Competitive Strategy, Research Paper Example

Competitive advantage in organizations arises from decisions made by the leaders. These decisions are guided and focused by a frame work known as strategy. When this frame work guides the decisions towards competitive positioning of the organization or business it is called competitive strategy (Kale, Singh, & Bell, 2009).

Competitive strategy is aimed at building sustainable competitive advantage over the organizations competitors /opponents. It helps the organization to define its primary decisions which helps in guiding marketing, financial management and operating strategies. When an organization is making the competitive strategy it is crucial that success factors are considered as well. Success factors in business are essential areas of a business that must be exploited so that the organization can achieve its mission and goals or objectives (Kale, Singh, & Bell, 2009).

The best competitive strategy incorporates Success factors so that the organization can put more emphasis on those areas where rival organizations have not yet discovered so as to gain competitive advantage.  Competitive strategies are many and each applies differently. For instance an organization may decide to use offensive strategy where by it goes ahead to overcome the barriers to success by either altering the competitive structure or organization environment through backward or forward integration or developing substitute products and changing the mode of sales before other organization realizes it (Gundlach, Achrol, &Mentzer, 1995). This will make the organization exploit the market before the rivals come in.

Another strategy is defensive strategy whereby the organization accepts the competition from the rivals but positions it self strategically to defend against them  may be by selling the business before competitive forces cause its value to drop considerably (Gundlach, Achrol, &Mentzer, 1995). The organization may defend it self by lowering the price of its products if that is the best option to win the competitive advantage or move towards quality whereby it improves the quality of the products by blending it with some more attractive features  which rival organizations miss.

References

Gundlach, G., Achrol, R., & Mentzer, J., (1995). “The structure of commitment in exchange”. Journal of Marketing, 59 (1), 78–92.

Kale, P., Singh, H., & Bell, J. (2009). Relating well: Building capabilities for sustaining alliance networks. London: Pearson Press.