Question

What are some drawbacks and risks to a broad generic business strategy? To a focused strategy? Identify a company you know that has a business strategy that is too broad and generic in nature, or too focused. Explain your rationale.

Answer 1

Answer: The broad generic strategy is not easy to control as compared to the focused one. The broad generic strategy requires more resources for execution and dilutes the focus of the company. Broad business strategy is therefore at times costly and the company has a lesser control over it. In the broad strategy, the company is also at times unable to understand that where things might have gone wrong.

One company that is too focused in its business strategy is Apple Inc; Apple has a strategy of focused differentiation at the marketplace where it attempts to market products that are highly differentiated from the others at the marketplace. The company has its own unique software platform for its products and the customers cannot download even things like music from the other vendors on its devices like ipod. At times Apple has a such a great focus that it does not even allows the basic third party services like Bluetooth to work on its products. Hence the company has a high focus on differentiation strategy at the marketplace.