I. Cost Leadership & Differentiation strategies A/ My perspective on the issue As far as I’m concerned‚ cost leadership and differentiation are the most popular strategies applied in business battlefield. Each has its own pros & cons‚ aims and sticks firmly to companies’ different long-term goals. And here are my brief comparison tables between them : Cost leadership Differentiation Staples Provide customers with standardized products at the lowest prices Provide customers with products having
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generic strategies available to a firm: differentiation or cost leadership. Both strategies can be applied either into a focused market or a broad market. Do you agree that these are the only two strategies available? Are they mutually exclusive? Why or why not? Porter’s Generic Strategies Target Scope Advantage Advantage Low Cost Product Uniqueness Broad(Industry Wide) Cost Leadership Strategy Differentiation Strategies Narrow (Market Segment) Focus Strategy(low cost) Focus Strategy(differentiation)
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TYPES OF COMPETITIVE STRATEGIES Apple Inc. Cost Leadership Strategy Cost leadership strategy has been highly adopted by Apple Inc in its endeavors of ensuring competitiveness and success in the technology industry. The company’s management has been able to draw policies and strategies that are aimed at ensuring that the company is the lowest cost producer and distributor. • By lowering the cost of production and management‚ Apple Inc has been given golden opportunities on determining prices
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Cost Leadership By definition‚ a cost leadership strategy involves placing great emphasis on efficiency in all organizational activities in order to reduce the overall costs of products delivered to customers. Low cost leadership strategy will work effectively when the organization can provide products/services at a lower cost than the competition. The followings are the realms that we identified as factors for IKEA’s pursuit for “Cost-Leadership” 1. Mail-Order Service‚ Distribution of Catalogue
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APPLE DIFFERENTIATION STRATEGY Post Published: 17 January 2011 Author: Nellie Amirah Lim Found in section: MWS Articles We can describe Apple’s strategy in terms of product differentiation and strategic alliances Product Differentiation. Apple prides itself on its innovation. When reviewing the history of Apple‚ it is evident that this attitude permeated the company during its peaks of success. For instance‚ Apple pioneered the PDA market by introducing the Newton in 1993. Later‚ Apple introduced
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Differentiation strategies are not about pursuing uniqueness for the sake of being different. Differentiation is about understanding customers and how GM ’s product can meet their needs. To this extent‚ the quest for differentiation advantage takes us to the heart of business strategy. The fundamental issues of differentiation are also the fundamental issues of business strategy: Who are GM ’s customers? How does GM create value for them? And how does GM do it more effectively and efficiently
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Competitive Strategies Following on from his work analysing the competitive forces in an industry‚ Michael Porter suggested four "generic" business strategies that could be adopted in order to gain competitive advantage. The four strategies relate to the extent to which the scope of a businesses’ activities are narrow versus broad and the extent to which a business seeks to differentiate its products. The four strategies are summarised in the figure below: The differentiation and cost leadership strategies
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GENERIC STRATEGIES: A firm positions itself by leveraging its strengths. Michael Porter has argued that a firm’s strength usually falls into one of two headings: • Cost advantage • Differentiation By applying these strengths in either a broad or narrow or narrow scope‚ three generic strategies result: • Cost leadership • Differentiation • Focus These strategies are applied at business unit level. They are called generic strategies because they are not firm or industry dependant. Cost Leadership:
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To answer the question‚ I choose Volkswagen as the example of broad cost leadership strategy and Roll-Royce Motor Cars as the example of focus strategy. First‚ I want to talk about the Volkswagen which is a big company in the world owns VW‚ Audi‚ Porsche‚ Bentley and many other brands. Every brand has the own characteristics. Among these‚ VW produces cars that have the relatively low price because it is the low-level brand. It targets the low and middle class‚ such as Polo‚ Golf‚ Passat‚ Touareg
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definition and execution rather than strategy itself. Since Sears Domestic has a non-competitive cost structure in comparison with its key competitors (e.g. Walmart‚ Target‚ Home Depot‚ etc.) ‚ it is wiser to pursue differentiation strategy than low-cost strategy. In addition‚ Sears need more focus on customer segments to compete. Therefore‚ in our recommendations‚ we will put emphasis on action plan in order to materialize Sears’ focus differentiation strategy‚ which includes two main groups of recommendations:
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