How inventory barcodes can improve a company's marketing strategies and competitive advantage

Author(s):  
Ahmad Adel Mostafa
Author(s):  
Dr. Pham Hung Cuong ◽  
◽  
Nguyen Van Ngan ◽  

According to Porter (1985), in the market of competition, competitive advantage lies in the center of business activities of an enterprise. For this reason, one of the most important factors for any kind of business is to build or construct a good and stable competitive advantage. The wealth of a company cannot be durable if the company does not maintain its competitive advantage. Improving the competitive advantage is one of the first and foremost concerns of every business. In the process of integration, all economies have to try their best to fully compete with each other to gain the best. Among the economy sectors, the retail enterprises are of those who have to apply marketing strategies to strengthen their competitive advantage. With good and suitable marketing strategies, businesses can increase the number of their customer, have goods and products attractive to consumers and finally gain the expected profits. In Vietnam, the market economy started at the end of 1986, much later than the world market economy, so the application of competitive advantages from the macro level to micro level (here the enterprise level) has been slow. For the sector of retailing, especially supermarket retailing, the market scale of Vietnam is much smaller than that of other markets in the region. However, there are basic factors for a fast development in Vietnam such as: big population with the kind of young population, high rate of economic growth rate and non-stop improved living standard. That is the fact that the potential for retailing development in Vietnam is not small and supermarket business in the future is big. In Vietnam, especially in Ho Chi Minh market, there are quite a lot of supermarket chains which are in operation nowadays such as Co-op mart, Citimart, Maximart, B-smart, Shop&Go and so on? These supermarkets are trying their best to gain more customers. For this purpose, the researcher chose Citimart as a case study in this research. Citimart is one of most favorable supermarket in Ho Chi Minh. In this thesis, the researcher studies the factors affecting the competitive advantage of Citimart, and then find out the solutions for the policy makers to have good business strategies of Citimart.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-265
Author(s):  
Arslan Afzal Ansari ◽  
Muhammad Waqas Ameer ◽  
Lubna Tabbassum

This paper aims to find out the impact of green marketing strategies as tool of competitive advance for the firm. Green marketing is a basic tool and marketing strategy to get competitive advantage on other firms in the market. The firms which are going green are enjoying high returns and a great increase in their profits. Moreover these firms also have competitive advantage on other firms in the market.


Author(s):  
Jummy Okoya

The chapter deals with the issue of diversity in society and changing markets combined with matters dealing with marketing strategies. The increasing diversity of the UK's ethnic population suggests that firms/organizations have a need to pay closer attention to the needs of different ethnic groups in order to generate value and competitive advantage in the marketplace. One way of understanding those needs involves, not only hiring competent ethnic personnel but allowing them to play substantive strategic management roles in the firm/organization. The paper highlights the opportunities and challenges of an ethnically heterogeneous workplace through illustrations in four industrial sectors in the UK. Consequently, a theory of practice is formulated for a successful outcome of, not only diaspora/ethnic businesses but other non-ethnic and large firms/organizations.


Author(s):  
Elsa Serpico ◽  
Barbara Aquilani ◽  
Alessandro Ruggieri ◽  
Cecilia Silvestri

Building strong relationships with customers has become strategic for firms wishing to sustain their competitive advantage. In order to reach this goal, it is fundamental to continuously work towards an even higher experienced customer satisfaction. Thus, the aim of this chapter is: (a) to review customer satisfaction studies in both offline and online environments, (b) to analyze tools and methods already used to measure it, and (c) to propose a new, comprehensive, and complete theoretical framework that helps evaluate e-customer satisfaction. The last point represents a prerequisite to reach a best and exhaustive understanding of e-customer satisfaction, able to take into account the joint effects of its different antecedents and clearly suggest how to design and shape a website in order to generate an even higher overall customer satisfaction online.


Author(s):  
Amir Manzoor

Social media provides companies innovative ways to market their products and services to their customers. The social media tools, such as Facebook, provides new ways to reach customers. With increasing number of people being connected to social media, businesses of all types are targeting social media as a new platform to reach their customers and strengthen customer relationships. Still, many companies are unsure as to how they can use social media for their advantage. There is lack of resources and fear of failure that hold many companies back from using social media in their marketing campaigns. Companies need a set of guidelines to understand how they can develop long-term, successful marketing strategies that involve social media as a significant component. This chapter analyzes use of social media marketing to suggest some ways companies can use social media to generate value both for them and their customers. This chapter also discusses how companies can develop a social media marketing strategy.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Tian Xie ◽  
Naveen Donthu ◽  
Wesley J. Johnston

