Competitive Strategy Tactics - Goals - Descriptions and Objectives

Question: Discuss about the case study Competitive Strategy for Tactics, Goals, Descriptions and Objectives. Answer: Week 3 Video assignment The video explains the key ideas of strategy and shows how strategies differ from tactics, goals, descriptions and objectives. The word strategy has been originated from the Greek work Strategos which means The art of the General and basically it refers to the strategies made for the war by the Generals. The strategies were made to win the war. Similarly, in market firms has to win over the competitors customers (Santos et al.2012). The key idea related to the strategies is to provide answers to the firm about where to compete, what unique value to bring in the production, how to utilize the resource capabilities and how to sustain the unique value of the production. Ikea is the first furniture retailer, which has put stores in all the major countries, and produce Scandinavian style low priced contemporary furniture. It has developed larger scale of market and sells the furniture at reasonable priced showrooms which fulfils the customer requirement in a short period. It adopts mass-production techniques and supplies the product at flat boxes that have the unassembled pieces and the products are assembled by the customers and reduce the shipping cost drastically. Due to the low shipping cost, Ikea is able to spread a larger volume of goods across the globe. The strategy was difficult for the competitors to imitate as most of them do not manufacture their furniture and cannot ship their products in flat boxes (Walker and Madsen 2016). However, Ikea do not have the market for high end furniture and do not provide customize service to the customers. Ikea designs its furniture but do not manufacture it and give it for job work to small manufactures to reduce its cost. Hence Ikea is the classic example that explains the strategy concept as the company has created a unique value to its product and able to compete successfully in the market. Further, able to sustain over a longer period due to its uniqueness which could not be imitated by other competitors. Week 4 Video assignment The video explains the how to revolutionize the industry by adopting innovative business models. According to it, the big successful companies like Nokia, Kodak have lost their edge, not because of having less resources or knowledge or inefficient employees but because of not rethinking their business model and missing out radical innovation. The business model innovation provides answer to questions like who it the target customer, what should be offered to them, how to develop the proposition of value and how to generate the revenue (Jayawardhana and Weerawardena 2014). The key ideas that should be considered to innovate the business model are initiation, ideation, integration and implementation. In Initiation, the current business model are analysed and the answer to the general questions of whom, what and how, is obtained. In ideation, the existing business model is compared with other 55 business models and a new innovative model is developed. During integration, the consistency of the business model is checked and finally in implementation, the model is first put to test through pilot test and data are collected to verify the assumptions and the results (Bocken et al. 2014). Lastly, some important things should be taken into consideration, one business model should be implemented at a time, communications about the model should be clear and required changes should be made, put emphasis on short term and should have committed management. The examples for innovative business model can be seen in the firms like Google, Amazon and Ebay. Their success lied not only on technology but also on their innovative business model. The company taken here is Google. Due to advanced technology application, Google has climbed the path of success but cold sustain their due to rethinking its business model whenever required and building innovative business model. When Google started facing huge competition, it adopted the strategy of initiation and went through its existing business model, which was then compared with other business models of the industry, and a new innovative model was developed under ideation strategy (Amit and Zott 2012). It diversified its product into electronics good like phone and music system and adopted low cost strategy to charge competitive price .The consistency of the model is checked and then implemented with pilot testing under integration and implementation strategy. Week 5 Video assignment The video has the explanation of the key ideas of CAGE framework to evaluate the international trade opportunities by Pankaj Ghemawat. According to him, CAGE framework is based on international trade that explains the factors on which trade between the countries are influenced heavily (Nicita 2013). C stands for cultural difference between countries which becomes the reason for trade, A stands for administrative role in making the trade between the countries effective by reducing the political influence, G stands for geographical boundaries and E stands for economic conditions of the countries that creates the environment for international trade (DaSilva and Trkman 2014). CAGE plays an important role in increasing or reducing the trade between the countries. For example, the merchandise trade between the two countries will increase if they have same official language, common border and close per capita income levels. However, this may be not true in all countries case as there is hug e number of countries but is true in some of the prominent cases. For example, Canada is one of the developed economy having the largest share of international trade with United States, another developed economy. In terms of bilateral trade, Canada is the largest trade partner of United States. The reason can be stated as similar official language, similar per capita income, common border and similar ways of administration between the countries (Coughlin and Novy 2013). Hence the CAGE commonalities are the reasons for large volume of trade between Canada and United States. However, it may not be true in some other cases where trade takes place between developed and developing countries like Canada and Mexico. Hence, the concept of CAGE holds true for some great trading partners but diversity being the rule of globalization, it cannot hold universally for all the trading relations between the countries. 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How organizational learning affects a firm's flexibility, competitive strategy, and performance. Journal of Business Research, 65(8), pp.1079-1089. Walker, G. and Madsen, T.L., 2016. Modern competitive strategy. McGraw-Hill Education.