AMBO UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS

DEPARTMENT OF ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE

Individual assignment:-Business Policy and Strategy Management

Prepered

By: Getachew Mekonnen Id no: PGR/69254/15

SUBMITTED TO: SOLOMON AMSALU (Assist. Professor)

May, 22, 2023

Ambo, Ethiopia
INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT (10-20%)

Instruction: Read the following case carefully, and discuss your answer for the following
questions (3 pages max).
Suppose you are a leader of a business company that has pioneered a new kind of SALSA for
chicken that has taken the market by storm. The SALSA’S differentiated appeal has been based
on a unique combination of spices and packaging that has allowed you to charge a premium
price. Over the past three years, your SALSA has achieved a national reputation, and now major
food companies such as ABC and XYZ, seeing the potential of this market segment, are
beginning to introduce new SALSAS of their own, imitating your product. Based on the given
case answer the following questions:
1. Describe your business model and the strategies you are pursuing.
2. Describe the industry environment in which you are competing.
3. What kinds of competitive strategies can you adopt to strengthen your business model in
this kind of environment?
ANSWER: 1 BUSINESS MODEL AND STRATEGIES: Our business model is centered on
producing and selling a unique and high-quality salsa for chicken that has a strong appeal to
consumers. Our strategy has been to differentiate our product through a combination of spices
and packaging, allowing us to charge a premium price and create a loyal customer base.
ANSWER: 2 THE INDUSTRY ENVIRONMENTS: Industry is a group of firms producing
(or rendering) the same or similar products (or services) which depend on others for inputs. The
strategies of the firm will be affected by the attractiveness of the industry in which it chooses to
do business and its relative competitive position within that industry.
The Industry Environments: In which we are competing are Market Environment, Customer,
Supplier, and Competitors.
The Market Environment: The market environment consists of all factors and groups having
impact on the demand for the firm’s products and/or services, competitors, etc.
The factors of market environment influencing demand of our firm’s products or services,
competitors, etc. include:
 Product design, configuration, demand, packing, uses, lifecycle, etc.
 Place of the market, special features of the market, etc.

1|P a g e
  Place also includes customer related factors like customer taste, preference, needs,
perceptions, values, bargaining abilities, satisfaction, dealers, distributors,
wholesalers, retailers, etc.
 Price of the product, payment terms and conditions, special offers, discount,
competitor’s price, price of the substitute and complementary products etc.
 Promotional factors like expenditure and effectiveness of advertising, personal
selling and sales promotion of the firm and competing firms.
Customer: The significant factor of the marketing environment is the customer. We are mostly
concerned with the customers of the firm and their needs and desires.
We should analysis of customer sector such as buyer identification, demographic factors and
geographic locations of markets.
Buyer Identification: Markets normally indicate three distinct classes of customers
Demographic analysis: We should analysis demographic environment such as
I. population size and structure;
II. Age shifts in the population; and
III. Income distribution and changes of the population.
Geographic analysis: we should also analyses the geographic environment to know
the opportunities and threats as part of analyzing customer sector. We should think of
extending the market to new locations.
Supplier: Suppliers provide material, capital and the likes to a firm. We should analyze the
supplier changes in the environment like price of the material, continuous supply of material,
providing material on credit, etc.
We must analyze the environment to examine:
 availability and cost of raw materials and sub-assemblies,
 availability and cost of energy,
 availability and cost of financial resources and
 Availability and cost of labor.
Competitor Analysis: Studying the actions and behavior of competitors is essential? Therefore,
understanding their strategies, watching their strategies, watching their actions, sizing up their
strengths and weaknesses and trying to anticipate what moves they will make next.
This activity includes the following actions:

2|P a g e
 1. Identifying competitor’s strategies: Strategists can get a quick profile of key
competitors by studying where they are in industry, their strategic objectives and their
basic competitive approaches
2. Evaluating who the industry’s major players are going to be.
3. Predicting competitor’s next moves.
4. Pinpointing the key factors for competitive success: Key success factors spell the
difference between profit and loss and ultimately between competitive success and
failure. A key success factor can be a skill or talent, a competitive capability or a
condition a company must achieve, it can relate to technology, manufacturing,
distribution, marketing or organizational resources.
5. Drawing conclusions about overall industry attractiveness. Whether an industry is
relatively attractive or unattractive depends on several situational considerations.
We should know the Key Questions about Competitors
 What are our major competitors’ strengths?
 What are our major competitors’ weaknesses?
 What are our major competitors’ goals, objectives and strategies?
 How vulnerable are our major competitors to our alternative company strategies?
 How are our products or services positioned relative to our major competitors?
 How have the sales and profit rankings of major competitors in the industry
changed over recent years? Why have these rankings changed that way?
 What is the nature of supplier and distributor relationship in this industry?
 To what extent could substitute products or services be a threat to competitors in
this industry
ANSWER: 3 COMBINATION OF DIFFERENTIATION AND LOW-COST STRATEGY
Combining differentiation strategy and low-cost strategy results in giving customers more value
for the money with an emphasis on more than minimally acceptable quality, service, features and
performance.
The purpose is to meeting or exceeding customer’s expectations on different product attributes
like quality, service, design, performance, features and price. Thus, we creates a superior value
for the product.

3|P a g e
  In essence, such a hybrid strategy helps our company to combine the competitive
advantage appeals of both low-cost and differentiation.

4|P a g e