...Performance Introduction Innovation is central to the understanding of how organizations sustain themselves over a certain period of time. This is because innovation enables organizations to create or generate new and multiple products and services. The process of innovation among organizations is to develop the basis of assessing creativity among organizations. More so, it enables managers to identify measures aimed at improving or changing organizational operations and functions. Through management innovation, new measures to plan, organize, coordinate, lead, and motivate the organization are identified. This can lead to achievement and sustenance of a competitive advantage in the industry. This is because principles of innovation involve creating long-lasting advantageous processes producing dramatic shifts in the competitive position. Global organizations therefore rely on innovation to systematically reinvent functions and operations being undertaken to enhance speed, effectiveness, and efficiency leading to a long business life (Alice 3). Organizations are referred to as open systems due to various reasons. Foremost, organizations are developed in order to produce new products and services regularly and successfully without facing barriers. As a result, they are referred to as open systems as they can determine market needs and technological capabilities to apply to ensure the products and services distributed are high quality and accessible. Organizations are...
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...values statement and is the core of the business strategy. With sustainable competitive advantages and successful talent, management in developing leaders and employees contributes to the success of talent management. Known as being an “academy” company for its talent development that produces leaders with talent that go on to be successful in other Fortune 500 companies. Competitive Advantage PepsiCo’s competitive strategy is based on differentiation instead of cost leadership. To sustain growth at PepsiCo, three competitive advantages of innovative products, muscular brands and powerful go-to-markets are applied. Innovative products offers a solution to health and wellness concerns, allows PepsiCo an opportunity to be active in the community. The big muscular brands are PepsiCo Beverages, PepsiCo International, Frito-Lay, and Quake Foods products. A powerful go-to-market, well diverse set of distribution system of consumer products that provides considerable cost efficiency and system effectiveness in driving value. Additionally, the organization continues to invest in their employees through developing leaders, holding them accountable and reward them. Furthermore, the company focuses on talent management and development to build bench strength for key leadership positions and delivering talent development opportunities for employees. PepsiCo uses its talent to sustain competitive advantages in the marketplace by investing in their employees to help them succeed and...
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...Critical Analysis about Competitive Advantage of Apple Inc. based on the Porter`s Five Force Model Northeastern University Strategic Leadership Xiaolong Cao Instructed by James Lux June 6th 2016 Abstract This article aims to detect two key areas in Apple`s competitive advantage through using Porter`s Five Force model. According to the knowledge learned from class, there is no forever lasting competitive advantage, so through analyzing the case of Steve Jobs competitive strategy it presents a clear and reasonable structure and explanation of their competitive advantage. After doing this analysis, this article helps to fine both the disadvantage and advantage of their competitive advantage, and each of them contains two aspects according to Porter`s Five Force Model, which provides a reliable and meaningful support to test and excavate the effect of competitive advantage and future developing orientation. Introduction In the modern time, there are numerous resources that identify the importance of the competitive strategy. The ever growing technological trends and volatility within business operations in today's society make it extremely difficult for organizations to stay complacent with their strategies. Adjustments and new ideas need to constantly be developed to be able to maintain a competitive edge. The most obvious examples happen in IT industry, high performance laptop was a competitive advantage 2 years ago, but...
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...multinational approach to get a competitive advantage over others in the global environment. Competitive analysis is an important component in environmental scanning. In this paper, the internal and external environments of three popular companies will be studied and contrast the ways in which companies analyze their internal as well as external environment and the strategies formed accordingly to get a competitive edge over others. Three popular companies selected in this paper are Coca Cola, Proctor, and Gamble (P&G), and Apple Inc. All three organizations are related to different industries and carry out different businesses. The competitive strategies and their measurement guidelines will evaluate their internal and external environmental perspective. Determine what competitive advantages each company has and what strategies each company is using. Coca Cola Company is known in the beverage industry, P&D is known in the consumer product industry and Apple Inc. is known for their technology. All three organizations are one of the top market giants in their respective industries and have competitive advantage over other firms in their relevant industries. Coca Cola strongest competitive rival in beverage industry is Pepsi. Both have competing efficiently in the market; however, Coca Cola has many competitive edges over others. Because of a competitive environment, Coca Cola has invested a large amount of effective competitive strategies in the market and...
