“Competing in Domestic & International Markets."



“Competing in Domestic & International Markets."

Introduction

Strategy pertains to the evaluation of external and internal environments and identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, to position the company in the best possible manner (David, 2006). The strategy map is a tool to identify the different segment of competition comprising of players in the industry. This map helps strategists to identify the immediate competitors and far away competitors. Not all the players in the industry directly compete. Two dimensions are used to create different groups of companies. The vertical axis pertains to price/quality being low in the bottom and rising to the top. On the horizontal axis the geographic coverage is given, increasing in coverage from left to right. In this way, this map identifies separate groups and their strategic position in the market. The companies or groups closer to each other are close competitors and the companies/groups far from each other are weak or distant competitor to each other.

Discussion

The strategic map in the book shows the comparative positions of the selected retail chains (Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, & Strickl, 2011). The trend of retail chains is increasing and small retailers are getting closer to extinction in the total value of the industry. These retail chains often target separate markets in terms of geographies and income groups. In this way the retail chains avoid fierce competition and make good profits. This map illustrates two such dimensions, price/ quality and geographic coverage. Although they are in the same industry and can be considered competitors, however, the groups closer to each other are targeting more or less same group of customer or market segment and the groups far from each other are more likely to be targeting different group of customers or market segment.

In the strategic group map, the ...