Category Archives: Differentiation advantage

An Engineer in a Meeting…

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This clip illustrates how an engineer perceives the product specifications as communicated by marketing professionals. As silly as it is, the underlying language problems are very real and are at the root of many failures to coordinate in organizations. Indeed, the firm that is able to do this effectively and consistently may enjoy an advantage in the marketplace. The video is a bit longer than I would use in class (especially given how silly it is) but might be good as an electronic resource outside of class. If you are looking for an exercise that emphasizes coordination across units, you might check out the MicroDesign negotiation.

Contributed by Russ Coff

The Bear Necessities…

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There are several nice Samsung cases that describe how the company has tried to merge Western practices (and managers) with Korean/Japanese practices (and managers), to become the truly global firm. It leads to a nice discussion of how a firm can transcend national identity and become a global player. The advertisement below exemplifies this: 1. Bears aren’t identified with a single region (a global species), and probably considered “cute” just about everywhere; 2. The advertisement is easily dubbed in any language as you never see the people talking; and 3. The creative/fun aspect of the ad is probably not what students think of when they think about Samsung tech products — it exemplifies that Samsung has achieved a sophisticated level of global infotainment expertise. Or has a great ad agency. Or you could just do something simpler by using it in an intro about how diversified Samsung is. (e.g., “What industries do you think Samsung is in?” (put answers on board) If someone gets to washing/drying machines, pause for a moment, smile, run the ad. If no one gets to washing/drying machines, pause, smile, ask “What about major appliances?” and run the ad. Fun fun fun.

If you have other ideas for how to use this, please post them as comments below.

Contributed by Melissa Schilling

Nobody Knows the Bubbles I’ve Seen

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We tend to focus heavily on the value of capabilities in strategy. However, the very features that drive willingness to pay (and thus competitive advantage) may ultimately turn out to be a disadvantage. In other words, a core competence can become a core rigidity. When rivals use this against a firm, this might be thought of as a form of “judo strategy.” Below, the animated scrubbing bubbles, the rival’s differentiator, is reframed as “lewd” residue.

Contributed by Russ Coff

Taking Customer Loyalty Too Far?

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Of course, we explore customer loyalty as a key element of differentiation. How far does loyalty go? This ONN story about Southwest airlines pushes that envelope by asking what customers will do for employees (like lying to the CEO’s wife about where he is). Of course, it’s a bit silly but there’s something useful in there too 😉

Contributed by Russ Coff

Generic Brand Video

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This Advertising Age article touts the tongue-in-cheek generic brand video (below). All of the segments are taken from stock footage and could be used to promote almost any product. The underlying advertising formula is exposed. In this cliche environment, what does an effective differentiation strategy look like? One might send the class on a scavenger hunt for firm/products that are truly differentiated (and those that are trying but fall into these cliche traps)

Contributed by Russ Coff

Tesla Strategy Sparks Cusiosity

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Melissa Schilling notes that, despite extensive automation (video below), labor usage is quite high. “There are 3000 workers in the plant, and Tesla produced a little over 20,000 cars in 2013. That’s about 7 cars per worker in a year (assuming the workers are full time). However, the GM Lordstown plant made 70 cars per worker last year (thanks Linos Jacovides for this stat), and in the well-known Renault-Nissan HBS case it reports that Nissan’s productivity was 101 cars/worker/year, and Renault’s was 77 cars/worker/year.” Given the automation, the workers are probably highly skilled (and, thus, well paid). Is Tesla at a huge economies of scale disadvantage? What might be the strategy? They are still 3 years away from selling a cheaper model so it will be a while before they can generate volume from a mid-market product. In the meantime, one possible solution may be found in Chinese sales of electric cars.

