Strengthening A Company's Competitive Position

BLUE-OCEAN STRATEGY – A special kind of offensive

A blue-ocean offers growth in revenues and profits by discovering or inventing new industry segments that create altogether new demand.

RED-OCEAN vs. BLUE-OCEAN

Timing a company’s offensive and defensive strategic moves.

FIRST-MOVER vs. LATE-MOVER

In the business world, a first-mover is a company that aims to gain an advantageous and perhaps impossible market position by being the first to establish itself in a given market. Since the arrival of the World Wide Web, many companies have established themselves as first-movers in their respective marketplace on the Web. For example, Amazon.com is first-movers in online retailing and eBay in online auctions. Meanwhile, late-movers refers to companies that respond to the competitive action of a first-mover or pioneering mover. They are often characterized by imitation the first-mover or countering of the effects the actions of the forts mover. It is often thought that first-movers have the best advantage, while late-movers are the most disadvantaged. However, late-movers do have some advantages. The late-mover advantage means that followers can learn from pioneers' mistakes, see whether there is a market worth entering and judge consumers' tastes. For example, Carling will launch its British Cider. While there is nothing new about cider as a product, Carling's parent company, Molson Coors, must have been influenced by the success of Stella Artois Cider.

WHAT IS STRATEGIC ALLIANCES?

Strategic alliances are co-operative relationships between two or more independent organizations, designed to achieve mutually beneficial goals for as long as is economically viable. Typically, they involve shared financial responsibility, joint contribution of resources and capabilities, shared risk, shared control, and mutual dependence.

Example: Microsoft and Nokia – a software partnership for Nokia’s Windows Phones.