Creating

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE88

chapter:

Katarína Chomová, 2012

Competitive Advantage?

An advantage over competitors gained by

offering consumers greater value than competitors do.

Competitor Analysis?

The process of identifying key competitors, assessing their

objectives, strategies, stregths and weaknesses and reaction patterns and selecting which

competitors to attack or avoid

One common and useful technique is constructing

a competitor array. The steps include:- Define your industry - scope and nature of the industry- Determine who your competitors are- Determine who your customers are and what benefits they expect- Determine what the key success factors are in your industry-Rank the key success factors by giving each one a weighting - The sum of all the weightings must add up to one.- Rate each competitor on each of the key success factors- Multiply each cell in the matrix by the factor weighting.

In this example competitor #1 is rated higher than competitor #2 on product innovation ability (7 out of 10, compared to 4 out of 10) and distribution networks (6 out of 10), but competitor #2 is rated higher on customer focus (5 out of 10). Overall, competitor #1 is rated slightly higher than competitor #2 (20 out of 40 compared to 15 out of 40). When the success factors are weighted according to their importance, competitor #1 gets a far better rating (4.9 compared to 3.7)

Competitive Marketing Strategies?

Strategies that strongly position the company against

competitors and give the company the strongest

possible strategic advantage.

Michael Eugene Porter

Professor at Harvard Business School.

He is a leading authority on company strategy and the competitiveness of nations and regions.

This strategy involves the firm winning market share by appealing to cost-conscious or price-sensitive customers. This is achieved by having the lowest prices in the target market. 

COST LEADERSHIP

STRATEGIES

In adopting a narrow focus, the company ideally focuses on a few target markets (also called a segmentation strategy, focus strategy or niche strategy). These should be distinct groups with specialized needs.

EXAMPLE of FOCUS STRATEGIES

A differentiation strategy is appropriate where the target customer segment is not price-sensitive, the market is competitive or saturated, customers have very specific needs which are possibly under-served, and the firm has unique resources and capabilities which enable it to satisfy these needs in ways that are difficult to copy.

TYPES of

DIFFERENTIATION THEMES

Innocent was founded by three friends Richard Reed, Adam Balon and Jon Wright, who were working in consulting and advertising. 

Helping people

The boys sell their first smoothies from a stall at a music festival in London. A sign above the stall reads “Should we give up our jobs to make these smoothies?” and people are asked to throw their empties into bins marked ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. (‘Yes’ wins.)

Portfolio

Typical costumers

"Ingredients 2 apples, 5 strawberries and 2 nuns *".Down on the label is a footnote: "In those nuns we made fun."

Unusual communication tools

Innocent car

Being Sustainable

http://youtu.be/sP03Hjl55JU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=5hd_BmPfxIo