Purpose This paper aims to present a new framework that describes the relationship among market entry order and timing, the advantages accruing to first-movers and late-movers, entry timing premium (ETP), marketing strategy and enduring market performance of the firms. The framework, empirically tested using data from 241 business executives, expands extant research into new territory beyond first- and late-mover advantages in an attempt to reconcile a few streams of research in the area and provides an entry related, strategic assessment tool (ETP) for the managers. Contribution to marketing strategy theory and managerial implications are also presented. Design/methodology/approach Participants included informants in a firm’s strategic business unit who were the most familiar with a new product’s commercial launch, market condition at launch, competitor offerings, marketing activities and capabilities and eventual integration into or withdrawal from the product’s portfolio. Therefore, for the survey, the study targeted chief executive officers, vice presidents of marketing or sales, product or sales managers, general managers and regional managers. Both preference bias (Narus, 1984) and survivor biases among the respondents were addressed. Findings The research result of this study reveals two very significant aspects of marketing and marketing strategies. First, the importance of financial, pricing and cost strategies further attests to the fiercely competitive nature of the global market today and the tendency for firms to commoditize most products and services. An effective financial and pricing strategy, coupled with a higher level of ETP, is capable of leading a firm to initial market success in the product-market in which it competes. Both ETP (a positional advantage and resource of the firm) and financial and pricing strategies (a deliberate strategic decision of the management) are important to achieve this goal. Research limitations/implications This study is limited in several ways. The effects of entry order and timing on market performance could be dependent on the types of industries and types of product categories involved. However, as the hypotheses were well supported, the “industry specific” factors would provide “fine-tuning” in the future study. Second, the nature of the product (goods or services) may also present varying effects on the relationship studied (for differences between manufacturing and service firms in pioneering advantages, see Song et al., 1999). Services’ intangible nature, difficulty in protecting property rights, high involvement of boundary-spanning employees and customers, high reliance on delivery and quality, and ease of imitation may alter the proposed relationships in the model and the moderating effects. Third, although this study used a “retrospective” protocol approach in the data collection by encouraging respondents to recall market, product and business information, this study is not longitudinal. Lack of longitudinal data in any study involving strategic planning, strategy execution and the long-term effects is no doubt a weakness. In addition, due to peculiarity and complexity with regard to regulation and other aspects in pharmaceutical and other industries, the theory might be limited to a certain extent. Practical implications In all, the integrated framework contributes to the understanding of the intricate issues surrounding first-mover advantage, late-mover advantage, entry order and timing and the role of marketing strategy. The framework provides practitioners guidance as to when to enter a product-market to gain advantageous positions and how to maintain that advantage. Firms that use a deliberate late-mover strategy could also benefit from the research finding in mapping out their strategic courses of action. Originality/value This study believes that the halo effect surrounding first-mover advantage may have obscured the visions of some researchers and managers, and the pursuit of a silver bullet has led to frenzied interests in becoming a “first-mover” or a deliberate “late-mover”. The theoretical framework, which is substantiated by empirical testing, invalidates the long-held claim that entry of a particular kind (first-movers or late-movers) yields any unique competitive advantage. It is a firms’ careful selection of marketing strategies and careful execution of the strategies through effective operational tactics that would lead to enduring competitive advantage, under an adequate level of ETP.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 1627-1630
Author(s):  
Neritan Turkeshi

The brands are always recognized for the quality that is delivered to the consumers, the distinction that they offer to the markets while gaining additional benefits to the companies and organizations, and they can also be characterized through the products, services, corporations, personalities and location.The influence of the brands cannot be overestimated, particularly taking into account the requirements of the organizations and enterprises to satisfy the needs of their clients and consumers, as well as to exist and compete in the market.Brands are in need of a continuous development and care, in order to come up towards the requirements of the clients, who, whereas they remain satisfied from the product and the service, the market becomes more and more suitable for their promotion and the positioning of the brand becomes increasingly important, particularly in achieving and realization of the main goal which is to be different from the majority of the competitors in the market.Key to the brand creation is the sustainability of the presentation, regardless what in fact the organization desires to share with its consumers. All that the organization creates,before anything else it has to speak about its brand.The appearance of a sustainable image of the product often happens to surprise the consumer. Whatever element of communication is being used, including advertising and PR, or some other impact point, first and foremost, to the consumer has to be transferred an uniformed and unambiguous message.44From here, it can be verified with certainty that communication is one of the most important and key sources for creation of a quality brand.The formation of the brand is a long and complicated process, which requires a quality cooperation with the team, as well as certain investments in the implementation of the previously well-advised marketing strategies. However, the investments themselves in this process will always pay off if are well thought and they increase the market value of the product, as well as to the company itself as a whole.Every product can be a brand if the communicationwith the consumer is clear, systematic, sustainable and creative. In order to make this possible, the first step isa clearly defined creation of the brand strategy, which will be the ground for all future communication activities.The brand strategy, where professional teams within the specialized agencies for branding and advertising in its processingare usually engaged, happens based on the detailed analysis of the product, the market, the competition, the needs, the desires and the habits of the consumers. From this analysis emerges what is called the essence of a product, its point of distinction in relation to all other products that fall into its category.45The brand represents a strong source of competitive advantage, as a sort of constant quality assurance that is knowable by name.Primarily, through the formation of its brand is built the loyalty of the consumer toward the product or the service itself. The same are set in a particular brand and with it, it increases the direct profit of the company. This is of a significant importance because the expenses are four to six times higher when is invested in finding new consumers rather than maintaining the existing ones. Likewise, the consumer’s sensitivity in the existing prices is also reduced and is strived more to convince them for the priorities of the competing brand.Finally, the data from the abovementioned analysis and research shows that on the market the branded products are more purchased than nameless products and services. Accordingly, the brand keeps the value because it is accepted as a product with a higher quality, implying a higher value for the invested money by the users, respectively the consumers.


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