Business Level Strategies for Gaining Competitive Advantage

This article discusses the major sources of gaining competitive advantages in the Kuwaiti market, including people, intellectual property, access to strategic natural resources, technology, and organizational strategies. It also explores ways to create sustainable competitive advantages, such as competitive analysis, delivering value proposition, developing technology, and providing training and development to employees.

Running head: BUSINESS LEVEL STRATEGIES
Business level strategies
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

1BUSINESS LEVEL STRATEGIES
Question: 1
Competitive advantages are important for the business organizations due to the reason
that competitive advantages will enable them to stay ahead in the competition. In addition, in the
current competitive business scenario, it is more important for the business organizations to gain
competitive advantages in order to survive in the market (Schilke 2014). There are number of
sources available for the business organizations from where competitive advantages can be
gained. The following sections will discuss about the major five sources of gaining competitive
advantages in the Kuwaiti market.
People
Internal stakeholders are one of the major sources of gaining competitive advantages for
the business organizations. This is due to the reason that resources should have the attribute of
inimitability in order to be considered as competitive resources. People or the internal
stakeholders of a business organization can help in gaining competitive advantages by means of
their personal skill sets and expertise. This is due to the reason that, a business organization will
be more effective and productive if their employees are productive and effective (Albrecht et al.
2015). In addition, the skill sets and the expertise of the employees cannot be imitated by the
competing firms. Thus it can be termed as competitive resources for the organizations. On the
other hand, internal stakeholders also include the upper level management. Thus, the more
effective will be the leadership and managerial skills of the management in the organization, the
more will be the organizational efficiency, which will lead to the gaining of competitive
advantages (Dobre 2013). Therefore, it is recommended that companies in Kuwait should
concentrate more on their internal management in order to generate innovative and creative ideas

2BUSINESS LEVEL STRATEGIES
along with maximizing the employee performance. This can help them in staying ahead in the
competition.
Intellectual property
Another major source of gaining competitive advantages is the access of intellectual
property by the organizations. Intellectual property refers to the protection of rights of certain
product, design, processes or technology. Thus, the more access of intellectual property will be
with the business organizations, the more will be their competitive advantages. Competitive
resources should have the attribute of rarity (Di Minin and Faems 2013). Hence, with the help of
the intellectual property rights, a particular company will have the rights for production of a
certain product. This is lead to the rarity of the resources as no other competing firms are eligible
to produce. On the other hand, intellectual property will enable the business organization to have
monopoly in a particular sector due to the reason that they only have the right and permission to
manufacture and market the particular product or service. Having the access to more intellectual
property will help business organizations to gain competitive advantages in the market. This will
also help the business organizations to have strategic advantages by means of having the access
to certain competitive resources over their competing firms.
Access to strategic natural resources
It is also important for the business organizations to have the access to some sort of
strategic natural resources. This refers to the exclusive resources that a particular organization is
having and that are not accessible by others. This can help the organization to have the
competitive advantages over others by means of offering some sort of unique and distinctive
qualities that are cannot be offered by their competing firms (Hinterhuber 2013). For instance, in

3BUSINESS LEVEL STRATEGIES
the case of thermal power industry, if any firm is having the access to some strategic coal
reserves from where they can get higher quality coals, they will gain competitive advantages in
the market. This is due to the reasons that due to the access to the strategic reserves, the
competing firms in the market are not being able to offer the same quality coal. In case of the
Kuwaiti market, oil reserves are available in abundance. Thus it is important for the business
organizations in Kuwait to gain the access to some strategic oil reserves that will help them to
have competitive advantages over others in the market.
Technology
In the current business scenario, technology plays an important role creating core
competencies for the organizations. This is due to the reason that current business state of affairs
is majorly being driven by technological effectiveness and efficiency. In addition, in the recent
time, Kuwait is gaining huge access to latest technologies due to the increase in the inflow of
global resources. Thus it is important for the business organizations in Kuwait to develop
effective, efficient and sustainable technology for their long term competitiveness (Urbancova
2013). Technological development includes gaining more efficiency in production process or
using of technology in reducing the average cost of operation. Thus, the more effective and
updated will be the technology for the business organizations, the more will be the
competitiveness in operating in the market over their competitors.
For instance, in the Kuwaiti market, if a retail organization can offer their products with
more technological convenience to their customers such as offering self service, automated
payment counter and superfast delivery system, then customers will be more attracted. Thus, it

