Preview

Differentiation Strategy

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1152 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Differentiation Strategy
The next option is a broad differentiation strategy providing products or services that offer benefits different from those of competitors and that are widely valued by buyers. The aim is to achieve competitive advantage by offering better products or services at the same price or enhancing margins by pricing slightly higher.

Differentiation may be achieved in a number of ways. The product may incorporate a more innovative design, may be produced using advanced materials or quality processes, or may be sold and serviced in some special way. Often, customers will pay a higher price if the product or service offers a distinctive or special value. Differentiation strategies offer high profitability when the price premium exceeds the costs of distinguishing the product or service. There are some companies that have successfully pursued differentiation strategies, such as Mercedes and BMW in automobiles, American express in travel services, Bose in stereo speakers,

Along with cost leadership, IKEA also offers some differentiated features that appeal to its target customers, including
Numerous ways in which differentiation can be achieved:
Product Features
It is a way in which firms can attempt to influence customer perceptions. It is to modify the objective properties of the products or services they sell. IKEA target is to designing beautiful products that are inexpensive and functional. * Apple: It incorporates superior design in all its products so that these stand out from its competitors’ products. Apple’s design philosophy is based on minimalism. It removes clutter both from its products’ outward appearance as well as from their user interface. It is no coincidence that Apple users rave about the exceptional user interface of their iPads, iPods or iPhones. In addition, Apple tries to exert control over the users’ experience with its products. So, apart from the hardware, the company also develops the software so that the user has the best possible

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    It is important to note that product differentiation lies in the mind of the consumer. In fact, two products may be identical, but are presented in such a way that one is superior to the other. In order to create such distinctions, firms have created image differentiation based on branding. Differentiation strategies allow for products to command brand loyalty and a corresponding reduction in price sensitivity. Brands are of increasing worth since they are intangible assets that are difficult for competitors to understand and…

    • 3953 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Hrm/531 Week 5

    • 4281 Words
    • 18 Pages

    Product differentiation helps reduce the threat of new entry by forcing potential entrants to an industry to absorb not only the standard costs of beginning business but also the additional costs associated with overcoming incumbent firms' product differentiation advantages.…

    • 4281 Words
    • 18 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Service is another factor in differentiation of products. Team B discussed that for the fast food hamburger restaurant; one may offer fast service by pre-making the hamburgers where another restaurant may offer the service of obtaining the hamburger the way the customer wants the hamburger resulting in a longer wait time as the hamburgers are not pre-made. Service in the shoe example would be for the high end name brand store there would be shoe specialists to wait on customers and assist the customers with trying on the shoes, etc. Whereas the store that caters toward the low price store brand may not have any shoe specialists to assist, the customer simply has to find the shoe in…

    • 1047 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Differentiation is the essence of any good strategy — Being different in a manner that allows you to serve customers better than competitors…

    • 391 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    GM 's customers? How does GM create value for them? And how does GM do it more…

    • 746 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Case study Ikea

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The core competencies of IKEA are the “assemble it yourself” products and the “space friendly packaging”. Because of this they save costs on employees. The employees are not needed to collect and build the furniture, because the costumers do this by them selfs. The end product of IKEA is high quality design furniture, and the in-house products that complete the interior.…

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Paper

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The basic drivers of product differentiation are attributes, position, pricing methods, and information. These drivers are what encourage customers to purchase one brand over another. Being “different” is beneficial if the customer feels they are getting a “better bang for their buck”. That is, if the customer prefers the company’s product relative to competitors.…

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Airbus Strategy

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Indeed Airbus adopted strategy of a differentiation strategy corresponds to the development of a product or service that offers unique attributes and that are valued by customers and that customers perceived to be better than of different from the products of the competition.…

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Differentiation Strategy

    • 986 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In this paper work we will talk about Differentiation Strategy. In contrast to the cost leadership strategy, implementation of a differentiation strategy means that value is provided to customers through the unique features and characteristics of a company's products rather than by the lowest price. Because differentiated products satisfy customers' unique needs or preferences, companies can charge premium prices for differentiated products.…

    • 986 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Marketing Plan Juan Valdez

    • 7229 Words
    • 29 Pages

    When a company works in the differentiation of a product, what it is trying to achieve is to avoid that the product is identical to the ones that produce the competitors in the markets in order to offer different aspects in quality, brand or service. If the differentiation process is effective it will create barriers to competitors making to the prices descend. By the other…

    • 7229 Words
    • 29 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    A differentiation strategy calls for the development of a product or service that offers unique attributes that are valued by customers and that customers perceive to be better than or different from the products of the competition. Above average returns come from charging a premium price for the unique and desired products and/or product features. Ben and…

    • 543 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Cemex Case Study

    • 364 Words
    • 2 Pages

    This can be seen as a differentiation strategy as well, caused by better service for the customers and the increasing willingness to pay of the customer.…

    • 364 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In order to gain competitive advantages, a company should provide their customers products or services of same value with lower price or charging premium prices by providing customers higher value. Apple, historically, has been using differentiation strategy that provides products that customers perceive as being unique and will pay a premium price for this uniqueness. And these uniqueness, make Apple has various competitive advantages over its competitors.…

    • 389 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are different differentiation strategies for the company to choose between it can be product differentiation, service differentiation, personnel differentiation, channel differentiation and image differentiation.(Kotler and Keller, 2007). Further the company can chose to have a unique marketing mix or retail mix. The retail mix consists of merchandise price, advertising and promotion, costumer services and store design. In order to overcome the different challenges in the business environment it is important to really understand the concept of differentiation. There are many different ways for the company to stand out on the market. It’s important that the way which the company is different is appreciated by the customers. The usage of differentiation as a marketing strategy is increasing, dues to the fact that there are many…

    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Product Positioning

    • 515 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The differentiation is the thing or things that set your product apart from similar offerings from your competitors (let’s face it, if there is no differentiation then there is no reason for a customer to choose your product over a competitor). The differentiation can come in many forms – feature deltas, price, quality, support, social acceptance, etc. For example the differentiation of a Sony TV and Samsung TV may be Sony’s reputation in the electronics business, or their track record of performance, since both TV’s likely have the same features. Samsung’s differentiation may be price (Sony is likely to charge more for their reputation). Going back to our apple, the differentiation may be that it “is sweeter and juicier than any other fruit in the land.” Of course, that a big claim – and…

    • 515 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays