The business environment has become highly competitive as more people are starting their online businesses. Technology has made it easier and comparatively cheaper to start an online business and sell products to local, national and international markets. It has saturated the market and made it harder for businesses to stand out in the crowd.
The business strategy online course offered by reputed institutions shows how a business can create its distinctive identity in this highly competitive market. Such courses help the planners develop and implement sustainable competitive advantages that would differentiate them from their competitors.
Adapting the view of the strategy program helps in giving you the competitive advantage that can be one of the key elements for the success of a business. It helps the business to get more sales, a higher profit margin and improved customer and staff retention compared to the competitors.
What does a sustainable competitive advantage mean?
When a company leverages its assets, skills and unique features to win over its competitors consistently due to any specific feature, then it is termed a competitive advantage. However, when the sustainable competitive term is used, then it shows that the advantage the company holds can go on much longer and is not a flash-in-the-pan event.
In view of the strategy program, you have to create a sustainable competitive advantage. A company has to build products, reputation, and services to attract customers continuously over time. An organisational strategy course will provide you with better and deeper insights into the creation of a sustainable competitive advantage to beat the competition.
What are examples of sustainable competitive advantages?
Sustainable competitive advantage includes assets or capabilities that help a business to provide a better solution to its customer needs. Such advantages are very hard to replicate or duplicate. It is something that your company does better than anyone else in the market.
Salient features of sustainable competitive advantages
There are two important traits of sustainable competitive advantages, which are as follows:
- It is exclusive to your business: Sustainable competitive advantages are specific organisational strengths that only your business holds in the market. These strengths help your company to stand apart in a crowd. It is something that your company does well and is also important in the market.
- It is important to your customers: The strengths or traits of competitive advantages must be very important to your clients. It should encourage the customer to choose you over your competitors.
What can be included in competitive advantage, and what about their sustainability?
Multiple factors provide a competitive advantage to a company. The sustainability of such advantages can get affected by numerous external factors.
- A great customer experience
If a business can provide amazing customer service, then it can sway the customers towards it. An amazing customer service, fast response and quick resolution of an issue can put a company over its competitors.
An organisational strategy course offered by a reputable institution will help you understand the various factors that negatively impact customer experience and how to avoid them. To make sure that the competitive advantage is sustainable, customer satisfaction has to be maintained over time.
- Unique products
If a company has a unique product that offers more value to customers in comparison to other such products available in the market, it puts it ahead of its competitors. However, this is a first-mover advantage, and it can remain only till the competitors do not outperform the product with their own.
- Advantages of low-cost
A business that can keep its supply and operational costs low can keep the prices of its products down. This allows it to attract customers away from other competitors. To keep the price low enough to attract customers, the business has to manage price hike factors and supply chain disruptions.
- Strategic assets of the company
If a business has advantageous assets like intellectual property trademarks, patents for the technology, or copyrights, it holds a stronger position vis-à-vis its competitors. However, if the competitors invest in new technologies and inventions, which are more effective, then the importance of these assets would become lesser.
- Pricing power
A business that can raise the prices of its products without affecting its market share has pricing power. A business that can use it as a competitive advantage, has created goodwill in the market that can easily withstand price increases. However, the business has to maintain this reputation to enjoy its pricing power.
- Continuously evolving products and services
If the products and services of a company can change to keep pace with the needs of the customers, then it can easily meet the challenge posed by its competitors. The company can add new products in the same niche to attract its loyal audience.
If a company invests in this aspect of competitive advantage, they have to consider products and service lines as futures right from the planning stage itself.
- Strong cash flow
If a company has a strong cash flow, it allows them to take more risks to get a greater market share. They can also face market disruptions quite successfully compared to their competitors. However, if the products become costly or some service issue crops up, then the cash flow will slow down very quickly.
- A strong brand
Any business strategy online course of a reputable institution will tell you that the brand value of a company is critical to its success in the market. If a company has invested in creating a strong brand, then the loyalty of its customers remains strong even if its product is not the cheapest in the market. Therefore, a company should work hard to create strong relationships with its customers. They should ensure that their customers get the best experience and service.
- Long-term contracts and incentives
A company can form a long-term contract with the customers. This will make them less likely to go over to the competitors. However, if your company is offering only long-term contracts, but the competitors are offering short-term contracts, you can lose business.
While creating a long-term contract with the customers, you must provide them with some incentives like a slight reduction in the price or a bonus. This will make the long-term contract attractive to the customers.
Final takeaway
An effective business strategy online course from a reputed institution can help you discover various advantages of your company that can be leveraged to beat the competition. It entails that no single value proposition can provide a sustainable competitive advantage. It requires a comprehensive framework including the business’s unique value, the competition and the customers to beat the competition.
The organisational strategy course from a reputed institution can help you get insights on how to develop and leverage sustained competitive advantage to get a larger market share.
