4

CHAPTER

Business-Level Strategy
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Studying this chapter should provide you with the strategic management
knowledge needed to:
1 Discuss the relationships between customers and business-level
strategies in terms of who, what, and how.
2 Explain the purpose of forming and implementing a business-level
strategy.
3 Describe business models and explain their relationship with business- level
strategies.
4 Explain the differences among five types of business-level strategies.
5 Use the five forces of competition model to explain how firms can earn
above-average returns when using each business-level strategy.
6 Discuss the risks associated with using each of the business-level
strategies.
 Chapter Introduction (slide 1 of 3)
• By selecting and implementing one or more strategies, firms seek to:
• Gain strategic competitiveness
• Earn above-average returns
• Strategies:
• Are purposeful
• Develop before firms engage rivals in marketplace competitions
• Demonstrate a shared understanding of the firm’s vision and mission
• A strategy that is consistent with the conditions and realities of a
firm’s external and internal environments marshals, integrates, and
allocates available resources, capabilities, and competencies to align
them properly with opportunities in the external environment.
• When effective, a strategy rationalizes the firm’s vision and mission
along with the actions taken to achieve them.
 Chapter Introduction (slide 2 of 3)

• A business-level strategy is an integrated and

coordinated set of commitments and actions the
firm uses to gain a competitive advantage by
exploiting core competencies in a specific product
market.
• A business-level strategy is:
• Something that every firm must develop and implement
• The core strategy—the strategy that the firm forms to describe
how it intends to compete against rivals on a day-to- day basis in
its chosen product market
 Chapter Introduction (slide 3 of 3)

• Customers are the foundation of successful

business-level strategies.
• In terms of customers, when selecting a business-
level strategy, the firm determines:
• Who will be served
• What needs those target customers have that it will satisfy
• How those will needs will be satisfied
 4-1 Customers: Their Relationship
with Business-Level Strategies
• Strategic competitiveness results only when the firm
satisfies a group of customers by using its competitive
advantages as the basis for competing in individual
product markets.
• A key reason firms must satisfy customers with their business-
level strategy is that returns earned from relationships with
customers are the lifeblood of all organizations.
• The most successful companies try to find new ways to:
• Satisfy current customers
• Meet the needs of new customers
 4-1aEffectively Managing
Relationships with Customers
• Firms strengthen their relationships with customers
by delivering superior value to them.
• Delivering superior value often results in increased
customer satisfaction.
• In turn, customer satisfaction has a positive relationship with
profitability because satisfied customers are more likely to be
repeat customers.
 4-1b Reach,
Richness, and
• Affiliation
The reach dimension of relationships with
customers revolves around the firm’s access and
connection to customers.
• Richness concerns the depth and detail of the
two-way flow of information between the firm
and customers.
• Affiliation is concerned with facilitating useful
interactions with customers.
 4-1c Who: Determining
the Customers to
• Serve
A firm decides who the target customer is by
dividing customers into groups based on
differences in customers’ needs.
• Market segmentation is the process of dividing
customers into groups based on their needs.
• Market segmentation is used to cluster customers with
similar needs into individual and identifiable groups.
• Firms can use almost any identifiable human or
organizational characteristic to subdivide a market into
segments that differ from one another on a given
characteristic.
 Table 4.1
Basis for Customer Segmentation (slide 1 of 2)

Consumer Markets
1. Demographic factors (age, income, sex, etc.)
2. Socioeconomic factors (social class, stage in the family life cycle)
3. Geographic factors (cultural, regional, and national differences)
4. Psychological factors (lifestyle, personality traits)
5. Consumption patterns (heavy, moderate, and light users)
6. Perceptual factors (benefit segmentation, perceptual mapping)
 Table 4.1
Basis for Customer Segmentation (slide 2 of 2)

