Business Finance Homework Help

Game-Winning Moves

Our focus this week is on choosing a strategic direction that will set your organization apart from competitors in a way that enables you to stand out from everyone else. Jack refers to this as “changing the game.” Sherman refers to it as “breaking away from the pack” (Chapter 11).

• Using the company you selected for your course project, identify a potential game-changing move that you believe will create a sustainable competitive advantage.
• Briefly summarize how the move will fundamentally shift the playing field to the company’s advantage and beat the competition.
• Explain which of the three positioning categories described by Sherman (Breakaway, Reverse Positioning, Blue Ocean or Disruptive Innovation) best describes the move, and why.

Dear Prof and Classmates

Most of the companies make several different strategic moves to build a competitive advantage. The primary aim is to create a clear difference that is important to customers, and is something competitors cannot match. One can create a competitive advantage by developing a strategy of leadership in factors such as cost, quality, innovation, and customer experience. However, one should identify one thing that we could do extraordinarily well and focus your strategy on that.

• Using the company, you selected for your course project, identify a potentially game-changing move that you believe will create a sustainable competitive advantage.

We had to relook into our SWOT analysis and that helped us discover basic elements of competitive advantage. These very simple concepts and we use them to try to distinguish in the first-order between the impact of internal and external factors on a firm’s ability to compete The aim of SWOT analysis was primarily to identify the key factors that are important to the achievement of the firm’s objectives. One of our breakthroughs in the medical diagnostic, research, and innovation industry was to introduce the real-time test outcome in our laboratory testing platforms. And that has dramatically changed the medical treatment to quick turn-around-time. The move was extremely helpful in this Covid-19 uncertainties where everyone was alarmed and anxious by the fatal pandemic. This has emanated in the research development that has ultimately found a way of vaccine through genome sequencing facilities that is more sophisticated, competitive, and up-to-date.

• Briefly summarize how the move will fundamentally shift the playing field to the company’s advantage and beat the competition.

The move was primarily fundamental in leveraging the diagnostic and medical testing technology from old whole-genome sequencing (WGS) to New Generation Sequencing systems (NGS) that easy specific, high-throughput, optimal and advanced. After a short period, we found that it has accomplished more than expected.

• Explain which of the three positioning categories described by Sherman (Breakaway, Reverse Positioning, Blue Ocean, or Disruptive Innovation) best describes the move, and why.

I see that this positioning category is classified as Reverse Positioning. That is because the New Generation Sequencing (NGS) has been developed from the sequencing platform that is usual and has been used for some time. The NGS is the developed version of Whole-Generation Sequencing (WGS).

References

1. JWI 540 – Strategy – Week 7- Lecture Notes
2. Welch Jack, 2005, Winning, HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
3. Sherman, Leonard, 2017, If You’re in a Dogfight, Become a Cat! Strategies for Long-Term Growth, Columbia Business School Publishing
4. Ersek, Keller, & Mullins, Break Your Industry’s Bottlenecks
5. https://smallbusiness.chron.com/strategic-moves-build-competitive-advantage
6. Lafley et al., A Playbook for Strategy-The Five Essential Questions at the Heart of Any Winning Strategy

Using the company you selected for your course project, identify a potential game-changing move that you believe will create a sustainable competitive advantage.

The game-changing move that I am proposing for the company I selected for my course project – Chipotle Mexican Grill (Chipotle) – is the addition of self-service kiosks within the company’s existing restaurant locations.

Briefly summarize how the move will fundamentally shift the playing field to the company’s advantage and beat the competition.

In 2019, the sales of self-service kiosks for the quick service and fast casual restaurant industry rose 17.9% to over $11.9 billion. That same year, 65% of customers surveyed by Tillster indicated they would be more likely to visit a restaurant if self-service kiosks were offered (Tillster, 2020). Over the next five years, the use of self-service kiosks is expected to increase. For restaurants that have already invested in self-service kiosks, the kiosks have helped to boost consumer spending by 30% (Star, 2021). Additionally, self-service kiosks can play an important role in reopening plans for restaurants that are currently still negative impacted by COVID-19 regulations by promoting social distancing and increasing speed (Staff, 2020). For Chipotle specifically, the addition of self-service kiosks could create opportunities for significant profit growth from the increased spending per ticket as well as opportunities for further alignment with Chipotle’s values and commitment to safety, especially during the pandemic (Chipotle Mexican Grill, 2021).

When reviewing the competition as a part of assignment one, a main competitor that was identified within the fast-casual restaurant space is Panera Bread (Panera). One of this company’s strengths is its commitment to investing in technologies including the investment of self-service kiosks. Because of this investment, Panera saw increase in sales per ticket, shorter lines, better order accuracy, and the encouragement of menu browsing (Manning, 2019). Although Chipotle would be behind Panera with this innovation, it would still be a great benefit for the company for the reasons previously mentioned.

Explain which of the three positioning categories described by Sherman (Breakaway, Reverse Positioning, Blue Ocean or Disruptive Innovation) best describes the move, and why.

I think that this move is best described by elements of the breakaway and disruptive innovation categories. The breakaway category was chosen because Chipotle was one of the innovators with the assembly line format of food ordering. That format for many years set the company apart, however, many restaurants have since followed suit making this format something that is no longer unique to Chipotle. In a sea of fast casual restaurants that now follow this format, Chipotle could break away from the pack by adding the feature of the self-service kiosks. This category resonated with me as it was described as a company choosing to, “Redefine how consumers perceive their products by borrowing features drawn from an entirely different product category” (Sherman, 2017, p. 244). Although Chipotle’s products would not change because of this addition, the way that customers experience the product would change significantly with the self-service kiosks. I think that the addition of self-service kiosks also connects with the category of disruptive innovations because it is something that is not commonly seen in restaurants at this time. For that reason, this would fall into the new market disruptive technology type (Sherman, 2017).

Chipotle Mexican Grill. (2021). Our Values. Retrieved from https://www.chipotle.com/values

Manning, L. (2019, July 17). Self-service kiosk market to reach $30.8B. Retrieved from https://www.restaurantdive.com/news/self-service-kiosk-market-to-reach-308b/558936/

Sherman, L. (2017). If You’re in a Dogfight, Become a Cat! Columbia Business School Publishing.

Staff, A. (2020, June 1). How Self-Service Kiosks Are Reshaping Fast Food Restaurants. Retrieved from https://ailatech.com/blog/how-self-service-kiosks-are-reshaping-fast-food-restaurants/

Star. (2021). Self-Service Kiosks for Airports, Restaurants/QSR, & Check In. Retrieved from https://www.starmicronics.com/pages/self-service-kiosks-airports-restaurants-qsr-check-in

Tillster. (2020, March 26). Self-Service Kiosk Industry: Continued Growth and Advancements Across Restaurant Industry. Retrieved from https://www.tillster.com/blog/2020/3/26/self-service-kiosk-industry-continued-growth-and-advancements-across-restaurant-industry#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20self%2Dservice%20kiosk,to%20more%20than%20%2411.9%20billion.&text=%E2%80%9CAccording%20to%20a%202019%20consumer,self%2Dservice%20kiosks%20were%20offered