Marketing-Generic Strategies

Introduction. In this assignment I am going to explain the following concepts, generic strategies, alternative directions and alternative methods. Indeed, I would like to support these concepts by referring my work to the automobile sector (as a continuing line provided with the Morgan´s example in class). I am going to use the example of General Motors and Ford, they are well known and also provide us a long struggling and interesting history. The first part of my assignment gives a theoretical view of different concepts (using several examples) that are used in my assignment and, of course, in the real management world. Afterwards, I am going to explain different aspects of the US automobile industry. Finally, I would like to give some advises to each company. Theoretical assumptions. Once I have explained the structure of my assignment, I would like to emphasise the fact that the Strategic Choice is the core of strategy management in a company, because is concerned with decisions about its future and the way that it is going to respond to the pressures and influences from its rivals. Each company has to know how to develop its own strategy; therefore, it has to answer the following questions: • What basis? • Which direction? • How? As an exhibit that we can see in the Johnson and Scholes book, we can explain Development Strategies as: Bases of choice − Corporate purpose and aspirations − SBU generic competitive strategies − The role of the corporate parent Alternative directions − Protect and build − Market penetration − Product development − Market development − Diversification: related or unrelated Alternative methods − Internal development − Acquisition − Joint development / alliances

When answering the question of: What Basis?, we can use the concept of Generic Strategies (M. E. Porter), that includes the following options: • Cost leadership: consists of producing items or services more cheaply than other companies. But this idea does not mean that low