Competitive Strategy Report: Market Analysis and Leadership Roles

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of competitive strategies, exploring various aspects of business development. It begins by defining competitive strategy and then delves into the elements of the general environment crucial for the German luxury car industry, emphasizing political and economic factors. The report also examines effective relationship-building strategies, using David Jones' loyalty program as an example. Furthermore, it identifies significant environmental trends that Walmart should consider before entering the Chinese market and analyzes the competitive issues faced by General Electric in managing cooperative strategies. The report also highlights the challenges Starbucks encounters during acquisitions and underscores the importance of leadership responsibilities in fostering trust, communication, and motivation within an organization. Overall, the report provides valuable insights into strategic planning and leadership in the business world.

Competitive Strategy

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Question 1: Elements of General Environment..........................................................................1
Question 2: Effective relationship building................................................................................2
Question 3: Environmental trends...............................................................................................2
Question 4: Major Competitive issues faced to manage cooperative strategies.........................3
Question 5: Challenges of successful acquisition.......................................................................3
Question 6: Importance of leadership responsibilities................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Competitive strategy can be defined as the plan of action which is made for long-term so
that company can achieve advantage over its competitors after proper examination of its
strengths and weaknesses (Duanmu, Bu and Pittman, 2018). The topics covered in this report are
elements of general environment which are significant for the future of German luxury car
industry, effective relationship built by David Jones with its customers. Identification of major
environmental trends which needs consideration of Walmart to enter in China market are also
focused with competitive issues which are faced by General Electric company while managing
cooperative strategies. Apart from this, report also focuses on challenges faced by Starbucks with
the acquisition and the leadership roles and responsibilities.
MAIN BODY
Question 1: Elements of General Environment
Looking at the current scenario, German luxury car industry should majorly focus on
political and economic environment. After pandemic and even before it, GDP was on lower side
and unemployment was also high (Mazzocato, 2019). So to grow and cop up with change in
environment, political environment plays role by which government shapes business, like the
tax policies, changes in trade restrictions and tariffs. On the basis of such factors industry of
luxury cars need to analysis the political environment. Here fiscal policy of government play an
important part as is determines support of government to the industry.
Other then this economic environment which centres on the economic conditions within
which industry operates. This includes elements like interest rates, gross domestic product,
unemployment rates and the general growth of economy. All external factors which are placed in
immediate marketplace influence the businesses (Seum, Ehrenberger and Pregger, 2020). So
industry of luxury cars should focuses on economic environment for the future growth because
this environmental type influences the businesses by telling how it operates and how successful it
might become. It consists of different things for different people. For example for luxury cars,
better performance capabilities and lavish interiors with latest technological features are the
desires of people.
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Question 2: Effective relationship building
David Jones, an Australian upmarket departmental store which deals in products like
cosmetics, fashion, homewards, furniture and electricals announced a new loyalty program called
'David Jones Reward' which was stated as 'the future of retail loyalty'. This happened because
with powerful customer relationship business can succeed and earn desired profitability in
market (Jones and Kober, 2019). This also helped enterprise to lead with loyal clients, have
positive word of mouth an increased sales which was main motive of the company. This program
operates like old traditional loyalty programs where members would receive benefits for signing
up to the program and shop at store.
The benefits included welcome rewards and birthday rewards which would give access to
exclusive offers, invites for members meets and automatic entry into monthly draw to win David
Jones gift cards with every purchase. With the traditional plastic card members also get access to
exclusive offers and surprises (Lee, Lee and Jones, 2016). Basically with launch of program the
company delivered value to its customers within all categories and brands which has foster one
to one relationship. This also tapped the data of customer base across demographics and
behavioural information. This mainly helped David Jones increase its content-led marketing
investments.
Question 3: Environmental trends
Before entering into new marketplace Walmart need to analysis and evaluate the
environmental trends which may effect their functioning and operations in new marketplace. The
major trends are as follow-
For pollution cut down companies need to increased incentives- As china is a
stagnating economy the government is focusing on choosing incentivize insight of penalize
businesses in order to cut down the pollution level in the country. As china is a developing
country so it is focusing on introducing more number of companies. As the number companies
increased the level of pollution is also increasing and in order to control they have formulated
this strategy. So Walmart need to consider this factor before entering in china (Environmental
Trends to enter in China, 2018).
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Environmental inspections to increase- In China, it has been declared by Ministry of
Ecology and Environment, that air pollution level will hit hard in coming period. These increased
level of pollution will attract threefold inspection in specifically industrial, energy, transportation
and land use sectors (Gavriletea, 2017). This will bring Walmart in same category and it will also
have to face high inspection, therefore, before entering into China market, company need to
consider this factor very seriously.
Question 4: Major Competitive issues faced to manage cooperative strategies
The factors which distinguishes between different image consultants in industry are the
factors which rise competitive issues. General Electric Company (GE) is an enterprise which
follows generic strategy for the competitive advantage along with intensive growth strategies and
it also ensures to grow in global market (Bowen, Bansal and Slawinski, 2018). Generic strategies
of Michael Porter are used to develop and maintain competitive advantage. Looking at the case