Industrial Markets
1. End-use segments (identified by Standard Industrial Classification [SIC]
code)
2. Product segments (based on technological differences or production
economics)
3. Geographic segments (defined by boundaries between countries or by
regional differences within them)
4. Common buying factor segments (cut across product market and geographic
segments)
5. Customer size segments
Source: Based on information in S. C. Jain, 2009, Marketing Planning and
Strategy, Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Custom Publishing.
 4-1d What: Determining
Which Customer Needs to
• HavingSatisfy
close interactions with current and potential
customers helps a firm identify the targeted customer
group’s current and future needs that its products can
satisfy.
• In a general sense, needs (what) are related to a product’s
benefits and features.
• Successful firms:
• Learn how to deliver to customers what they want, when they
want it
• Recognize that consumer needs change
• Firms that fail to do this may lose their customers to competitors
whose products provide more value.
 4-1e How: Determining Core
Competencies Necessary to Satisfy
Customer Needs
• A firm must determine how to use its core
competencies in order to implement value-
creating strategies and develop products that can
satisfy its target customers’ needs.
• Core competencies are resources and capabilities that
serve as a source of competitive advantage for the firm
over its rivals.
• Customers’ expectations can be met and exceeded across time
by only those firms with the capacity to:
• Improve consistently
• Innovate
• Upgrade their competencies
 4-2 The Purpose of a
Business-Level Strategy
• The purpose of a business-level strategy is to
create differences between the firm’s position and
those of its competitors.
• To position itself differently from competitors, a firm
must decide if it intends to perform activities
differently or if it will perform different activities.
• Thus, the firm’s business-level strategy is a deliberate choice
about how it will perform the value chain’s primary and support
activities to create unique value.
 4-3 Business Models and their
Relationship with Business-Level
Strategies (slide 1 of 3)
• Business models are part of a comprehensive business- level
strategy.
• A business model describes what a firm does to create, deliver,
and capture value for its stakeholders.
• A business model influences the implementation of strategy,
especially in terms of the interdependent processes the firm uses
during implementation.
• Developing and integrating a business model and a business- level
strategy increases the likelihood of company success.
• In essence, a business model is a framework for how the firm will use
processes to create, deliver, and capture value, while a business-level
strategy is the path the firm will follow to gain a competitive
advantage by exploiting its core competencies in a specific product
market.
 4-3 Business Models and their
Relationship with Business-Level
Strategies (slide 2 of 3)
• There are many types of business models,
including:
• The franchise model
• A firm licenses its trademark and the processes it follows to
create and deliver a product to franchisees.
• Example: McDonald’s
• The freemium model
• The firm provides a basic product to customers for free and
earns revenues and profits by selling a premium version of the
service.
• Example: Dropbox
4-3 Business Models and their
Relationship with Business-Level
Strategies (slide 3 of 3)
• The advertising model
• For a fee, a firm provides advertisers with high-quality access to
its target customers.
• Example: Google
• The subscription model
• A firm offers a product to customers on a regular basis such
as once-per-month, once-per-year, or upon demand.
• Example: Netflix
• The peer-to-peer model
• A business matches those wanting a particular service with
those providing that service.
• Example: Airbnb
 4-4 Types of Business-
Level Strategies (slide 1 of
2)
• Firms choose between five business-level strategies to establish and
defend their desired strategic position against competitors:
1. Cost leadership
2. Differentiation
3. Focused cost leadership
4. Focused differentiation
5. Integrated cost leadership/differentiation
• Each business-level strategy can help the firm establish and exploit a
competitive advantage (either lowest cost or distinctiveness) as the basis
for how it will create value for customers within a particular competitive
scope (broad market or narrow market).
 Figure 4.1
Five Business-Level Strategies
 4-4 Types of Business-
Level Strategies (slide 2 of
2)
• None of the five business-level strategies is inherently or
universally superior to the others.
• The effectiveness of each strategy is contingent on the:
• Opportunities and threats in a firm’s external environment
• Strengths and weaknesses derived from its resource portfolio
• Thus, it is critical for the firm to select a business-level
strategy that represents an effective match between the
opportunities and threats in its external environment and the
strengths of its internal organization based on its core
competencies.
 4-4a Cost Leadership Strategy
(slide 1 of 5)

• The cost leadership strategy is an integrated set of

actions taken to produce products with features that are
acceptable to customers at the lowest cost, relative to that of
competitors.
• Firms using the cost leadership strategy commonly sell
standardized goods or services, but with competitive levels
of differentiation, to the industry’s most typical customers.
• Process innovations (newly designed production and
distribution methods and techniques that allow the firm to
operate more efficiently) are critical to a firm’s efforts to use
the cost leadership strategy successfully.
 Figure 4.2
Examples of Value-Creating Activities
Associated with the Cost Leadership Strategy
 4-4a Cost Leadership Strategy
(slide 2 of 5)

• Firms that effectively use the cost leadership strategy can earn above-
average returns despite the presence of strong competitive forces.

Rivalry with Existing Competitors

• Because of the cost leader’s advantageous position, rivals hesitate to
compete on the price variable.
• Factors that influence the degree of rivalry that firms encounter
when implementing the cost leadership strategy include:
• Organizational size
• Resources possessed by rivals
• A firm’s dependence on a particular market
• Location
• Prior competitive interactions between firms
• A firm’s reach, richness, and affiliation with customers
 4-4a Cost Leadership Strategy
(slide 3 of 5)

Bargaining Power of Buyers (Customers)

• Although customers can force a cost leader to reduce its prices, prices
will not be reduced below the level at which the cost leader’s next-most-
efficient industry competitor can earn average returns.
• A competitor that does not earn average returns would be forced to exit the
market, leaving the cost leader with less competition and an even stronger
bargaining position.

