Business-Level Strategies and Competitive Rivalry

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms and concepts from Business-Level Strategies and Competitive Rivalry lecture clips.

Business-Level Strategy

A strategy made specific for the product market the firm intends to compete in to establish and exploit a competitive advantage.

Support Functions

Activities designed to support the work being done in a firm's value chain activities.

Value Chain Activities

Activities a firm performs in order to produce, sell, and maintain its products.

Market Segmentation

The division of customers into distinct groups based on their specific needs.

Cost Leadership Strategy

A business-level strategy focused on standardized products and mass production (economies of scale) to minimize cost per unit relative to competitors.

Process Innovation

Achieving incremental process improvements to become more efficient in innovation and production.

Differentiation Strategy

A business-level strategy offering unique products that satisfy customers' specific needs, allowing the firm to charge a premium price.

Focused Strategy

An integrated set of actions taken to produce products that serve the needs of a particular, narrow segment of customers.

Integrated Cost Leadership / Differentiation Strategy

A strategy that involves achieving both a low-cost position and product differentiation to deliver unique value at affordable prices.

Market Commonality

The number of joint markets in which a firm and its competitor operate simultaneously.

Resource Similarity

The extent to which a firm's tangible and intangible resources are comparable to a competitor's in terms of type and amount.

Direct Competitors

Firms that share both high market commonality and high resource similarity.

Strategic Action

A competitive move requiring a huge commitment of organizational resources that is difficult to reverse.

Tactical Action

A fine-tuning competitive action that requires fewer resources and is more easily reversed.

First Mover

A firm that takes the initial competitive move to defend its competitive advantage and strengthen its market position.

Second Mover

A cautious firm that responds to a first mover's success by imitating and fine-tuning the product and bringing it to market at a lower price.

Slow-Cycle Markets

Markets in which competitors lack the ability to imitate a firm's competitive advantage.

Fast-Cycle Markets

Markets in which new products are introduced continuously and innovations are easily and rapidly imitated.

Standard-Cycle Markets

Markets in which it is possible to imitate a firm's competitive advantage, but moderately costly to do so.