The Strategies to achieve competitive positions

The Strategies to achieve competitive positions Choose one of the four competitive positions mentioned in the strategy lecture and discuss, using examples, the marketing strategies an organisation would employ to achieve that position. Competitive strategies are chosen by firms depending on their roles in the market leader, challenger, follower or nicher. This essay will focus on firms who are market leaders and what marketing strategies are used to help them achieve that position. Every industry has its own market leader. Kotler, P. (2005) believes the market leader is one that has the largest market share or highest profitability margin in a given market for goods and services. Market leader often leads other firms in product innovation, price changes; distribution channels and promotion strategies. Good examples of market leaders would be Apple with their ranges of IPod, touch phones and tablet computer, Google with its search engine, social networking Facebook and Tesco (supermarket chains). Market leadership is extremely important. Almost every firm wants to be the first in the market. The reason is not only the revenue but it is because most customers prefer to buy from leaders. They perceive leaders to be better and they perceive leaders to be a safer purchase. Reference groups are great in influencing consumers behaviour. People tend to buy from where everyone else buys, this helps strengthening the leaders position. To become a market leader, a firm needs to own and control the relevant technology in whatever market it is in either through the use of patent or other proprietary protections. Moreover, it needs to adopt and implement better technologies directly, whenever they become available, regardless of whether or not any other organisations are currently using them. It is critical to be the first to use a technology or create a category for a product. Then make it an industry standard. Baines, P., Fill, C. Page, K. (2008) defined the two main strategies used by firms to achieve market leadership position are: Attack the market Defend the position Apart from expanding the total demand and protecting market share, the market leaders should try to expanding market share, even if market size remains constant (Kotler Gary, 2005). Forth strategy is proposed by Brassington, F Pettitt, S. (2006) who believed that companies should also seek stability and retention of customer base. In this essay, the four strategies will be analysed with appropriate examples of firms that applied those strategies successfully and firms that failed during competition. Attack the market Attack the market can be operated in different ways. The firms can create new uses, new consumers categories or increase frequency of use. This strategy is extremely popular as the dominant firm normally gains the most when the total market expands. In general, the market leader should look for new customers or more usage from existing customers. Every product has the potential of attracting buyers who are unaware of the product or who are still under consideration because of price or the products do not have some certain features. A company can search for new users among three groups: those who might use it but do not (market-penetration strategy), those who have never used it (new-market segment strategy), or those who live elsewhere (geographical-expansion strategy). Example: Johnson Johnson baby shampoo was losing market share due to birth rate declining, they had expand their customers segmentation, targeting adults which helped them regain their leader position. (New user) Kelloggs Crunchy Nut has expanded their ranges and introduced snack bars which increase frequency of use, relatively increase sales of the product. Defend the position/Protect market share The leader must constantly monitor the market because the market challenger is persistently trying to take away market share or worse, to replace the leaders position in the market. The firms can defend their positions in the market and their market share by monitoring their position, regular innovation; eliminate any weaknesses, price cutting and discount, increases promotion. Defend the position in the market is a difficult task for market leaders since they may be under attack from numbers of different competitors small to medium firms in the existing market or big players want to expand from a completely different industry. Although defence strategies may require a deployment of resources to defend different parts of the operation, it is hard of a challenger brand to dislodge a market leader if the market leader is actively defending territory. There are six different ways in defense strategy which are: Position defense (purely defensive is not enough, firms must take offensive counter-measure). It is considered as the least successful in the defense strategies. This defense was use by Mercedes until Toyota launched a frontal attack with its Lexus. Mobile defense (more than aggressively defend, stretches domain over new territories) E.g.: Legend Holdings, the top China PC maker Legend has announced a joint venture with AOL to broaden its business to provide Internet services in the mainland. Flanking defense (guarding territory is not enough, firms must create outposts/flanks to protect weak front and invasion base for counter attack) E.g. Gold Eagle is a flanking brand introduced by San Miguel in the Philippines as a defense against APBs Beerhausen. Contraction defense (strategic withdrawal: give up weak territories, concentrates strength and resources at more dependable areas). The market leader must make its own assessment to prioritise the importance of territories and should be willing to relinquish those that are not important to defend for those that are. E.g. Indias