Impact of Competition on the Organization Free-Samples for Students

Question: How does Competition Impact on the Organisation and its ability to Serve its Markets? Answer: Introduction Coles supermarket is a large retail supermarket owned and operated by Wesfarmers an Australian conglomerate and the biggest company in Australia. It was founded by George Coles in Melbourne Australia in the year 1914 and by the year 2015 was the largest retail market in the country operating 776 supermarket stores. It has more than 100,000 employees making it among the biggest employers in Australia. Its main competitor and rival is Woolworths and together command more than eighty percent of the market in Australia (Aaker, 2013).Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd was initially owned by Coles Group Ltd, however in 2006, the retail supermarket was bought by Wesfarmers Ltd in a takeover. Organizational Competencies, Definition and levels Definition of Competencies - Competencies are the skills that make one person more effective than another in performing a task or position (Cunningham, 2002). These develop on several levels. Knowing them allows focusing the training efforts to have a Human Team that exhibits in their behavior the key competencies of success to overcome or achieve the expected results. Organizational Competencies are classified into three levels: Level 1: Organizational Competencies: They refer to those capabilities that each member of the entity must exhibit. Usually they are related to the Core Competence, that is to say that central competence from which it derives or supports a competitive position.When it is mentioned that it must be visible in the performance of each collaborator and manager, it is said that it does not exclude anyone: Managers, Leaders, and Collaborators. Level 2: Technical Competencies: Related to the competencies of each area or process, which distinguish them. They are in timately linked with key capabilities of success. Therefore, they are specific to each one. Some competencies may be repeated from area to area or process in process, but when the others are defined, they definitely give the differentiating character (Czinkota, Ronkainen, Ortiz-Buonafina, 2004). Example: Marketing area: creativity, innovation, communication skills (active listening, knowing how to ask, commercial and advertising writing), commercial skills (presentation presentations), service attitude (which may well be organizational competence), relationships or assertive interpersonal relationships Financial Area: Numerical skills, analysis skills, analytical thinking (managers), decision making Level 3: Specific Skills: Are those capabilities required for performance in a position or job is higher than the average or equal to expected according to the seniority of the official in the same (Doyle, 2013). Example: specific critical competencies of success to carry out a position of Salesperson: communication skills, commercial skills (presentations, handling of objections, closures), service attitude (which can also be organizational competence) impact of competition on markets The purpose of this section is to organize and systematize the information necessary to complete the knowledge and description of the business, both the entire sector in which the activity is to be developed (external information) and the individual project or company (internal information) .This information will analyze opportunities and threats of the environment, strengths and weaknesses of the company, project the evolution of the market and the environment and establish the objectives and strategies of the marketing mix. External or market information It is not the only way to differentiate yourself. There are those who are betting on innovation in their products and services, or who, for example, are looking for new distribution channels. Also, they offer the lowest price guarantee (Tracy, n.d.). Another way to differentiate itself is by using a product or service for a specific market segment, for example premium products / services.A service strategy may have to do at some p oint with any of these strategies, you can even coexist with them, and however it is something different.Potentialcustomer markets A loyal customer, every time you have a need that your organization can supply, will think of you, which produces recurring and cross-selling.A loyal customer, you will get excellent feedback about your organization in your circles of influence. This is free advertising. These circles, until recently, were his relatives, friends and direct contacts. Today they have expanded enormously thanks to social networks, giving an impressive power of influence to the opinion of a single client. According to (Sweeney, MacLellan, Dorey, 2007)A loyal customer wants to continue doing business with you, so it will help you to always improve, collaborating when you do a survey, or alerting you to the aspects of your service that you need to improve. A loyal customer is the ideal candidate to offer you new products and services that you bring to the market, or products / services of greater value. It will help you evaluate them, and you will receive them with confidence, because they know from whom they come.A loyal customer is willing to pay more for your service than for your competition, because for him, the value of your close relationship with him has value. The relationship with the client raises the exit barriers. A service strategy is a self-sustaining strategy. If each loyal customer recommends you to other potential customers, they also become loyal customers, and the cycle is fed back, you will attract more and more customers, just focusing on satisfying them. Your advertising efforts will be much more effective, because attracting a single customer, you are gaining many more. As a result of this phenomenon, you can in the medium term, reduce your advertising spending, without fear that your sales will decrease. Given the different environmental aspects that influence business activity, managers have to study the different trends in detail in order to make decisions on a solid basis that will lead them to success.In this sense, one of the tools of evaluation of the technological, political, social