Corporate Wars Essay

Corporate war is the war between opponent firms who compete with each other for greater market share. There are always 2 groups involved in a corporate war and they are: The target company and the competitors. Whenever there is competition the first thing the target company does is to develop its marketing plans based on what they think their opponent will do. The companies formulate two strategies: * The first being their opening move * The subsequent moves are based on the competitor’s strategy But in any case the company’s success depends upon how well they prepare their marketing strategies. To do this effectively a company must carefully study its competitors as well as its potential and actual customers. Besides this the company must also identify its weaknesses. The company should also decide as to which competitor should be attacked and which one to be avoided. According to Philip Kotler: * Poor firms ignore their competitors * Average firms copy their competitors * Winning firms lead their competitors Marketing warfare strategies are a type of strategies, used in business and marketing, that try to draw parallels between business and warfare, and then apply the principles of military strategy to business situations. In business we do not have enemies, but we do have competitors; and we do not fight for land, but we do compete for market share. Types of marketing warfare strategies:- Offensive marketing warfare strategies – They are strategies designed to obtain some objective, usually market share, from a target competitor. In addition to market share, an offensive strategy could be designed to obtain key customers, high margin market segments, or high loyalty market segments.  Fundamental principles:- 1. Assess the strength of the target competitor 2. Find a weakness in the targets position. Attack at this point. 3. Launch the attack on as narrow a front as possible. Whereas a defender must defend all their borders, an attacker has the advantage of being able to concentrate their forces at one place. 4. Launch the attack quickly. Types of offensive marketing warfare strategies:- * Frontal Attack – This is a direct head-on assault. It usually involves marshaling all your resources including a substantial financial commitment. All parts of your company must be geared up for the assault from marketing to production. It usually involves intensive advertising assaults and often entails developing a new product that is able to attack the target competitors’ line where it is strong. It often involves an attempt to â€Å"liberate† a sizable portion of the target’s customer base. * Envelopment Strategy (also called encirclement strategy) – This is a much broader but subtle offensive strategy. It involves encircling the target competitor. This can be done in two ways. You could introduce a range of products that are similar to the target product. Each product will liberate some market share from the target competitor’s product, leaving it weakened, demoralized, and in a state of siege. If it is done stealthily, a full scale confrontation can be avoided. Alternatively, the encirclement can be based on market niches rather than products. * Leapfrog strategy -This strategy involves bypassing the enemy’s forces altogether. In the business arena, this involves either developing new technologies, or creating new business models. This is a revolutionary strategy that re-writes the rules of the game. The introduction of compact disc technology bypassed the established magnetic tape based defenders. The attackers won the war without a single costly battle. This strategy is very effective when it can be realized. Defensive marketing warfare strategies – They are a type of marketing warfare strategy designed to protect a company’s market share, profitability, product positioning, or mind share. Fundamental principles:- 1. Always counter an attack with equal or greater force. 2. Defend every important market.   3. Be forever vigilant in scanning for potential attackers. Assess the strength of the competitor. 4. The best defense is to attack yourself. Attack your weak spots and rebuild yourself anew. 5. Defensive strategies should be the exclusive domain of the market leader The main types of defensive marketing warfare strategies are:- * Position defense – This involves the defense of a fortified position. This tends to be a weak defense because you become a â€Å"sitting duck†. It can lead to a siege situation in which time is on the side of the attacker, that is, as time goes by the defender gets weaker, while the attacker gets stronger. In a business context, this involves setting up fortifications such as barriers to market entry around a product, brand, product line, market, or market segment. This could include increasing brand equity, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, or repeat purchase rate. It could also include exclusive distribution contracts, patent protection, market monopoly, or government protected monopoly status. * Mobile defense – This involves constantly shifting resources and developing