TATA Group sold its soaps and detergents business units to Unilever in 1993 or Ford retired T-birds and Probe to focus on Contour and Taurus. Pre-emptive defense (Detect potential attacks and attack the enemies first) Seiko with 2,300 watch models is considered as a successful example for this category while Heinz proved failure as they did not respond to Hunts attack which leaded to Hunt established a rival brand. Counter-offensive defense (Respond to competitors head-on attack by identifying the attackers weakness and then launch a counter attack) E.g. Toyota launched the Lexus to respond to Mercedes attack. Continuous innovation is considered as the best way to protect market share and is required for long-term leadership. When leaders become self-satisfied with their products or services, it becomes easier for the challenger to make progress. In large markets, small increases in market share can turn into great sales increases; a one-point gain in market share can be worth hundreds of millions of pounds. However not every firm understands the importance of continuous innovative process and often failed in retaining their positions in the market. Companies are hindered from investing and following through with innovation because they fear cannibalising established products (Tellis Golder, 1996). In order to protect mainframe sales, IBM obstructed its development of minicomputers and workstations while competitors kept making inroads into the mainframe market. Another reason why companies are less worried about innovation is that they are satisfied with their progress. Yahoo was satisfied with its social networking Yahoo 360Â  [1]Â  until the company started to lose market share to Facebook and Friendster in Asia. Thirdly, large bureaucracies can discourage innovations or slow the progress when companies bring new products to market. GM and IBM are well-known examples for this problem. Despite their technological strength and financial resources, both companies were slow to bring out new products because of their bureaucratic approval process. Firms that do well in continuous innovation are Apple, Procter Gamble. Apple was certainly not the first manufacturer to MP3 players but its iPod was totally different to anything else on the market at the time of its release. Apple has a large range of IPod from IPod shuffle, IPod Nano with stylish shapes or IPod classic for music lovers as they can hold a great number of files and IPod touch for multifunctional uses. The firm also introduced to its customers a range of IPhone from 2G-3GS and promising the new version of IPhone (IPhone 5) in 2011. Procter Gamble the worlds largest consumer products company- takes innovation seriously which shown in their heavily investment in innovative process. They outspend competition in Research and Development believing if they provide branded products of superior quality and value that improve the lives of the worlds consumers, consumers will reward them with leadership sales, profit and value creations. They are well-known for their open innovation outlook. As not all brilliant ideas are coming from internal, it is critically for firms to seek new ideas, innovations from outside. PG has introduced three different networks in which they encouraged their employees to interact with outside world or link different companies in different part of the world working towards a same goal. By doing this, they have received exceptional amount of new ideas, innovative products to increase sales and market share in consumers market. Expand market share Expand market share can gain great profits for the company but there is a drawback. Too many customers can put a strain on the firms resources, hurting product value and service delivery. Example: America Online experienced growing pains when its customer base expanded, resulting in system outages and access problems (Kotler Keller, 2006). Consumers may also infer that bigger is not better and assume that growth will lead to a deterioration of quality. If exclusivity is a key brand benefit, existing customer may resent additional new customers. (Kotler Keller, 2006) This strategy can be operated via the marketing mix. However this strategy can provoke antitrust action or anti-dumping charge. Vietnamese rice export market has received multiple charges on dumping issues in European market trying to gain more market share in short period of time. Economic cost such as legal costs needs to be taking in consideration. Wrong marketing mix strategy is also one of the problems firms face when expanding market share (for example: focus on unattractive segments). Successful example of firm in expanding market share is Starbucks. The company plans to continue to rapidly expand its retail operations, grow its specialty sales and other operations, and selectively pursue opportunities to leverage the Starbucks brand through the introduction of new products and the development of new distribution channels. Seek stability and retention of customer base Tesco is a great example for applying this strategy. They try to retain customers loyal via promotion and Club card which customers can save as they shop and spend the points on various products. Tesco seeks stability, it competes on prices with rivals such as Sainsburys and Asda, although it also focuses on customer service, how to deliver good service with reasonable price to the customers. It is important that leader firms understand their strengths and weaknesses, also have a clear view of their competitors in the market. Choosing the right defense strategy is critical in order to retain their position as leaders and continue to expand the total market and market share, as well as profitability. Market leaders should take innovation seriously in order to stay in the leading position.