Bargaining Power of Suppliers

• A cost leader generally operates with margins greater than the margins
earned by its competitors, thus making it possible for the cost leader to
absorb its suppliers’ price increases.
• To reduce costs, some firms may outsource an entire function to a
single or a small number of suppliers.
 4-4a Cost Leadership Strategy
(slide 4 of 5)

Potential Entrants
• Over time, the efficiency of a cost leader enhances its profit margins,
which in turn creates an entry barrier to potential competitors.
• New entrants must be willing to accept less than average returns until they
gain the experience required to approach the cost leader’s efficiency.

Product Substitutes
• When faced with product substitutes, the cost leader has more
flexibility than do its competitors.
• To retain customers, it often can reduce its product’s price.
 4-4a Cost Leadership Strategy
(slide 5 of 5)

Competitive Risks of the Cost Leadership

Strategy
• Competitive risks associated with the cost
leadership strategy include:
• A loss of competitive advantage to newer
technologies
• A failure to detect changes in customers’
needs
• The ability to imitate the cost leader’s competitive
advantage through competitors’ own distinct strategic
actions
 4-4b Differentiation Strategy (slide 1 of 6)
• The differentiation strategy is an integrated set of
actions taken to produce products (at an acceptable cost) that
customers perceive as being different in ways that are
important to them.
• While cost leaders serve a typical customer in an industry,
differentiators target customers for whom the firm creates value
because of the manner in which its products differ from those
produced and marketed by competitors.
• Product innovation (a new product or service development
that solves the customer’s problem and benefits both the
customer and the company) is critical to the successful use
of the differentiation strategy.
 4-4b Differentiation Strategy (slide 2 of 6)
• Through the differentiation strategy, the firm produces
distinctive products for customers who value
differentiated features more than low cost.
• Because a differentiated product satisfies customers’ unique
needs, firms following the differentiation strategy are able to
charge premium prices.
• The ability to sell a product at a price that substantially exceeds the cost
of creating its differentiated features allows the firm to outperform rivals
and earn above-average returns.
• To maintain success by implementing the differentiation
strategy, the firm must:
• Consistently upgrade differentiated features that customers value
• Create new valuable features without significant cost increases
 4-4b Differentiation Strategy (slide 3 of 6)

• Firms using the differentiation strategy seek to

differentiate their products from competitors’
products on as many dimensions as possible.
• The less similarity to competitors’ offerings, the more
buffered a firm is from competition with its rivals.
• Firms use the value chain to determine if they are
able to link the activities required to create value
by using the differentiation strategy.
• Companies without the skills needed to link these
activities cannot expect to use the differentiation
strategy successfully.
 Figure 4.3
Examples of Value-Creating Activities
Associated with the Differentiation Strategy
 4-4b Differentiation Strategy (slide 4 of 6)
• There are ways that firms using the differentiation strategy can
successfully position themselves in terms of the five forces of
competition to earn above-average returns.

Rivalry with Existing Competitors

• Customers of products differentiated in ways that are meaningful to them
tend to be loyal and less sensitive to price increases.
• The relationship between brand loyalty and price sensitivity insulates a firm
from competitive rivalry.

Bargaining Power of Buyers (Customers)

• Purchasers of differentiated products accept price increases as long as
they continue to perceive the products satisfy their distinctive needs at an
acceptable cost.
 4-4b Differentiation Strategy (slide 5 of 6)
Bargaining Power of Suppliers
• Higher costs from suppliers can be:
• Absorbed by high margins earned by the firm
• Passed on to customers through price increases

Potential Entrants
• Substantial barriers to potential entrants are created by:
• Customer loyalty
• The need to overcome the uniqueness of a differentiated product

Product Substitutes
• Companies selling brand-name products to loyal customers face a lower
probability of customers switching to substitute products.
 4-4b Differentiation Strategy (slide 6 of 6)

Competitive Risks of the Differentiation Strategy

• Risks associated with the differentiation strategy include:
• A customer group’s decision that a differentiated product’s
unique features are no longer worth a premium price
• The inability of a differentiated product to create the type of value for
which customers are willing to pay a premium price
• The ability of competitors to provide customers with products that
have features similar to those of the differentiated product, but at a
lower cost
• Counterfeiting
• The failure of a firm to meet customers’ expectations through its
efforts to implement the differentiation strategy
 4-4c Focus Strategies (slide 1 of 3)

