Abt Tech

1. ABT has been successful in competing against it competitors because it has created a benefit-based and differentiation-based competitive advantage where it focuses on offering customers the maximum B it can afford with its excellent customer service, which coordinates with its generated strategic fit. ABT encourages its employees to spend time with its customers and empowers its employees, as well as incentivizes them with attractive salaries. Along with such complimentary resources, like having the best salespeople, and its goal of offering superb customer service, ABT creates a larger B and higher C than its competitors, but by also matches its P with its competitors on certain items. Its profitability (P-C) is derived from not only quantity sold for those low ticket priced items but also perhaps higher P for more specially designed items.

2. Home Depot’s entry into offering a narrow selection of popular appliances at extremely low P may have a slight negative effect on ABT’s profitability. For customers who are shopping around for appliances, they would have ABT match the P of Home Depot, which can cut into its profit margins. However, ABT and Home Depot are not direct competitors in that they do not sell the exact same items. ABT also carries high-end appliances, which may be in a different market segment than that of popular appliances. Furthermore, because of ABT’s emphasis on a high B, ABT does have a competitive advantage in that its business model allows for customers to capture a large B-P, therefore, if ABT is able to maintain its current status quo – it won’t have problems retaining its customers or maintain its profits but it may have to price certain items lower than before.