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Strategic Management - Virgin Case Study

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1) What are Virgin Group's distinctive resources/capabilities?The Virgin BrandFirstly, the Virgin brand is valuable in the form of brand equity, where 'Virgin' is one of the most recognised brand names in the UK, and is also well-known in other important markets including Europe and the U.S.A. Based on 1990s research, the Virgin brand was recognised by 96% of UK consumers (Case, p.685). Secondly, it is rare for a brand to have such positive consumer perceptions; which include value-for-money, fun, innovation, success, and trust across a range of Virgin businesses (Case, p.685). Thirdly, Virgin has built up their excellent reputation over time, and is therefore path dependent and difficult for competitors to imitate. Lastly, competitors …show more content…

E.g. in the travel industry, Virgin Holidays 'grew on the back' of Virgin Atlantic by sharing operational resources such as promotion to reduce unit costs (Case, p.689). Some Virgin businesses are also related in terms of being "ideally suited to e-commerce and in which growth is expected to occur - travel, financial services, publishing, music, entertainment" (Case, p.687). Virgin exploited this potential to create synergies by sharing activities across these businesses to reduce unit costs. i.e. the distribution of various products from different businesses can be shared by using "technology to give all Virgin customers a small mobile device form which they could purchase any Virgin product from a rail or cinema ticket to a CD… and streamline online service with a single Virgin web address: Virgin.com" (Case, p.687). Furthermore, Virgin tries to create differentiation by bundling services together so that consumers derive more value from the bundled service than each service individually. E.g. Virgin retail stores and Virgin Cinemas in the entertainment industry were bundled together to create 'Megaplexes', which also included extras; taking coats, serving drinks and extra legroom (Case, p.689). Synergy is created through sharing customers across

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