new strategies and tactics. A mobile defense is intended to create a moving target that is hard to successfully attack, while simultaneously, equipping the defender with a flexible response mechanism should an attack occur. In business this would entail introducing new products, introducing replacement products, modifying existing products, changing market segments, changing target markets, repositioning products, or changing promotional focus. This defense requires a very flexible organization with strong marketing, entrepreneurial, product development, and marketing research skills. * Counter offensive – This involves countering an attack with an offense of your own. If you are attacked, retaliate with an attack on the aggressor’s weakest point. Flanking marketing warfare strategies – They are a type of marketing warfare strategy designed to minimize confrontational losses. Fundamental principles:- 1. Avoid areas of likely confrontation. A flanking move always occurs in an uncontested area. 2. Make your move quickly and stealth fully. The element of surprise is worth more than a thousand tanks. 3. Make moves  that the target will not find threatening enough to respond decisively to. The main types of flanking marketing warfare strategies are:- * Flanking Attack – This is designed to pressure the flank of the enemy line so the flank turns inward. You make gains while the enemy line is in chaos. In doing so, you avoid a head-on confrontation with the main force. The disadvantage with a flanking attack is that It can draw resources away from your center defense, making you vulnerable to a head-on attack. In business terms, a flanking attack involves competing in a market segment that the target does not consider mission critical. The target competitor will not be as concerned about your activities if they occur in market niches that it considers peripheral. * Flanking Position – This involves the re-deployment of your resources to deter a flanking attack. You strengthen your flank if you think it is vulnerable. The disadvantage of this defense is that it can distract you from your primary objective and siphon resources away from where they are needed most. In business terms, this involves the introduction of new products, product lines, or brands, the defensive re-positioning of existing products, or additional promotional activity in a market niche. It requires market segmentation and/or product differentiation. You protect against potential loss of market share in a segment by strengthening your competitive position there. * Guerrilla marketing warfare strategies – They are a type of marketing warfare strategy designed to wear-down the enemy by a long series of minor attacks. Rather than engage in major battles, a guerrilla force is divided into small groups that selectively attacks the target at its weak points. To be effective, guerrilla teams must be able to hide between strikes. They can disappear into the remote countryside, or blend into the general population. The general form of the strategy is a sequence of attacking, retreating, and hiding, repeated multiple times in series. It has been said that â€Å"Guerrilla forces never win wars, but their adversaries often lose them. Strengths:- 1. Because you never attack the enemy’s main force, you preserve your resources. 2. It is very flexible and can be adapted to any situation, offensive or defensive. 3. It is very difficult to counter with conventional methods. Baskin-Robbins is an American global ice cream parlor based in Canton, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1945 by Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins in Glendale, California. The company is known for its â€Å"31 flavors† slogan, more than the 28 flavors then famously offered at Howard Johnson’s restaurants, with the idea that a customer could have a different flavor every day of any month. The slogan came from the Carson-Roberts advertising agency in 1953. Baskin and Robbins believed that people should be able to sample flavors until they found one they wanted to buy, hence the iconic small pink spoon. The Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlors started as separate ventures from Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins, owning Burt’s Ice Cream Shop and Snowbird Ice Cream respectively. Snowbird Ice Cream featured 21 flavors, a novel concept for the time. When the separate companies merged in 1953, this concept grew to 31 flavors. By 1948, Burt and Irv opened six stores, the first franchise covering the sale of ice cream was executed May 20, 1948, for the store at 1130 South Adams in Glendale (Store #1). Burt and Irv were brothers-in-law. In 1949, the company’s production facility opened in Burbank. They made the decision to sell the stores to the managers, thus becoming one of the first franchised food service businesses. In 1953, Baskin-Robbins hired Carson-Roberts Advertising who recommended adoption of the 31 as well as the pink (cherry) and brown (chocolate) polka dots and typeface that were reminiscent of the circus. The first store that adopted the new 31 look was 804 North Glendale Ave. in Glendale, California in March 1953. Between 1949 and 1962, the corporate firm was Huntington Ice Cream Company. The name succeeded The Baskin-Robbins Partnership and was eventually changed back to Baskin-Robbins, Inc. on November 26, 1962. Baskin-Robbins also was the first to introduce ice cream cakes to the public. 