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...disseminate it, and integrate it with new products and services. Knowledge management can provide opportunities for achieving substantial savings, significant improvements in human performance, and other competitive advantages. KM program have benefited in a number of ways including: enhanced collaboration, improved communication, improved employee skills, better decision making, and increased innovation. Buckman Labs is an example of a success story that significantly increased sales of products that are less than five years old from 14% in 1987 to 34.5% in 1996 through its global KM effort. For today’s enterprises, few challenges are as daunting as preparing tomorrow’s leaders. Mentoring is one of the most powerful tools at their disposal. But not all mentoring programs are equally effective, and not all companies have learned how to sustain mentoring. IBM has done it — and offers specific guidance and best practices you can use to achieve equally powerful results. IBM use mentoring to strengthen organizational intelligence...build sustainable communities of mentors and mentees... promote collaboration across differences... and above all, link mentoring to strategy and use it to sustain competitive advantage. Business organizations are coming to view knowledge as their most valuable and strategic resource, and bringing that knowledge to bear on problems and opportunities as their most important capability. They are realizing that to remain competitive they must explicitly manage their...
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...The Composition Of Virgins Portfolio Marketing Essay The Virgin Group is a multi national corporation with a hugely diversified business portfolio. This essay examines how the Virgin Groups corporate strategy has allowed it to sustain competitive advantage. The first area that is covered is the composition of Virgins portfolio, namely what businesses Virgin is in and what is the logic of their portfolio. Within the composition section it puts forward two models that help to show why Virgin has chosen particular avenues for achieving growth and sustaining competitive advantage. The Core Competence Theory and Parenting Concept are then reviewed critically in regard to Virgin. Porters three tests are then related to the Virgin Group. Next the co-ordination of Virgins portfolio is addressed, how Virgin has managed its portfolio in its quest for growth and a sustained competitive advantage. Within the composition section of the essay is the issue of control versus the co-operation of Virgin and its business units. It then handles the four concepts of corporate strategy and how Virgin can and has used them to add value to its business units. The link between Virgins Corporate and Marketing strategy is then discussed before the other side of the argument is considered, looking at how Virgins corporate strategy destroyed rather than added value. Finally having synthesised the various diverse elements the essay concludes by using the knowledge gained to raise questions for Virgin about...
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...BIS5101 Strategic IT-Management Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Rau WS 2013/14 Term Paper Topic: How Companies Could Achieve Sustainable Competitive Advantage Gahn, Philip MACFA, ID# 309601 gahnphil@hs-pforzheim.de Kominek, Lukas MACFA, ID# 300953 komluk@hs-pforzheim.de Wenz, Eugen MACFA, ID# 300636 weneug@hs-pforzheim.de th Submission date: November 2 2013 2 Table of Contents 1 Purpose and Structure ......................................................................................... 5 2 Definition and Origin of Competitive Advantage .............................................. 6 3 Approaches and Methods to Achieve Competitive Advantages......................... 8 3.1 The Traditional Approach According to Porter ........................................... 8 3.1.1 Cost Leadership ................................................................................. 10 3.1.2 Focusing on Priorities ........................................................................ 10 3.2 Modern Approaches .................................................................................. 10 3.2.1 The Strategy as a Compilation of Simple Rules ................................ 11 3.2.2 The Blue Ocean Strategy ................................................................... 12 4 Ways to achieve Sustainable Competitive Advantage...................................... 13 5 Conclusion ............................................................................
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...what transpired at Nokia and how the strategy implemented by the management team from the period of the 1990s up to the 2010 led to the company losing its market shares at both ends of the mobile phone industry. During the period of 1991 and 1992 the company lost FM482million ($120 million) on its major business activities. In 1992 a new group chief executive, Jorma Ollila was appointed. Jorma Ollila’s mission was to formulate a strategy that was going to rescue the company from its losses, into a profitable organisation. The report focus on Nokia’s reason to select one area of development out of four, the significance of the introduction of new Android software for Nokia’s chosen strategy and the importance of management teams to strategic choice. In dealing with the first section on the study case , the author analysed the three elements of the strategy context used by the management team and then discussed strategic risks associated with focusing on the single development area out of four. Lynch (2012:421) defines strategy context as being concerned with the circumstances surrounding and influencing the way that a strategy develops and operates. The second section deals with the second question and the author discussed the advantages offered by Android mobile phones over Symbian’s mobile and how an organisation can gain its competitive advantage using “Porter’s Five Forces Model”. The report also provides brief discussion on the advantages of technology-driven strategies...
