Position your workplace in the labor market, as you have positioned your products in the supermarket.

"We help companies position their products in the best light for each ethnicity," Ms. Kim said.

This will give Microsoft enormous advantages in positioning its own products in electronic commerce and let it play kingmaker for other businesses.

These terms are used by marketing departments in an effort to position their products.

The long-term issue, he said, "is whether Banyan can dance between the elephants' toes - Microsoft and Novell - and position its products as distinct from what's offered by other vendors."

How do you position your products to capitalize on trends?

Attuned to the increasing awareness among parents that the first three years are critical developmentally, companies are increasingly positioning their products as vital to optimizing intellectual growth.

So after decades of trying to convince us that their plastic is gold, platinum or titanium, credit card issuers are now positioning their products as embodiments of fun and freedom.

Hence, platform operators need to understand the needs of their users in order to position and price their products accordingly.

For the first decade of Sun's history, the company positioned its products as technical workstations, competing successfully as a low-cost vendor during the Workstation Wars of the 1980s.