In: Operations Management
1- The low-cost provider has an advantage where product offerings in a market are similar and more-or-less interchangeable. Why is this? In a differentiation strategy, would one expect higher margins or lower margins, and what are some common bases of differentiation? What does it mean to say that a company strategy is “stuck in the middle”?
2- When a company looks at its portfolio of businesses in a BCG analysis, it probably sees no value in having “dogs” in the portfolio, but a balance in the other three sectors would be valuable. Why would some constituent businesses in each of the other three quadrants (star, cash cow, question mark) be desirable?
3- For a football season, how might a college enhance the experience for a number of groups of fans by offering “multiple strategies”?
1)The low-cost provider has an advantage where product offerings are similar since the cost is the only differentiation factor and lower the cost will increase the value of the product. It is like getting more for less. Therefore, a low-cost provider has the advantage in similar offerings.
In a differentiation strategy, one would expect higher margins since the product has features which are not available in other competitors and people are willing to pay more for experiencing new features.
Some of the common bases for differentiation are product features, product size, color variety, ease of use or portability etc.
Stuck in the middle means a product which is neither a cost leader nor a differentiation leader but is providing a product with few features at a middle of the range cost. People will not buy this product since it costs more than competitors nor does it provides any additional product features.
2)The constituent business in each of the three quadrants are desirable since it balances the portfolio and reduces dependency on a single quadrant. The cash cows are steady business which provides cash flow for investment in stars. Stars are the future and need investment from cash flow and will take over as future cash flow. Question marks are needed since they may become converted to stars and hence it is desirable to keep them till there is more clarity.
3)A college can experience the number of groups of fans by offering them better stadium experience and providing specialized group passes or making a fan club and providing memberships.