WhIcH oNe tO emPLoy? - 5 geNerIC cOmpetitive StraTegies

08102013. Job interview session, it really makes me feel nervous when thinking about it. I could not imagine how I would react, do, think and so on if I’m in that session. Miss Ummi has shared with all of us about one of job interview session. Among the 300++ applications, only 7 out of them was accepted. It’s so scary. The main reason why other than 7 people was not accepted because of English language. If I’m in that job interview session, which one I will be placed? I don’t know what to say but deep inside my heart, I really want to be placed among the accepted one even though I can’t with my English communication skills right now. Hopefully, I’ll be placed among the accepted one, someday! Ameennn, In syaa Allah. 

For this week, we have learned about “the five generic competitive strategies: which one to employ?” so, did you know about it? I’m sure some of you know about it. Knowing about all this five strategies for the company is important as it give effect for company in making decision to choose the most suitable strategy for their company. In other words, deciding which generic strategy to employ is the most important strategic commitment a company makes because it tends to drive the rest of the strategic actions a company decides to undertake and it sets the whole tone for the pursuit of a competitive advantage over rivals. The five generic competitive strategies are:

1.       Low-cost provider strategy:

-Striving to achieve lower overall costs than rivals and appealing to a broad spectrum of customers, usually by underpricing rivals.

-approaches: pursue cost-savings that are difficult to imitate and avoid reducing product quality to unacceptable levels.

-eg: mydin, mcdonald’s, dell, air asia

2.     Broad differentiation strategy:

-seeking to differentiate the company’s product offering from rivals in ways that will appeal to a broad spectrum of buyers.

-approaches: (a) carefully study buyer needs and behaviors, values and willingness to pay for a unique product or service, (b) incorporate features that both appeal to buyers and create a sustainably distinctive product offering, (c) use higher prices to recoup differentiation costs.

-eg: apple, sony, rolex, fedex, louis vuitton, Harley-davidson

3.    Best-cost provider strategy:

-giving customers more value for their money by incorporating good-to-excellent product attributes at a lower cost than rivals; the target is to have the lowest (best) cost and prices compared to rivals offering products with comparable attributes.

Eg: Toyota, microsoft

4.     Focused low-cost strategy:

-concentrating on a narrow buyer segment and outcompeting rivals by having lower costs than rivals and thus being able to serve niche members at a lower price.

5.     Focused differentiation strategy:

-concentrating on a narrow buyer segment and outcompeting rivals by offering niche members customized attributes that meet their tastes and requirements better than rivals’ products.

-eg: GAP, Porsche, Ferrari

In choosing the right generic strategy, a company has to spend time and effort as this will support all other strategic options. Michael Porter has specifically warned against any companies who try to employ more than one strategy option as every strategy appeals to different types of people and requires radically different approaches. Any company that are try to employ multiple strategies, will typically render a company without any clear strategic advantage and in poor strategic position. That’s all from me. PEAce No War!!!

  

“Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing to perform activities differently or to perform different activities than rivals to deliver a unique mix of value.”        (Michael E. Porter)

shArInG iS cAriNg BuT nOt EveRytHingS - mY eXperiNCes

SME-UNIVERSITIES INTERNSHIP PROGRAMMED (if I’m not mistaken) was the first interview that I joined. Even though it was not the real interview, it really makes me feel nervous as I can’t breathe. When I got the message that I was passed first stage and I must attend an interview for the next stage, I feel regret for submitting the applications. I blamed to myself for submitted it. But then, I changed my mind and tried to think more positive about it. If I can’t do that right now, maybe there is no second chance. I must take the first step in order to be more brave and confident. So, with all the supports from my beloved friends, I attend that interview session. Although I was not chosen to the next stage, it gives a little strength for me to always try new things. ENACTUS was also the club that I feel regretted for joining it but hopefully, I can change my behavior and attitudes times by times because ENACTUS was a good club to make me improve myself. Oh Allah, please give me strength to talk with confident in front of others people. Ameennn.

pray for me so that i can join this program next year ^^

Last Saturday (26102013), I joined one program that was organized by Pembimbing Rakan Universiti (PRU) and club TaHa@u with the collaboration from Tabung Haji Berita Harian. PROGRAM BIMBINGAN KERJAYA. It was an interesting program. I got to now Zahariz Khuzaimah ‘The Malaysian Nomad’, Ust Mohd Izhar Ariff, Ally Iskandar and many more. One of the sessions was about job interview by representative from News straits Time Press, Mrs. Hani. She shared about us about how to face job interview sessions. It consists of what we should do before, at the moment, and after the job interview session. I’m glad because my time (weekend) was full with benefits activities that I can use in my lifetime… 

The Malaysian Nomad, Zahariz Khuzaimah. His story was really exciting. I couldn’t imagine how he can resign from his job just like that for being nomad. Yes, it really needs an absolute decision and strong desire.

the malaysian nomad

سبحان الله

سبحان الله

more about him >>> zahariz khuzaimah

Ustz Izhar Ariff, he was so funny. I got to learn how to be a Mukmin Professional. Hopefully, I can applied what I got from him.^_^ 

respect him so much!

