Subject: Strategic Management

Reflective Final Assignment

Name: Akhil Prakash Damodare

Roll no: M2019HRM008

TISS HRM & LR.

What is Strategy

In order to develop competitive advantage, strategy seeks specific positioning. It is a long-

term phenomenon, with little organisational usefulness or tactics. It's about finding a stance
Operational efficiency: required but not sufficient Operational efficiency and strategy are
both important for superior performance, which is the primary objective of any organisation,
after all. But in very different ways, they work.
Operational efficiency is a commitment to superior performance, such as product
performance. From the class discussions it was clear that;
 Strategy is the creation of a unique and valuable proposition, involving a different
set of activities.
 Strategy requires you to make trade-offs in competing — to choose what not to do.
 Strategy involves creating “fit” among a company's activities.

The notion of generic strategies was introduced by Porter. Cost control, distinction, and
concentration are a clear way of describing one 's role at the broadest level.
 Activities carried out with a sense of desperation are not a tactic.
 Strategy seeks to have a competitive edge
 Tactics are short-term, on a regular basis. Strategy is about searching for a job
 Positioning: is the uniqueness that you are remembered in company
 Positioning must be articulated and warranted
Positioning
Market position refers to the consumer's perception of a brand or product in relation to
competing brands or products. Market positioning refers to the process of establishing the
image or identity of a brand or product so that consumers perceive it in a certain way
Competitive advantage vs sustained competitive advantage
Competitive advantage is something you do better than any of your competitors.
A sustainable competitive advantage is something that an organization or individual does
better than all competition over a long period of time.
Explicit knowledge brings competitive advantage. Tacit knowledge brings sustainable
competitive advantage.
Core competency gives competitive advantage
Competitive Advantage can be understood as the specific feature, which helps the firm to
outrun its rivals at the market place. On the contrary, core competence is defined as the set of
skills and strength, that results in a competitive advantage.
Core competencies are the major source of attaining competitive advantage and determines
the areas, which a firm must focus. It helps the firms in identifying prospective opportunities
for adding value to customers. On the other hand, competitive advantage helps a firm to get
an edge over the competitors.
Competitive advantage refers to any factors that make potential customers choose one
company over another to supply any item or service. 
Example of 5 P’s of Strategy:

Apple

Plan: The technology giant continues to plan to build consumer 
electronics that are easy to use and deliver operational excellence. 
Ploy: The company is highly regarded for delivering creative, distinctive and 
outlandish products that give them a competitive advantage in the industry. 
Pattern: Apple uses the previous technologies that in the past have been 
very popular and follows the same pattern to challenge the market rivalry.
Position: Apple has successfully carved a niche for itself in the market and in the consumers’
minds as a niche and premium brand that offers only high-end products that are difficult to
compete against in terms of both hardware and software capabilities.
Perspective: The core values of Apple are innovation and to think differently and they work
as an integral part of their company culture. And their product offerings to stand as a
testimony to the same.
Glocal strategy
Globalization and global initiatives to tread the globalised route have brought many benefits
to companies around the world and are expected to continue in the future.
Nevertheless, as known from the experiences of many globalised companies around the
world, the achievement of this uniqueness of being global will not, without taking into
account regional and national disparities, fulfil its full potential in a business context.
Standardization has to be combined with ads as part of globalisation.
Strategic Intent is the ambitious goal organization would want to chase as a collective
HUL vs P&G positioning
 HUL: Positions itself as Sustainability personality, they say they are market
competitors
 P & G: Is a product company personality, they do marketing selling but position as a
product company.
 P&G is R&D centric, if they say they have an ingredient they do have it for sure
 So HUL says I am a marketing company, P &G says I am a product company
TO communicate the value or not to do is a company’s choice, depends if the Cx cares they
communicate
In conglomerates;
The Business defines the strategy and not individual groups
TAJ vs TATA Steel, different lines of business will have different strategy
FIRM vs Industry vs Market
 Firm does the business
 Belongs to an Industry
 Market is the demand side phenomenon
Generic Strategic positioning:
there are three activities that can be followed within this positioning framework, variety-
based, needs-based, and access-based. 

1. Variety-based Positioning: This is a strategy wherein a firm produces a subset of an

entire industry’s products o services. It thus chooses to not segment itself by the customer,
but instead through the choice of offering.

