Enrolment No.

_________
AHMEDABAD UNIVERSITY
AMRUT MODY SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT
UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMMES
2019-2020 WINTER SEMESTER
END SEMESTER EXAMINATION
MGT333 COMPETITIVE STRATEGY
Date: 06-05-2020 Total Marks: 40
Time: 05.00 pm – 07.00 pm No. of question pages: 02

Instructions:
 This is an open book exam.
 There are 4 questions in this paper. All the questions are compulsory

1. The current pandemic of COVID-19 (Corona Virus Disease – 2019) has highlighted the fact that
going forward, there is a major need to focus on public health. Accordingly, you need to come up with
a business idea that focuses on public health related product. Choose the product and mention it
clearly. For being able to make strategic decisions, carry out a detailed PESTEL analysis of your
product for the Indian market. Which factor would influence your strategic decision making the most?
Why? (10)

Answer:

Name of the product: Easy Check

Description: In the time of the pandemic, a lot of people aren’t able to go to hospitals looking at the threat
of the spread of the virus. At a time like this, for people to make sure that they are at the pink of your
health, they need to take certain measures for their protection and for people who have delicate immune
systems, they need to constantly measure their healths.
As it is very hard for people to get out at this time, a lot of people haven’t been able to give blood tests,
urine tests or even saliva sample tests because of the increased threats of getting out of their houses and
catching Coronavirus. With the coronavirus at its peak, all the health officials are working towards it and
they do not have even a second to spare towards any other activity while they’re trying to manage the
pandemic. The country of India has one of the largest number of people who face diabetes, hypertension,
cancer and other life-threatening diseases that constantly require medical attention. To help the consumers
get a medicalAttention that they require I have come up with a product that is a small portable machine
that consumers can take along with them wherever they go and easily take either a blood sample test or a
saliva test in the flick of a second. Just like the average diabetes checking machine that takes a drop of the
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blood from the patient’s finger, this machine will have a similar mechanism that will work for both Blood
and saliva with two different valves for them in the machine and this would directly be connected to an
application on this phone that gives them the basic data required for the blood sugar levels and other basic
information required by these patients.

P; Approval from various government bodies take a long time. Tyere can be lack of uniformity in the
approvals received from different government bodies.
E: Cost of production will be high. There are oher blood testers that come at a decrsed rate and that might
create a problem. Would need to seek economies of scale
S: will help people all around the country to easily access their health data and rports and create more
health awareness.
T: constant technological advancements woulod be required with even a simple new invention or
technology. Also creating a data base for the customers to track their hatlh records.
L: getting a patent on this would be the first step, both a design patent and a utility patent to protect our
product. Also we would need to follow all government certifications.

2. BakeCraft is a hypothetical company that offers an online marketplace for bakeries and dessert
artisans to showcase their baked goods. The bakery and desserts market in India is valued at Rs 1,800
billion in 2018-2019, and is growing at CAGR of around 12 per cent. But strangely, it is still
dominated by unorganised players accounting for 90 per cent of the total share. People propelling this
growth are mainly home bakers, chocolatiers, cake artists and small-scale bakeries.

The company offers a platform that is dedicated entirely to artisan desserts and baked products. It is
an ecosystem where people come together to buy and sell amazing desserts that cannot be found on

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 the shelf in a bakery. In other words, it is the Myntra of bakery products. It is a community of dessert
connoisseurs: talented dessert artists who sell their artisan creations and diehard dessert lovers who
come to find bespoke, mouthwatering desserts and cakes, which they cannot find anywhere else.
Based on these inputs and by taking suitable assumptions (mention the assumptions):

a. Suggest a good mission statement for this business (2)

b. Conduct a five force analysis for this business. Also, what additional information would you
need to analyze the five forces better? (8)

Answer:

Mission statement: Our goal is to provide our customer base with an unparalleled eating experience by
providing them with desserts and cakes of the finest quality. We want to leave a mark on the baking
industry by growing the artisan baking sector. We would meet our goals by providing all artisan bakers an
online platform to sell their delicious and out of the world desserts. We want to make this enriching
experience convenient for both, our customers and our bakers.

Five forces analysis of the BakeCraft company:

1. Threat
of new entrants: When we talk about the baking industry, the threat of new entrants is very high as
there are negligible barriers to entry in this market. Having said that even if a small business wants
to enter the market they can enter in with a small amount of capital and still make money. For a
platform like BakeCraft That is dedicated towards artisan deserts and baked products, they are
talking about an entirely different segment of market and working in a niche, where they are trying
to give identity to not all dessert makers and bakers, but only the talented artisan dessert makers.
But if there are other companies in the marketplace that want to Come up with their own website
and sell artisan bakery products (the same way by creating a system of joining artisan bakers with
customers), the threat of new entrants will be very high as the cost of setting up a website is low,
and thus, anyone can enter the market.
2. Threat
of substitutes: In the case of an online platform that connects artisan bakers with customers, the
threat of substitute would be the other channels through which customers can procure artisan baked
goods. Taking an example of the city of Ahmedabad, there are a lot of artisan bakery (eg. sea salt
cafe, hubber and holly, le artisan boloungire) and they have their own delivery channels that are

