Preview

1 Cost Leadership

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1027 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
1 Cost Leadership
1. Cost Leadership
In cost leadership, a firm sets out to become the low cost producer in its industry. The sources of cost advantage are varied and depend on the structure of the industry. They may include the pursuit of economies of scale, proprietary technology, preferential access to raw materials and other factors. A low cost producer must find and exploit all sources of cost advantage. if a firm can achieve and sustain overall cost leadership, then it will be an above average performer in its industry, provided it can command prices at or near the industry average. 2. Differentiation
In a differentiation strategy a firm seeks to be unique in its industry along some dimensions that are widely valued by buyers. It selects one or more attributes that many buyers in an industry perceive as important, and uniquely positions itself to meet those needs. It is rewarded for its uniqueness with a premium price. 3. Focus
The generic strategy of focus rests on the choice of a narrow competitive scope within an industry. The focuser selects a segment or group of segments in the industry and tailors its strategy to serving them to the exclusion of others.
The focus strategy has two variants.
(a) In cost focus a firm seeks a cost advantage in its target segment, while in (b) differentiation focus a firm seeks differentiation in its target segment. Both variants of the focus strategy rest on differences between a focuser's target segment and other segments in the industry. The target segments must either have buyers with unusual needs or else the production and delivery system that best serves the target segment must differ from that of other industry segments. Cost focus exploits differences in cost behaviour in some segments, while differentiation focus exploits the special needs of buyers in certain segments.
Cost Leadership Strategy
This strategy involves the organisation aiming to be the lowest cost producer and/or distributor within their industry. The

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Hrm/531 Week 5

    • 4281 Words
    • 18 Pages

    Product differentiation is a business strategy whereby firms attempt to gain a competitive advantage by increasing the perceived value of their products and services relative to the perceived value of other firms' products or services.…

    • 4281 Words
    • 18 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    CH 11 ACC 350 Study Guide

    • 824 Words
    • 3 Pages

    STRATEGIC COST MANAGEMENT BASIC CONCEPTS The most important strategic elements for a firm are its long-term growth and survival. Strategic decision making involves choosing among alternative strategies with the goal of selecting a strategy, or strategies, that provides a company with a reasonable assurance of long-term growth and survival. The key to achieving long-term growth and survival is to gain a competitive advantage. Competitive advantage is the process of creating better customer value for the same or lower cost than that of competitors or creating equivalent value for lower cost than that of competitors. Customer value is the difference between what a customer receives (customer realization) and what the customer gives up (customer sacrifice). The total product is the complete range of tangible and intangible benefits that a customer receives from a purchased product. A strategy can be defined as choosing the market and customer segments the business unit intends to serve, identifying the critical internal business processes that the unit must excel at to deliver the value propositions to customers in the targeted market segments, and selecting the individual and organizational capabilities required for the internal, customer, and financial objectives. Three general strategies for obtaining a competitive advantage Cost leadership Product differentiation Focusing A company is pursuing a cost…

    • 824 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Rize Documentary

    • 528 Words
    • 3 Pages

    • Product differentiation is an organization’s ability to offer products or services perceived by its customers to be superior and unique.…

    • 528 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    When pursing a differentiation strategy, the focus of competition is to add unique features in order to…

    • 16463 Words
    • 79 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    (these could also be applied as ‘focus’ strategy which achieves cost or differentiation advantages by…

    • 1282 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    A cost leadership strategy is where a business aims to be the lowest cost manufacturer within its industry. The products are the basic, no-frills type with fewer features, perhaps lower quality and using low-cost packaging.…

    • 6112 Words
    • 25 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    What Is Panera Bread Audit

    • 3502 Words
    • 15 Pages

    This approach involves companies in choosing to focus their capital and resources in developing a specific product or a basket of products that matches customer needs and preferences. The singular objective of a concentration strategy is to provide focus on particular product line and the market associated with it.…

    • 3502 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    A differentiation strategy aimed at increasing the value customers perceive in an organization’s goods and services usually succeeds the value customers perceive in an organization’s goods and services usually succeeds best in a flexible structure with a culture that values innovation.…

    • 1959 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    minimum, enabling us to compete on the basis of price. Our Cost Leader orientation will allow us gain a…

    • 2012 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    2. Church, J and Ware, R. (2000). Product Differentiation. In: Tom Thompson Industrial Organisation: A Strategic Approach. United States of America: Mc Graw-Hill. 367-422.…

    • 1651 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    . A successful product differentiation strategy will move your product from competing based primarily on price to competing on non-price factors (such as product characteristics, distribution strategy, or promotional variables).…

    • 1089 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Strategic Planning Paper

    • 2377 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Cost leadership defined by Zanebooks as a strategy that a company uses that provides low costs while concentrating on the cost advantages of all other sources, which requires a balance with cost and quality. Wal-Mart’s success is contributed to no other company able to provide the cost leadership initiative on the same scale. The company uses unrelenting tactics to bring low cost to the costumers. Using cost leadership…

    • 2377 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Generic strategies focus strategy concentrates on a narrow market by cost advantage or differentiation but Strategy Clock is not.…

    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    It should be clear from the table that there are numerous sources of cost that are incurred when undertaking operations processes. Therefore, an intrinsic aspect of strategic operations management involves cost leadership. Cost leadership involves aiming to have the lowest costs or to be the most price-competitive in the market. A key aspect to cost leadership is that although trading with the lowest cost, the overall business should still be profitable. This means that operations managers must find ways to minimise costs.…

    • 386 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Starbucks Script

    • 630 Words
    • 3 Pages

    According to Porter (1998a), there are three basic strategies a company can use to leverage itself in an industry; these are cost leadership, differentiation and focus. Cost leadership involves the strategy of producing low-cost but high quality products and reducing operational costs…

    • 630 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays