...Employing Strategy in a Competitive Environment Lutuéce Hurt Dr. Lloyd H. Stebbins, P.E. Strategic Management BUS 599 May 5, 2013 Create an environmental scan for the company indicating the most significant environmental threats and discuss how the company should respond to each threat to ensure that the impact to the business is minimal. The significant success for any organization is strategic planning. To develop a successful plan would require the organization to have a comprehensive understanding of their current environment. Environmental scanning is used to establish the focus of the strategic plan. To conduct an environmental scan external and internal information should be evaluated. A SWOT analysis will focus on the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities. We will discuss the most signification environmental threats for Southwest Airlines. There are many environmental factors that could influence the performance of the company, Southwest Airlines, which provides low-cost air travel and service. This student will discuss two environmental threats pertaining to Southwest Airlines. Two environmental factors that have a major impact on how businesses operate are: economic factors and regulations. September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center was a moment in history that effected Nation and the U.S. economy. Most importantly the airline industry was threatened by the aftermath of the economy. “The events of September...
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...Employing Strategy in a Competitive Environment DRS Production Inc. is an independent film production company whose primary function is to provide self-help videos specifically catering to Cable and Satellite dish networks company’s customers within the Beltway area. The primary target market that will be the focus of DRS Productions will be cable and satellite providers. Initially and more specifically Comcast Cable Communications will be our primary client. Presently, Comcast serves a total of 24.6 million cable customers (Comcast, 2008); DRS Production Inc. will position itself to potential clients as the go-to provider for self-help applications for their customers. 90% percent of calls routed to customer service are troubleshooting calls; most of them are easily addressable by sending signals, checking connections and simple programming steps. By creating step by step instructions that can be easily assessable through either the menu options or internet will significantly reduce inbound customer service calls. Our primary functional positioning strategy is to demonstrate that from a cost perspective it just makes sense to provide these services to their customers. Upon creating an environmental scan, both the threats and strengths of DRS will be identified. Additionally a significant competitor will be identified and discussion will take place surrounding how to compete against said competitors. With the U.S. economy in a state of decline, I’ll identify any modifications...
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...Employing Strategy in a Competitive Environment Strayer University BUS59920 [ May 26, 2013 ] Introduction Strategic management is a vital part of managing today’s businesses. Environmental scanning is one component of strategic management where various economic, political and social factors are studied, that might affect the business. Environmental scanning can help businesses identify untapped markets and make costly mistakes. Two common strategic management tools used by managers are; SWOT analysis and PESTLE analysis. “PESTLE is an acronym for "political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental." The purpose of a PESTLE analysis is to identify all of the various external political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors that might affect a business. Managers then assess the risks that the identified factors pose and use that knowledge to inform decisions. SWOT is an acronym for "strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats." The goal of a SWOT analysis is to create lists of all of the internal and external strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to inform strategic planning decisions. SWOT is meant to help businesses double down on strengths, eliminate weaknesses, pursue opportunities and avoid or prepare for threats.” (Hamel) Environmental Scan Indicating the Most Significant Environmental Threats An environmental scan was completed for the software and IT Service Company in the Washington, DC area. Politics...
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...BUS 599 Assignment 2 - Employing Strategy in a Competitive Market To Purchase Click Link Below: http://strtutorials.com/BUS-599-Assignment-2-Employing-Strategy-in-a-Competitive-Marke-BUS5992.htm BUS 599 Assignment 2 - Employing Strategy in a Competitive Market Write a 4-5 Words paper in which you: o Create an environmental scan for the company indicating the most significant environmental threats and discuss how the company should respond to each threat to ensure that the impact to the business is minimal. o Based on the environmental scan, evaluate the company’s strengths and evaluate how the company can leverage these strengths so as to yield a competitive advantage in the marketplace. o Identify a significant competitor for the company and assess how your company will compete against it to maximize profits and create value for stakeholders. o Assume that the U.S. economy is in a state of decline requiring modifications to the strategy. Evaluate how the strategy should be modified. Provide a justification of how this will help the company continue to compete in the marketplace. o Evaluate how global competition may impact the business strategy and determine how the company should respond. o Use at least four (4) quality academic resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not qualify as academic resources. Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements: 1. Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font...
