Introducing Librix in Turkey
2012
Background
The importance of creating customer value propositions, when an organization enters a new market is
stressed by the literature concerning this topic. There is an agreement among the authors on two critical
dimensions of knowledge for organizations to create competitive advantage through customer value
propositions: customers knowledge and industry knowledge (Woodruff, 1997: Anderson et al, 2006).
Lead by this theory a practical case of Librix was put to a test. Librix is a complete library management
system which is developed by Nedap N.V. and is very successful in the Dutch market. This success is
recognized by Arsis Grup, a Turkish security company that decided to offer Librix in the Turkish library
market. Connecting theory with practice in this case, gave an answer to the following research question
in this report: “To what extent is the customer value proposition of Nedap in the Netherlands applicable
for the Turkish market?’’
Methodology
The methods used to obtain information concerning customer value proposition were selected to collect
customers and industry knowledge. The first step in the data collection phase started at Nedap and
current customers of Librix in the Netherlands, where qualitative interviews were held. Hereafter an
intake interview at Arsis and desk research was conducted with the aim of collecting global information
to feed the Five Forces Model (FFM) of Porter (2008) and the DESTEP model (Kotler, 2009). These
models were the base of obtaining the industry knowledge in order gain competitive advantage through
value propositions. The next and final step in the data collection phase was to obtain customers
knowledge at the potential customers in Turkey, this was also realized by qualitative interviews.
This gathered knowledge then needed to be translated to concrete results usable results for Arsis, which
was realized by making use of the marketing mix (Borden, 1964). The four p’s of the marketing mix gave
information concerning the price, promotion, place and product of Librix in Turkey and the adaptations
that must be made within these dimensions in order to fit the Turkish market.
Results
There are lot of solutions present in the Turkish library management systems market. The switching
costs for customers are relatively high, which make it more difficult for suppliers to get a foothold in this
market. There is also a lot of resistance from potential customers if a product is brought on the Turkish
market without having references (current users of the product within Turkey) or business connections
(external firms which support the offered product). The macro environmental analyses revealed a lot of
opportunities in Turkey, most caused by the economic development of the country. With the economic
development also socio-cultural changes are occurring in the country. These changes could make Turkey
an interesting country from the foreign direct investment point of view. However the qualitative
interviews revealed several key determinants for Arsis to succeed with Librix in Turkey. The most
important findings also reflected by the micro and macro environmental analyses. These key
determinants for organizations to succeed with their offering in Turkey are: the price of an offering,
after sales service level and the presence of references. Furthermore Turkey as an emerging economy is
lagging behind in general knowledge, which is reflected by the knowledge of potential customers
concerning the technology Librix uses. The potential customers do not recognize the added value which
Librix can bring to their organization. The tightness of the potential customers is reflected by the ANKOS
organizations, which is an organization in which all the bigger public libraries and university libraries
collaborate with the goal of bringing knowledge and science databases within the Turkish libraries
together. Several annual meetings are arranged in which debates such as the HF/UHF issue and the
possible library management system solutions are discussed. The agreement among interviewees
concerning the added value of Librix, also reflects the tightness of the potential customers.
Conclusions and recommendations
The Library management system market in Turkey could be typed as saturated as it is right now. The
focus on the complete product such as Librix is stressed too much by Arsis, the findings demonstrate
that the Turkish potential customers are more interested in products that are offered in modules.
Importing products to Turkey such as Librix could pose a problem with regards to the price, because this
is the most important attribute in getting customers interested. This is because the prices of foreign
products are sold in foreign currencies, which are negatively correlated to the currency used in Turkey:
the Turkish Lira. The whole promotional concept of product efficiency is not applicable in Turkey. In
order to be successful Arsis must first of all consider educating the potential customers to take away
some of the resistance against new library management systems, and obtain references, which are
libraries that already use the product within Turkey which will support the product.
The development of Turkey as a country could provide a lot of opportunities in the future, but for now it
seems that Arsis should focus on demonstrating the added value of Librix compared to traditional
systems. The whole concept of customer value propositions, which is used in the Netherlands is not
applicable in the Turkish market. Arsis could increase the probability of succeeding with Librix in Turkey
by taking away the resistance and slowly introducing the product. Following the recommendations as
stated below in this specific order, could help Arsis in successfully introducing Librix in the Turkish
market.
Hiring a student which represents the RFID technology in general and elaborates/promotes the
technology Librix uses by visiting potential customers.
Elaborating and focusing on the modularity of Librix instead of promoting it as a complete
solution.
Using the ANKOS meeting to generate publicity and convincing the potential customers of the
technology used by Librix.
Obtaining references by offering Librix to a limited amount of potential customers for a special
price.
Selling Librix with personal sales after the resistance is weakened and references are obtained as
specified above.
Keywords:
- Correction
- Source
- Cite
- Save
- Machine Reading By IdeaReader
33
References
0
Citations
NaN
KQI