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 linked through Zomato, Swiggy and Uber eats. These channels of procuring artisan baked goods is
one threat and the other threat would be the chance where the customers directly go to the bakery
shop and get their baked goods by themselves. An other threat can be those talented artisan bakers
who would be baking goods through orders, as not everyday people would want to consume artisan
desserts. Thus, the threat of the substitute (in our case, substitute channels) is Medium to High. As
the only differential would be the convenience provided by the online platform.
3. Purcha
sing power of the buyers: in this case, the purchasing power of buyers would be moderate as their
preferences and tastes would define the products to be supplied. Keeping in mind the fact that the
customers or buyers are price sensitive, if these artisan bakers ask for higher prices for their
products, the buyers would easily switch to the other normal bakery products. The Centre platform
is playing in a niche market hence, when we say that there only making it for diehard desert lovers
and people who craves mouthwatering deserts and cake which they cannot find anywhere else, it
directly turns there purchasing from high to moderate as there are catering to the need of a certain
section of people in the society who crave for artisan baked goods.
4. Purcha
sing power of the seller: In a given case, the suppliers would be the individual talented bakery artist
who would be selling their goods on the online platform. Now what we need to put emphasis on is
that the suppliers would have to bring in artisan products that the buyers would want to buy, and
that will only happen by making sure they adhere to the taste preferences of the buyers. Artisan
bakery can be directly affected by the price fluctuations of the raw materials that they use. hence in
the baking business supplies generally do not have a lot of negotiating power. Keeping that in mind
in our case where we are providing a platform to artisan bakers, the bargaining power of the
suppliers would be moderately low as Their lack of negotiating power and due to their taste and
preferences.
5. Rivalr
y in the market: There are plenty players who are functioning in the baking industry. Even though
the industry is dominated by unorganised bakers and they have a huge proportion of it which
accounts for around 90% of the total share of the market, even in the remaining 10% there are a lot
of players who are joining the sector of artisan bakery within the industry. This is due to the change
in consumer patterns Which directly reflect that people would want to eat food that looks good and
taste good as well. And thus, even the specific area of artisan bakery is flourishing. Various
businesses in this area would compete on the basis of how their key suppliers are supplying them
with the baked goods, what market differentiation is are they creating and how are they using the

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 channel between the customers and their reach to the baked goods. Hence in my opinion, here is a
moderately high rate of rivalry, looking at the growth of the artisan bakery sector.

In case of analysing the five forces, the additional information that we need to analyse this better are the
consumer preferences, the other various channels through which artisan baked goods can reach the
consumers.

3. Suppose your business idea is to start a magazine in India at a local / regional / national level.

a. With the help of strategy group mapping of magazines, identify a gap for creating your
product’s USP. In other words, how will your magazine be different? (5)

b. Based on the gap identified in your strategy map, which generic strategy are you going to
follow for your business? What are the key value activities through which you would achieve
that strategy? (10)

Answer:
A gap that has been identified by creating the strategy group mapping is that there are a lot of Magazines
in the Indian subcontinent that are for business and fashion but for people above the age of 16 to 18 years.
It has been seen to the strategy group mapping that there are only a few magazines that are for kids and of
these magazines that I for kids ranging between the age of somewhere 8 to 14 years, all of these
magazines are related to content that is creative in nature And as for the child’s entertainment. The
business idea that I have come up with is a magazine that is for kids who range between the age of 8 to 14
years but This would be an educational magazine where through the content that we create in the
magazine we can cater to a child and try and develop different prospects for their future professions and
innovate develop their passion. This can be done by adding articles of famous entrepreneurs and
musicians, artists, Sportspersons and telling the kids about how they achieve their goals by starting to
work at a very young age. The magazine can raise awareness on the issue of how kids in the age group of
8 to 14 can start their own entrepreneurial journey through small ideas and make their reading experience
more enriching, enjoyable and interesting.

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USP: To bring out a magazine that enriches a kids reading experience by providing them with
inspirational content that Inspires them to build up their life and a small age by taking tiny steps towards
their passion.

The genetic strategy that we would want to take up is a cost focus strategy. As we are playing in a niche
market will be providing magazines for kids, for us to reach to a larger market segment with our
educational magazine, we would have to have an advantage over other players in the market. For example
an edge over the Tinkle magazine. Hence having a cost advantage in our targeted segment that is the kids
market, parents would be more enthusiastic towards buying their kids of fun and inspirational magazine
with the same reference cost of a normal kids entertainment magazine.

Business
Nat- india
Educational geo
magazines Dataquest
t
Organiser
Femina
india

Forbes

Age
group

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4. An e-commerce company like Amazon India will have sustainable competitive advantage. Do you
agree with this statement? If yes, why? If no, why not? (5)

Answer:

A sustainable competitive advantage is required by a company to function well and thrive in a volatile
global environment in the present time. How Amazon India has created a sustainable competitive
advantage is by their ways of managing their logistics, customer services and prices of the goods retailed
online. Amazon tries to provide a huge range of products ranging from electronics, kitchen appliances,
furniture, books, stationery, clothing and et cetera at one click. Amazon always has one or the other type
of discount going on that works as an incentive for the consumers to choose the site. One of the most
important aspects is the logistics management that is done by Amazon. Amazon has been able to optimise
their logistics by delivering the ordered product direct at the customer’s house and it sends notifications
and keeps track of of all the progress that is delivery has made and they also have a very efficient product
return system where customers can easily return the product that They did not like after seeing them in
person. Amazon has created brand loyalty by making the customers feel safe when they order from their
side and creating an efficient logistics system where the customers get easy delivery and product returns.
Amazon has also grown its market operation by being a platform where people can come and buy
products, from there to creating Amazon Prime.
Both Amazon prime and Amazon the online retail market provide a large number of product that the
consumer can select from this diversification has helped them increase their consumer loyalty as people
get more options to buy from. Amazon has received much of its competitive advantage by fostering a
culture where adaptability is the main focus. Amazon has diversified into a lot of projects but I still
maintained its mark on each one of it while creating an impeccable base of customer loyalty.

Hence I completely agree with the statement that an e-commerce company like Amazon India has a
sustainable competitive advantage because of their focus on adaptability and diversification which has
constantly help them capture a greater market share and increase the consumer loyalty.