Assignment week 5 
A) The steps to getting a sustainable competitive advantage:
Competitor analysis: The process of identifying, assessing and selecting key competitors.
The company needs to find out everything about its competitors, and compare the intel to their own marketing strategies, products, prices, channels and promotions. In this way they can find their strengths and weaknesses in comparison to their competitors.
Selecting competitors to attack and avoid: Now that the company knows their competitors better, they need to asses which competitors they are going attack and avoid. Most companies like to compete against the smaller and weaker competitors, because it requires less time and fewer resources. This also means that they would gain little, while if they would attack the stronger competitors, and win, they would have bigger gains. A useful tool for assessing competitors strengths and weaknesses is the CVA (customer value analysis). It basically shows the major attributes customers value so a company can assess its performance and the performance of their competitors in these attributes.
Designing a well performing intelligence system: This is a very obvious and simple step, if the company has a well performing intelligence system, they can work more efficiently with the gathered intel because it will be easier to use.
Having a good marketing strategy: There are a lot of different ways of developing effective competitive marketing strategy, there has to be a balance between the creative side and the formulated side of marketing. There are many different strategies, which we won’t discuss in this assignment because it doesn’t add to the definition of a sustainable competitive advantage.
Competitive positions: Lastly there are the different competitive positions:
1. Market Leader: The company with the largest market share.
2. Market Challengers: Runner-up companies that are working hard to get to the top position.
3. Market Followers: Companies that want to hold their
Competitor analysis: The process of identifying, assessing and selecting key competitors.
The company needs to find out everything about its competitors, and compare the intel to their own marketing strategies, products, prices, channels and promotions. In this way they can find their strengths and weaknesses in comparison to their competitors.
Selecting competitors to attack and avoid: Now that the company knows their competitors better, they need to asses which competitors they are going attack and avoid. Most companies like to compete against the smaller and weaker competitors, because it requires less time and fewer resources. This also means that they would gain little, while if they would attack the stronger competitors, and win, they would have bigger gains. A useful tool for assessing competitors strengths and weaknesses is the CVA (customer value analysis). It basically shows the major attributes customers value so a company can assess its performance and the performance of their competitors in these attributes.
Designing a well performing intelligence system: This is a very obvious and simple step, if the company has a well performing intelligence system, they can work more efficiently with the gathered intel because it will be easier to use.
Having a good marketing strategy: There are a lot of different ways of developing effective competitive marketing strategy, there has to be a balance between the creative side and the formulated side of marketing. There are many different strategies, which we won’t discuss in this assignment because it doesn’t add to the definition of a sustainable competitive advantage.
Competitive positions: Lastly there are the different competitive positions:
1. Market Leader: The company with the largest market share.
2. Market Challengers: Runner-up companies that are working hard to get to the top position.
3. Market Followers: Companies that want to hold their