Enterprise Strategy System for Attaining Competitive Advantage

This report discusses the concept of competitive advantage in relation to Enterprise System’s application. It covers the strategies adopted by Woolworths and Apple Inc. for differentiation, positioning, and consistent learning. The report concludes that implementation of enterprise system is an essential aspect for boosting up the organizational performance as it has the capability to perform organizational tasks in a more appropriate manner along with the objective of gaining positive outcomes.

Running Head: Enterprise Strategy System
Enterprise Strategy System

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Competitive advantage and strategic planning................................................................................2
Differentiation strategy................................................................................................................3
Strategy adopted by Woolworths Limited (Supermarket).......................................................3
Strategy adopted by Apple Inc. (IT).........................................................................................4
Positioning strategy......................................................................................................................4
Strategy adopted by Woolworths (Supermarket).....................................................................4
Strategy adopted by Apple Inc. (IT).........................................................................................5
Consistent learning.......................................................................................................................5
Strategy adopted by Woolworths (Supermarket).....................................................................5
Strategy adopted by Apple Inc. (IT).........................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Acquiring competitive advantage for every organization is necessary and it is one of the primary
goals for any business in terms of enhancing organizational performance. Attainment of
competitive advantage leads the organization to stand on leading position. This also helps the
company to establish its unique image in the target market along with differentiating it from its
competitors.
This report will cover certain crucial aspects of attaining competitive advantage and with regards
to this; Enterprise System’s application will be discussed. Enterprise system is one of an
effective contribution of technology which helps the company to move towards automation along
with executing the functionalities in an effective and efficient manner. Apart from this,
Enterprise System is considered as the primary factor through which competitive advantage
could be attained easily. Enterprise System is package of software which helps the business to
execute its functionalities in a flow along with managing proper functioning of value chain
activities of organization. Apart from this, enterprise resource planning system also helps the
business entities to manage customer relationship management. In relation to this, two
company’s example will be discussed who have attained competitive advantage using enterprise
system (Sykes, Venkatesh & Johnson, 2014).
Competitive advantage and strategic planning
Core objective of an enterprise system is to enhance organizational performance, reduce chances
of glitch from the functionalities of organisation, overall development and sustained growth.
With regards to this, organization adopts enterprise system so that cost of production could be
minimised along with minimising waste management. This ultimately enhances profitability for
organization through which desired goals and objectives could easily be attained. This report will
discuss the concept of competitive advantage in relation with Woolworths and Apple Inc. Both
these companies are using Enterprise System for smooth functioning of their value chain
activities for attainment of competitive advantage. It has been evaluated that application of
enterprise system not only enhances organizational performance and enhances productivity but

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also helps in terms of development effective brand image in the domestic as well as in
international market (Sharma & Sykes, 2018).
Competitive advantage is a big achievement for an organization and gaining competitive
advantage proves that the particular organization is effective as well as efficient from other
companies in the same market. For example, Amazon Inc. is leading the whole e-commerce
market in the global market in terms of market capitalisation and revenues. Major reason behind
this is their customer centric approach and huge product offering with adequate quality. This has
helped the organization acquire huge customer base in the global market. Thus, when consumer
plans to buy something through online mediums, they prefer to get it from Amazon due to their
effective services. Woolworths Supermarkets is an Australian grocery supermarket chain store
operates under Woolworths Limited. It was founded in 1924. Company is one of the biggest
grocery stores and supermarket chain in the Australian market and along with Coles, which is
another big supermarket chain in Australia has covered approximately 80% market share of the
Australian market (Alles, et. al., 2018). Woolworths’ major product offering include grocery
items, magazines, DVDs, health & beauty products, household, stationary items, etc. With more
than 1000 stores across the globe, organization has also acquired an effective market share in the
global market. Company is operating in the retail industry since a very long time and in order to
maintain their acquired position in the target market, organization uses to implement strategies as
per the market conditions as well as on the basis of their target audience’s demands and wants.
Apart from this, organization has also adopted enterprise system with the objective of improving
its value chain activities through which organization has been able to enhance organizational
performance by enhancing quality and efficiency of their products and services. It has been
noticed that after implementation of enterprise system by Woolworths Limited in their
supermarkets’ chain, efficiency has been increased as all tasks are being performed through
automation process which has enhanced productivity along with minimising the chances of
glitches in the functionalities. Enterprise system has also helped the organization to match up
with the international standards along with developing an effective communication system at
workplace. Primary advantages of using automation process are decrease chances of errors,
enhance organizational efficiency, generate efficient outcomes and keep record for every activity

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which is performed at the workplace. Apart from this, automation processes has helped the
Woolworths Limited to implement an effective communication system at workplace through
which top level management could easily communicate with its employees and organizational
mission, vision and objectives are easily communicated to the employees. Along with this,
employees could also get in touch with the top level management without any facing any barrier
(Jones, Vidalis & Abouzakhar, 2016).
Enterprise system has also helped the Woolworths Limited to communicate with its clients in an
efficient manner and as the organization has mainly implemented enterprise system in the value
chain activities. With regards to this, suppliers automatically receive order on behalf of the
organization when organization left with less quantity of the particular item. Along with this,
organization has also implemented several other systems through which quality of the products
could be measured in relation with the benchmarks set up by the top level management.
Enterprise system has also provided sufficient resources to the organization through which
employees could think out of the box in order to generate innovative and creative ideas for the
objective of enhancing organizational performance along with gaining competitive advantage
(Khorshed, et. al., 2015).
Following are three approaches which have been adopted by Woolworths Limited along with the
implementation of enterprise system:
Differentiation strategy
Motive of differentiation strategy is to differentiate organizational products and services from its
competitors. This strategy has been adopted by Woolworths Limited to make its unique image in
the global retail and supermarket industry (Lee, et. al., 2013).
Strategy adopted by Woolworths Limited (Supermarket)
With the adaptation of differentiation strategy, Woolworths has built its effective and unique
image in the target market. This strategy has helped the organization to gain competitive
advantage. Enterprise system has been adopted and implemented with the objective of enhancing
the organizational performance and with regards to this; product differentiation strategy has been
adopted so that organization could create value in its products. Thus, it has helped the
organization to distinguish its products and services from the competitors which has ultimately

