Lecture Notes for Competitive Strategies in Technology Management
(Note: these notes, intended to supplement your class notes, are excerpts from a larger chapter on the same subject, which contains other frameworks and a detailed example. This is a draft document: so please report any “typos”, and other errors; feedback is also welcome.)
1. Introduction
“Successful and unsuccessful strategies shape a company’s destiny” – R.A. Burgelman, Strategy is Destiny
Technology firms generally perform three important and inter-related activities: strategy, planning, and operations, each having a different intent and time horizon. The function of strategy, which has a time horizon of years, is, in general, to set the long-term direction or
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In this In Section 3 we describe the positioning framework, due to Porter (Porter, 1980), for developing competitive strategy within a technology company. The key elements of this framework, structural analysis of industry and development of competitive strategy, are developed in this section. Section 4 describes the organizational evolutionary theoretic approach for strategy-making. The creation and use of functional maps is explained in Section 5. The positioning framework, the evolutionary organization theoretic framework, and functional maps are combined in Section 6 to develop a process for competitive strategy-making in a technology company. Section 7 demonstrates the application of the process to an extended and detailed example, while Section 8 summarizes the chapter and draws conclusions.
2. Overall context and types of Strategy
We study competitive strategy within the overall context of technology firms, which operate within a so-called industry, e.g., the computer industry, the consumer electronic industry, the cellular phone industry. Each industry, ideally, serves a market, which denotes the buyers or customers of the products and services offered by the industry.
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A structural representation of the technology company from the viewpoint of strategy is shown in Figure 1, where four important types of strategy are identified: technology strategy, marketing strategy, competitive strategy, and financial strategy. All
This article was really interesting as it discussed a matrix developed for creating strategies by a professor at Harvard. Michael Porter the creator, discussed the notion of how powerful this tool is because companies or organizations look at competition too narrowly. The five competitive forces include:
By the close of the 17th century, England had developed into a Constitutional Monarchy and France had developed into an Absolutist, centralized form of monarchy.
The original business strategy, which is still not fully implemented or thought out, is still intact and being somewhat utilized. Part of getting from where we are now to where we want to go, is to put together a comprehensive business and growth strategy plan that, brings about the most results. The original business strategy resembled that of a small business that had the most growth with the least risk. With little risk also means little or no technology. The company has changed, the competition is more intense and the economy is weakened. A new strategy that aligns with technology is essential in order to be successful. As business and technology have become increasingly intertwined, the strategic alignment of the two has emerged as a major corporate issue. With the emergence of IT from the back room to the forefront of business brings the alignment issue under the spotlight like never before. And as
This course for juniors and seniors explores firm strategies related to innovation and technological change. We focus on how the success of technological innovations—new products, processes, and services—depends on the firm’s business model. Other key topics include intellectual property rights and the management of technological uncertainty through organizational arrangements such as corporate venturing, spinoffs, and alliances.
Primary Competitors’ Business Level and Corporate Level Strategy .................................................................................17 How Competitors Achieve Their Strategic Position ...........................................................................................................18 Value – Cost Profile
An Analytical Comparison of “Little Red Riding Hood” by Charles Perrault and “Little Red Cap” by Grimm Brothers
Strategy formulation has been acknowledged as one of the most crucial factors of ensuring the long-term growth of the business. However, the manner in which strategy is formulated, and most importantly, the nature of the strategy chosen for the company determines its future position in the marketplace (Grant, 2005).
Dysfunctional children all have one main factor to their disobedience and that is horrible parenting. From a single mother raising the child to parents fighting and arguing inside the house in front of the kids. The article, Eminem is Right: The Primal Scream of Teenage Music, By Mary Eberstadt, demonstrates that dysfunctional kids show the greatest emotion due to disobedient parenting. All of this was compared to music from today’s artists. The article, Don’t Mention the Family, By Jason Cowley, Has many segments from different publishers showing the cons of all parenting. From single mothers, beat down
Often people refer to this component as the “Vision” or “Mission” of a company, but it is not. The Vision for a company could be that you want to be a market leader. However, the technology strategy tells everyone how you will achieve that market leadership. The technology strategy tells the various stakeholders – employees, customers, community, and stockholders – what you are going to do to achieve that market leadership. This strategy should be very clear and easy to understand so that everyone will be “on the same page” when it comes to working together toward that goal.
Michael. Porter defines strategic position as attempts to achieve sustainable competitive advantage by preserving what is distinctive about a company. It means performing different activities from rivals, or performing similar activities in different ways. He maintains that strategic position emerges from three distinct but not mutually exclusive and often overlapped sources, ie: variety-based positioning, needs-based positioning and access
Managers generally consider the rivalry among competitors as a major source for deriving strategy. As explained by the Michael Porter it is a narrow view of competition. A set of other parameters should be evaluated, mentioned in article as five competitive forces, along with industry
The purpose of this sub-chapter - comparing the competitiveness of small and large firms is to determine how they are different and how they are competing in a global technology competition. I will try to explain the strategy and policy of firms, which define their competitiveness, the competition between small and large firms and also their position in a market. For this, it will be good to start from the theoretical side of competition between firms and then to continue with the real market competition and define the most successful companies. Also one of the aims of this research is to determine what setback they have and how firms can improve their strategies in terms of to gain success as much as possible.
Today’s markets hold aggressive competition between companies in order to dominate as much share as they can from the market. That is why most companies are seeking for a competitive advantage that will differentiate them from their other competitors and makes consumers buy their services or products over the others.
According to Porter (1985) a company can apply three generic types of strategies to protect itself while competitive force is a key issue of the management. To achieve this position a strategy based on competency must be accomplished
Competitive strategy is the moves and methods that the firm has taken and is taking to appeal buyers, improve its market position, and to endure competitive pressures. The strategy is about what a firm’s capability to try to knock off competitors and attain competitive advantage, which can be offensive or defensive. There are three approaches to competitive strategy, which are low-cost leadership strategy where struggling to be the overall low-cost manufacturer in the in industry. Moreover, pursuing to distinguish one’s product offering from competitors (differentiation strategy), and the last one is focus or niche strategy where aiming on thin portion of the market rather than the whole market (Porter, 1998).