Strengthening a Company’s Competitive Position: Strategic Moves, Timing, And Scope Of Operations

 This is chapter 6

CONSIDERING STRATEGY - ENHANCING MEASURE 

•Whether and when to go on the offensive.

•Whether and when to employ defensive strategies.

•When to undertake strategic moves—first mover, a fast follower, or a late mover.

•Whether to merge with or acquire another firm.

•Whether to integrate backward or forward into more stages of the industry’s activity chain.

•Which value chain activities, if any, should be outsourced.

 

 

The business universe is divided into:

 

i- An existing market with boundaries and rules in which rival firms compete for   advantage. 
ii-    A “blue ocean” market space, where the industry has not yet taken shape, with no rivals and wide-open long-term growth and profit potential for a firm that can create demand for new types of products. 

Backward integration involves entry into activities previously performed by suppliers or other enterprises positioned along earlier stages of the industry value chain system. 

Forward integration involves entry into value chain system activities closer to the end user.

Outsourcing involves contracting out certain value chain activities to outside vendors.