INTRODUCTION Companies operating in a particular market devise strategies to harness their capabilities towards achieving a competitive position; one key factor that influences the choice of strategy is the position of the company and/or its product in the market where it operates. Strategic choice of a company should be focused on the structure of the market and how an organization can exploit the market to achieve a competitive position. (Leavy, 2003) stated that the “positioning approach to strategy development is focused primarily on the structure of the industry and how it might be shaped to advantage. The aim is to establish a “privileged”/hard-to-replicate position in an industry that is difficult to enter”. Firms competing in a market may be classified based on their size of the market share; leader, challenger, follower and nicher. Gillette is clearly in a market leading position in the wet shave market in the UK with 9.0million users of its wet shave razors and control of 65% share of the shaving systems market. Gillette will be under constant threat from market challengers, therefore, the firm must implement strategies to further deepen the overall market, defend and increase its market share. (Kotler, 1994) stated that the “market leader must be vigilant, as other competing companies keep challenging its strength or trying to exploit its weaknesses, to remain a market leader, dominant firms must deploy strategies to enhance total market size, protect its current market share through good defensive and offense actions, and/or try to increase its market share further, even if market size remains constant” STRATEGIC ROLES OF GILLETTE’S NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT Gillette is investing substantial time, energy and resources in new products development, with a £460million cost outlay and seven years in research and development of “FUSION”. Trend analysis reveals that its product launch generates enormous revenue