Business Managers Evaluate And Choose Strategies That They Think Will Make Their Business Successful

Edmundson (2013) explains that companies that consistently expand in a profitable manner have learned to take their strength and transform them into a competitive advantage. Edmundson (2013) list nine principals that will help companies turn their strengths into competitive advantages. The nine principals are to be quantifiable, stay objective and creditable, be true and accurate, not stated by you’re competition, contrast, use concrete facts and tangible data, emotional, focused and simple, and tell stories to make your audience relate. Edmundson (2013) continues that typically companies that have

They are given meaning in the minds of managers through processes of selective attention and simplification (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978). Otherwise managers could not possibly cope with the myriad of trends and events that must be organized, analyzed for patterns, and acted upon. Managers therefore adopt a customer-focused or competitor-centered perspective to help simplify their environment and decide what information is to be gathered and how it is to be screened and interpreted. Simplification comes at a cost, which is the risk that only a partial and biased picture of reality is created. A competitor-centered perspective leads to a preoccupation with costs and controllable activities that can be compared directly with corresponding activities of close rivals. Customer-focused approaches have the advantage of examining the full range of competitive choices in light of the customers ' needs and perceptions of superiority, but lack an obvious connection to activities and variables that are controlled by management. Clearly a balance of the two characteristic perspectives is needed. In practice most businesses tilt—in some cases very sharply—toward one or the other. A significant complication in the search for a balanced p>erspective is the confusing welter of overlapping meanings of "competitive advantage." Because there is no agreement on what elements to include or how they are related, information gaps cannot be identified. We address this

There are many strategies that organizations can incorporate in today’s business environment. An organization can decide to take on a low-cost provider strategy, a focused low-cost strategy, broad differentiation strategy, focused differentiation strategy, and/or a best-cost provider strategy. While all of them have their own unique features and can offer a competitive advantage over its rivals, Competitive Shoes, Inc. decided to incorporate the best-cost strategy into its organization in order to compete against it rivals. By incorporating the best-cost strategy into its organization, Competitive Shoes Inc. felt that they could stay

7. Which one of the following generic types of competitive strategy is typically the best strategy for a company to employ?

Differentiation and cost leadership are two strategies chosen because they are the most common between the different companies. Amazingly these leading organizations from different industries are using the same competitive strategies and tactics. The two competitive strategies may be the reason both organizations are leading within their industries. “Differentiation is a type of competitive strategy with which the organization seeks to distinguish its products or services from competitors” (Valdehueza, 2009).

Thompson & Strickland (2013) believes that a successful organization’s strategy depends on people, capabilities, structure, and execution. Important as well are growth and innovation (P.. 286), which allows an organization to remain competitive.

• Cost: we can also consider cost as a competitive advantage. The ingredients required to create our

According to Pearce & Robinson (2011), “a successful differentiation strategy allows the business to provide a product or service of perceived higher value to buyers at a “differentiation cost” below the “value premium” to the buyers”.

1. What is competitive advantage, and how does it relate to a company’s business model?

“Competitive strategy involves positioning a business to maximize the value of the capabilities that distinguish it from its competitor’s” (Porter 1980:47). A successful business plan requires first and foremost the formation of an appropriate strategy. Through the implementation of a suitable strategy, the company is able to obtain its own industry niche and gain an understanding of its customers (Porter 1985). Whichever strategy is adopted it must be adequately integrated within the firms goals and missions to achieve a competitive advantage (Parker and Helms 1992).

• competitive advantage typically results in high profits • profits attract competition • competition limits the duration of competitive advantage in most cases Therefore,

There are countless sources of competitive advantage available to help companies of all types and sizes grow their business and improve their profitability, provided that business leaders know where to look. Aristotle Onassis believed that the secret to business success was simply "knowing something that nobody else knows," while organizational behavior theorists believe that the secret to success requires acquiring and sustaining a

A firm positions itself by leveraging its strengths. Michael Porter has argued that a firm 's strengths ultimately fall into one of two headings: cost advantage and differentiation. By applying these strengths in either a broad or narrow scope, three generic strategies result: cost leadership, differentiation, and focus. These strategies are applied at the business unit level. They are called

(Porter, 1979) suggests that there are three methods an organisation can implement to achieve competitive advantage which include, cost leadership, focus and differentiation. Firstly, cost leadership is basically keeping costs to an absolute minimum and passing on savings to

is a medium sized business, it has just opened a new outlet in Tower road Sliema, though in its first week of opening, its store traffic and sales were low.