Chapter 1:
1) What is competitive advantage, and how does it relate to a company’s business model?
Answer:
Competitive advantage is a very important strategy for any company but few companies understand the value of competitive advantage and try to achieve and keep it. Competitive advantage is “When a company performs better than its competitors by developing an attribute or combination of an attributes. It is also referred as any type of activity that creates superior value when compared to its competitors. There are two important types of competitive advantage i.e. Cost leadership and differentiation. Cost leadership means a company should implement activities that decrease the cost of manufacturing, design and standard processes. Competitive advantage is a sub-component of a Business model. Business model focuses on different areas of a business which includes competitive advantage. Business model describes how a company competes, interfaces with customers, its resource management, its product sales, its product offerings and relationships. We will discuss this with an example of Walmart. Walmart selected its customers from sub-urban area and providing products and services to the customers with the low cost than the local retailers and other competitors in a particular area. Walmart also …show more content…
They are the final decision makers for all strategies in the company. Decisions on strategy involves organization wide matters. The goals are what the company wish to achieve at least a year into future. Top level managers invest the most time in making decisions involving plans. They have more power in decisions than middle management. Corporate manager’s duty is to examine business level strategies to make sure they are in harmony with the organizational goals and thus they can yield maximum performance and then strategic advantage in an