Competitive Strategy Essay

This essay analyzes the competitive strategies of two prominent companies: Coca-Cola and Google. For Coca-Cola, the essay examines how its strategic framework, including product differentiation (e.g., Roo Juice, Diet Coke), allows it to maintain a competitive edge in a crowded beverage market. The focus is on how Coca-Cola uses product diversification to attract a broader customer base and counter competition from PepsiCo and Dr. Pepper Snapple Group. The essay then shifts to Google, analyzing its unique business model centered around free information access and paid advertising. It highlights how Google's model, based on providing free search services to users, attracts massive traffic, making it an attractive platform for advertisers and generating substantial revenue. The essay emphasizes the importance of innovation in Google's strategy, with continuous updates to its search engine to maintain user engagement and attract advertisers. Both case studies illustrate the crucial role of strategic planning and innovative business models in achieving and sustaining competitive advantage.

Running head: COMPETITIVE STRATEGY
Competitive Strategy
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Section 1:
There can be no gain stating the importance of strategy in determining the organizational
success of a company. In fact, it is the strategy that enables an organization draft an action plan
designed to achieve an immediate or long-term objective. While there will remain thousand of
beverage companies selling carbonated drinks across the globe, the strategic framework of Coca
Cola has always helped the company stay ahead of its competitors (Kryscynski 2017). Founded a
long time back in the year of 1886, Coca Cola has indeed come a long way in evolving itself
from a mere cocaine-infused elixir to emerge as the most favorite brand amongst the consumers
(Moye 2016). Hence, it is interesting to examine how effective strategies have helped Coca Cola
gain competitive edge over the rival brands.
The strategy of any company is its blueprint for success and the same holds truth for
Coca Cola as well. However, while attempting to evaluate the strategic priorities of Coca Cola, it
is important to understand why strategy adoption became so indispensible for the company. Coca
Cola has been finding it difficult to sustain itself in a highly competitive market, where it is
exposed to tough competition from some of the rival giants such as PepsiCo and Dr. Pepper
Snapple Group. Consequently, if Coca Cola had to thrive, it must adopt strategies that would
help it boost its profitability, and enhance its revenue growth by attracting the attention of larger
customer base. However, no matter what the organizational goal of a company is, the goal can be
fulfilled only when it is backed by a powerful strategy. Accordingly, the management authority
decided that it would retain consumers and attract new ones through the strategy of product
differentiation (Moye 2016). Consequently, the company, in no time, successfully launched its
famous drink, named Roo Juice, which was introduced as part of a joint venture between Coca-
Cola and Disney that is expected to boost the competitive growth of the company. As part of its

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business strategy, the company has at the same time launched different kinds of beverages and
carbonated drinks such as Diet Coke to ensure that it is able to draw the attention of a larger
customer base. Thus, the strategy of the company is to tap the attention of a larger customer base,
whereby it tries to serve some unique product as per the needs of each customer base (such as
Roo Juice for the kid segment, or Diet Coke for the health conscious segment). Usually, when a
company encounters cut-throat competition, it has two alternative courses of action to follow-
either cut down the price or offer innovation in product. Since Coca Cola offers good quality
products, the cost-cutting strategy would only imply compromise with the quality of the product
offered. Hence, the strategic course of action chosen by the company to achieve competitive
advantage over the rival brands is to offer a variety of new products promoted by valuable brands
such as Disney that can help in attracting the attention of a larger customer base.
Section 2:
The importance of business model in a company can never be overstated. In fact, it is
important to note that it is the business model that provides a structured framework to an
organization about how a company can generate its revenue, identify new and unique sources of
revenue or how it will target its new customer base (HSGUniStGallen 2017). Thus, the business
model of a company plays a vital role in making or marring the success of the company. A
variety of business models are available and different companies usually adopt them as per the
specific needs of the industry. Although there are many companies, the business model of
Google is being selected as it has emerged to be the most recognized American multinational
company which has managed to organize global information and to make it universally
accessible and useful.

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The company definitely faces competition from Bing and Yahoo, and yet these companies can
have little or no impact on Google’s business growth, because of the unique business model
adopted by Google. Most of the people tend to think that the business model of Google is based
on its focus on diverse fields that help in enhancing its sources of revenue. However, in reality,
the truth is that Google’s business model largely relies on the use of paid advertisements which is
known for generating the profit. The question that arises here is that why would the people, (the
advertisers) choose Google instead of other online platforms. The answer lies with the business
model of Google. The management authority of Google has been well-aware that people could
go through the advertisements only when they would be allowed the opportunity of exploring a
wide variety of information. Accordingly, Google’s business model has been based on making
information search free for anybody and everybody that has added to the huge popularity of the
company in the first place. Now, once the company has been able to establish itself as the most
reputed search engine, it is able to increase the traffic of the users, ultimately convincing the
advertisers, that Google is the best platform to enhance its visibility. Google is known for
generating approximately 98% of its massive billions in revenue from selling ad space (Lazer et
al. 2014). Further, it is equally important to note that innovation is also an integral aspect of the
business model of Google. As part of its business model plan, the company not only offers free
users to all its users whereby they are not required to pay a single buck for accessing the
websites, it also keeps on continually updating its site. Google updates its search engine on a
regular basis so that it can offer some new, fresh and unique content each day to its users. As a
result of the adoption of an effective business model, the company has been able to earn
revenues from various advertisers who are interested in reaching out to the online users.
Google’s business idea is based on the idea of charging more money from the advertisers on a

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cost per click basis, without charging a single penny from any of its online searchers as a result
all the searchers end up searching information from Google only.

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Reference List:
HSGUniStGallen 2017. Business Model Innovation. [image] Available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4ZSGQW0UMI [Accessed 22 Aug. 2017].
Kryscynski, D. 2017. What is Strategy?. [image] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=TD7WSLeQtVw [Accessed 22 Aug. 2017].
Lazer, D., Kennedy, R., King, G. and Vespignani, A., 2014. The parable of Google Flu: traps in
big data analysis. Science, 343(6176), pp.1203-1205.
Moye, J., 2016. One Brand’Strategy, New Global Campaign Unite Coca-Cola
Trademark. Retrieved February, 20, p.2016.