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...BUS 599 Assignment 2 - Employing Strategy in a Competitive Market To Purchase Click Link Below: http://strtutorials.com/BUS-599-Assignment-2-Employing-Strategy-in-a-Competitive-Marke-BUS5992.htm BUS 599 Assignment 2 - Employing Strategy in a Competitive Market Write a 4-5 Words paper in which you: o Create an environmental scan for the company indicating the most significant environmental threats and discuss how the company should respond to each threat to ensure that the impact to the business is minimal. o Based on the environmental scan, evaluate the company’s strengths and evaluate how the company can leverage these strengths so as to yield a competitive advantage in the marketplace. o Identify a significant competitor for the company and assess how your company will compete against it to maximize profits and create value for stakeholders. o Assume that the U.S. economy is in a state of decline requiring modifications to the strategy. Evaluate how the strategy should be modified. Provide a justification of how this will help the company continue to compete in the marketplace. o Evaluate how global competition may impact the business strategy and determine how the company should respond. o Use at least four (4) quality academic resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not qualify as academic resources. Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements: 1. Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font...
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...The five generic competitive strategies that any industry uses are basically based on cost and product differentiation or a mix of both with a broader or focused implementation. In Cost Leadership strategy the industry focuses on producing low cost products in the existing market and tries to attract larger section of consumers by keeping relatively low price of products. On the other hand, differentiation strategy involves creating an edge over the competition by making the products and services different in a better way from that of the competitors. When we focus these any of these two strategies for a segment of product, market or consumer section it becomes the other two types of competitive strategy. The fifth category can be seen as a mix of all these strategies that is used wherever possible to get the maximum benefits for the industry, but it can be a little complex to implement effectively. When we look at the strategies that have been used by Chipotle Mexican Grill throughout, it mostly comes close to the differentiation approach. Chipotle is also a fast food chain that serves fast food that is freshly cooked for the customers shortly after the order being placed. There are many other big and small players in this category in the same market, such as McDonalds and Qdoba Mexican Grills etc., but Chipotle still remains the first choice among Mexican fast food lovers because Chipotles menu and food in that is different than that offered by the others. Chipotle strives to...
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...and Strategy NAME: Professor: Institution: Course: Date: Introduction Xactly is a software company offering science oriented solutions on incentive compensation programs and performance management. The company develops software that enables other companies survive in this fast changing technological environment by enabling them shift from the old complex paradigm of using sales compensation incentives based on spreadsheets to cloud based sales compensation incentive programs. This helps them manage, design, and optimize sales compensation incentives hence saving on costs, time, reducing risk, and aligning workers behaviors with company goals. Magal and Word (2009) argued that, “business processes are the tasks of activities that companies use to produce goods or services, and these activities are supported by Information and Communication Technology (ICT), such as computers, the internet and information systems." Therefore, it is imperative that the company’s business processes are aligned to its business strategies. Xactly’s business strategy of mass customization lieu industrial standardization calls for targeted focus and stringent campaign co-ordination, which are essential for promoting an enabling environment for continuous growth and improvement. Xactly also recognizes that constant communication is imperative for building profitable relationships. Therefore, the company adopted a proactive social strategy as another business strategy to steer...
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...the company should follow. Their main purpose was to make textbooks affordable and available for online access to all students and save them paying lots of money for hard copy books. After many professors and college teachers adopted this way of textbook access, it shows how successful their planning is and work on it to make it more convenient. 2. What competitive advantages does Flat World Knowledge possess? Flat World Knowledge possesses many competitive advantages. One of them is the ability to offer a huge variety of textbooks in an online version with unlimited access to all of the students. Doing so will exclude the factor of lack of supply of the textbook at the book store and eliminate waiting time to have the book. In addition, the fact that they are providing these textbooks at a reduced cost from the actual manufacture cost gave FWK a huge advantage against their competitors in the textbook market. 3. What are Flat World Knowledge’s key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats? Talking about FWK strengths is represented by its easy access, up-to-date revisions, personalized learning strategies and cheap access. With respect to its weakness, we should mention that FWK will no longer have free access to the books online due to the 30 million dollar investment. With respect to the opportunities, students find online access as more convenient and such a cheap alternative. Also it makes it better with the variety of versions...
