Weekly Reflection

This week I learned about strategy for competitive advantage and executing the strategy. My main learning lesson in class is that Marketing and Competitive Strategy is exactly like a chess game. You can either make the first move and lead the industry or you can wait for your opponents move and deploy your countermove. Also, our prof mentioned the importance of Sustainable competitive advantage which allows a company to obtain more long lasting demand from its buyers for its products.

After reading the required text, I have also learned how to gather more information on the strength of industry’s competitive forces. One of the tools that is useful for this job is Five Forces Model of Competition. It focuses on the strength of 5 main forces which are buyers, potential new entrants, firms in other industries, suppliers and rivalry among competing sellers. The textbook not only explained these forces but it also extensively highlighted the cases, when these forces have bargaining power.

Moreover another important point that was underlined in the textbook was driving forces, which are basically the underlying causes of change in industry and competitive conditions. Assessment of these forces is important part of marketing and strategy because they help and guide managers or CEO’s to deploy the right strategy to prepare for the strike of the forces.

On the other hand, this week in tutorial we have discussed a mini case about CdnAutoPartsCo’s business meeting/bargaining with JapanCarManfCo. Upon discussing this mini case with fellow classmates, our decision was that the settlement should be made around $28-$30 per unit. It turned out that the actual settlement was made around $50 per unit, which shocked us all. However I have learned a decent lesson from this case. My takeaway lesson was, you don’t sell something according to its cost, but you sell it according to its value. The unit that was produced by CdnAutoPartsCo cost only $18, however JapanCarManfCo...