Competitive Strategy The Art of War

Question: Describe about the Competitive Strategy for The Art of War. Answer: What is the strategy One of the Chinese authors named sunTzu have defined strategy as The art of war. In this modern world, business is considered as a modern day war, where losing is considered as a negative sign for the company. So it becomes essential for the company to develop unique strategies for fulfilling the diverse needs of its stakeholders and thereby achieving the objectives of the firm. According to Oliver (2001), strategy is referred as a process of analysing the industry structure and identifying the firms position and to take suitable actions for fulfilling the desired target of the firm. A strategy developed by the firm should be flexible and implementable. A good strategy should be able to answer the four important aspects such as who are the rivals of the firm, what unique value is provided to the consumers of the firm, what are the capabilities of the firm and how the firm will be able to sustain its value (Raspin and Terjesen, 2007). Henry Mintzberg has shown us the three phases of s trategy implementation. i.e. intended strategy, emergent strategy and the realized strategy. Intended strategy is the initial plan developed and implemented for fulfilling the desired targets. While Emergent strategy identifies the adverse outcomes of the initial plan and take necessary actions to avoid such outcomes. Lastly, realised strategy identifies the results of the corporate strategy implemented. Thus we can say, strategy is more than what firm actually does, rather than what it intended to do. Lets check out the strategies implemented by the Microsoft for fulfilling its goals. Microsoft is one of the leading companies of America, which deals with an operating systems, personal computers, consumer electronics, computer hardware and software.Firm has also entered into the smart phone market by manufacturing and selling smart phone hardwares and mobile phones. The Microsoft main aim is to develop the innovative products, that are simple and easier to use for its global consumers.Microsoft developed its strategies considering four important aspects that is easy accessibility to its global consumers, up surging consumer value by making use of latest technologies, maintaining relationships and sustainability of its unique value by maintaining the quality of its products and services (Anderson and Wood, 2002). Apart from it, Microsoft also considers the strategies of its competitors like Google, IBM etc. before developing its strategies, with the aim of giving tough competition to its rivals. Consumers needs and preferences are taken into consideration before des igning its products, which aids in up surging the overall revenues of the firm. Microsoft has also considered the technology needs of the disabled person and have designed diverse products, which is useful to people with disabilities. Thus we can say that Microsoft sustain in the global market , not only because of its capabilities to innovate, but its ability to cover all the bases (SunnyBaker,1998). Business model Innovation In this competitive world, firms make use of technologies for building their business model with the aim of reducing the overall cost of the products and services and up surging the consumer value. Successful innovators like Amazon, Microsoft etc. have reformed their business model by making efficient use of existing technologies.They were able to achieve the competitive advantage of their innovative business model. Its not just a technology, but their innovative business model has helped them to achieve their desired objectives. Innovative business model is referred as the process of reforming the business model by making use of existing technologies (Taran, Boer and Lindgren, 2015). For example Nescafe has reformed its business model by selling coffee machines at lower margins and coffee at higher margins, which helped Nescafe to upsurge its revenues. Any firm or company can revolutionize its business model by following the four important steps.i.e Initiation, Ideation, Integratio n and Implementation. At initiation stage, the firm need to analyse its current business model by identifying the four determinants such as who are the consumers, what products and services are offered, what unique value is added in our products and services and how the firms revenues are generated. In the second step, firm need to compare its business model to fifty five innovative models, with the aim of finding the loopholes in their model. At integration stage, the firms business model is reformed at its consistency of business model is checked. Lastly, the innovated business model is implemented (Lindgren, 2012). Now let us check out how Amazon has revolutionized its business model. Amazon has grown from an online bookseller to a larger digital market by reforming its business model. Its business model was reformed with the aim of attracting the global consumers by providing the widest range of products and services at one single click.Day to day new innovations are adopted by Amazon with the aim of achieving their desired goals (Schmidt and Jettinghoff, 2016). Some of the latest innovations of the firm are 1-click checkout and drone delivery. 1-click checkout avoids resistance in buying process and with a single click the products can be purchased at Amazon website, while drones aids in delivering the products in thirty minutes. Firm aim is to defeat its rivals like Google and Apple by building its electronics brand named kindle and kindle fire. Apart from it, the firm has also extended its business in other in other industries by building its unique brands, such as Amazon studios, Amazon basics, Amazon fresh and Amazon warehouse deals.Amazon is able to upsurge the consumer value by providing the widest range of products at reasonable prices. In addition to it, it also offers diverse services such as digital content subscription, advertising, co-branded credit cards, AWS, publishing, etc. Amazon generate its gross revenues by selling its products and by offering the above services. Apart from it, the firm is also generating revenues by charging commission to the other sellers of their websites.Its growth rate is higher than its competitors like Google, Ebay e Thus we can say that Amzon was able to achieve its desired objectives by adopting innovative business model through making the efficient use of technology (Ju Choi et al. 2007). References: Taran, Y., Boer, H. and Lindgren, P. (2015). A Business Model Innovation Typology. Decision Sciences, 46(2), pp.301-331. Lindgren, P. (2012). Business Model Innovation Leadership: How Do SMEs Strategically Lead Business Model Innovation?. IJBM, 7(14). Schmidt, G. and Jettinghoff, W. (2016). Using Amazon Mechanical Turk and other compensated crowdsourcing sites. Business Horizons, 59(4), pp.391-400. De Gouvea, R. and Kassicieh, S. (2010). Building an Eco-Innovation Cluster. International Journal of Social Ecology and Sustainable Development, 1(2), pp.27-39. Oliver, R. (2001). Realà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ Time Strategy. Journal of Business Strategy, 22(6), pp.7-10. Sunny Baker, (1998) "What Every Business Should Learn from MICROSOFT",Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 19 Iss: 5, pp.36 41 Raspin, P. and Terjesen, S. (2007). Strategy making: what have we learned about forecasting the future?. Business Strategy Series, 8(2), pp.116-121. Anderson, J. and Wood, R. (2002). Seven Management Lessons from Microsoft. Business Strategy Review, 13(3), pp.28-33.