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enhanced demand for the organizational products in the target market. In today’s competitive
business environment, it is necessary for the organization to adopt unique and advanced
measures to generate positive outcomes as this has become the primary objective for every
organization with regards to the attainment of competitive advantage. Organization has acquired
large part of the market share in the Australian market which has taken the organization towards
leading position in the supermarket industry. In relation with differentiating products and
services from competitors’, Woolworths has invested a big part of their earnings in R&D
department for developing unique image in the target market (Lin, et. al., 2016).
Strategy adopted by Apple Inc. (IT)
Apple Inc. is a smartphone manufacturing firm and in the worldwide market, company is known
for producing premium segment smartphones. Company always believes in innovation and
creativity for making their products unique and different from its competitors. In addition to this,
Apple Inc. has also adopted product differentiation strategy so that they could stay one step
ahead from its competitors along with differentiating its customer segments from the whole
target market. In relation with the product differentiation strategy, organization use to conduct
market research analysis so that market conditions, target customer’s preferences, demand and
wants could be determined (Themistocleous, Corbitt & da Cunha, 2017). This helps the
organization to produce customer oriented products in the premium segment category through
which organization easily attain its set goals and objectives. Although, competition in
smartphone industry is highly intensive and every company is trying to be unique by
implementing new and unique features in their products. Thus, Apple Inc. has adopted enterprise
system as an alternative or as supporting strategy for enhancing organizational performance
along with gaining competitive advantage (Suri, 2016).
Positioning strategy
This strategy is linked with the objective of developing or setting up an effective brand image
amongst the target audience. This is done by adopting unique and creative marketing strategies
along with highlighting the unique features and USPs of particular product and services. In
relation with the enterprise system, top management requires to plan its value chain activities so
that competitive advantage could be gained along with developing an effective brand image in
the target market.

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Strategy adopted by Woolworths (Supermarket)
Due to intensive industry rivalry in the supermarket industry, every rival of Woolworths Limited
is adopting unique measures for developing unique brand image in the target market. With
regards to this, Woolworths Limited has adopted enterprise system through which they could
easily be able to highlight creative and unique factors of their products. Along with this,
enterprise system is effective enough to gain appropriate and relevant information regarding the
target market, consumer’s data, etc. with the help of cyber computing and this system ultimately
helps the organization to gain competitive advantage by providing customer oriented products.
Apart from this, it is the duty of top level management of the organization to refine the collected
data for acquiring positive outcomes along with competitive advantage (Ram, Wu & Tagg,
2014).
Strategy adopted by Apple Inc. (IT)
With the help of this strategy, organization has built its effective as well as unique image
amongst the target customer’s mind-set. In relation with the adopted enterprise system,
organization has adopted positioning strategy so that positive outcomes could be acquired.
Enterprise system has also helped the organization to implement customisation approach to
attract target audience.
In relation with the customisation approach, Apple provides an artificial assistance as Siri and it
is able to take orders from its owners along with implementing them in an appropriate and
effective manner. Siri is being upgraded time to time in relation with helping customers to
generate positive outcomes (Yildiran, Kilic & Sennaroglu, 2018).
Consistent learning
This strategy helps organizations to enhance their performances and with relevance to this,
organizations invest in R&D department so that creative and innovative measures in
consideration to the past failures of the organization. This motivates organizations to implement
new strategy and approaches so that success could be attained in the future which could
ultimately help organizations to attain competitive advantage (Handoko, Aryanto & So, 2015).

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Strategy adopted by Woolworths (Supermarket)
With the help of enterprise system in value chain activities, Woolworths could easily analyse the
primary reasons for their past failures. Apart from this, every failure comes with a learning
which is considered by the management for developing future strategies. Thus, consistent
learning is an essential strategy for the objective of enhancing organizational performance along
with gaining competitive advantage (Al-Mashari & Al-Mosheleh, 2015).
Strategy adopted by Apple Inc. (IT)
Enterprise system adopted by Apple Inc. helps to perform intellectual functions in an appropriate
manner. This ultimately boosts up organizational performance as tasks could easily be performed
along with generating positive outcomes. With the help of consistent learning, Apple Inc. does
not try to implement innovative and creative strategies every time. Rather adopting new and
innovative strategies, organization uses to add new and creative features in their subsequent
products to grab target audiences’ attention. Thus, this helps the organization to boost up the
demand for their products and services in order to gain competitive advantage in the domestic as
well as in international market (Cook, 2017).

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Conclusion
From the aforesaid information, it can be concluded that enterprise system is an essential aspect
for boosting up the organizational performance as it has the capability to perform organizational
tasks in more appropriate manner along with the objective of gaining positive outcomes. This
report concluded that implementation of enterprise system as the primary tool for gaining
competitive advantage. In relation with this, differentiation strategy, positioning strategy and
consistent learning strategy has been discussed with regards to the functionalities of Woolworths
and Apple Inc. It has been evaluated that with the implementation of these strategies,
organization could easily enhance their performance at domestic as well as at international level.

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