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Introduction According to Gamble et al

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Introduction According to Gamble et al. (2019), there are five generic competitive strategy options for building competitive advantage and delivering superior value to customers. It is important for an organization to understand these five options when determining an overall competitive strategy. An organization’s competitive strategy deals exclusively with the specifics of management’s game plan for competing successfully. More specifically, the efforts to please customers, strengthen its market position, counter the maneuvers of rivals, respond to shifting marketing conditions, and achieve a particular competitive advantage (Gamble et al., 2019). After an organization has settled on which factor to use, attention turns to what other strategic actions to take in order to maximize the power of the overall strategy. It is also important for an organization to explore diversification and experiment in international markets. Process The five factor options are the first step in strategic planning for competitive advantage. These five factors include the following: a low-cost provider strategy, a broad differentiation strategy, a focused low-cost strategy, a focused differentiation strategy, and a best-cost provider strategy. Although all of the five generic competitive strategies are important, low-cost provider strategy is discussed to understand an organization’s competitive approach. An organization achieves low-cost leadership when it becomes the industry’s lowest-cost provider rather than just being one of several competitors with low costs. It is important that organization’s include features and services that buyers consider essential otherwise a customer may consider the product or service undervalued regardless of its pricing (Gamble et al., 2019). According to Liu et al. (2019), sometimes a low-cost strategy may motivate firms to use cheap materials and rely on traditional manufacturing technology that is environmentally unfriendly. Strategic Thinking In order for an organization’s strategy to succeed in delivering good performance and the intended competitive edge over rivals, it has to be well matched to the internal situation by an appropriate set of resources, understanding, and competitive capabilities. This means an organization has to have the resources and capabilities to keep its costs below its competitors. Once an organization has settled on a low-cost strategy, or any of the five forces, the attention turns to other strategic actions. It is critical for an organization to set up strategic offences where they can find opportunities to gain profitable market shares at the expense of their competitors. This aids in chipping away at a strong rival’s competitive advantage. For example, companies such as Amazon and Samsung aggressively pursue competitive advantage and reap the benefits in areas like leading market shares, increased profit margins, and rapid growth (Gamble et al., 2019). Playing on offense helps organizations analyze which of their rivals to challenge which attacks like market leaders that are vulnerable, firms with weaknesses in areas where the challenger is strong, companies on the verge of going under, and small local companies with limited capabilities. Geographic scope is very important when analyzing an organization’s competitive advantage. Mergers and acquisitions are strategic options an organization can choose to strengthen their market position. Specifically, horizontal mergers and acquisitions involve combining operations of organizations within the same product or service market and allows for an increase in scale and horizontal scope. One of the quickest ways for an organization to expand its geographic coverage by acquiring a rival with operations in desired locations. This helps an organization to expand globally. Rumelt (2011) describes finding a pivot point in order to make changes that could be prosperous in the long run. In competitive advantage, pivot points may be an imbalance between a rival’s position or disposition of forces and their underlying capabilities, or between pretension and reality. Nevertheless, there is a downside to globalization. According to Kim (2015), acquiring knowledge from multiple countries bears important strategic implications due largely to the differences across countries. Countries are different from each other in multiple dimensions, which gives rise to two distinctive attributes of international markets: a higher degree of market frictions and a higher degree of heterogeneity. Lastly, distribution scope can gain competitive advantage for an organization by offering a product in a variety of ways in order to gain consumer interest. Selling a product or service through a distribution agreement can be profitable. However, a scope needs to be defined. Variables such as territory, term, and exclusivity should be taken into account. The internet and advances in information technology have really paved the way for rapid distribution channels. According to Yu et al. (2017), manufacturers should consider distributing their products through online channels in addition to conventional brick-and-mortar retail channels. Decision Model The decision model that fits most closely with a competitive approach to strategy is the Chasm – Diffusion Model. Krogerus et al. (2018) discusses how some ideas – including stupid ones – take hold and become trends, while many others disappear before consumers know anything. The whole concept of diffusion is explained