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• Strategy Implementation

  Programs development
• Programs

  • Elaborate plan (long term)
  • Collection of tactics to make a strategy action-oriented
• Tactics


  Day-to-day plan in order to act
• Program versus Tactic


  A program is a collection of tactics, and a tactic is the individual action taken by the organization as an element of the effort to accomplish a plan
• Studies of decision making report that half the decisions made in organizations fail because of poor tactics
• Tactic


  Specific operating plan that details how a strategy is to be implemented in terms of when and where it is to be put into action
• Tactics are narrower in scope and shorter in time horizon than strategies


  Tactics may be viewed as a link between the formulation and implementation of strategy
• Some tactics available to implement competitive strategies

  • Timing tactics
  • Market location tactics
• Timing Tactics

  Deals with when a company implements a strategy
• The first company to manufacture and sell a new product or service is called the first mover (or pioneer)
• Advantages of being a first mover

  • Establish a reputation as an industry leader
  • Move down the learning curve to assume the cost leader position
  • Earn temporarily high profits from buyers who value the product or service very highly
• Disadvantages of being a first mover

  • Late movers may be able to imitate technological advances of others
  • Keep R&D costs low
  • Keep risks down by waiting until a new technological standard or market is established
  • Take advantage of the first mover's natural inclination to ignore market segments
• Market Location Tactics

  Deals with where a company implements a strategy
• Offensive Tactics


  Usually take place in an established competitor's market location
• Defensive Tactics


  Usually take place in the firm's own current market position as a defense against possible attack by a rival
• Methods used to attack a competitor's position

  • Frontal assault
  • Flanking maneuver
  • Bypass attack
• Competitor's position of strength

  Frontal assault
• A firm may attack a part of the market where the competitor is weak

  Frontal assault
• Bypass attack


  Changing the rules of the game
• Encirclement usually evolves out of fatal assault or flanking maneuver
• Encirclement


  Attacking company or unit encircles the competitor's position in terms of products or markets or both
• Guerrilla warfare


  "Hit and run" strategy with small, intermittent assaults on different market segments held by the competitor
• Defensive tactics aim to lower the probability of attack, divert attacks to less threatening avenues, or lessen the intensity of an attack
• Defensive tactics according to Porter


  Lower the probability of attack, divert attacks to less threatening avenues, or lessen the intensity of an attack
• Raise structural barriers

  Entry barriers, offer full line of products, block channel access, raise buyer switching costs, increase scale economies
• Increase expected retaliation


  Any action that increases the perceived threat of retaliation for an attack
• Lower Inducement for attack

  Reduce a challenger's expectations of future profits in the industry by keeping prices low and investing in cost-reducing measures