2. Needs-based Positioning The converse of variety-based positioning is the option of just

targeting segments of customers and fulfilling all of their needs.

This builds excellence through understanding a customer and capturing its full value
3. Access-based Positioning: The final strategy is targeting customers that have similar
needs, but with disparate access routes to the product or service
Demand side: Market and market structure Market structure refers to the nature and
degree of competition in the market for goods and services. The structures of market both for
goods market and service (factor) market are determined by the nature of competition
prevailing in a particular market

Thus, the market structure can be defined as, the number of firms producing the identical
goods and services in the market and whose structure is determined on the basis of the
competition prevailing in that market.
Supply side phenomenon: Industry and industry structure
the structure of an industry influences both the rules of the competition and the strategies
that are potentially available to the company to help it improve a weak competitive position
or take advantage of a strong one. 
 It’s critical for a company to identify the structural characteristics of industries, as these
determine the strength of the competitive forces acting upon the company and,
consequently, the profitability of the industry as a whole.
RBV of firm
The Resource-Based View of the firm (RBV) is a set of related theories sharing the
assumptions of resource heterogeneity and resource immobility across firms
the RBV comprises theories that explain the existence of (sustained) competitive advantage
and of economic rents
the resource-based view (RBV) assumes the following:

• Resources are heterogeneous across firms.

• Resources are imperfectly mobile across firms.

Resources are “all assets, capabilities, organizational processes, firm attributes, information,

knowledge, etc. controlled by a firm that enable the firm to conceive of and implement
strategies that improve its efficiency and effectiveness
VRIO

The important features for a resource to be strategically important are as below

 Valuable - When resources are able to bring value to the firm, they can be a source of
competitive advantage.
 Rare - Resources have to deliver a unique strategy to provide a competitive
advantage to the firm as compared to the competing firms. Consider the case where a
resource is valuable but it exists in the competitor firms as well. Such a resource is not
rare to provide competitive advantage
 Inimitable - Resources can be sources of sustained competitive advantage if
competing firms cannot obtain them. Consider the case where a resource is valuable
and rare but the competing organizations can copy them easily. Such resources also
cannot be sources of competitive advantage
 Non-substitutable - Resources should not be able to be replaced by any other
strategically equivalent valuable resources. If two resources can be utilized separately
to implement the same strategy then they are strategically equivalent. Such resources
are substitutable and so are not sources of sustained competitive advantage.

Toyota is one such example of an automobile giant that utilized its resources and capabilities
to raise its product quality. It pioneered a lean production system that proved difficult to
replicate.
Capabilities drive your firm’s ability to adapt its core competencies over time.
Rent seeking advantage
  When a firm uses its resources to procure an unwarranted monetary gain from external
elements, be it directly or indirectly, without giving anything in return to them or the society,
it is termed as rent-seeking.
  Instead of creating wealth, a firm seeks to obtain financial gains from others through
alteration/ manipulation of the environment where economic activities take place. A popular
example for rent-seeking is political lobbying by companies. These are primarily done by
companies in order to make economic gains through government action.
Path dependence
Devanshi electronics case study
Distinctive Competencies and Path Dependency
• Heterogeneity of productive resources provides a unique and rare character
• Path dependency also gives resources an inimitable character
 • Ex: Praful was quick in examining new markets
• Product modified according to Customer
• Total process automation solution
• Path dependency by experiences of firm: New business opportunity because of close
interaction with Customer in plastic
Minimising Resource Cost given a desired production level
• Industrial Org view: External situation & product markets
• Resource based view: Internal situation & firm’s resources
• Analyzing environment is important – may change significance of resources
• Ex: Jhalani invested in innovations which would reduce the resource cost at the
demand level
• cost effective technologies from Taiwan, started importing SKD3 from Vertex
• PID as the core product refurbish the old and unused machines (Cost effectiveness)

Narrow Diversification – Synergies – Related Markets

• Firm would lose more value if it was transferred to an unrelated market (Narrow
diversification => more rents)
• Synergies are created by economies of scope & technological complementariness.
• Managers Overestimate the transferability of specific assets and capabilities
Ex: Bajrang Thermit Systems: Close down as activities unrelated
• Entered Pharma, chemical, rubber product segments (Creating synergies)
• ‘We should not enter into those areas where I do not have competence. => Focused
on related areas for future growth