when a new type of corn hit the market in the 1930s. When farmers switched to the new corn early on in the introduction process they were dubbed “innovators” and “early adopters”. Eventually these groups led skeptical other groups to try out the corn. Translated into a graph, this development takes the form of a curve. It rises gradually at first, then reaches a critical point where innovation is the transition from the early adopters to skeptics. This is called a chasm. If the early adopters succeed in getting the innovation across the chasm to the skeptical masses, the cycle reaches the tipping point and from there, the curve will rise sharply when the masses accept the product (Krogerus et al., 2018). However, it will sink again when there are stragglers remaining. Conclusion It is important for an organization to understand the necessary areas to gain competitive traction. Organizations can choose one of the five factors to focus on and then decide how to compete on a global scale with distribution and cost strategy. An organization should understand their competitive advantage in order to create an effective strategy. According to Keller and Alsdorf (2016), the gospel worldview has many influences on how one should actually do their work. Every field of work to some degree is influenced by alternate worldviews and their attendant idols. In business, money and power can quickly become an idol to most. These are things that can be vital to creating new products and to serve customers. It is important not to idolize these things but instead organizations should work with employees and offer opportunities to use the gospel to shape their vision. Whether it is for a non or profit business a vision of serving a need in a way that reflects God’s plan for the world is essential. References Gamble, J., Thompson, A. & Peteraf, M. (2019). Essentials of strategic management: the quest for competitive advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education Keller, T., & Alsdorf, K. L. (2016). Every good endeavor: connecting your work to God's work. Penguin Books. Kim, M. (2015). Geographic scope, isolating mechanisms, and value appropriation. Strategic Management Journal, 37(4), 695–713. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2356 Krogerus, M., Tschäppeler, R. & Piening, J. (2018). The decision book: fifty models for strategic thinking. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Liu, Y., Li, W., & Li, Y. (2019). Ambidexterity between low cost strategy and csr Strategy: Contingencies of competition and regulation. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 37(3), 633–660. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-019-09647-3 Rumelt, R. (2011). Good strategy, bad strategy: the difference and why it matters. New York: Crown Business. Yu, D. Z., Cheong, T., & Sun, D. (2017). Impact of supply chain power and drop-shipping on a manufacturer’s optimal distribution channel strategy. European Journal of Operational Research, 259(2), 554–563. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2016.11.025 Introduction Developing a competitive approach an abundance of knowledge such as strategy development, setting a direction, knowing the external environment as well as the internal environment. Deciding a competitive approach for a company requires a critical process for creating an organizational strategy. It is also significant to review the organization geographic and production scope. Comprehending those facts will aid in developing a decision model to implement impactful change. Process To obtain a competitive approach it requires an organization to create a strategic formulation and a strategy execution process (Gamble, Peteraf, & Thompson, 2021). A strategy formulation and execution process consist of five stages (Gamble et al., 2021). The process reviews developing a strategic vision, setting objectives, crafting a strategy, implementing, and executing the chosen strategy, and evaluating and analyzing the external and internal organization performance (Gamble et al., 2021). A strategic vision is to act as a managerial instrument to assist managers in comprehending what the organization should resemble and to serve as a backing when making strategic decisions (Gamble et al., 2021). The objective takes the strategic vison and develops performance goals (Gamble et al., 2021). A great tool to use is proximate objective because it focusses on a target that a company can use to rationalize expectations without stressing (Rumelt, 2011). Crafting a strategy requires a plethora of hows’ (Gamble et al., 2021). Speaking on the hows of strategy understands that there is doubt, danger, annoyance behind it (Gamble et al., 2021). However, change or creation of a new strategy places an organization in position to craft products or services into competitive advantages (Gambe et al., 2021). Organizations facing competitive displacement will often have to amend product or services to craft a specific characteristic separating them from other competitors (Mierzejewska, Yim, Napoli, Lucas, & Al-Hasan, 2017). Companies’ implementation and execution strategy is particular and tedious component of strategic management actions (Gamble et al., 2021). Lastly, the process for developing a competitive approach is to evaluate performance and making necessary adjustments (Gamble et al., 2021). The final stage seeks to review internal and external factors to make change the according to organization vision (Gamble et al., 2021). Evaluating performance is necessary to determine how well an organization is doing and to process with improving to remain