Curriculum Leader as Change Agent

Curriculum Leader as Change Agent The profession of nursing is a vital part of the health care system. Any change in the system brings about change in the profession. Nursing, as a profession, continues to stand to the challenge of the times. The workplace environment for health care workers has undergone change, too. There is a wide range of continuous improvement of healthcare forces brought about by technological advances and modernization in society especially in the field of nursing curriculum. Responding to the challenge brought about by these changes in the healthcare environment and the healthcare workplace means major reforms in the delivery and management of the health care system. It means a health care workforce function as a change agent and create a preferred future for nursing Leader education and nursing practice who is ready and prepared to meet the advances of modern society and its accompanying challenges. It is for this reason that every nurse should pursue the pathway of curriculum educator. As educator leader, we are envisioned to be integrated and comprehensive approaches to health development. It endeavors to make essential goods, health and nursing education as part of the so called re-engineering Change in the healthcare system has a major impact on how, where, and even who practice nursing (Catalino, 1996). Nurses will need to get involved in decisions about where healthcare is going. They need to band together as a profession and exert potential power that they have access to politicians, physicians, hospital administrators, and insurance companies in shaping the future of their profession. Preparing nurse educator curricula must address the core of knowledge and skills essential for effectiveness and excellence in the nurse educator role and make transparent the scope and standards of nurse educator practice. Each nurse educator course specifically addresses one or more of the core competencies including curriculum design, assessment and evaluation, instructional technology, and designing systems to support change in nursing education. Nurse educator as leader and agent to change must encourage students, co workers and other professions to tell their stories, assess their strengths and weaknesses, and describe their growth and development in the educator role. This facet of nursing should engages future nurses in critical thinking, fosters creativity, and motivates them to use standards to inform their own practice. Most importantly, the Nurse Educator as leader and agent of change challenges students to reflect upon their academic preparation in each of the core competencies and prepares them to assume roles as leaders and innovators in the practice and science of nursing education. Nurse educator as innovator should also reflect on the essence of each of the competencies in their practice; select evidence that demonstrates their knowledge and abilities for each competency; and project excellence based on their learning and professional goals, on the core competencies of nurse educators. For example, facilitate learning , facilitate learner development and socialization, use assessment and evaluation strategies, participate in curriculum design and evaluation of program outcomes, function as change agent and leader, pursue continuous quality improvement in the nurse educator role, engage in scholarship, and function within the educational environment. Ultimately, sharing information about the core competencies of nurse educators challenge to develop the components of our role in all its dimensions and inspires excellence in their practice as nurse educators.

