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Competitive advantage and competitive strategy
The lost meaning of strategy
Competitive advantage and competitive strategy
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Strategy evaluation is an attempt to look beyond the obvious facts regarding the short-term health of a business and appraise instead those more fundamental factors and trends that govern success in the chosen field of endeavor. Strategy can also be defined as a set of objectives, policies and plans that, taken together, define the scope of the enterprise and its approach to survival and success. Alternatively, we could say that the particular policies, plans, and objectives of a business express its strategy for coping with a complex competitive environment. A good business strategy can be broadly categorized into functions like consistency, consonance, advantage, and feasibility.
A strategy that fails to meet one or more of these criteria is strongly in suspect. It fails to perform at least one of the key functions that are necessary for the survival of the business. Inconsistency in business is not simply a flaw in logic. A key function of strategy is to provide coherence to organizational action. A clear and explicit concept of strategy can foster a climate of tacit coordination that is more efficient than most administrative mechanisms. Organizational conflict and interdepartmental bickering are often symptoms of managerial disorder, but may also indicate problems of strategic inconsistency.
It is no exaggeration that to say that competitive strategy is the art of creating or exploiting those advantages that are most telling, enduring, most difficult to duplicate. Competitive strategy, in contrast with generic strategy, focuses on the differences among firms rather than their common missions. Competitive advantages can normally be traced to one of the three roots: (1) superior skills, (2) superior resources, and (3) superior position. Positional advantage is of two types, first mover advantages and reinforcers. First movers may also gain advantages in building distribution channels, in trying up specialized suppliers, or in gaining the attention of customers. Reinforcers are policies and practices acting to strengthen or preserve a strong market position and which are easier to carry because of the position. Other position-based advantages include the ownership of special raw material sources or advantageous long-term supply contracts; being geographically located near key customers in a business involving significant fixed investment and high transportation costs; being a leader in a service field that permits or requires the building of a unique experience base while serving clients; being a full-line producer in a market with heavy trade-up phenomena; having a wide reputation for providing a needed for providing a needed product or service trait reliably and dependably.
a. Basically, corporation strategy demonstrates a corporation’s overall direction in the light of its general mindset toward growth and the management of its businesses and product portfolios. There are three crucial categories, which are stability, growth, and retrenchment, that involve within corporation strategy. Additionally, business strategy often occurs at the business unit or product level, and it highlights the improvement of the competitive position of a company’s products and service in the particular market segment served by the business unit. Competitive and cooperative strategies are two main categories that match within business strategy. Furthermore, functional strategy is the method that through a functional area to
Business strategy is the means by which firm’s plans to achieve its goals and objectives. It can also be termed as organization long-term planning. The strategy covers periods between 3-5 years and sometimes longer. Businesses use two major types of strategy, general or generic and competitive strategies. The overall strategy involves strategies of growth, globalization and retrenchment. The competitive advantage includes low pricing, product and customer differentiation. We will look at the business strategy used by Marks and Spenser (Cole, 1997). The company is a British multinational located at Westminster London and specializes in clothes and luxurious food products.
Arthur, A., Thompson, Margaret, A., Peteraf, John, E. Gamble, A., J., Strickland III. (2014). Crafting & Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competitive Advantage 19e: Concepts & Cases. C6-C25.
However, RLK’s competitors are downsizing and outsourcing R&D and exploiting on the cost advantages. If RLK decides to invest more money into R&D and should the new product stall on launch, they face the danger of becoming bankrupt.
Strategy analysis focuses on the long-term objective generating alternative strategies, and selecting strategies to pursue. The firm’s present strategies, objectives and mission, couple with the external and internal audit information, provide a basis for generating and evaluating feasible alternative strategies (David 200).
Business strategy formulation and implementation is an integral part of the strategic management process, business strategy is an ongoing process to develop and revise future-oriented strategies that allow an organization to achieve its objectives while considering its capabilities, constraints, and the environment in which it operates. An important aspect in improving the formulation and implementation of business strategy is developing a greater understanding of the internal environment; the McKinsey’s 7S framework is a model for analysing organizations and their effectiveness. It creates a better understanding of seven key elements associated with the internal environment that make organizations successful: strategy, structure, systems,
When a business thrives in gaining competitive advantage, it often sets eyes on a manifold of strategies that aim to em-better its image and its competitive positioning. It focuses on strategies that may help increase its rate of consumers acquisition, retention and satisfaction; strategies of industry and competitors analysis. Moreover, it sets eyes on those strategic process to build strong investments portfolios ( Liquidity) that can help establish longevity and leadership in the market. Competitive advantage inevitably leads to faster, continual exponential growth, increased sales, market share gains and overall business profitability.
"Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long-term: which achieves advantage for the organisation through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfill stakeholder expectations" (Johnson and Scholes, 2010)
One of the duties of the managers of a company is to engage in strategic decision making. Strategic management is a broad subject on its own that borrows from other social science disciplines. According to AllBusiness (2011), strategic management involves all the activities undertaken by management to better place the company in the industry it operates in. It is important for every manager to realize that his firm does not exist alone in the business environment. Its environment has parties like competitors and customers, both internal and external; suppliers and government authorities that must be analyzed and addressed appropriately. Laying down the best strategy will involve assessing the needs of the market and the firm’s capabilities, formulating its mission and vision and communicating the goals and objectives set down to the employees. Once all this is done, managers have to assess the tasks to be done and allocate resources in a manner that will avoid wastage.
However, what constitutes a good strategy, varies from author to author. While, there are a plethora of opinions and suggestions, a common theme apparent in many is the idea of a “competitive advantage.” Hesterly & Barney (2015) suggest that a good strategy positions a firm to have competitive advantage in its industry (p. 4). Further, Rivkin (n.d.), holds that a good strategy involves a firm making choices that give it superior returns over the long term in its industry. And, lastly Daft (2013) suggest that a strategy is a process of interacting in an industry to achieve superiority. All of these definitions incorporate the idea of an organization competing in an industry and gaining and maintaining a “competitive advantage.” For my organization, the competitive advantages is our scientific research on the efficacy of cleaning products.
of a firm to attain new forms of competitive advantage (Müller, 2011). It is due to these
It has become evident in the modern society that most of the successful companies put a generous amount of effort into developing their strategies. Strategic management helps an entity to clearly identify its goals and objectives and achieve them quickly and efficiently. However, it is still argued that the strategy is not an essential component of organizational management, and it is not necessary to invest in strategic development. This essay critically analyses the question of whether it is essential to have strategy as a management component, gives the definition of a strategy in a managerial context and briefly outlines possible problems of modern strategic development.
A successful business strategy will identify changes in the external trends in the market place. Plan out what the company’s future direction is. Set out the goals for the management team. It will identify a vision of where the company wants to be in the future. Keep all employees informed of the direction of the company.
Competitive strategy is the approach that an organisation takes in order to gain advantage over its competitors. According to Porter, there are two major sources of competitive advantages: costs and differentiation. Cost-based competitive advantage involves reducing production costs so that an organisation can earn higher profit margin or offer products at lower price compared to competitors. Differentiation-based competitive advantage involves offering unique properties that are not offered by competitors’ products. Differentiation allows an organisation to charge a premium for their products because they offer additional benefits to buyers.
Before starting any business you should consider its objectives, in order to develop a strategy. It is the strategy that lays out how the objectives will be achieved and determines deadlines for achieving them. If and when the goals are reached the business will be successful.