and economic factors in the so-called PEST analysis, a tool with which to examine the environment and identify the possible opportunities and threats (Egan, 2011). Impacts of external factors. The two variables that affect marketing strategy of Coles Supermarket are Technological factor and socio-cultural factors.The process must be implemented in several phases, which in the case of the technological factors of a company will be carried out as follows: Technological factors What are the key technological factors? The first step is to draw up a list with those technical aspects of the sector's interest, carrying out a forecasting study over several years, so that you can be prepared when the time comes (Ryan, 2017). These parameters include: Level of technological development. Degree of implantation of information technologies. Degree of technological obsolescence. Percentage of GDP devoted to R D I. Impact of the internet and emerging technologies on marketing strategy. The bargaining power with customers. For example, thanks to the internet and online commerce, companies have been able to eliminate intermediaries in many cases, which means a reduction of costs (Ryan, 2017). This is also what Coles Supermarket has done to incorporate technology with marketing strategy. The bargaining power with suppliers. Having an order management software in all delegations, for example, will help us to carry out unified raw material orders with which we can obtain better prices thanks to economies of scale. This is an advantage to the overall strategy of marketing the products of the supermarket Rivalry between competitors. The incorporation of a new technical process that improves the quality of the product and lowers its price will serve the brand to excel in the market. Potential competitors. Before the outbreak of the internet, for example, small companies had a very localized scope of action, but nowadays they are integrated into the global market, so multinationals and big companies such as Coles must take them into account (Doyle, 2013). Substitute products or services. Managers will also have to be alert to new technological factors of a company that allow to offer the same service but with a different technology. What elements are priority? Once we have compiled the different points, the organization must decide the priority it assigns to each one of them. Other influential variables within this dimension may be market size, level of development, wage levels, telecommunications, infrastructures, availability of physical and financial factors, price of money, and the Inflation index. Dimension socio cultural It includes dominant cultural patterns, educational level, demographic variables such as: population growth rate, age distribution, mobility; Educational variables such as level of general and specific training; The systems of values and beliefs, norms of conduct, etc. Which influence the demand of certain sectors (Milligan, 2012). The components of a society share a set of values and beliefs, some of them are irrelevant to a company, others affect its way of acting.For example, a society that encourages competitive and outreach, or that turns successful men into business people to whom it seeks to imitate, will encourage the emergence of companies and the right people to run them.Ecological values are another aspect of growing importance, reflecting the level of development and education of today's society. Therefore in its marketing strategy Coles should show that it supports social values such as environment and educational values to sell more.Politico-legal factors establish the rules of the game in which companies operate. In every economic system, public institutions fulfill a series of functions, to exercise them, they emit norms and regulations. The quantity and intensity of these fluctuates enormously among different sectors and organizations. Recommendations. After having developed the appropriate strategies for marketing, the company must successfully face the changes that must be made in prices, both increases and cuts, in both cases should be able to anticipate the reactions of both consumers and competition. Price cutbacks: this measure can be taken for a variety of reasons, starting with an excess of stored capacity, in order to sell the stock as fast as possible, also, if the company lost market share or if it wants to dominate the Market by applying the lowest price measure (Fjermestad, 2016). The company should leverage on technology to ensure that its prices give it a competitive edge. This can be done by using technology to reach directly to the suppliers, therefore, removing the middle men which is an effective way to cutback prices giving it more edge than its competitors. This is also a very effective marketing strategy. In terms of social cultural factors, Coles Supermarket should make more use of the fact that they do have initiatives and programs that support good causes. The public always supports companies that give back to the community therefore this should work very well. Conclusion The marketing strategy of Coles supermarket is yielding positive results. Through the marketing strategy, the company has managed to be more visible and has kept prices stable. As we all know Products that are above the line will find themselves in a disadvantageous position of value (Egan, 2011). That is, the entrepreneur would be offering less value than the competitors and therefore would very likely not be commercially successful while being below that line would be likely to succeed. Therefore the company has managed to have a competitive edge over its competitors. References Aaker, D. (2013).Marketing research. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley Sons. Cunningham, M. (2002).Customer relationship management. Oxford, England: Capstone Pub. Czinkota, M., Ronkainen, I., Ortiz-Buonafina, M. (2004).The export marketing imperative. Australia: Thomson. Doyle, P. (2013).Value-based marketing. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley. Egan, J. (2011).Relationship marketing. Harlow, England: Financial Times Prentice Hall. Fjermestad, J. (2016).Electronic customer relationship management. 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