• The focus strategy is an integrated set of actions

taken to produce products that serve the needs of a
particular segment of customers.
• Market segments firms may choose to serve by
implementing a focus strategy include:
• A particular buyer group
• Example: Senior citizens
• A different segment of a product line
• Example: Products for professional painters
• A different geographic market
• Example: Northern or southern Italy
 4-4c Focus Strategies (slide 2 of 3)
• A focus strategy leads to success when the firm:
• Serves a segment well whose unique needs are so specialized that
broad-based competitors choose not to serve that segment
• Creates value for a segment that exceeds the value created by industry- wide
competitors
• Firms can create value for customers in specific and unique market
segments by using the:
• Focused cost leadership strategy
• Focused differentiation strategy
• The activities required to use both of these strategies and the manner in
which both of these strategies allow a firm to deal successfully with the
five competitive forces are virtually identical to those of the industry-
wide cost leadership and differentiation strategies.
 4-4c Focus Strategies (slide 3 of 3)

Competitive Risks of Focus Strategies

• The competitive risks of focus strategies include:
• A competitor’s ability to use its core competencies to
“out-focus” the focuser by serving an even more
narrowly defined market segment
• An industry-wide company’s decision that the market
segment served by the firm using a focus strategy is
attractive and worthy of competitive pursuit
• A reduction in differences of the needs between
customers in a narrow market segment and the
industry-wide market over time
 4-4d Integrated Cost
Leadership/ Differentiation
• TheStrategy (slide 1 of 6)
integrated cost leadership/differentiation
strategy finds a firm engaging simultaneously in primary
value chain activities and support functions to achieve a low
cost position with some product differentiation.
• When using this strategy, firms seek to produce products at a
relatively low cost that have some differentiated features that
their customers value.
• Firms that successfully use the integrated cost
leadership/differentiation strategy usually adapt quickly to
new technologies and rapid changes in their external
environments.
 4-4d Integrated Cost
Leadership/ Differentiation
• Strategy
Developing (slide 2 of 6)
two sources of competitive advantage
(cost and differentiation) increases the number of
primary value chain activities and support functions
in which the firm becomes competent.
• Flexibility is required to learn how to use primary value
chain activities and support functions in ways to produce
differentiated products at relatively low costs.
• Three sources of flexibility used to implement the integrated cost
leadership/differentiation strategy successfully include:
1. Flexible manufacturing systems
2. Information networks
3. Total quality management systems
 4-4d Integrated Cost
Leadership/ Differentiation
Strategy
Flexible Manufacturing(slide 3 of 6)
Systems
• A flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is a computer-controlled process
that firms use to produce a variety of products in moderate, flexible
quantities with a minimum of manual intervention.
• The goal of an FMS is to eliminate the “low cost versus product
variety” trade-off that is inherent in traditional manufacturing
technologies.
• An FMS allows a firm to:
• Change quickly and easily from making one product to making another
• Increase its effectiveness in responding to changes in its customers’ needs, while
retaining low-cost advantages and consistent product quality
• Reduce the lot size needed to manufacture a product efficiently
• Have a greater capacity to serve the unique needs of a narrow
competitive scope
 4-4d Integrated Cost
Leadership/ Differentiation
Strategy
Information (slide 4 of 6)
Networks
• Information networks link companies with their:
• Suppliers
• Distributors
• Customers
• Customer relationship management (CRM) is an information-
network process that firms use to manage relationships with
customers.
• When used effectively, information networks help the
firm satisfy customer expectations in terms of:
• Product quality
• Delivery speed
 4-4d Integrated Cost
Leadership/ Differentiation
Strategy
Total Quality (slideSystems
Management 5 of 6)
• Total quality management (TQM) involves the implementation of
appropriate tools/techniques to provide products and services to
customers with best quality.
• Firms develop and use TQM systems to:
• Increase customer satisfaction
• Cut costs
• Reduce the amount of time required to introduce innovative products to the
marketplace
• An effective TQM system helps the firm develop the flexibility
needed to identify opportunities to simultaneously:
• Increase its product’s differentiated features
• Reduce costs
 4-4d Integrated Cost
Leadership/ Differentiation
Strategy
Competitive (slide 6 of 6)
Risks of the Integrated Cost
Leadership/Differentiation Strategy
• The primary risk of this strategy is that a firm
might produce products that do not offer
sufficient value in terms of either low cost or
differentiation.
• In such cases, the company becomes “stuck in the
middle.”
• Firms stuck in the middle:
• Compete at a disadvantage
• Are unable to earn more than average returns
Thank you