I believe that Harlequin Enterprise should continue publishing “romance fiction” books. Harlequin is the world’s largest publisher in romance fiction and should allocate their resources to maintain a strong sustainable competitive advantage. I will discuss some barriers that Harlequin has established such as brand loyalty and excellence with quality vs. cost in relation to the VIRA framework. This shows how certain aspects my be difficult to imitate while bringing value and rarity to Harlequin Enterprise.

Brand loyalty is a vital resource for a publishing industry. Harlequin has created brand loyalty by having constant quality products at low cost. These two aspects have created brand recognition that has created trust and relationships with customers. This is a valuable, rare, and imperfectly imitable resource to Harlequin that provides a sustainable competitive advantage.

Continuing romantic fiction novels will allow Harlequin to continue to use its’ existing distribution channels. Harlequin’s distribution is a resource heterogeneity that is valuable and rare providing a temporary competitive advantage. Harlequin distributes through supermarkets, mass merchandisers, and drugstores with contracts that provide a competitive advantage through predicting sales and returns that benefit on a cost accounting basis.

Harlequin has the resources of receives 30,000 unsolicited manuscripts per year and the capabilities of amazing editors. The manuscripts are a valuable, rare and imperfectly imitable resource that provides a sustainable competitive advantage in the. Harlequin has the capabilities through their professional editors to choose among thousands of manuscripts to transform into successful novels.

Harlequin already has a sustainable competitive advantage with the romantic fiction novels. Their resources, capabilities, and cost advantage have created barriers of entry that reduce threats of entry, rivalry, and substitution. Harlequin should continue in the romantic fiction market where they are the largest publisher and have the resources and capabilities to grow and dominate.