Competitive Strategy in Film: A Case Study of Guardians of the Galaxy

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Competitive Strategy

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Executive summary:
This study will be including the introduction on competitive strategy and business
strategy used by the makers of the movie. The case study has been explained in this
study and the problems or issues of strategy has also been identified and relevant
theoretical concepts has also been explained which will going to help them to
understand about the problems faced by them in making and promoting the movie.
Conclusion will be provided in the end which will explain or give brief of whole study.

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Table of Contents
Executive summary:.........................................................................................................2
Introduction...................................................................................................................... 4
Case brief:.................................................................................................................... 4
Identification of strategic issues:...................................................................................5
Relevant theoretical concepts:..................................................................................... 6
Conclusion....................................................................................................................... 7
References.......................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
Competitive strategy is known as the plan which is created for long term for a particular
company so that they can attain the advantage of the competition over their competitors
in the industry. It aims at the development of defensive position within the industry and
creating higher amount of ROI (Return on Investment). These types of strategies play
very important and crucial role in the in growth of industry which is very competitive in
nature and it also gives the same product to all the customers which they meet. It is
necessary for the company to understand the importance of competitive strategy
because it helps them to lead in the industry and gain profits by bringing all the
competitors down. Gaining competitive advantage is not an easy task that is why to
create a strategy for the competition is very important so that they can earn profits for
the longer period of time.
In this study, there will be discussion on the business strategy which is created by the
makers and directors of the movie guardians of galaxy and it is a very big hit. The
earning of the movie domestically is US$333 million on the box office totally otherwise
abysmal 2014 for exhibitor in other countries are also there.
Case brief:
The exhibition of the domestic movie industry was left undefended when the movie
Guardians of the galaxy was released at the box office. The gross at the domestic
box office of the Guardians of the Galaxy was around $333 million. The film was very
well-crafted and made in way to create suspense for the audience and won the hearts
of audience who watched that movie. It was found from the reports that both the
admissions and the revenues were in the declination in the year 2014. Though the
revenues were in the peak in the year 2013 but were in declination in five years out of
ten prior years and the admissions were in declination in seven years out of ten prior
years. The makers of the movie made many different strategies by identifying the
opportunities that can be helpful for the success of the movie. Opportunities like the
movie tickets have now become more widely available that has created a new
substitutes for viewing movie.
Exhibitors were very concerned about the amount that will come from the invested
amount (US$2.4 billion) on the conversion of the cinemas to projecting digitally from the
film since year 2005. After the implementation of the digital projecting of the movies has
made the audience very excited and also enhanced the experience of the viewing.
There are three stages of the motion picture value chain of the movie industry in the
cinemas which are namely exhibition, distribution, and studio production. There are
many changes related to consolidation and technologies that have been taken place in
these stages of the motion picture change.
The industry’s lifeblood is produced by the studio production or which can be called as
the content of the motion picture. Over 81% of the receipts of the box office in the top
six responsibilities, the studios are known to be highly concentrated. The sales of ticket
includes two-third of the revenue of business gained by the movie after exhibition. The
return is quite small due to the studio’s power or capability and it is important for them to