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...Group MAX Presentation. Question: What are the elements of Dell Strategy? Which one of the 5 Generic Competitive Strategies is Dell Employing? How well do the different pieces of Dell Strategies Fit together? In what ways is Dell Strategy Evolving? 1. What are the elements of Dell Strategy? (Page C121) a. Build To Order. This concept great reduced cost and risk associated with carrying large stock of parts, components and finish goods b. Selling to customer directly. By bypassing distributors and retail dealers eliminating the markup of resellers and thus passing on the discounts to end user making computer priced low and affordable c. Partnering closely with suppliers. To squeeze and bring down the cost of the entire supply chain d. Expanding into add-on products and services. To capture the a bigger share of the customer’s IT budget e. Providing good customer service and technical support. f. R&D focus on meeting the needs of the customers. g. Standardizing technologies for all product offerings. h. Web Site strategy - prospective buyers could review Dell’s entire product line in detail, configure and price customized PCs, place orders, and track orders from manufacturing through shipping i. Low cost manufacturing to grow sales & market share in both the PC and server segment and expand into other product category such as flatscreen LCD TV, MP3 player, DVD drivers, printers, scanners, modems,...
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...out of this issue. The first challenge that employing mature worker concerns with an unavoidable effect of aging. Aging inevitably brings deterioration in physical, physiological and psychosocial capacities. Loss of physical strength, vision, hearing and mental agility becomes a major challenge in the employment issue of mature workers, since these will cause unwilling problems in having the job done efficiently and effectively in always demanding working environment. Auspiciously, there are two strategies that can to help to overcome the challenge; administrative solution and engineering solution. Administrative solution, done by the management, means limiting the harmful effects due to the stressful job by job redevelopment, job rotation, flexible work scheduling, etc. Engineering solution, on the other hand, takes care of the job and work environment. With the aim of controlling the risks of physical harms, this strategy is to redesign the tools, equipment and even the job and working environment more suitable for mature worker. This modification will lead to improvement in mature workers’ job performance such as higher productivity. Implementation of these strategies may not completely solve this complicated issue but it will result an obvious improvement. As technology is one of the giant factors that influence the business world, the lack of technology skills is quite challenging for the aged worker to enter the competitive business world. Even though some mature...
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...production of new and innovative products. The marketing and pricing decision making environment of the company was mainly centralized but the General Manger also encouraged creativity by flexible working environment with in the company. First of all let's see what strategy is and why it is important? Basics of Strategy: Strategy decisions are different from other decisions taken for the company. They are distinguished on three levels; Scale: A strategic decision covers the whole circle. Strategy decisions are big decisions and concerns competitors, suppliers as well as customers. Time-span: These decisions mostly impact the medium term and long term objectives of the company although there out come can also be seen in short term. Dedication: This means resources commitment and investment that cannot be undone simply. This is done in the marketing of the company, operation changing etc. (Haberberg A. and Rieple, A. 2008) A company's strategy refers to the when, how and why of its existence and working. It basically entails the efforts that the company's management put in to achieve its objectives that pertains to selection of type of clientele, market situation and market form, what competitive advantage to follow and how to perform successfully in long term with taking into the its implications in short term. (Thompson, A.A. and Strickland, A.J. 2003) Strategic Analysis Strategic analysis is very important for any company, whether operating on small or large...
