Makerbot: The way forward Essay

The Objective of this paper is to recommend a market strategy and target market for MakerBot industry to gain better competitive advantage in the 3D printing market. The company has done greatly by focusing on the open innovation approach which incooperates the customers in the task of creating what they are going to consume. However, this could have serious hiccup on the growth of the company because sharing a patent free innovation could result in copycat machines. But the advantages of Open sources far outweighs the disadvantages as it is large enough to sustain the growth and profit of the firm. Market segmentation should be in the United State where industrialization is at its peak and the respect for innovation and invention is imminent. The survey in Exhibit 1, revealed the prospect of concentrating on two major target market for the 3D printing industry. MarkerBot should include in its target market those that uses 3D printers for commercial purposes such as manufacturers/entrepreneurs, and should also continue to focus on the hobbyist who derives contentment by creating and sharing technological invention. However, the company can decide to shift it market target to the government and non-governmental institutions in the long run. The consumer level 3D printing industry has grown very rapidly and thus, becoming intensely competitive over the last couple of years and this is in part to the open source approach by the players in the industry. MakerBot can distinguish itself by shifting it market target in the future to government institutions and NGO’s such as American Composites Manufacturers association (ACMA) and top manufacturing industries in the U.S. The government is getting more robust after the recent economic depression and so is the opportunity for the 3D printing industry. President Obama spoke recently about a possible Public-Private partnership to revive  the crumbling manufacturing city of Youngtown in Ohio using the 3D technology as a tool to meet developmental demands. The Objective of MakerBots is to build an inexpensive open-source 3D printer. If the company can continue to focus on the low end DIY’s, the market share could turn favorably to them as it has the potentials of attracting plenty of industrial customers. Strong commitment to Research and Development with targeted customers is also very important in other to keep abreast with present societal demands. The pursuit of low cost printing materials like the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is the right step in other to reduce overhead cost for end users. MakerBot has lived up to its mission statement by making it brand accessible to all. Exhibit 1 Reference: Doug Gross â€Å"Obama’s speech highlights rise of 3-D printing† Wed, February 13, 2013 (source:http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/13/tech/innovation/obama-3d printing/index.html)