Contributed by Melissa Schilling

BIC Pens “For Her”

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This is an actual product. However, customers have thought it rather odd to market a pen specifically for women. This has led to an array of hilarious product reviews. Here is an article about the reviews (try not to fall off your chair while reading). It is an interesting case of differentiation and segmentation gone awry — definitely worthy of class discussion. Below is a segment that Ellen Degeneres did on the product (including her proposed commercial). In the end, I’m guessing that the publicity has led to some unanticipated sales…

Contributed by Phil Bromiley

Zappo’s Zaps Mgrs: A whole holacracy

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Zappos is moving to a holacracy whereby managers and job titles go by the wayside (see this CNET article among others). This is a real kick in the head to bureaucracy and hierarchy. How does this organizational design mesh with their strategy of customer service and innovation? Another nice example is Valve — see the Valve post on this site. These examples can seed a discussion of strategy, structure, and organizational design as well as a critical analysis of many practices taught in business schools. Such radical forms can be very hard to design and implement. One problem that Foss explores in a recent Organization Science paper is incentives, motivation, and the tendency of managers to meddle in tasks that they say they have delegated. Here is an entertaining Zappo’s commercial to ease into the topic (though one of the many Dilbert videos would be quite compatible as well).

Contributed by Russ Coff

Value Chains: A flighty topic…

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Norman Sheehan has developed an award winning exercise to teach value chain analysis (see the JME paper). Here are excepts from the abstract: Despite its ubiquity, many students struggle to understand and apply value chain concepts. JetFighter uses a complex manufacturing process (intricate paper planes) to enhance students’ value chain competencies. Teams are use value chain concepts to develop innovative strategies to fulfill customer requirements and outperform rivals. The exercise involves two production periods with a brief value chain lecture occurring after the first period. Given that teams typically lose money in the first round, their motivation to learn is enhanced as they are immediately provided an opportunity to apply this knowledge in the second period. Here are materials for the exercise:

Contributed by Norman Sheehan

Oh No, He’ll be an Engineer!

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This short Dilbert clip identifies the emergence of “the Knack” a capability to understand, create and fix all mechanical and electronic objects. While it is silly, it also illustrates that exceptional capabilities also come with issues of fit. The firm that is able to provide a unique home for such misfits might enjoy a competitive advantage (I’m sure you can think of a few examples).

Then, there is this clip with Wally which shows what it is like when such engineers are valuable and rare – they can enjoy tremendous bargaining power…

Continue reading →

An Epic Split in the Strategy Field

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Birgul Arslan suggests that the Epic Split commercial of Volvo in the Volvo Trucks Case to showcase how truck companies may differentiate themselves with their technology. I see a broader use in the context of almost any kind of alignment one might want to discuss (e.g., strategies, governance, organizational units, etc.). Any misalignment could result in catastrophic results…

Contributed by Birgul Arslan

Flush with Cash…

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A recent Wall Street Journal article points to a resurgence of toilet manufacturing in the U.S. but it is mostly under foreign ownership (like the Japanese company, Toto). Mary Tripsas has a nice HBS case on Toto’s attempts at entering the U.S. market and the WSJ article seems a nice conclusion to the story. A broader question one might ask is why product innovation has not penetrated the U.S, market in this industry. In Japan, top end toilets are highly differentiated and even link to electronic devices like Android smartphones. As such, this might spur discussion of when innovations are likely to take hold as well as questions about entry into new markets. Nevertheless, this video reminds us that there may still be a need for low tech solutions in this market…

Contributed by Russ Coff

Apple’s Addiction to Samsung

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Apple is famous for being secretive about it’s proprietary knowledge. One would think that they would love to stop handing over their most strategic technical knowledge to Samsung, their biggest rival in smartphones. Nevertheless, all existing iOS core processors have been manufactured by Samsung. They just can’t stop themselves — the A7 chip continues the multi-year pattern of outsourcing production of the heart of the iPhone to their chief competitor. Rumors have been flying that Apple is going to switch to a new supplier, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co). That may still happen in the near future but the fact that Apple could not shake it’s dependence on Samsung quickly despite large investments in TSMC speaks to the extent of Samsung’s manufacturing advantage. This would seem to prompt a nice discussion of capabilities, rivalry, and alliances…

Contributed by Russ Coff

Blue Sheep of the Family?