31 Flavors# * Banana Nut Fudge * Black Walnut * Burgundy Cherry * Butterscotch Ribbon * Cherry Macaroon * Chocolate * Chocolate Almond * Chocolate Chip * Chocolate Fudge * Chocolate Mint * Chocolate Ribbon| * Coffee * Coffee Candy * Date Nut * Egg Nog * French Vanilla * Green Mint Stick * Lemon Crisp * Lemon Custard * Lemon Sherbet * Maple Nut| * Orange Sherbet * Peach * Peppermint Stick * Pineapple Sherbet * Pistachio Nut * Raspberry Sherbet * Rocky Road *  Strawberry * Vanilla * Vanilla Burnt Almond| * Orange Sherbet * Peach * Peppermint Stick * Pineapple Sherbet * Pistachio Nut * Raspberry Sherbet * Rocky Road * Strawberry * Vanilla * Vanilla Burnt Almond Reuben Mattus, a young entrepreneur with a passion for quality and a vision for creating the finest ice cream, worked in his mother’s ice cream business selling fruit ice and ice cream pops from a horse-drawn wagon in the bustling streets of the Bronx, New York. To produce the finest ice cream available, he insisted on using only the finest, purest ingredients. The family business prospered throughout the 1930s, 40s and 50s. By 1960, Mr. Mattus, supported by his wife Rose, decided to form a new company dedicated to his ice cream vision. He called his new brand Haagen-Dazs, to convey an aura of the old-world traditions and craftsmanship to which he remained dedicated. Haagen-Dazs ice cream started out with only three flavors: vanilla, chocolate, and coffee. But Mr. Mattus’ passion for quality soon took him to the four corners of the globe. His unique ice cream recipes included dark chocolate from Belgium and hand-picked vanilla beans from Madagascar, creating distinctive and indulgent taste experiences. The Haagen-Dazs brand quickly developed a loyal following. Its early success was created by word of mouth and praise. Without the benefit of advertising, the story of an incredibly rich and creamy confection spread rapidly. At first, it was only available at gourmet shops in New York City, but soon distribution expanded throughout the east coast of the U.S., and by 1973 Haagen-Dazs products were enjoyed by discerning customers throughout the United States. In 1976, Mr. Mattus’ daughter Doris opened the first Haagen-Dazs ® Shop. It was an immediate success, and its popularity led to a rapid expansion of Haagen-Dazs ® Shops across the country. In 1983 Mr. Mattus  agreed to sell the Haagen-Dazs brand to The Pillsbury Company, which remained committed to the tradition of superior quality and innovation on which Haagen-Dazs ice cream was founded. Since then, it has become a global phenomenon, available in 50 countries. The same careful attention to quality that Reuben Mattus built into every Haagen-Dazs product remains today. Ice cream lovers the world over now recognize the unique Haagen-Dazs logo as synonymous with the ultimate super-premium ice cream. From the beginning, Haagen-Dazs ice cream has sought to innovate and bring new frozen dessert experiences to its customers, including distinctive flavors such as vanilla swiss almond, butter pecan, and dulce de leche, to name just a few. Haagen-Dazs was also the first to introduce the world to ice cream bars for a grown-up palate, with the introduction of the Haagen-Dazs brand ice cream bar line in 1986. Other super-premium innovations followed, with frozen yogurt in 1991 and sorbet in 1993.To this day, the Haagen-Dazs brand remains committed to developing exceptional new super-premium frozen dessert experiences, releasing new flavors every year. Mattus invented the Danish sounding ‘Haagen-Dazs’ as a tribute to Denmark’s exemplary treatment of its Jews during the Second World War and included an outline map of Denmark on early labels. The name is not Danish, which has neither an umlaut nor a digraph zs, and it has no meaning. Mattus thought that Denmark was known for its dairy products and had a positive image in the U.S. His daughter Doris Hurley reported in the PBS documentary An Ice Cream Show (1999) that her father sat at the kitchen table for hours saying nonsensical words until he came up with a combination he liked. The reason he chose this method was so that the name would be unique and original The ice cream comes in many different flavors and is a â€Å"super-premium† brand, meaning it is quite dense (very little air is mixed in during manufacture), uses no emulsifiers or stabilizers other than egg yolks, and has high butterfat content. Haagen-Dazs is also meant to be kept at a temperature that is substantially lower than most ice creams in order to keep its intended firmness. It is sold both in grocery stores and in dedicated retail outlets serving ice cream cones, sundaes, and so on. In 1980, Haagen-Dazs unsuccessfully sued Frusen Glà ¤djà ©, an American ice cream