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...CONCEPT OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IS CENTRAL TO THE STUDY OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT, AND EXAMINE THE USE OF PORTER’S GENERIC STRATEGEIS BY COMPANIES TO COMPETE. KEY TERMS Competitive advantage. This is the favourable position an organization seeks in order to be more profitable than its competitors. Strategic management. It is the systematic analysis of the factors associated with customers and competitors (the external environment) and the organization itself (the internal environment) to provide the basis for maintaining optimum management practices. The objective of strategic management is to achieve better alignment of corporate policies and strategic priorities. Porter’s generic strategies. These are three general types of strategies developed by Michael Porter that are commonly used by businesses to achieve and maintain competitive advantage. Company. It is a voluntary association formed and organized to carry on a business. Types of companies include sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability, corporation, and public limited company. INTRODUCTION The concept of competitive advantage is central to the study of strategic management, since a company or an organization must follow an aligned strategy to outperform their rivals in the industry. Michael Porter introduces three generic strategies that a firm may apply in order to do so they include; overall cost leadership, Differentiation and Focus. In order to create and sustain competitive advantage, companies...
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...Competitive Advantage Introduction Why do you buy a cup of coffee in Starbucks? Why will you choose KFC for your lunch rather than other brands? The answer lies on the term competitive advantage. It becomes the main reason to build brand loyalty for customers. (Boundless 2015) Nowadays, most firms both in local and global markets all face a challenge for a marketing strategy is to find a way of achieving and sustain a competitive advantage compared with the other products and companies. The basic condition of competition has changed a lot and the speed of this tendency is increasing. And with the change of competitive environment, traditional competitive such as economical scale or advertisement expenditure cannot be such effectively as past time. What’s more, traditional management ideas are unlikely to lead a firm competing with other companies. Therefore, managers need to build a new managerial mind-set about competitive advantage. (Barney&Mackey 2005) This article will introduce the definition of competitive advantage in a market and emphasis the importance of it. It will also be presented two main strategies including cost strategy and differential strategy. And then some issues will be stated that organizations facing in trying to gain and maintain competitive advantage. Then it gives some reasons that why competitive advantage is still a significative concept at present. Body Definition of Competitive Advantage A competitive advantage means one firm has...
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...abilities, on its own doesn’t add any value. IT can produce significant strategic and competitive advantage only if it is used effectively, therefore it needs to be managed by highly motivated people. Every company needs to make decisions how to position itself in the market and how to create unique mix of values in order to successfully compete. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the industry structure and strategic positioning of the firm in terms of its portfolio products and services, looking only through the technology lenses could be misleading and incomprehensive. Also, organizations need to constantly research the market and recognize customer needs, so that they can deliver new products by utilizing technology and applying their knowledge. Strong understanding of industry structure and strategic positioning of the firm, allow organizations make necessary modification and adjustment to its business model. Moreover, new entrants wouldn’t be able to outperform industry giants by employing only technological resources. What drive these small startups upmarket are passionate and creative people, who are obsessed with winning. Moreover, Technology can be standardized and imitated, thus Technology infrastructure alone can’t be the only factor in decision making. For instance, to gain and sustain competitive advantage companies need to differentiate themselves and offer alternative products. Therefore, IT without the intellectual capital is impractical, because it needs the...