competitive in business (Tripathi, Hasan, & Jha, 2019). Strategy Thinking An amazing strategy comes from using the mind, the energy around you, and acting (Rumelt, 2011). Organizational strategies review the corporate strategy, the business strategy, the functional area strategies, and operating strategies (Gamble et al., 2021). Corporate strategy is the universal company plans for governing the business (Gamble et al., 2021). Business strategy focuses on strengthening organizations competitive advantages and create new advantages (Gamble et al., 2021). Functional-Area strategy refines relevant descriptions on the how in business strategy essentially crafting plans to support to keep the plan intact (Gamble et al., 2021). Operating strategy defines the overall to the business and functional-area strategy which consist of a blueprint to managing lower levels of strategy and ventures (Gamble et al., 2021). Operating strategies fall to the front-line workers managers and often must wait for higher ups before decisions are finalized (Gamble et al., 2021). Managing knowledge as it relates to strategy is a weapon developed to formulate long-term and short-term plans for organizations to develop or recreate new and exciting competitive advantages (Bolisani & Bratianu, 2017). Responsibility falls to all in the organization do their part to execute organizations strategies while board directors and CEOs oversee the development of the strategic plan and adjust those plans according to internal and external environmental factors (Gamble et al., 2021). Geographic Scope Business is conducted throughout all countries and the operation will very similar but the same. Organizations international growth direction and the geographic scope are dissimilar, with data from 1999 to 2008 from the Fortune Global 500 organization (Oh, Kim, & Shin, 2019). Results indicate that organization operating in a large driven organization widen the drive activity internationally, but the geographic scope is minimal (Oh et al., 2019). Production/Distribution Scope Competitive scope on product and service specifically in large corporations is the features or characteristics of the product or service itself. Organizations often focus on market, and it changes daily due to new and shifting demands and needs. Strategic decisions are made to keep the organization up and running as well as driving demand from customers. Production scope remain competitive due to the decision model an organization uses to make changes in a fluctuating global market (Krogerus & Tschappeler, 2018). Decision Model Competitive decision models can use the Yes/No rule because it is a quick way to reach a decisive decision (Krogerus & Tschappeler, 2018). Using this decision model is necessary when determining the intensity of the risk associated (Krogerus & Tschappeler, 2018). The decision model is the process of elimination but also process clear parameters beneficial to management as they are making competitive decisions (Krogerus & Tschappeler, 2018). A quantitative evaluation sets how vision is determined by a group of yes/no answers on differentiation of vision cells (Hasegawa et al., 2017). Yes and no answers are answers that needed most opinion (Krogerus & Tschappeler, 2018). Conclusion To run a business, it is vital to understand the process necessary to remain in a competitive market. Breaking down the process of a business into stages will aid in implementing those changes to a refine manner. Every process requires strategic thinking and strategic thinking will require its own steps because the overall objective is to remain competitive or to retain a competitive advantage over other organizations in the industry. Geographic and product scopes are significant factor an organization seek to clarify as demand grow and sectors expand. To build a strong hold on the competitive market requires executing a decision plan such as yes and no. Yes and no decision model is not a simplistic model that does not require thinking, it is a model that requires more thinking. The business world regardless of industry is cut throat and requires constant change as it grow and as society grows. Reference Bolisani, E., & Bratianu, C. (2017). Knowledge strategy planning: An integrated approach to manage uncertainty, turbulence, and dynamics. Journal of Knowledge Management, 21(2), 233-253. https://doi.org/10.1108/JKM-02-2016-0071 Gamble, J., Thompson, A., & Peteraf, M. (2021). Essentials of strategic management: the quest for competitive advantage. McGraw-Hill. Hasegawa, E., Mizumoto, N., Kobayashi, K., Dobata, S., Yoshimura, J., Watanabe, S., Murakami, Y., & Matsuura, K. (2017). Nature of collective decision-making by simple yes/no decision units. Scientific Reports, 7(1), 14436-11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-14626-z Mierzejewska, B. I., Yim, D., Napoli, P. M., Lucas, H. C., & Al-Hasan, A. (2017). Evaluating strategic approaches to competitive displacement: The case of the U.S. newspaper industry. Journal of Media Economics, 30(1), 19-30. https://doi.org/10.1080/08997764.2017.1281817 Oh, C. H., Kim, M., & Shin, J. (2019). Paths and geographic scope of international expansion across industries. International Business Review, 28(3), 560-574. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ibusrev.2018.12.002 Rumelt, R. P. (2011). Good strategy, bad strategy: the difference and why it matters. Crown Business. Tripathi, K. K., Hasan, A., & Neeraj Jha, K. (2019). Evaluating performance of construction organizations using fuzzy preference relation technique. International Journal of Construction Management, 1-14.