Managing for Competitive Advantage - Essay Example

They introduce only two fabric and two garments innovations per year (2003, p8). A growth of .7% means nothing in the industry. They wanted to change many things at once in an effort to regain the lost market but in the process, they ended up losing core customers. The new team, M&R, believed in a selected range, high quality merchandise at reasonable prices with high value (2005, p4). They cut down the product line in clothing as well as in food sector. According to them, too many sub-brands had diluted the main brand.

Your M&S helped to draw the brand together. They removed the slow lines and simplified the range (2005, p5). Their concentration was product, service and store environment (2005, p4). Reducing product line enhances the shopping experience they felt. V&H widened the price band by lowering the opening prices in some product lines and believed that they offered best value for money. They wanted to appeal to everyone so had all price ranges and catered to all ages. They wanted to attract the under 35 while M&R felt their core customers belonged to the 35-55 age group (2005, p4).

M&R had sharper, very competitive opening prices (2005, p4) while V&H had inconsistent price architecture (2005, p4). V&H used press advertising to appeal to the younger customers. They introduced samples in stores and felt this boosted sales. They changed their products too often, and their designs were complicated (2004, part3, p9), which according to the new team, made the customer feel confused (2006, p5). It was also difficult to find the product they were looking for. M&R thus de-cluttered and simplified the store layouts while V&H constantly tried to change the displays at stores (2005, p5).

V&R was not quick to recognize shift in customer demand and could not move fast enough to meet aspirations (2004, part3, p6). This could possibly be due to wide