Reference no: EM133052324

Week: Discussion - Identifying and Describing a Company's Business Strategy 

Overview and General Instructions 

This Discussion assignment will give you the opportunity to identify and describe the basic competitive strategy of several companies, based on the generic strategies (as described in TPGS Chapter 5); and to identify and describe moves that a particular company has made to strengthen its overall competitive strategy (as described in TPGS Chapter 6).

In your Initial Post, and in your subsequent Comments, you must justify and support your positions using highly relevant concepts covered in this Week's Required Readings. You may also include highly relevant information from other sources, but you must include the source of that information. Your posting(s) should be grammatically correct and free of spelling errors.

SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS FOR YOUR INITIAL POST:

After completing this week's Required Readings, prepare and make an Initial Post that addresses the three Tasks described below. 

Task 1: For each of the companies listed below, perform an Internet search and, describe the generic competitive strategy (or generic strategies) on which each company's current strategy seems to be based.

• Stihl Inc. (in the hand tools and small equipment business)
• Dollar General in the discount retail business
• Zillow in the real estate business
• Twitter is the social media business
• Toyota Motors in the luxury car market (e.g., Lexus)

Task 2: Choose one (1) of the companies listed above, and identify two (2) different elements of that company's current strategy, and explain how each of those elements addresses one or more of the distinguishing features of that company's generic strategy (or generic strategies).  NOTE: Use TPGS Chapter 5 - Table 5.1 - Distinguishing Features of the Five Generic Competitive Strategies, as your guide for completing this TASK.  

Task 3:  Choose one (1) of the companies listed above (you can use the same company that you selected for TASK #2), and describe one or more of the strategic actions described in TPGS Chapter 6, that the company has taken to strengthen its competitive position. Support your response with facts that you discovered in your research on that company, and relate them to the specific strategic action taken.