maker, whose name without the acute accent is Swedish for â€Å"frozen delight†, for using similar foreign branding strategies. Haagen-Dazs was bought by Pillsbury in 1983. General Mills  bought Pillsbury in 2001. However, in the United States and Canada, Haagen-Dazs products are produced by Nestlà © subsidiary Dreyer’s, which acquired the rights as part of the General Mills-Pillsbury deal. The brand name is still owned by General Mills but is licensed to Nestlà © in the US and Canada. To offset increasing costs of their ingredients and the delivery of the product, Haagen-Dazs announced that in January 2009 it would be reducing the size of their ice cream cartons in the US from 16 US fl oz (470 ml) to 14 US fl oz (410 ml).Additionally they announced that in March 2009 they would be shrinking the 32 US fl oz (950 ml) container to 28 US fl oz (830 ml). In response, Ben & Jerry’s said that they would not be changing the sizes of their cartons. Common Rivals of Baskin Robbins and Haagen Dazs London Diary is the established market leader in the premium ice cream segment. With its rich unique taste and smooth creamy texture. London Diary offers a truly delicious and unforgettable ice cream experience-which you can lose yourself in! With a $5 correspondence course from Penn State in making ice cream, two regular guys named Ben and Jerry open their first ice cream scoop shop in Burlington, Vermont. Heroes for Ice Cream Hungry for Justice SWOT analysis (alternatively SWOT Matrix) is a structured planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. A SWOT analysis can be carried out for a product, place or person. It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving that objective. The technique is credited to Albert Humphrey, who led a convention at the Stanford Research Institute in the 1960s and 1970s using data from Fortune 500 companies * Strengths: Characteristics of the business or project that give it an advantage over others * Weaknesses: Are characteristics that place the team at a disadvantage relative to others * Opportunities: External elements that the project could exploit to its  advantage * Threats: External elements in the environment that could cause trouble for the business or project Identification of SWOTs is important because they can inform later steps in planning to achieve the objective. First, the decision makers should consider whether the objective is attainable, given the SWOTs. If the objective is not attainable a different objective must be selected and the process repeated. Users of SWOT analysis need to ask and answer questions that generate meaningful information for each category (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) to make the analysis useful and find their competitive advantage. The aim of any SWOT analysis is to identify the key internal and external factors that are important to achieving the objective. These come from within the company’s unique value chain. SWOT analysis groups key pieces of information into two main categories: Internal factors – The strengths and weaknesses internal to the organization. External factors – The opportunities and threats presented by the external environment to the organization. The internal factors may be viewed as strengths or weaknesses depending upon their effect on the organization’s objectives. What may represent strengths with respect to one objective may be weaknesses for another objective. The factors may include all of the 4Ps; as well as personnel, finance, manufacturing capabilities, and so on. The external factors may include macroeconomic matters, technological change, legislation, and socio-cultural changes, as well as changes in the marketplace or competitive position. The results are often presented in the form of a matrix. SWOT analysis is just one method of categorization and has its own weaknesses. For example, it may tend to persuade its users to compile lists rather than to think about what is actually important in achieving objectives. It also presents the resulting lists uncritically and without clear prioritization so that, for example, weak opportunities may appear to balance strong threats. It is prudent not to eliminate too quickly any candidate SWOT entry. The importance of individual SWOTs will be revealed by the value of the strategies it generates. A SWOT item that produces valuable strategies is important. A SWOT item that generates no  strategies is not important. The usefulness of SWOT analysis is not limited to profit-seeking organizations. SWOT analysis may be used in any decision-making situation when a desired end-state (objective) has been defined. Examples include: non-profit organizations, governmental units, and individuals. SWOT analysis may also be used in pre-crisis planning and preventive crisis management. SWOT analysis may also be used in creating a recommendation during a viability study/survey. Some findings from Menon et al. (1999) and Hill and Westbrook (1997) have shown that SWOT may harm performance. Other complementary analyses have been proposed, such as the Growth-share matrix.