GranuLab: positioning GranuMaS in the bone graft substitute industry
Publication date: 10 October 2013
Issue publication date: 10 October 2013
Abstract
Subject area
Developing and communicating a positioning strategy covering issues on market positioning, product lifecycle, product differentiation strategies and developing the marketing mix strategies in order to compete with competitors.
Study level/applicability
Advanced undergraduate and MBA student, taking courses of marketing management, strategic marketing, and brand management.
Case overview
GranuLab is a private limited company based in Shah Alam, about 30 km from Malaysia's capital city of Kuala Lumpur; it was a producer of synthetic bone graft substitute GranuMaS. GranuMaS was launched in the Malaysian market in late 2010. At that time, the company aimed to capture 50-70 percent of the Malaysian bone graft substitute market by the end of 2015. However, by the end of 2012, GranuLab was experiencing low sales and the company had suffered a two-year loss due to manufacturing at low capacity. GranuLab also faced stiff competition from multinational competitors that had penetrated the Malaysian market earlier with competitive product offerings. The pressure to increase the sale ofGranuMaS was mounting for Mr Romli Ishak, the Managing Director of GranuLab, Mr Fadil Dalal, the new General Manager of Marketing, and GranuLab's management team. This is especially so since the company's contract to supply GranuMaS to government hospitals under the Ministry of Health (MOH) program would end soon. These situations forced the company to make a quick decision. In December 2012, Mr Romli and his team pondered upon the best strategy that the company should pursue to achieve its objective of being a dominant player in the Malaysian bone graft substitute industry. This teaching case is designed to stimulate case analysts' thinking on positioning a medical device product in a market which was already conquered by established multinational companies.
Expected learning outcomes
Understanding of the concept of product positioning, product lifecycle, marketing mix strategies, and social exchange theory, enables case analysts to extend the concepts to analyzing many other products and services in organizational settings.
Supplementary materials
Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The study was funded by a UKM-GSB operational research grant, code DPP-2013-148/3, titled “Aligning MBA Programme to Meet Graduates' and Industries' Expectations without Sacrificing Quality - An Exploratory Study”. The authors wish to thank Mr. Romli Ishak of Granulab for access to the company's information. The authors also wish to thank Siti Khadijah Mohd Ghanie, MBA candidate at UKM-GSB, for her research assistance, and Nur Sa'adah Muhamad for her administrative assistance. It is intended exclusively to facilitate the teaching and learning of marketing management anc strategic marketing theories and does not imply effective or ineffective managerial decisions.
Citation
Adham, K.A., Isa, R.M., Senik, Z.C. and Yasin, N.M. (2013), "GranuLab: positioning GranuMaS in the bone graft substitute industry", , Vol. 3 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/EEMCS-07-2013-0158
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
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