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What are the main tools and techniques that the quest for productivity, quality and speed have spawned?
Total quality management, benchmarking, time-based competition, outsourcing, partnering, reengineering, change management.
Competitive strategy is about…
Being different by choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value.
A strategic position is not sustainable unless…
There are trade-offs with other positions.
Why are Trades-off essential to strategy?
They create the needs for choice and purposefully limit what a company offers
Where do the threats to strategy emanate from?
Changes in technology or the behavior of competitors.
What’s the meaning of strategic positioning?
Performing different activities from rivals’ or performing similar activities in different ways.
How does Ikea design their own low-cost and ready to assemble furniture?
In huge stores they display every product they sell in room-like settings, so customers don’t need a decorator to help them imagine how to put the pieces together.
¿What do trade-offs create?
Trade-offs create the need for choice and protect against repositioners and staddlers.
Why is Fit important?
Because discrete activities often affect one another.
The pursuit of operational effectiveness is selective because...
It is concrete and actionable
Which country was far ahead of its rivals and could offer lower cost and better quality at the same time?
Japan
Which are the main 3 origins of strategic positions? Explain each.
1. Variety-based positioning is based on the choice of the product or service rather than customer segments
2. Needs-based positioning which comes closer to traditional thinking, it arises when there are groups of customers with differing needs
3. Access-based positioning is the segmenting of customers who are accessible in different ways, although their needs are similar.
3 reasons that trade-offs arise.
1. Inconsistencies in image or reputation.
2. From activities.
3. From limits on internal coordination and control.
3 Types of Fit
1. Simple consistency
2. Activities reinforcing
3. Optimization of effort
Broadly targeted strategies emphasizing low price result in…
Lost sales with customers sensitive to features or service. Differentiators lose sales to price-sensitive customers.
What can happen after a decade of impressive gains in operational effectiveness?
Some companies can face a diminishing return.
What is strategy?
Creation of a unique and valuable position, involving a different set of activities.
¿What is strategy? Respecting Trade-offs in competing
The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do
The fit among activities substantially reduces cost or increases differentiation. TRUE or FALSE.
True
What approaches to growth preserve and reinforce strategy?
Look for extensions of the strategy that leverage the existing activity system by offering features of services that rivals would find impossible or costly to match.