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Procter & Gamble Resources, Capabilities and Competitive Advantage

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Procter & Gamble Resources, Capabilities and Competitive Advantage
Procter & Gamble Co. (P&G)
P&G – Procter & Gamble is a consumer product company founded and headquartered at Cincinnati, Ohio in 1837 by Mr. William Procter and Mr. James Gamble. It is now led by Mr. Alan.G.Lafley whom rejoins the company in 2010.
P&G success was contributed to the heart of its business model – Innovation; and that is not just for newly invented product or service, it was for the goal of recreating needs for the improvement of consumers’ living. And it is a very long culture started where the roots started from the founders; whom are soap and candles makers. The first innovative product – Ivory; started in 1879, by James Norris Gamble who is the son of the founder and a trained chemist. Ivory at then was an inexpensive white soap equal to high-quality, imported Castile soap. It was introduced nationwide through a weekly newspaper.
Today, P&G has its presence across 180 countries and a team of 121,000 employees. Its business operations spanned across various segments like Beauty, Grooming, Health Care, Fabric Care & Home Care and Baby Care & Family Care; it is the house to many of the world leading brands like Head & Shoulder, Gillette, Oral B, Fabrics, Pampers and many more. Touching more than 4 billion consumers worldwide every day, the company sales volume as of fiscal year ending June 30, 2013 was more than 80 billion in sales.
The Strategy – Unique Value
According to Michael Porter, He argued that organizations that focus solely on operation effectiveness is not enough, they will only be successful if they are able to provide a unique value that is sustainable for a long term. Organizations competing in operation effectiveness will only gauge their performance by benchmarking what others are doing; ultimately providing the same value throughout, which is of no value to the customer. Therefore, for an organization to be able to sustain for long term, an organization would require a competitive strategy by performing a different set of



References: Barney, J. (2004). Firm resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage. Strategy: Process Content Context: an international perspective, de Wit & Meyer , 285-292. Chui, M. (2011, November). Mckinsey & Company. Retrieved June 10, 2014, from Inside P&G 's Digital Revolution: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/consumer_and_retail/inside_p_and_ampgs_digital_revolution Colgate-Palmolive Company E.Porter, M. (2008). The five competitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard Business Review , 78-93. Grant, R. (2005). Analyzing Resources and Capabilties. Comtemporary Strategic Analysis, Grant,R.M. , 130-185. Johnson, B. (2012, October 29). Procter & Gamble Co. 's Advertising Spending, 1987 to 2012. Retrieved June 10, 2014, from AdAge: http://adage.com/article/special-report-pg-at-175/procter-gamble-s-advertising-spending-1987-2012/237974/ Lafley, A M.E., P. (2004). Generic Competitive Strategies. Competitive Advantage, porter M.E , 11-25. P&G Annual Cash Flow. (2014, June 23). Retrieved June 23, 2014, from The Wall Street Journal: http://quotes.wsj.com/PG/financials/annual/cash-flow P&G.com Company Patentdocs. (n.d.). Retrieved June 9, 2014, from The Procter & Gamble Company Patent applications: http://www.faqs.org/patents/assignee/the-procter-gamble-company/ PG Science Porter, M. E. (1996). What is Strategy. Harvard Business Review , 61-78. Procter & Gamble. (n.d.). A Company History 1837 - Today. Retrieved june 9, 2014, from Procter & Gamble: http://www.pg.com/translations/history_pdf/english_history.pdf>. Procter & Gamble on the Forbes Global List 2000 Retail on NBCNews.com. (2009, March 16). Retrieved June 10, 2014, from Wal-Mart tries to cash in on store brand boom: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29726195/ns/business-retail/t/wal-mart-tries-cash-store-brand-boom/#.U6lWEPmSySp Schawbel, D Unilever . (2013, December 31). Retrieved June 26, 2014, from Annual Reports and Accounts: http://www.unilever.com/images/Unilever_20-F_AR13_tcm13-383756.pdf

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