It is very evident that Microsoft entered the gaming market with a well-planned strategy and succeeded in gaining its position in the market by becoming one of the most known brands in gaming around the world. They created their competitive advantage in the industry through these strategies. They worked intensely on product development, identifying that it is very crucial to their products standing out. Microsoft Xbox Company kept on bringing improvements and innovation in their products to stay in the competition to become the leader in the gaming industry and they did that by introducing their highly liked product called Microsoft Xbox 360. With much development and research put in in their new product they were able to improve the processing power, graphics and other services like Xbox Live, which made their product more effective and was well received by customers. They further enhanced the experience for players by making gaming interactive through streaming services.

Microsoft implemented another strategy to keep their customers involved with their products by offering games to their customers that they could play through their consoles. For that, Microsoft aligned their strategy with a deal with EA games to develop games and they made their games accessible through their consoles. This added to their revenues and also kept their customers within the company instead of switching to a competitor. Many more alliances were also made by Microsoft in order to improve the overall experience for players and this added to their competitive advantage.

Through Microsoft Xbox, the users experience TV integration where they are able to enjoy more than just gaming through their Xbox products. By using Xbox console connected to their TV, users can now enjoy all the other features offered through Microsoft’s alliances, for instance live streaming, Netflix and other interactive services where they are able to connect and interact with other users sitting all around the world. So the users are able to enjoy integrated services in their living rooms through one console. This is something that even their biggest competitor, Play Station wasn’t able to provide so these features definitely makes Xbox stand out in such a competitive market all around the world.

However, it should be noted that with the fast pacing world of technology where everything is about the cloud now, Microsoft may lag behind and lose some of their market if they do not innovate in that matter.

References

Angel Wings of Xbox. Retrieved February 7, 2018, from http://angelwingsofxbox.wikidot.com/competitive-advantage-on-the-xbox
Frick, W. (2014, August 11). Three Strategy Lessons From the Latest Round of Xbox vs. PlayStation. Retrieved February 7, 2018, from https://hbr.org/2013/11/three-strategy-lessons-from-the-latest-round-of-xbox-vs-playstation
Microsoft’s Xbox. Retrieved February 7, 2018, from http://teamxbox.wikidot.com/marketing-strategies
Xbox | Games and Entertainment on All Your Devices. Retrieved February 7, 2018, from https://www.xbox.com/en-US/

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With so many competitors in the market nowadays, Gatorade has the competitive advantage of being one of its kinds in the industry, which is the reason why it got so much attention when it was first introduced. Many competitors then followed the same formula to enter the market and compete with Gatorade. Their competitive advantage is their brand name which they have developed over the years by expanding into so many markets and gaining their fair share of profits. They hold most of the market shares of the sports drink industry in all these countries.

They have been associating their brands with sports personalities since the time their brand was introduced in the international market. Associating themselves with best athletes of the baseball teams and other famous sports in America got them all the attention they wanted. They have been associated with NFL teams for a very long time now and they have developed long-term relationships with these teams which the competitors can never break. Over the years, many athletes have represented Gatorade and this adds to their competitive advantage and has helped them place their product in the consumer’s minds just the way they wanted.

Another factor that adds to their competitive advantage is the fact that they keep on improving their products every year. They come up with a different marketing campaign and an improved bottle design and sometimes even with a slight change in the campaign logo and a different extended product portfolio which makes the consumers even more interested in knowing about their products and keeps them involved with the brand. This strategy is not followed by all the major competition in most of the markets that they distribute in, which makes Gatorade stand out in so much competition around the world.

Gatorade has taken many years to correctly place their product in the consumer’s mind and develop a very strong brand image all around the world which makes them stand out as compared to their competitors. With Gatorade expanding its distribution in other countries and gaining more market share with each passing year, it is also ranked at #86 in the list of Most Powerful Brands in the World in the Forbes list released in 2017.

References

10 Thirst-Quenching Facts About Gatorade. (2016, April 6). Retrieved January 21, 2018, from http://mentalfloss.com/article/69411/10-thirst-quenching-facts-about-gatorade
Gatorade on the Forbes World’s Most Powerful Brands List. Retrieved January 21, 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/companies/gatorade/
Terriberry, M. (1970, January 1). PepsiCo – Gatorade. Retrieved January 21, 2018, from http://terriberrynyc.blogspot.com/2014/02/ch-2-strategic-planning-for-competitive.html

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1. Earned Top Honors – As per extensive nation-wide testing by RootMetrics, Verizon performance was declared as “outstanding” at the national level. The company acquired top honours for 8th consecutive times.

2. Rated as 1st Carrier – In 2017, Verizon got rated as 1st carrier nation-wide with a score of 94.5 for performance, speed, reliability, data, and text and call quality.

3. Leader of Network Coverage – Present-day, Verizon is the global leader in providing broadband, other wireless and wire line services to media, trade, government and extensive clients. It also offers a range of devices including telephones and smartphones powered by iPhone/Android, tablets and other Internet devices. This company has combined with Yahoo! Inc. and AOL Inc. to expand its empire. It has been leading when it comes to network coverage. It has complete coverage in almost every region of the country

4. Consistent Revenue – Even the competition gets strong by new entrants, Verizon stated the revenue of $131.16 billion in the time of first three quarters of 2016.    It gained profit of $4,310 million, $702 million and $3,620 million subsequently.