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understand that they have to promote their movie in those areas where it is necessary
and where their potential customers are otherwise they are going to decrease their vale
and profit both. The biggest exhibitor of the movie has rental average fees of around 54
percent which covers the larger part of the receipts of the movie.
The decreased margin has found that the sale of the tickets of the movie affects on the
focus of exhibitors which is the main reason that they are losing the focus on other
sources of income also and it is not a good sign for the makers of the movie because
they were expecting something else from their distributor. From 2002, the revenue
generated from advertising and the time given by them in making this movie takes the
start from every feature, has a growth of US$186 million to US$678 million in 2014.
Identification of strategic issues:
The strategic issues which are identified in this case study is that the makers of the
movie has decided to launch the movie on huge number of screens so that it can
increase the reach of customers are helps them in gaining more amount of profit. The
main issue which aroused in the success of this movie is to decide where they want to
launch the movie and where they can earn more profit, it is the main task for the makers
of the movie. It is not an easy task to identify because if the assumptions and
calculations go wrong then they will not be able to recover the cost of the movie and
movie might get flop (Baden-Fuller and Haefliger, 2013). The another strategic issue
which has been noticed or identified in this movie is that the analysis of the collection of
the movie has not been done properly otherwise the movie would have earned more
than US$333 million domestically, it is very important for each and every movie maker
to make a plan and analyse the industry or market properly so that they can be
strategically in releasing the movie and earning the profit.
Creating of developing a movie is not just making it in a studio. Infect, there are lots of
things which producers and movie makers need to do to make that particular movie
successful. They have to strategically analyse the market of the movie before launching
otherwise the movie might get flop just because it was not well promoted between the
potential audiences of the movie. Strategy or roadmap for the completion of the task is
important because it helps people or makers of the movie in understand the method or
the ways which they have to apply on the movie to make it successful ( Oestreicher-
Singer and Zalmanson, 2013). Another issue which was recorded in this movie is that
the relation between distributers and exhibitors should be healthy and good otherwise
movie cannot be able to reach the level of success. Distribution is the very important
step in releasing the movie because deciding the date of release of a particular movie
the producers and the movie makers should decide where they will going to launch their
movie. Distribution includes everything like completion of the movie, marketing,
administration and logistics which is the main part in any kind of movie which is
successful. It is also a kind of strategic issue which has been seen in making this movie
is that the relation between the makers and the distribution team which need to be
healthy for the successful future of the movie. There were over 300 distributers of the
movie but most of the distributors just performing the task of delivering the movies to the
cinemas and from cinemas to the ultimate customers (van Burg, et. al., 2012).

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The another strategic issue which has been seen in the process of completion and
release of this movie is that it launched the movie in both 2D and 3D but the makers of
the movie should know that there is more profit to them if they launch it largely in 3D
because the collection of the 3D movie is more than the 2D movie. It also depends on
the type of country in which they are releasing the movie whether they should release
the movie in 2D or 3D it is a very big strategic decision otherwise the movie can be flop
in that particular region. The topic which has been chosen for the movie is business
strategy because it is their strategy that made them reach the height of success of the
movie (Reyns, et. al., 2016).
Strategic issues can be resolved by using business strategy because it helps them in
understanding what kind of strategies they should perform or use to make a particular
movie successful. A successful movie includes everything in a perfect blend and in
proper quantity but the main thing which make that movie successful is the strategy
which is developed by the makers of the movie to make it successful. Strategy plays a
very important role in the good performance of the movie. Acting is not the only thing
which takes the credit of success of the movie (Schrader, et. al., 2012).
Relevant theoretical concepts:
The industrial organizational fields during the past two decades has been changed or
transformed majorly. The theory of the business strategy made huge impact in the ways
of researching as it contains mainly of the game-theoretical that enables an organization
to study the performance and behavior of the competitive market that is imperfect.The
theory is business strategy is way more than just visioning, reviewing, forecasting, and
planning. In the new rapidly changing economic world, it has become more important to
redefine the issues of implementation for all the tasks and operations of the
organization. The business strategy has now become more concerned about making
the match between the external environment of the organization and the internal
capabilities of the organization. There are many different theories of the business
strategies that can be used by the organization in order to stay ahead in the
competition.
It is important for the organization to have a clear understanding of the theories of
business strategy. There is an underlying relationship between the various academic
theories that depicts different business strategies and the choices that are associated
with the businesses in pursuing a particular strategy. It has been found that this
relationship is not well understood by the business organization or they have some
clarity issues in understanding this concept (Bharadwaj, et. al., 2013).
It has been seen that alternatively, the business strategy mostly represents WHAT, like
in the identification of both WHAT the firm has chosen to do and WHAT the firm has
chosen not to do and also WHAT unique and cohesive approach that is needed
implemented by the organization in order to make the organization competitively strong
in the market that the organization has chosen. So, the theories of the business strategy
may help an organization to link them properly with WHY and WHAT of the strategic
approaches of the organization as the theories always contains answers of WHYs.

