10. What are the five generic competitive strategies? Briefly describe each one and identify the type of competitive advantage that each strategy is aimed at achieving.
a. a low-cost provider strategy: striving to achieve lower overall costs than rivals and appealing to a broad spectrum of customers, usually by under-pricing rivals. b. a broad differentiation strategy: seeking to differentiate the company’s product or service from rivals’ in ways that will appeal to a broad spectrum of buyers. c. a focused low cost strategy: concentrating on a narrow buyer segment and outcompeting rivals by having lower costs than rivals and thus being able to serve niche members at a lower price. d. focused differentiation strategy: concentrating on a narrow buyer segment and outcompeting rivals by offering niche members customized attributes that meet their tastes and requirements better than rivals’ products. e. best cost provider strategy: giving customers more value for the money by satisfying buyers’ expectations on key quality/features/performance/service attributes while beating their price expectations.

11. What are distinctive features of a broad differentiation strategy? Under what circumstances is a broad differentiation strategy appealing?
The distinctive features of a broad differentiation strategy are: command a premium price, and/ or increase unit sales (because additional buyers are won over by the differentiating features), and/ or gain buyer loyalty to its brand (because some buyers are strongly attracted to the differentiating features and bond with the company and its products). A broad differentiating strategy is appealing when buyer needs and uses of the product are diverse, there are many ways to differentiate the product or service that have value to buyers, few rival firms are following a similar differentiating approach, and