Business Strategy Chapter 5 Quiz

the products of rival sellers are essentially identical and readily available from many eager sellers, a big fraction of the industry's sales are made to large-volume buyers with significant power to bargain down prices, and it is hard to achieve product differentiation in ways that have value to buyers

at least some unique and valuable resources/capabilities that are either (1) hard for rivals to duplicate or (2) hard to develop offsetting close substitute resources/capabilities

Failing to slash price far enough below what rivals are charging to achieve dramatically large gains in sales volume and market share

offer unique product attributes that a wide range of buyers find appealing and worth paying for (because of the value they deliver)

whether a company's market target is broad or narrow and whether the company is pursuing a competitive advantage linked to low costs or differentiation

a company's product can command a sufficiently higher price or generate sufficiently bigger unit sales to more than cover the added costs of achieving the differentiation

the potential for buyer needs and uses the product to become even more diverse

there are may ways to differentiate the product or service that have value to buyers

using its lower-cost edge to underprice competitors and attract price-sensitive buyers in great enough numbers to increase total profits

differentiating on the basis of attributes that produce an unenthusiastic response on the part of buyers (because they do not perceive the differentiating features as valuable or worth paying for)

A best-cost provider strategy aims at attracting buyers on the basis of having the industry's overall best-performing product and charging a price that is slightly below the industry-average price

it becomes the industry's low-cost provider rather than just being one of perhaps several competitors with comparatively low costs.

aim at a competitive advantage based on giving customers the best value for the money - success hinges on developing the capability to incorporate attractive upscale attributes at a lower cost than those rivals with comparable upscale product offerings, thereby putting the company in a position to underprice rivals with similar-caliber product offerings

Improving product design and production techniques and striving hard to operate all production facilities at full capacity

serving buyers in the target market niche at a lower cost and lower price than rival competitors- this requires out-managing rivals in using the cost drivers to perform value chain activities more cost efficiently and/or finding innovate ways to bypass non-essential value chain activities

Most buyers use the product in the same ways, the products of rival sellers are essentially identical and readily available from many eager sellers, and price competition among rival sellers is vigorous

are hard or expensive for rivals to duplicate- easy -to-copy differentiating features cannot produce sustainable competitive advantage

has a strong influence on a company's costs

low-cost provider strategies, focused low-cost strategies, best-cost provider strategies, broad differentiation strategies, and focused differentiation strategies

Shifting to the use of technologies and/or information systems that bypass the need to perform 20% or more of the company''s primary value chain activities