Successful Company Strategy

A company is considered to be successful when it is sustainable and able to make a good profit, in other words, have a good return to its shareholders; to achieve that, the company has to be competitive by being able to deliver a greater value with the same price, or a comparable value with a lower price.
Marketing strategy is the most important aspect which makes some firms more successful than others. It is a matter of what a company can offer while the others can not. Ikea and Southwest Airline Company are examples of having a good marketing strategy, especially in positioning; both of them have positioned themselves very differently with other typical companies in their industries and became outstanding. “Ikea serves customers who are happy to trade off service for cost,” it target young customers who do not want to pay a lot; therefore, instead of having sales people following customers and giving suggestions, Ikea stores enable customers to shop and pick their furniture by themselves. Also, Ikea usually does not provide delivery services, products are available right away, and customers do the pickup themselves. Such strategy eliminates the cost of running the business, and therefore benefits the customers by charging a lower price.
Southwest Airline Company’s marketing strategy is very remarkable as well, it attract customers by having a relatively low price. Southwest does go to large cities; however, instead of stopping at the large airports, it stops at some secondary airports. Instead of flying long distance, it stops several times before arriving final destinations; it does not even offer meals because customers can eat at the airports during the stops. Further more, there is no premium classes’ service and no assigned seat, and each aircraft are managed to spend relatively longer time flying than waiting at the airports. Therefore, the cost and time needed are minimized, and so it is able to charge a lower airfare from customers and still make a