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This Mercedes Benz commercial poses a critical strategy challenge for firms seeking to differentiate: “How do you try to stand out in a crowd where everyone is trying to be different?”

Contributed by Russ Coff

Switching Costs and Apple’s Pie

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Of course firms  try to do what they can to increase the switching costs for customers who might consider rivals’ products. Apple has been a master of this — all in the name of customer service. A recent article by Geoffrey Goetz describes why the Apple “ecosystem” is so hard to move away from. While this analysis suggests that the cost of switching isn’t nearly what people might imagine (less than $10), if people perceive the costs to be high, that may be all that matters. A recent study indicated that Apple has taken three times as many customers from Samsung as Samsung has taken from Apple. In this sense, the perceived switching costs would seem to run in Apple’s favor. While this analysis can be done on any industry, asking people in the classroom about switching smartphones is likely to unearth a rich discussion. This can be used to introduce five forces analysis and also illustrate how switching costs can be asymmetric in an industry and contribute to a favorable position for a given firm.

Contributed by Russ Coff

A Drinking Problem: Pepsi Challenge

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The 3E Learning site discussed in another post includes a nice writeup on using the classic Pepsi challenge but including generic soda. Here is an excerpt: “In this exercise, student volunteers blindly taste three different soft drinks: Coke, Pepsi, and a store brand. The student then tries to assess which one each drink is. Across several years of performing this, in every semester a majority cannot identify their preferred drink, nor can many identify any of them correctly. After several volunteers make the attempt, the class engages in meaningful conversation about how and why Coke and Pepsi capture so much market share, when their products cost 50% more than store brands.” What, then, is the basis for competitive advantage when imitation is so evident? It’s worth noting that Pepsi did not include generics in the original challenge — why might that be?

Feedback about the exercise (from 3E-Learning)
  • “The soda taste test definitely opened my eyes to realize the importance of branding, marketing, and customer brand loyalty in a business.” Continue reading →

New Prius Designed to Kill Owner

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Clearly the problem in green strategies is to reduce consumption. What could do this more effectively than reducing the owners carbon footprint to zero? This ONN story explores the new Prius that has this special feature. A nice introduction to green strategies…

 Contributed by Russ Coff

Developer Releases Pirated Game

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Greenheart Games developed a game (Game Dev Tycoon) where the objective is to manage a video game company. However, they did something a little different. They simultaneously released a “cracked” version of the game that was identical except that player’s new products would be pirated. Eventually, the player’s company goes broke since they can’t make any money. Here is their blog post (or pdf in case the site goes dark) describing what happened (e.g., how users of the cracked version complained that they couldn’t win). This is a great vehicle for discussions of ethics, intellectual property, and even game theory. This short video report describes the ploy:

Contributed by Rich Makadok

Starbucks’ Dual Advantage

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BusinessWeek offers a nice analysis of Starbucks’ decision to lower prices on its premium coffee. Rita McGrath describes the “hourglass economy” as thick markets for low cost and highly differentiated products. Accordingly, Starbucks is keeping prices high for premium drinks in its stores but dropping the price of coffee by 10% to draw in more price conscious consumers. This strategy leverages Starbucks’ lean supply chain operations that give it a very low cost structure despite offering premium products. Ultimately, this puts higher cost rivals at a disadvantage because Starbucks can offer a better value proposition.

Contributed by Russ Coff

Valentine’s Day: A Formula for Love

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You may have heard Jay Barney say there cannot be a rule for riches (or the rents will be competed away). However, Harlequin romances has been using a formulaic approach to developing romance novels for years. This HBS case on Harlequin explores their resources and capabilities in this area in the context of a strategic decision. Is the formula a source of advantage? If not, what is? To go with this case, you might consider using:

  • This Pandora radio post on the formula for a love song.
  • This video of Kurt Vonnegut describing the formulaic approach to telling stories (such as Cinderella).

Contributed by Aya Chacar