Lynn & Green 15). Nevertheless, marketing of new industrial and non-industrial products calls for an adequate assessment of the postulated marketing context. Before channeling of immense resources for marketing, it is always recommendable to assess the probable revenues that a new products will generate. As previously connoted herein, conventional external marketing techniques are not of much importance when marketing high-tech products. The conventional methods are greatly reliant on opinions from the customers. For high-tech products it is relatively impossible to gather accurate customer’s opinions about the products. In fact, a significant proportion of potential customers of high-tech products are not able to clearly articulate information pertaining their needs. In a nutshell, industrial products possess considerable technological uncertainties, which render it difficult to carry out marketing forecasting of such products (Lynn & Green 15).
A reflection on successful high-tech products and services depicts the use of internal marketing techniques for purposes of market forecasting. Speaking of internal marketing techniques these include inside brainstorming and internal expert opinion (Lynn & Green 17). A close analysis of the internal marketing techniques portrays that they mainly occur inside an organization. As an example, internal expert opinion mainly entails seeking opinions from experienced personnel within the organization. Similarly, internal brainstorming mainly entail focused discussions between various personnel within an organization including the sales persons. On the other hand, successful market forecasting for low-tech companies involves the use of external market-based techniques that are guided by the need to assess buyer intentions. In a nutshell, low-tech companies should rely on consumer perception of products as a means of forecasting the ensuing market trends (Lynn & Green 16).
Work Cited
Lynn, Gary & Green, Joy. “Market Forecasting for High-Tech vs. Low-Tech Industrial Products.” Engineering Management Journal 10.1 (1998): pg. 15-18. Print.
