Alignment and Coordination of Customer Segmentation, Distribution Channel Segmentation and Overall Strategy of the Firm

The modern term of segmentation in marketing and sales can be observed in markets all over the world. In many established European markets a hyper-segmentation (Perez, 2008; Berghoff, 2007) is surpassing this development already. The term of hyper-segmentation expresses the tendency of a market allocation in too many subsegments or small niches. Facing a highly competitive market environment, producers are confronted with limited or declining market shares as well as constant pressure on product prices and costs. 'Blue Oceans' (Kim & Mauborgne, 005), thestill unexploited markets, are the desire of any sales oriented company. Discovering these Blue Oceans is demanding and entering them requires a considerable initial funding.