of GE, it uses these strategies for taking competitive benefit in oil and gas, energy, aviation,
transportation, healthcare and electric lighting industries.
On the other side, strategies for company's intensive growth are employed to support and
sustain with business growth. GE relies on diversification as a major growth factor through out
the year. The accumulation of intensive strategies used by GE facilitates continues growth
neglecting change in economic conditions and competitive challenges taking consideration of
competitors like Siemens (Heath and Thompson, 2018). All these strategies encourage
company's recoil as one of the best diversified businesses. However, for long-term growth and to
compete with the competitors in the industry, General Electrics use combination of intensive
strategies and generic competitive strategies must will remain relevant in the industrial situation.
Question 5: Challenges of successful acquisition
In past two decades Starbucks has made some acquisitions which has given a huge
success but there were some challenges which the company has faced because acquisition of
companies are not so easy task. The challenges faced are as follows:
 Overestimated synergies- In simple words, synergies is the increased revenue or cost
saved which can be resultant to the transactions (Obrusnikova, Novak and Cavalier,
2019). Unexpectedly these are the motives of many deals of the company but they are
overestimated sometimes.
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 Lose of trust of important stakeholders- The human capital is most important part of
most of the business and acquirers do pay scant attention, negligence of which may lead
to more challenges. .
 Failed Integration- Problems may arise with acquisition because integration comes after
any acquisition only, this may include the culture and change in management which
creates inefficient work environment (Kalenda, Hyna and Rossi, 2018). Starbucks gave
due diligence at every level we4re the members of team need to take notes on various
parts of business can be integrated and at the closer of transactions.
 Overpaying- This problem is the very common because there is a universal problem
which stalks transactions as the sellers only rise there voice when enterprise is not paying
them enough, they will not do anything when it is paying too high. To avoid such things
Starbucks looked for suitable value for which the company has a limit which ended up
saving millions of dollars of company.
 Lack of motive for acquisition- For every company this is the first question which arises
in the mind of top authorities, and tell the time if they don't have answer of 'why are we
doing this?', there are high chances that other problems may also arise as they are directly
consequent to this question.
Question 6: Importance of leadership responsibilities
The following are the most important leadership responsibilities of leader in any
company:
 Trust Building- The leader is responsible for building trust with team members and
other top authorities so that the work flow is effective enough.
 Communicate- Leader has to communicate with members to get work done because
team cannot understand or execute any task without knowing goals and objectives clearly
(Fernandez and Shaw, 2020).
 Offer autonomy and sufficient resources- The lack of time and resources fails the team
to complete their tasks. It is responsibility of leader to ensure that team is having
sufficient resources and autonomy to carry out work.
 Hold the accountability of team members- Leader is the person who knows the
standards of excellence, experience of team members in the job. It is duty of the leader to
to ensure that the whole team is committed towards the completion of job.
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 Motivate people- To get the tasks and bring out productivity from the employees the
leader needs to motive them so that their individual goal and organizational goals can be
accomplished.
In today's time the leaders like Jack Ma can develop their skills by being curious about
learning and knowing new things, finding their role models, work on the feedbacks and by being
versatile person who can adopt new situations easily (Saxena, Davies and Philippon, 2018).
Though these skills a leader can be more effective in his role for an enterprise.
CONCLUSION
The above project report concludes that competitive strategies are those strategies which
helps the companies to over come the challenges and work effectively in difficult situations. The
general environment has the elements like political and economic environment which may effect
the working of company in future. The challenges faced by company at the time of acquisition
are Overestimated synergies, Lose of trust of important stakeholders,Failed Integration,
Overpaying and Lack of motive for acquisition. To formulate competitive strategies leaders do
need to follow some leadership styles.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Bowen, F. E., Bansal, P. and Slawinski, N., 2018. Scale matters: T he scale of environmental
issues in corporate collective actions. Strategic Management Journal. 39(5). pp.1411-
1436.
Duanmu, J. L., Bu, M. and Pittman, R., 2018. Does market competition dampen environmental
performance? Evidence from China. Strategic Management Journal. 39(11). pp.3006-
3030.
Fernandez, A. A. and Shaw, G. P., 2020. Academic Leadership in a Time of Crisis: The
Coronavirus and COVID‐19. Journal of Leadership Studies. 14(1). pp.39-45.
Gavriletea, M. D., 2017. Environmental impacts of sand exploitation. Analysis of sand
market. Sustainability. 9(7). p.1118.
Heath, T. R. and Thompson, W.R., 2018. Avoiding US-China competition is futile: Why the best
option is to manage strategic rivalry. asia policy. 25(2). pp.91-119.
Jones, M. D. and Kober, J. J., 2019. Lead with Your Customer: Transform Culture and Brand
Into World-class Excellence. American Society for Training and Development.
Kalenda, M., Hyna, P. and Rossi, B., 2018. Scaling agile in large organizations: Practices,
challenges, and success factors. Journal of Software: Evolution and Process. 30(10).
p.e1954.
Lee, H. R., Lee, J. S. and Jones, D., 2016. Exploring the Interrelationship between Convention
and Visitor Bureau (CVB) and its Stakeholders, and CVB Performance from the
Perspective of Stakeholders. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing. 33(2). pp.224-
249.
Mazzocato, A., 2019. The Rising E-Car industry, And the Influence of Car Sharing in the
German Market (Bachelor's thesis, Università Ca'Foscari Venezia).
Obrusnikova, I., Novak, H. M. and Cavalier, A. R., 2019. The Effect of Systematic Prompting on
the Acquisition of Five Muscle-Strengthening Exercises by Adults With Mild
Intellectual Disabilities. Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly. 36(4). pp.447-471.
Saxena, A., Davies, M. and Philippon, D., 2018. Structure of health-care dyad leadership: an
organization’s experience. Leadership in Health Services.
Seum, S., Ehrenberger, S. and Pregger, T., 2020. Extended emission factors for future
automotive propulsion in Germany considering fleet composition, new technologies and
emissions from energy supplies. Atmospheric Environment. p.117568.
Online
Environmental Trends to enter in China. 2018. [Online]. Available though:
<https://www.china-briefing.com/news/environmental-compliance-in-china/>
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