Competitive Strategy Business and National Culture

Question: Discuss about the Competitive Strategy for Business and National Culture. Answer: Introduction: Strategy is often mixed up with terms like goals, tactics and objectives. It is used to understand the insights of the business. A good leader will always make a strategy that will have a vision and a better way of carrying out the ideas for the benefit of his subjects. The sacrifice of some people by the leader is necessary in order to reach the goal that is set by him. Some questions need to be kept in mind to formulate a good strategy (Verbeke 2013). The answers to these questions need to be found out so that the company can actually achieve its target. The idea of providing the best services to the customer needs to be identified by the company and should be the foremost goal of the company. Customization, reliability of the customers and the product styles needs to be maintained in order to gain the faith and trust of the customers (Walker and Madsen 2016). Henry Mintzberg divided the strategies in to three parts namely Intended, Emergent and Realized Strategy. Coca-Cola has been in the business for almost around more than a century and is still going strong in the market due to the competitive advantage that it has over other products that are available in the market. The stocks and shares of the company continue to rise and people always go after them because of their rising prices. The competitive advantage that the firm has over others is that the recipe, which is a secret for the company and tastes much better than all the other products that are in the company. The ability to develop new products and reinventing the ones that are already present in the market gives them an edge over other companies. Consumers are spoilt for choice as they offer more than four hundred brands in around 200 markets globally. The distribution system of the company is very good in comparison with the other companies as they maintain a huge network of operators worldwide (Menon and Yao 2014). The entire distribution team stays updated with the new technolog ies that are developing and they constantly keeps on changing these so that the consumers from every corner of the globe have access to their products. The far flung places in Africa have access to these products due to the excellent distribution strategy that is taken up the firm. The technology that is used to make the products is of high quality and up to date so that the company incurs low cost on production on manufacturing it. The distribution team maintains a strong bond with the manufacturing plants so that the products keep on flowing constantly to the consumers (Dawar 2013). This network enables the firm to gain maximum profits in comparison with the other companies. The efficiency and the strategies used by the Coca-Cola company is of great advantage and success of the company. CAGE Framework The CAGE framework states that the trade opportunities of a company depend upon the cultural, administrative, geographical and economical factors of the company. The cultural factor determines the habits of the people of that place through interactions with different companies and institutions. The differences in religion and languages can have a great impact on the trade factors (Ghemawat and Altman 2016). The administrative factor looks in to the history or the background of the place and the relations that it shares with the other countries in terms of trading activities. The geographical distances between two countries also needs to be considered as the borders and boundaries of the place play a huge role in the smooth functioning of the trading activities. The economical factor needs to be considered as well because it is seen that the companies that are in rich countries tends to do more cross country trade activities as compared to other countries (Lopez-Duarte, Vidal-Suarez a nd Gonzalez-Diaz 2015). The application of the CAGE framework fits very well in the Coca-Cola Company as the entry in to the Chinese market was of great benefit to the company. The cultural advantage that the company got in that market was that the product was refreshing and new in the market. The risk was that the tea-loving people of China never tasted a product like that before and it was going to cost a lot for the company to advertise their product in the age old norm markets of China. The administrative factors were that the country had a capitalist government, so to enter the market the company had to pass through many legal boundaries. The country had no previous ties with other countries so the recognition of brand was not possible to the people. The size of the country is huge and is highly populated, so to reach every corner of the country is difficult for the company. Due to the long distances and the failure of communication, the company had to face lots of problem in the starting years. Econom ically, the country was not in a good position since the buying capacity of the people was very less due to the low labor cost, which inflicted the country throughout. The company benefitted from this as the cost of labor was meager as opposed to countries like United States and Russia (Omar, Leach and March 2014). The governmental, marketing and the cost factors of the country caused great hindrances for the company. The success of the company depended on the experiences that it had due to the overseas trade and the knowledge of internationalizing activities that were taking place at that time. The availability of the resources in the company and the relationships that the company maintained with all the other nations gave a great boost in favor of the company. One of the major drawbacks that the company faced was that the operating country that is China was facing lots of difficulty due to the political unrest that was taking place throughout the nation (Ghemawat 2013). The compan y had high risks as how would the indigenous people react with their people as well as opportunities were also great due to the huge population and great marketing base. Reference List Dawar, N., 2013. When marketing is strategy.Harvard business review,91(12), pp.100-108. Ghemawat, P. and Altman, S.A., 2016. Emerging Economies: Differences and Distances 1.AIB Insights,16(4), p.7. Ghemawat, P., 2013.Redefining global strategy: Crossing borders in a world where differences still matter. Harvard Business Press. Lpez?Duarte, C., Vidal?Surez, M.M. and Gonzlez?Daz, B., 2015. International Business and National Culture: A Literature Review and Research Agenda.International Journal of Management Reviews. Menon, A.R. and Yao, D.A., 2014.Elevating Repositioning Costs: Strategy Dynamics and Competitive Interactions in Grand Strategy. Omar, A.T., Leach, D. and March, J., 2014. Collaboration between nonprofit and business sectors: A framework to guide strategy development for nonprofit organizations.VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations,25(3), pp.657-678. Verbeke, A., 2013.International business strategy. Cambridge University Press. Walker, G. and Madsen, T.L., 2016.Modern competitive strategy. McGraw-Hill Education.