Materials of Logistics in Management Essay

The efficiency of any manufacturing organisation depends on the availability of component parts and materials in the proper quantity, quality, price, range and time. Failure in any of these areas increases costs and decreases profit as certainly as outmoded production methods or ineffective selling techniques. This simple but obvious point has only recently come to be properly understood. This book presents the principles, methods and strategies that represent the modern approach to materials management in all sectors of the economy. In analysing business operations, the phrase â€Å"Value-added concept1†² is often used to characterise the difference between the cost of component materials and the selling price of the finished product. This difference in value represents the unique contribution of each organisation to the production process. Many companies produce component parts and materials for other firms manufacturing specialised products Remanded by the customers. On an average, a manufacturing firm buys slightly more than half of the rupee value of its sales. In other words, the value added is typically less than 50 per cent of its sales. Conversely, the average company purchases materials valued at more than half of what it sells. Therefore, a firm’s profit is to a large extent determined by how effectively it procures and manages these materials. The organisational approach known as materials management has gained validity in recent years. Production and operations managers found it necessary to develop an organised body of knowledge related to planning, acquisition and utilisation of materials in the process of production and it has resulted in the discipline known as â€Å"mate-rials management†. All activities involved in bringing materials into and through the plant are combined under one head known as â€Å"materials manager†. By giving the materials manager overall authority, responsibility is centralised to assure that the overall cost of materials is kept at the low’est possible level. The basic rationale for this organisational change is to overcome the problems of conflicting objectives. For cample, purchase department’s concern to ensure continuous supply of component materials may conflict with he inventory control department’s objective to minimise inventory levels or the objective of shipping in full car load lots. Today organisations view procurement as a professional activity including activities involved in obtaining materials at minimum cost, transporting them and providing storage and moving toward the production process. It also includes economic analysis of supply (i. e. , purchase economics), demand and prices and the assessment of international events that affect materials. * evolution of materials management Historically, the five ‘M’s of manufacturing firms viz. Men, Materials, Machines, Money and Methods have shifted their positions from time to time in their relative importance. In the early days of industrialization, the focus was on men (labour) as they were the main source of productive power. Over a period of time, the emphasis shifted towards machines, which became the main source of industrial power after the Industrial Revolution. As the methods of production became more and more complex due to the increased customer demand for sophisticated products of high quality, there was greater need of efficient management to manage the complex production systems. In the early 1920s, purchasing and maintaining stock of materials was the responsibility of purchasing managers or â€Å"chief controllers of purchasing and stores† in many industries. During and immediately after World War II the focus shifted on various functions associated with materials such as purchasing, receiving, inspecting, storing, preserving, handling, issuing, accounting, transporting and disposing surplus and obsolete materials. These functions grouped under one common head known as materials manager and the department responsible for all these activities came to be known as â€Å"materials management department†. But the head of materials management department performed a staff function to support the production department and had to report to the production head (director of production) in the organizational hierarchy. The oil crisis of the 1970’s changed the priorities of industries all over the world. The exorbitant hike in oil prices and the heavy budget allocations on oil made the industries to control their expenditure on the inputs, mainly materials of all kinds because of the large scope to reduce the expenses on materials. Since the beginning of 20th century, materials have been getting more and more attention and will continue to do so in the future also. Now a days material has* become an important and inevitable input of a production system since the cost of materials and cost on materials (cost incurred in purchasing and storing the materials) put together account for 50 to 85% of the production cost depending on the nature of the product and the type of the production system. Modern manufacturing organisations adopted systems approach to management, which resulted in the integrated materials management concept. All functions related to materials such as materials planning, purchasing, storing and inventory control were integrated under materials management function. The position of the head of the integrated materials management department was elevated to be on par with heads of other functional areas viz. production, finance and human resources. * importance of materials in manufacturing organisations Materials are any commodities used directly or indirectly in producing a product or service such as raw materials, component parts, assemblies and supplies. In the manufacturing organisations, the important inputs are referred to as 5 Ms viz. Men (Labour), Machines, Money, Materials and Methods. The relative importance among these five Ms have shifted from time to time. In the beginning of industrialisation the focus was on machines, men (labour) and methods, but from around 1970 onwards the emphasis is on materials. Material is an important and inevitable input gi J production system since the cost of materials and cost on materials (cost incurred in purchasing and storing the materials) put together account for 50 to 85’* of the production cost depending on the nature of the product and the type of the production system * importance of materials management Management of materials in most organisations is crucial to their success because the cost of purchasing, storing, moving and shipping materials account for over half of the product’s cost. Improving productivity is a crucial factor in facing the challenge of competition and this involves driving down the cost of all aspects of business activities. Since there is maximum scope of cost reduction in the area of materials, doing the job of efficient and effective management of materials is seen as the key to higher productivity.

Procrastination And Its Effects On Understanding...

Procrastination has often been lumped into one broad category, understood as the action of delaying to initiate or complete a task, often done through means of finding distractions or by displaying other avoidant characteristics. One mainstream interpretation distinguishes between â€Å"arousal type† procrastinators (those who procrastinate until they experience a sense of euphoria, resulting from approaching deadline pleasures), â€Å"the avoiders† (who may lack confidence in their abilities to complete tasks sufficiently and procrastinate due to a fear of failure) along with â€Å"decisional procrastinators† (who struggle with the initiation stage) (Marano, 2003). While many reasons for procrastinating exist (disinterest in the task, prioritizing other†¦show more content†¦Personality traits, sex, and preference in conversation topics were all looked at as additional predictor variables. Might individuals with certain personality types procrastinate mo re in one domain over another? Do males or females, on average, procrastinate in more domains? Could an individual’s procrastination patterns be discerned from the conversation topics they most often partake in? To answer our question regarding personality, we utilized The Big Five Model due to its empirical validity. This model consists of five mutually exclusive factors, commonly referred to as Extroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness to Experience. Individuals who score high on the Extroversion scale are often talkative, sociable, adventurous and open about their views. It has been suggested that extroversion plays a role in procrastination, likely tied to arousal-related motives (â€Å"arousal type† procrastinators). Individuals who prefer to work under heightened arousal –a result of knowing that they are near a deadline- often relate to extroverted traits (Simpson Pychyl, 2009). The relationship between personality and acad emic-related procrastination has also been explored. 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