Strategy Composition

write 600–800 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas.

You talk with Mike and Tiffany at lunch. “You’ve done some great research and brought up some good ideas to implement in the presentation,” you say. “There is one element that we are missing.”

“One of the most important aspects of the strategy: our competitors,” Tiffany states.

“I’ve already done some analysis, and there are many in the global market. It seems like there are several office furniture companies thriving, but not as many custom furniture manufacturers,” Mike elaborates.

“Well, we need to provide the board with some solid competitors. I’ll work on finding our top two,” you say. Complete the following:

Who are your top 2 global competitors in the market?
Provide a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis for each competitor.
Why are they direct competitors?
What is their competitive advantage?
Could you form a cooperative strategy with any of the competitors?
If so, how?
If not, why?
What strategies could you use to build a competitive market profile?
What is balanced scorecard?

Solution Preview

The furniture sector globally faces stiff competition with custom furniture manufacturers coming up with new designs and items at a high rate. The two leading worldwide competitors in the furniture market are Ashley furniture and IKEA. Ashley Furniture Industries is home furnishing company as well as a retailer based in Arcadia, Wisconsin, United States (Buehlmann, U & Schuler, 2009). On the other hand, IKEA multinational group has its headquarters in Netherlands and designs and trades furniture, kitchen appliances as well as home accessories that are complete to assemble.

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