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...Competitive Advantages Paper MGT/498 Competitive Advantages Paper In today’s global economy, more and more companies are finding it difficult to grow their business domestically. As domestic opportunities decrease, more and more organizations are finding themselves looking for opportunities in the global market searching for ways to gain a competitive advantage. In this paper, team A will analyze the competitive advantage Riordan Manufacturing, Incorporated (Riordan) has in common with other companies, and estimate which competitive strategies Riordan could use to improve innovation and sustainability of business operations both in the United States and in the global market. We will also explain why we chose these competitive strategies and estimate how they might affect sustainability of long-term organizational performance. Finally, we will explain how the global market would affect the business strategy of Riordan. Competitive Advantage Strategies The three competitive strategies that Riordan can capitalize on to improve innovation and sustainability of business operations are research and development, purchasing, and logistics. Riordan us an industry leader in the field of polymer materials solutions and polymer materials research and development and patent licensing. The company should explore strategic advantages through its research and development functions as well as through its Operations Excellence model. Riordan employs detailed process systems and...
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...are the roles of comparative and competitive advantages in Hyundai’s success? Illustrate your answers by providing specific examples of natural and acquired advantages that Hyundai employs to succeed in the global car industry South Korea enjoys various national competitive advantages in the provision of cars such as abundance of production factors in costeffective labor, knowledge workers, high technology, and capital. Demand in South Korea is too low to sustain indigenous automakers like HMC and Kia, thus exporting is a necessity to attain the economies of scale needed to remain competitive in a tough industry. In part due to these efforts, Korea is home to a substantial industrial cluster for the production of cars and car parts. Comparative advantage: The Korean has been translating to favorable exchange rates and lower prices in the US and Europe. Korean government closely cooperates . Korea has a high saving rate and with the business sector, promoting raw materials extensive foreign direct investment Competitive advantages: Inexpensive, high quality workforce and Innovative marketing through initiatives as Hyundai assurance program. 2. In terms of factor proportions theory, what abundant factors does Hyundai leverage in its worldwide operations? Provide examples and explain how Hyundai exemplifies the theory. In What ways does Hyundai's success contradict the theory? Justify your answer . It is a fact that Hyundai enjoys various advantages such as knowledge labor...
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...Chapter 01 What Is Strategy, and Why Is It Important? Multiple Choice Questions 1. | Keeping in mind Apple's competitive advantage, which of the following products was introduced by Apple in 2007? A. | iPad | B. | iPhone | C. | iPod | D. | iTunes | | 2. | _____ is best described as an integrative management field that combines analysis, formulation, and implementation in the quest for competitive advantage. A. | Supply chain management | B. | Integrated technology management | C. | Strategic management | D. | Inventory management | | 3. | _____ is best described as a set of goal-directed actions a firm takes to gain and sustain superior performance relative to competitors. A. | Behavior modification | B. | Strategy | C. | Credo | D. | Competency management | | 4. | Which of the following stages of the strategic management process involves an evaluation of a firm's external and internal environments? A. | Strategy analysis | B. | Strategy implementation | C. | Strategy formulation | D. | Strategy control | | 5. | In _____, a firm frames a guiding policy to address the competitive challenge. A. | strategy control | B. | strategy implementation | C. | strategy formulation | D. | strategy analysis | | 6. | Through _____, a firm puts its guiding policy into practice by employing a set of coherent actions. A. | strategy control | B. | strategy implementation...
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...electronics and has over 70 subsidiaries that manufacture TVs, video and audio products, appliances, refrigerators, wireless phone handsets, air-conditioners, and communications devices. LG Electronics has annual revenue of about 23.8 trillion and employs about 66,600 people. LG Electronics’ mission is to be among the top five electronics brands in the Africa and the Middle East. This vision is simple and clear: venture into new markets and win the consumers by giving what they want. Capturing new markets and providing a strategic direction for all LG Electronics activities in the Middle East and Africa is the main target (Times of Oman, 2006). On the other side, many promising markets like Algeria, Sudan, Angola and some others whose economic power is growing strong are being neglected. LG Electronics is focusing again to regain those markets. The company will use a new marketing strategy such as using power retailers instead of using traditional channels of marketing like using dealers. Traditional dealers are losing their power whereas the power retailers are gaining market share like Carrefour (Times of Oman, 2006). The company is looking to achieve a turnover of $6 billion, to increase overall display sales to $20 billion, and to achieve a growth of over 22% by 2010. This will uphold LG’s image as a premium brand, it will increase returns on invested capital, and will maintain product leadership and expand its business portfolio. “LG Electronics continually pursues...
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