Malaysian Case: E-Pay, An Analysis Question 1: What are the functions of "product families" in the cases of Toshiba and Sony Walkman? In the above mentioned cases, "product families" were considered as vital and important to be combined and associated with appropriate strategies in achieving business sustainability. Purposeful strategizing based upon families of products has been empirically proven to increase a company's performance over time. In large corporations such as Toshiba and Sony, the existence of a favorable "internal" environment to support the development of products families and the use of appropriate strategies to manage their markets are critical. It is learned that having both the strategic vision and conducive environment for innovation led to success of the Toshiba's laptop and notebook families in the marketplace. In addition to this, the Sony Walkman's case portrayed that having multiple product models that are backed by a strategy that focused on their "longevity", which is having longer shelf lives compared to those of similar competitors' models are significant towards its success. Question 2: What business is e-Pay in? Explain e-Pay's revenue and cost structure? e-Pay involves in mobile prepaid system started with the electronic mobile prepaid top-up system that used wired platform and delivered via POS terminals. Its service family's grower further followed by a second platform innovation (wireless-based system). This includes top-up values delivered via mobile phones or PDAs especially to cater the markets in remote areas in Indonesia. E-Pay's expanded its service by introducing payment software solutions in 2004... ... middle of paper ... ... to its "bill-less" approach and meets the need to "budget" with more than 80% of mobile phone owners are prepaid subscribers. Aggressive product development strategies and the ability to meet the specific needs and demand of the customer are the key factors for growth and sustainability in these businesses. There are many barriers waiting for new entrants for the "electronic" and "mobile" businesses ranging from the retailers, insufficient infrastructure, difficulty in assessing supply or distribution channels and huge start-up capital. A business can reduce the competition from substitutes by taking action to differentiate its product, to enhance its performance and to increase switching cost for consumers. Technology can be regarded as a strategic asset and a business's ability to manage and exploit its technology could provide a competitive advantage.
Selecting a business strategy that details valuable resources and distinctive competencies, strategizing all resources and capabilities and ensuring they are all employed and exploited, and building and regenerating valuable resources and distinctive competencies is key. The analysis of resources, capabilities and core competencies describes the external environment which is subject to change quickly. Based off this information a firm has to be prepared and know its internal resources and capabilities and offer a more secure strategy. Furthermore, resources and capabilities are the primary source of profitability. Resources entail intangible, tangible, and human resources. Capabilities describe environment and strategic environment. Core competencies include knowledge and technical capability. In this section we will attempt to describe in detail the three segments which are resources, capabilities, and core competencies.
Rivalry among established firms is fierce. There are several factors that illustrate this: established market players (6.1). The product is highly standardized and the switching costs of the customers are low. Players are aggressive (6.2)
This perspective is concerned with the exploitation of emerging IT capabilities to impact new products and services (business scope), influence the key attributes of strategy (distinctive competencies) and develop new forms of relationships (business governance).
A company must identify its strengths and weaknesses in order to develop growth. Downsizing products is more important than developing new products. A company must be able to identify where there weak markets are at. Times change and so do products. The products that are less profitable or simply aged are the ones that must be downsized in order to make way for a different, more innovative market. When developing growth strategies a company must use the product/market expansion grid. First the company has to figure out whether they can have better market penetration, second they must consider looking for market possibilities for current products. Third they must develop their products into innovative products that people can’t live without having. Lastly they need to be diverse with their company, therefore expanding and including different features to the company could draw more attention from different
Carr distinguishes between proprietary technologies and what he calls infrastructural technologies. Proprietary technologies can provide a strategic advantage as long as they remain restricted through "physical limitations, intellectual property rights, high costs or a lack of standards," but once those restrictions are lifted, the strategic advantage is lost. In contrast, infrastructural technologies provide far greater value when shared. Although an infrastructural technology might appear proprietary in the early stages of buildout, eventually the characteristics and economics of infrastructural technology necessitate that they will be broadly shared and will become a part of the broader business infrastructure. To illustrate his point, Carr uses the example of a proprietary railroad. It is possible that a company might gain a competitive advantage by building lines only to their suppliers, but eventually this benefit would be trivial compared to the broader good realized by building a railway network. The same is true for IT - no company today would gain a cost-effective competitive advantage by narrowing its focus and implementing an Internet only between their suppliers to the exclusion of the rest of the world.
