We
started this book by asking, “What will the New America look like?”
Now
that we have shared information and insights that sheds light on that question,
it is time to ask a second one
“What
will new American business look like?”
How
will it operate? What will its priorities be? We invited Victor Edozien of The Asaba Group to share his views. Victor,
a seasoned strategy consultant, is originally from Nigeria. He holds
undergraduate and graduate degrees in electrical engineering and geology from
Syracuse University. Also, he studied business administration and management at
University of Pittsburgh and University of California, Berkeley. He started his
career as an engineer at United Technologies, where he was awarded a US patent.
He then went to business school and joined the Ford Motor Company.
After
Ford, he joined a Bain & Company consulting spin-off called The Lucas
Group. This was a corporate strategy consulting practice focused on the needs
of private equity funds and their portfolio companies. Here, he led numerous
growth strategy engagements, which has led to substantial growth in revenue and
profits for private equity investors and Fortune 500 clients. Recently Victor helped launched The Asaba
Group, a strategy consulting practice focused on developing pragmatic winning
growth strategies in the multicultural environment. The goal of The Asaba Group,
located in Boston, is to help corporations, private equity investors and middle
market companies enter and prosper in this new market.
Find
out more about The Asaba Group by visiting www.asabagroup.com.
How
should a company find success in America’s growing multicultural markets?
That
is a disarmingly simple question. Therefore, I will answer in an equally simple
way.
A
company should think about entering the new markets in essentially the same way
it would think about entering a new market abroad. You begin by asking these
strategic questions:
What
are the relevant market segments? (Size and defining attributes)
What
is your unique value proposition to these segments? How well do your products
fit the needs of the target consumers?
What
are the optimal channels to fulfill the requirements of the target segments?
Let
us say you had decided to sell your products in Vietnam. How should you
undertake your marketing efforts?
You
would not simply go there with your same products, place advertisements in
Vietnamese electronic media and magazines, and expect to succeed. You would
most likely begin by asking the key strategic questions mentioned earlier. Yet,
many American businesses approach ethnic markets without asking these same
strategic questions. These businesses proceed by spending money and time
placing ads. This is indicative of viewing ethnic markets as only a downstream
tactical initiative.
Repeatedly,
we see mid-level marketing and brand managers who are charged with making
decisions about the ethnic markets without clear knowledge on how to approach
these markets. These managers have defaulted to hiring ethnic advertising
agencies and placing ads in what they have defined as “culturally relevant”
media. Creative content is typically an African- American, Asian or Hispanic
face in their ad. These, in most instances, maybe the same ads used in the
mainstream media. With this done, it assumed that the job is done.
