Respond to each question with 150-200 words each. Original work, no plagiarism accepted!

If any references available provide with each question.

Question 1:What types of competitive strategies are the most effective? Will the same strategy work in most venues? Why or why not? The main objective of a competitive strategy is to generate a competitive advantage for the firm. This could be achieved in form of high customer loyalty, improved brand value and increased sales. There are three generic competitive strategies namely cost leadership, differentiation and focus group given by Porter. In todays world people talk about sustained competitive advantage. Thus all the three strategies have to be evaluated on the paradigm of how much competitive advantage they provide to a firm. Cost leadership; although a good strategy is highly duplicable and only companies with deep pocket can afford to stay competitive. Focus strategies drive towards building a niche segment and needs high degree of innovation which might not be the core competence of every firm. Thus is comes down to differentiation where the products and services are given certain features or is perceived to be different from similar services. This does not require high degree of innovation or cost reduction but helps in creating a competitive advantage for firms. This strategy will work for most of the venues but cannot be applicable to each and every industry and economy. There are chances of customers not looking only for differentiation but complete new innovation especially in developed economies. Similarly the customers of developing and underdeveloped economies are highly sensitive to prices and there cost leadership will be more successful. Question 2: Why do we want to create measurement devices early in the strategy process? How do metrics allow us to track the strategy process once it is implemented? How is environmental scanning helpful in choosing the appropriate metric guidelines to use? Creating measurement devices at the early process ensures that the leaders take this strategy process as very important parameter for success. It also motivates the leader and other members of the companies. It increases the accountability of the people and helps tracking and correcting the performance. It also help in identifying the major faults in the process and leads to generation of ideas for improvement. Metrics allows us to track the strategy process after implementation by providing and measuring various performance variables. These variables directly reflect future profitability and sustainability of the company. For example ratios like inventory turnover, debt-equity etc helps to track the health of various areas of a company.

Environmental scanning helps in identifying key factors that are responsible for profitability and sustainability of business. Thus metrics are defined in a way that environmental factors get reflected in them. For example if the key environmental factor for a company is a technical factor like level of automations or social factors like manpower skills than metrics like productivity and turnover per employee will be used. Question 3: How far should people in a business firm go in gathering competitive

intelligence? Where do you draw the line? Evaluate each of the following approaches that a person could use to gather information about competitors. For each approach, mark your feeling about its appropriateness: 1 (DEFINITELY NOT APPROPRIATE), 2 (PROBABLY NOT APPROPRIATE), 3 (UNDECIDED), 4 (PROBABLY APPROPRIATE), OR 5 (DEFINITELY APPROPRIATE). The business firm should try to get useful information about competitors by: 5_____ Carefully studying trade journals 1_____ Wiretapping the telephones of competitors 2_____ Posing as a potential customer to competitors 1_____ Getting loyal customers to put out a phony request for proposal soliciting competitors bids 3_____ Buying competitors products and taking them apart 2_____ Hiring management consultants who have worked forcompetitors 1_____ Rewarding competitors employees for useful tips 4_____ Questioning competitors customers and/or suppliers 3_____ Buying and analyzing competitors garbage 1_____ Advertising and interviewing for nonexistent jobs. Taking public tours of competitors facilities 1_____ Releasing false information about the company inorder to confuse competitors 4_____ Questioning competitors technical people at trade shows and conferences 4_____ Hiring key people away from competitors 3_____ Analyzing competitors labor union contracts 1_____ Having employees date persons who work for competitors 1_____ Studying aerial photographs of competitors facilities

After marking each of the preceding approaches, post your results to the thread. For each approach, the people marking 4 or 5 should say why they thought this particular act would be appropriate. Those who marked 1 or 2 should then state why they thought this act would be inappropriate. Discuss and compare your responses to at least 2 other people in our class