For Ally Iskandar, even though others people said that he came with no preparation, I don’t think so and I’m still happy because I got to learn something from him. He said that “presentation without preparation” is like “brush your teeth without toothpaste”. The conclusion that I got from him about how to conduct presentation is be PREPARED and make it FUN!!!

he don't have sad memories, only sweet memories throughout his career. 

When I’m in the mid of writing this post, there is some distraction from Waznah. She told me that I wrote a very long post and so on. But do I care? Hahaha. I don’t know what to say about five generic competitive strategies. So I just write what I want. Later, I’ll write about it. PeAce nO WaR!!!

bULatAn GeMbiRa

assalammualaikum...how are you today?may Allah bless us always. I want to share with all of you about my bulatan gembira. Every Friday, I will spend around two hours with my beloved ‘FEM’ily of 8 people by hearing and sharing our thought, our knowledge and our experiences. our meetings started with reciting al-fatihah and al-Quran al-Kareem with tafseer. It’s such a good time to spend with especially in Friday, a day full of barakah. All I can say about my bulatan gembira is a place that can make me forgot my stress and burden while sharing my problems and feelings. \(^.^)/

so, for this week task, my naqibah have asked us to jot down what is the characteristics of individual muslims that have been outlined by Imam Hassan al-Banna. as for me, actually i have been hear about it before but i couldn't remember about it. out of 10 characteristics, i only get 3 characteristics only. i'll try to remember about it starting from now, wish me luck ya!

other than that, we also discuss about planning. if you didn't planned your task properly, it will make your time wasted with useless things. the effect from it, it will waste our time, it will decrease the quality of our work, and probably our work will never be done. i agreed with it because i have experience on it...oh Allah, please forgive me. TT

 ok, that's all from me.see you soon at another entry. jzkk. Peace no war!!!

HOLA!!!

01102013…today’s date was a very special day for my classmate, Hadi. It was his birthday, the day he was born in this challenging world. May Allah bless him always and be a good Muslim~

hepy besday HADI!!!

As for today, we had learn about “Evaluating a company’s resources, capabilities, and competitiveness”. Miss ummi started the lecture by asking some question…I couldn’t remember about it but if I’m not mistaken, she asked about what makes McDonalds differ from others…do you know what it is?...let me tell you…it is because of their standard quality of burgers.

Actually, I want to share something interesting that I found in strategic management’s text book while in the middle of searching an idea to write for this post.

“Only firms who are able to continually build new strategic assets faster and cheaper than their competitors will earn superior returns over the long term.” (C. C. Markides and P. J. Williamson - London Business School Professors and Consultants)

Now, let’s move on to our topic. This chapter was related to SWOT analysis. As a whole, we have learned how to evaluate how well a company’s strategy is working. In other words, this topic discuss about the techniques for evaluating a company’s internal situation, including its collection of resources and capabilities and the activities it performs along its value chain.

In this chapter, there are five analytical tools - resource and capability analysis, SWOT analysis, value chain analysis, benchmarking, and competitive strength assessment will be used. All these five analyses are valuable techniques for revealing a company’s competitiveness and for helping company managers match their strategy to the company’s own particular circumstances. 

Resource and capability analysis – a powerful tool for sizing up a company’s competitive assets and determining if they can support a sustainable competitive advantage over market rivals.

SWOT analysis – a simple but powerful tool for sizing up a company’s strengths and weaknesses, its market opportunities, and the external threats to its future well-being.

Value chain analysis – a company’s value chain identifies the primary activities and related support activities that create customer value.

Benchmarking – an effective tool for improving a company’s own internal activities that is based on learning how other companies perform them and borrowing their “best practices”. 

Competitive strength assessment – scores pinpoint its strengths and weaknesses against rivals and point directly to the kinds of offensive/defensive actions it can use to exploit its competitive strengths and reduce its competitive vulnerabilities.

Apart from that, we also have learned about VRIN test. It can determine if a resource is a source of sustainable competitive advantage. To serve as a basis for sustainable competitive advantage, resources must be –

·         

      Valuable – meaning that they must be a source of greater value, in terms of relative costs and benefits, than similar resources in competing firms.