4BUSINESS LEVEL STRATEGIES
can be concluded that the more will be the intensity of technological development, the more will
be the competitive advantages for the business organizations.
Organizational strategies
Organizational strategies also determine the level of competitive advantages for the
business organizations. This is due to the reason that organizational strategies will determine
about how the organization is going to operate in the market. According to the Porter’s generic
strategies, cost leadership, differentiation and market focus strategies are the major ones that can
help the business organizations in gaining competitive advantages (Wagner III and Hollenbeck
2014). It is up to the particular organization of which strategy they are going to initiate in the
market. It should also be noted that the generic strategies should be implemented in accordance
to the product type and target market attributes.
For instance, cost leadership strategy will help the organizations in gaining competitive
advantages if they are operating in the affordable product segments. On the other hand, product
differentiation is effective if the company is operating in highly competitive market.
Question: 2
There are number of ways by which the business organizations can create sustainable
competitive advantages. Creating sustainable competitive advantages is important due to the
reason that competitive advantages cannot be initiated for long term if they are not sustainable
enough (Liu 2013). One of the major means by which sustainable competitive advantages can be
created is competitive analysis. This is important due to the reason that organizations should
design their strategies only after the analyzing the competitive scenario in the target market. This
will enable them to identify the weak areas and the areas not covered by the existing firms. In

5BUSINESS LEVEL STRATEGIES
accordance to that, offering products or service will help to gain competitive advantages.
According to the VRIO framework, competitive advantages will be sustainable if they yield
value for the organization. This operating in the market after doing the competitive analysis will
help to fetch more value from the competitive advantages. Another way of creating sustainable
competitive advantages is effectively delivering the value proposition to the customers
(Srivastava, Franklin and Martinette 2013). As discussed in the above question that
organizational strategies should be initiated according to the market and business situation, value
proposition should also be initiated in accordance to the market trend and requirement. Strategies
including cost leadership, differentiation and market focus should be initiated according to the
target market pattern. This will help the organizations in delivering proper value proposition to
the customers and gain competitive advantages. Thus, change of the value proposition with the
change in the market requirement will help the business organizations to create sustainable
competitive advantages.
In order to create sustainable competitive advantages, it is important for the business
organizations to develop technology in order to stay ahead in the competition. The technologies
should be developed in such a way that it will be at par to the latest trend in the market. In
addition, the more latest and updated will be the developed technology, the more will be the
probability of having patent for that. This will in turn enable the business organizations to have
access to intellectual property. Therefore, having latest technology in place and access to
intellectual property will help the business organizations in creating sustainable competitive
advantages (Marinagi, Trivellas and Sakas 2014). On the other hand, it should also be noted that
continuous process of innovation is beneficial for the business organization to maintain the
sustainability in their competitive advantages. This will in line to the rarity and inimitability of

6BUSINESS LEVEL STRATEGIES
the VRIO framework. Having updated technology and access to intellectual property will enable
the business organizations to meet the VRIO criterions and gain sustainable competitive
advantages (Todericiu and Stanit 2015).
As discussed in the first question that people is one of the major sources of gaining
competitive advantages, business organizations should more focus on providing training and
equipping their employees in order to enhance their productivity and effectiveness (Ghosh 2013).
Thus, continuous process of providing training and development to the employees will ensure
that they are well adjusted with the current market trend and are ahead in terms of the employees
of competing firms. This will also ensure sustainability in competitive advantages.

7BUSINESS LEVEL STRATEGIES
Reference
Albrecht, S.L., Bakker, A.B., Gruman, J.A., Macey, W.H. and Saks, A.M., 2015. Employee
engagement, human resource management practices and competitive advantage: An integrated
approach. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 2(1), pp.7-35.
Di Minin, A. and Faems, D., 2013. Building appropriation advantage: An introduction to the
special issue on intellectual property management. California Management Review, 55(4), pp.7-
14.
Dobre, O.I., 2013. Employee motivation and organizational performance. Review of Applied
Socio-Economic Research, 5(1).
Ghosh, A.K., 2013. Employee empowerment: A strategic tool to obtain sustainable competitive
advantage. International Journal of Management, 30(3), p.95.
Hinterhuber, A., 2013. Can competitive advantage be predicted? Towards a predictive definition
of competitive advantage in the resource-based view of the firm. Management Decision, 51(4),
pp.795-812.
Liu, Y., 2013. Sustainable competitive advantage in turbulent business
environments. International Journal of Production Research, 51(10), pp.2821-2841.
Marinagi, C., Trivellas, P. and Sakas, D.P., 2014. The impact of information technology on the
development of supply chain competitive advantage. Procedia-Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 147, pp.586-591.

8BUSINESS LEVEL STRATEGIES
Schilke, O., 2014. On the contingent value of dynamic capabilities for competitive advantage:
The nonlinear moderating effect of environmental dynamism. Strategic management
journal, 35(2), pp.179-203.
Srivastava, M., Franklin, A. and Martinette, L., 2013. Building a sustainable competitive
advantage. Journal of technology management & innovation, 8(2), pp.47-60.
Todericiu, R. and Stăniţ, A., 2015. Intellectual Capital–The Key for Sustainable Competitive
Advantage for the SME's Sector. Procedia Economics and Finance, 27, pp.676-681.
Urbancova, H., 2013. Competitive advantage achievement through innovation and
knowledge. Journal of Competitiveness, 5(1).
Wagner III, J.A. and Hollenbeck, J.R., 2014. Organizational behavior: Securing competitive
advantage. Routledge.