Decoding Competitive Marketing Strategies

Corporate performance depends upon customer satisfaction being able to create greater value than competition. Therefore, firms need to understand both customers and competitors. By understanding competitors, a firm can better predict their reaction to any marketing initiative that the firm might make and exploit any weaknesses that they might possess. The objective of this paper is to create understanding of various competitive marketing strategies such as Build, Hold, Niche, Harvest and Divest. Also assessing their suitability and conditions for practicing each strategy and strategic focus for each. Success is achieved by choosing a standard strategy and following it. Below average performance is associated with failure to achieve any of the standard strategies. The result is no competitive advantage, a stuck in the middle position that results in lower performance. Firms need to understand the generic basis of their success and resists temptations to blur their strategies by making inconsistent moves. A focus strategy involves limiting sales volume. Once domination of a particular target segment has been achieved by the company that has adopted the focus strategy, there may be temptation to move into other segments in order to achieve growth with the same competitive advantage