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The modern theories of the business strategy consists of the sets of analytic techniques
and tools that helps the organization to have better understanding of the market and to
make the company stand at the position where it actually stands and also according to
its potential capability. It can be observed easily that the strategy in today’s generation
is the subject of application that makes it obvious that the key disciplines for a good
strategy are the economics of the organization and also its culture. For defining a
structure that will contain the processes of the formulation of the strategy and also the
implementation of that formulated strategies. The business strategy is referred to the
combination of the strategies of a strategic business unit or of a single business firm in a
diversified corporation. The business strategy is the important part of any type of
business because it helps them to gain the competitive advantage and attain their
desired goals and objective very effective and efficiently in a short period of time (Pieké,
et. al., 2014).

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Conclusion
In this study, there has been description on the business strategy and how it need to be
used by the companies or movie makers to make that particular movie successful.
According to the case study, the movie guardians of galaxy is the very successful movie
because of their strategy which they developed and the acting of the actors is very
appreciable. Outline of the movie has also been presented in this study and also
identified the strategic issues in the launch of the movie and relevant theories or
concepts are also explained.

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References
 Baden-Fuller, C. and Haefliger, S., 2013. Business models and technological
innovation. Long range planning, 46(6), pp.419-426.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0024630113000691
 Bharadwaj, A., El Sawy, O.A., Pavlou, P.A. and Venkatraman, N., 2013. Digital
business strategy: toward a next generation of insights. MIS quarterly, pp.471-
482. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43825919
 Oestreicher-Singer, G. and Zalmanson, L., 2013. Content or community? A
digital business strategy for content providers in the social age. MIS quarterly,
pp.591-616.
https://en-coller.tau.ac.il/sites/nihul_en.tau.ac.il/files/RP_277_Oestreicher-
Singer.pdf
 Pieké, R., Bailey, L., Wolter, K. and Plaete, J., 2014, July. Creating the flying
armadas in Guardians of the Galaxy. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2014 Talks (p. 7).
ACM. https://www.mpc-rnd.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/a7-pieke.pdf
 Reyns, B.W., Henson, B. and Fisher, B.S., 2016. Guardians of the cyber galaxy:
An empirical and theoretical analysis of the guardianship concept from routine
activity theory as it applies to online forms of victimization. Journal of
Contemporary Criminal Justice, 32(2), pp.148-168.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bonnie_Fisher2/publication/288872979_Gu
ardians_of_the_Cyber_Galaxy_An_Empirical_and_Theoretical_Analysis_of_the_
Guardianship_Concept_From_Routine_Activity_Theory_as_It_Applies_to_Online
_Forms_of_Victimization/links/56ab6dec08aeadd1bdce460c/Guardians-of-the-
Cyber-Galaxy-An-Empirical-and-Theoretical-Analysis-of-the-Guardianship-
Concept-From-Routine-Activity-Theory-as-It-Applies-to-Online-Forms-of-
Victimization.pdf
 Schrader, C., Freimann, J. and Seuring, S., 2012. Business strategy at the base
of the pyramid. Business Strategy and the environment, 21(5), pp.281-298.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Juergen_Freimann/publication/
264345335_Business_Strategy_at_the_Base_of_Pyramid/links/
5a3d3468a6fdcce197ff73bd/Business-Strategy-at-the-Base-of-Pyramid.pdf
 van Burg, E., Podoynitsyna, K., Beck, L. and Lommelen, T., 2012. Directive
deficiencies: How resource constraints direct opportunity identification in
SMEs. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 29(6), pp.1000-1011.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212567115010114/pdf?
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