·         Rare – rareness implies that the resource must be rare in the sense that it is scarce relative to demand for its use or what it produces.

·                   Inimitable – it is difficult to imitate.

·         Non-substitutable – other different types of resources cannot be functional substitutes.

The criteria of the VRIN clearly rules out best practices as a source of competitive advantage. If other firms can easily understand and copy a capability, it is not a source of advantage.

That’s all from me. I’m sorry for my inconvenient. See u later in the next post…jzkk. PEACE NO WAR!!!

Idea...idea...idea...please comes to me.

First of all, I’m suppose to make a writing journal each week, but due to lack of idea and my mind comes to the end of the road, I didn’t accomplished the task within the time given. I’m sorry for my bad…

24092013… Today, we learned about evaluating a company’s external environment. “What is macro-environment???” that was the first question asked by Miss ummi when she started the lecturer. Then, she explains that it includes all the environmental factors that have an impact on all organizations and firms within the economy whether directly or indirectly. The strategically relevant factors in the macro-environment are PESTEL. It may sound like a species of flower, but it is not. PESTEL are stands for Politics, Environmental, Social, Technological, Economic, and Legal & regulatory. It is a framework or tool used by marketers to analyze and monitor the macro-environmental (external marketing environment) factors that have an impact on an organization. These factors can be classified as opportunities and threats in a SWOT analysis if combined with external micro-environmental factors and internal drivers.

·         Political: to what degree the government intervenes in the economy.

·         Economic: include economic growth, interest rates, exchange rates and the inflation rate.

·         Social: include the cultural aspects and include health consciousness, population growth rate, age distribution, career attitudes and emphasis on safety.

·         Technological: include technological aspects such as R&D activity, automation, technology incentives and the rate of technological change.

·         Environmental: include ecological and environmental aspects which may especially affect industries.

·         Legal: include discrimination law, consumer law, health and safety law, and etc

Other than that, we also learnt about the Five Competitive Forces by Michael E. Porter, Harvard Business School professor. This tool was created to analyze the attractiveness and likely-profitability of an industry. This tool assumes that there are five important forces that determine competitive power in a business situation. The five competitive forces are substitute products, buyers, new entrants, rival firms and suppliers.

I have no idea what else to write here…I think, I should stop now…that’s all from me…PEACE NO WAR!!!

 

on ur mark, get set, GO!!!

In  the name of Allah the  most beneficent and the most merciful

17092013...Our topic for the second week that we have learned was “The nature of strategic management” and “The business vision and mission”. At the end of the class, we are supposed to define strategic management and describe vision and mission and discuss their value. Actually, it was quite hard for me to understand strategic management. But, I’ll try my best.

As we have learned, strategic management was defined as the art and science of formulating, implementing, and evaluating cross-functional decisions that enable an organization to achieve its objectives. In other words, it consists of the analysis, decisions, and actions an organization undertakes in order to create and sustain competitive advantages. Strategic management helps a firm function as a competitive team, it term is used in business and it is synonymously with the term strategic planning. However, strategic planning consists of formulation only and it term is used in academic.

Other than that, we also learn about stages of strategic management which consist of formulation, implementation and evaluation. For formulation, it the stage where the company’s objectives, vision and mission will be set. There is also SWOT analysis that is used to achieve company’s objectives. Strategy implementation or also called as action stage is the stage where the formulated strategy will be executed. For the last stage, it is the stage to take corrective actions after review and measure the company’s performance. Integrating analysis and intuition are needed in strategic management because intuition is useful for making decisions in situation of great uncertainty or little precedent.

 Key term that we should know in strategic management

1. Competitive advantage: it is what you have that another business doesn't have. If you don’t have competitive advantage, DON’T COMPETE! 
2. Strategist: the individuals who are most responsible for the success or failure of an organization.
3. External opportunities and threats: anything outside organization that could significantly benefit or harm an organization in the future.
4. Internal strengths and weaknesses: an organization’s controllable activities that are performed especially well or poorly.
5. Vision and mission statement: it is a summarization of company’s goals and objectives.
6. Objectives: specific results that an organization seeks to achieve in pursuing its basic mission.
7. Strategies: the means by which long-term objectives will be achieved.
8. Annual objectives: short term milestones that organization must achieve to reach long-term objectives.
9. Policies: the means by which annual objectives will be achieved.

when we learn about vision and mission, it makes me think....what is my vision and my mission??? i realized that my vision and my mission was too blurr..then it make me to review,rethink,refresh my vision and mission so that i can get better in making decision about my future.

so,what is your vision and mission? Let’s have a meaningful life! Peace no war!