There are a variety of challenges that firms may face when attempting to be the best in their specified industry. Economic and political challenges can make it difficult for companies to maintain a competitive advantage. In addition to maintaining a competitive advantage, some firms also find difficulty in keeping its branding alive and by attracting customers as their strategies, products, and management change over the course of time. Industries such as the automotive industry, healthcare industry, retail industry, and many more experience a variety of challenges based on their competition. Firms must create successful strategies in order to maintain competitive with their competition and in order to gain advantages in their industry (Hitt, 2013).
For instance, Harley Davidson may be forced to change their marketing strategy due to the entrance of a new competitor into the market. Second, Harley Davidson has to learn new skills and technologies quickly. For example, technologies are changing rapidly, so it is crucial for Harley Davidson’s business plan to change or alter in order to keep up with innovation. Third, this organization has to effectively leverage its core competencies while competing with its competitors. This is, Flexibility is required for Harley Davidson to learn how to use primary value-chain activities and support functions in the way that allow the organization to produce their products at a lower cost with differentiated features compare to their competitors in the market
With the rise of the economy, consumers have become more and more knowledgeable on selecting their favourable product as a result the organization cannot focus on what it sells but on the side focus on what the customer wants to buy.
In today’s world virtually all businesses are born into competition. There are situations in which multiple organizations offer similar products, a limited number of firms seek the same consumers, and other organizations offer the exact same product just at a different price or in a different variation. So how do firms attempt to outperform their competitors and sustain profits? They create a competitive advantage. A competitive advantage is a business concept that allows firms to outperform their competition by generating greater sales margins/profits or retaining a larger number of consumers. In knowing that different customers are attracted to different attributes companies use a variety of competitive dimensions in order to set themselves apart, these include: cost or price, quality, delivery speed and reliability, and flexibly and new product introduction. Each of these dimensions can be strategically used by an organization to outperform its competitors and ultimately result in giving that firm a distinct competitive advantage.
This strategy emphasizes the use of an organization’s resources and capabilities to achieve a core competence that cannot be imitated by competitors. Furthermore, the resource based school argues that if an organization distinctively improves its internal capability; that is being able to have effective inside machinery to deliver products and services to customers, the organization will enjoy a massive advantage in the market. This school also argues that in order to have a competitive advantage, an organization must have resource and capabilities that are sophisticated to those of competitors (QuickMBA, 2010).
The threat of new entrants is moderately strong. Incumbents do not strongly contest entry of newcomers, but existing industry members are consistently looking to expand their geographic reach and offer a broad product assortment. Brand awareness and customer loyalty are high and greatly important i this industry.
Organizations and individuals have to strategically position themselves in order to take advantage of the growing technology and achieve business competitive advantage while at it (DeHaven 2010 pg 1). Technology has enabled globalization; where ideas, products and services have been shared. This has promoted foreign businesses thus helping different economies all across the globe. Different organizations and individuals have realized that technology will keep growing and changing and the best strategy will be to adapt it other than holding to rigid ways of doin...
As society grows and evolves, technological advancements and innovations continue to develop and consistently change different aspects of our society. For an organization, understanding how to manage these innovations is essential for their proper utilization and implementation. With technological advancements and innovations constantly emerging, it is important for an organization to stay aware of which new technological innovations can help them be successful. Organizations are always looking to set themselves apart from competition through innovation.
Keeping up with technology is difficult, tiresome, and firms find it very costly to keep at pace with it. Technology rapidly and constantly keeps on changing. Being at par technologically requires extensive research and strategic analysis of acquiring new innovation. Enforcing new technology requires staff retraining and in some cases making employees redundant.
Simply, any e-commerce done through wireless devices (e.g. mobile phones) over any network especially the internet.