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Alternative Strategies

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Alternative Strategies
For many years IBM has been a leader within the technology industry by innovating and continuing to advance within the market. As a major leader in the technology industry it is important to understand the current strategies used along with future strategies that may assist IMB in future growth and success. According to Watkins (2007), “A business strategy is a set of guiding principles that, when communicated and adopted in the organization, generates a desired pattern of decision making” (Para 1). Having a clear understanding of what a business strategy is and how it can affect the success of a business is the first step in determining the different strategies and the advantages of each. At the start of IBM, a product differentiation strategy was implemented in order to gain entrance into the market. At the time IBM was starting a new idea of cloud computing began to emerge. Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (Grigoriou, Retana, and Rothaermel, 2013). The advantage to using a product differentiation strategy is to gain entrance into the market by producing a new and innovative product that consumers not only want but need. After years of developing the product it would be in the best interest of IMB to utilize the business strategy of competitive advantage. IBM can accomplish this business strategy by offering the innovative cloud computing within the market allows IBM to offer a higher price for the product. The idea of offering a higher price on the software allows companies to see the value based on IBM differentiating the product from the competition. Another strategy IBM can use within their business model is economies of scale. Being a larger firm, IBM has the ability to produce a larger volume of product output which enables the company to

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