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...10. What are the five generic competitive strategies? Briefly describe each one and identify the type of competitive advantage that each strategy is aimed at achieving. a. a low-cost provider strategy: striving to achieve lower overall costs than rivals and appealing to a broad spectrum of customers, usually by under-pricing rivals. b. a broad differentiation strategy: seeking to differentiate the company’s product or service from rivals’ in ways that will appeal to a broad spectrum of buyers. c. a focused low cost strategy: concentrating on a narrow buyer segment and outcompeting rivals by having lower costs than rivals and thus being able to serve niche members at a lower price. d. focused differentiation strategy: concentrating on a narrow buyer segment and outcompeting rivals by offering niche members customized attributes that meet their tastes and requirements better than rivals’ products. e. best cost provider strategy: giving customers more value for the money by satisfying buyers’ expectations on key quality/features/performance/service attributes while beating their price expectations. 11. What are distinctive features of a broad differentiation strategy? Under what circumstances is a broad differentiation strategy appealing? The distinctive features of a broad differentiation strategy are: command a premium price, and/ or increase unit sales (because additional buyers are won over by the differentiating features), and/ or gain buyer loyalty to its...
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...tools/choice: Every company use some strategy to improve their business same as IKEA use some effective strategy to improve their business such as: # Low price strategy # Product strategy # Promotion strategy # Market development strategy Low price strategy: IKEA offers a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products in low price. So that, many people can afford them. Low prices are the main keystone of the IKEA concept and help to make customers want to buy from IKEA. This low price strategy is attached with a wide range of well designed, functional products. IKEA’s products are available for every lifestyle and life stage of its customers. Product strategy: * Wide range of product according to the need of customers. * Product available for different section of the society. * Product adaptation according to the need of different market. * Most of the IKEA products are stylish that makes the company unique. * IKEA designs its own furniture. * IKEA offers a Varity of style. Promotion strategy: * High profile advertisement campaigns. * Online shopping. * Online advertisement. * IKEA provide home delivery service to its customers. Market development strategy: Target new segment and enter new markets with existing products. The potential benefits of international expansion are increased market share, revenues, profit and buyer awareness. Cost leadership: Cost leadership strategy increasing common over the period...
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...Differentiating Between Market Structures ECO/365 September 29, 2015 Differentiating Between Market Structures Verizon Wireless is owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and provides telecommunications services to households and businesses in the United States and voice/data services to more than 200 destinations globally. Verizon Wireless is a leader in the industry, Americas first nationwide 3G wireless broadband network, and the nations largest most reliable 4G LTE network (Verizonwireless.com, 2015). Market Structure of Verizon Wireless Verizon Wireless competes in an oligopoly market structure. The oligopoly market consists of few firms, significant barriers to entry, strategic pricing between monopoly and perfect competition, restricted output and the possibility of long-run economic profit (Colander, 2013). The telecommunication service industry consists of a small number of sellers and has high barriers for new entrants. The four leaders of the industry are Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile, combined these firms dominate the market. One of the most important factors that make up the market structure are the barriers that exist. The barriers in the wireless cellular service market exist primarily due to the high costs associated with the infrastructure required to provide reliable wireless service. Another barrier is the limited amount of spectrum (an essential input required to produce cell phone and...
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...people from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds are entering the workforce. Valuing diversity is becoming increasingly important for businesses. Publisher Malcolm Forbes once said that 'diversity is the art of thinking independently together.' Organisations can't thrive and grow if everyone in them thinks and behaves the same way. Having a diverse workforce with people from different racial, educational and social backgrounds and a diverse age range opens up a wealth of possibilities and helps to encourage creativity and foster innovation. There's also a clear competitive advantage to be gained from employing a diverse workforce. An organisation with a diverse range of employees is well placed to understand the needs of a wide range of customers, and can interact with a broad client base. Not only that, but it is also in a good position to recruit and retain staff in an increasingly diverse and competitive labour market. Embedding diversity of thought throughout an organisation also means that talent can be properly recognised and nurtured - wherever it may be. The best starting point for any organisation is to develop a good equality and diversity policy, backed up by a concrete plan of action. Acas experts can visit your organisation to help you understand what needs to be done to address a range of issues related toequality and diversity and then work with you to develop practical In this era of economic globalization, many companies are making efforts to achieve...
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