5. Telematics – It is the biggest revenue producer from the IOT segment. Verizon telematics has three product lines:

• Lifelong relations with OEMs
• Direct-to-consumer product that connects with those cars which don’t have built-in features
• Network fleet – A mobile workforce management system

6. Verizon Digital Services – It is the ultimate solution for every type of content needs. It offers:

• Go90 – A mobile video streaming service
• Stream Pass – Sports package for go90
• Hulu App – Gives access to television shows and latest movies

7. Safety Mode – This carrier now offers safety mode in which devices are put onto a slower connection if you are going to reach your data limit.

8. Various Post-Paid Service Plans – Verizon offers single or shared data plans featuring unlimited local voice minutes, local and global text, video and picture messaging, cloud services and can be shared between the wireless devices on a customer’s account.

9. Reduction of Carbon Intensity – This organization has a set a goal to reduce carbon intensity to 50% by 2020 but as per results, they have reduced carbon intensity to 54% in the first quarter of 2016, which is a great success!

10. Heading Towards 5G Technology – Its considered that 5G technology would enhance the broadband speed up to 100 times and it will save costs for the company. While its deployment is still in its initial phase, Verizon is working dedicatedly for improving the speed of its wireless network.

No matter how hard the competitors try to attract consumers, Verizon is the America’s largest wireless network that serves almost 102 million customers nationwide.

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It has used social media to launch several commercials. It has a Facebook page displaying regular updating and interactions to maintain visibility and brand value. It also has innumerable followers on Tweeter. Friendly applications have been a great source of luring customers to its base in case of Foodpanda. One of its taglines is an apt description “Foodpanda is in your pocket”. It reminds customers of easy and quick availability through Apple and Google Play store (Das, 2015). It has additionally exploited innovation in different approaches to put mouthwatering bargains on customers PC screen. Their “#pizza” fiesta crusade on Facebook and Twitter keeps customers aware of everything about all the best pizza bargains around the local area. Furthermore, off the web; Foodpanda has facilitated a few nourishment celebrations which demonstrated fruitful. Currently it is targeting customers geographically for the greatest pizza sweethearts, with 60% of nourishment orders being pizza. Exploiting this, Foodpanda propelled the Great Nationwide Pizza Festival, getting different pizza shops, who excited at the accomplishment of the occasion (Oddle, 2016).

It isn’t so much that Foodpanda doesn’t have significant contenders to stress over, as Supermeal and Foodgenie, just to name a few. It’s hard to rival a portion of the arrangements Foodpanda offers through their site, foodpanda.pk. With bargains as high as half off, clients are unable to discover a reason not to put in a snappy and simple request with Foodpanda. It’s ascent to distinction is nothing unexpected, considering the quick scaling that has occurred in Pakistan over the previous year. In May 2015, the organization raised another 100 million USD in subsidizing from Goldman Sachs. Only a couple of months sooner, they gained 24h.ae, a conveyance business working out of the United Arab Emirates, and this helps them to gain a competitive edge (Madhukar, 2015).

Likewise with other web based business plays, nourishment conveyance works on economies of scale. Little commissions gone up against every conveyance and utilizing a vast armada of drivers working crosswise over however many eateries as could be expected under the circumstances implies that the more exchanges a conveyance business does, the better its profits will be (Das, 2015).

References

Das, G. 2015. It is not about having all restaurants, says Foodpanda’s Rohit Chaddha. [Online], Available at: http://www.businesstoday.in/opinion/interviews/foodpanda-rohit-chaddha-restaurants-food-delivery/story/218968.html, [Accessed on: 18th January, 2018].
Madhukar, A. 2015. We Asked Foodpanda about Competition with Personal Concierge Services—This Is Their Response. [Online], Available at: https://vulcanpost.com/304871/asked-foodpanda-competing-personal-concierge-services-say/, [Accessed on: 18th January, 2018].
Oddle, 2016. 3 Advantages of Online Ordering Systems — Boosting F&B Sales And Marketing. [Online], Available at: https://oddle.me/blog/2016/1/7/3-advantages-of-online-ordering-systems-boosting-fb-sales-and-marketing, [Accessed on: 18th January, 2018].

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Forever 21 is quicker and less expensive. It utilizes the quick design demonstrate, getting new mold patterns to stores as fast as it can, at that point offering at a low cost. Customary retailers endeavor to set up a brand with a mark look, so it’s impossible that others will attempt to duplicate Forever 21 subsequent to investing so much energy and exertion fabricating their own particular brands. Furthermore, it basically offers dress for not as much as its opponents do. Forever 21 is growing its client base. Forever 21 is turning into a form retail chain that takes into account all individuals from the family – not simply adolescents. That implies a more extensive arrangement of clients are being eaten up by the retailer as it discharges new lines focusing on men and more seasoned socioeconomics. However, at its center, it still has a comparative focus as the enormous youngster retailers 18-to 24-year-olds (Hendricksz, 2013).

Always 21 is battling its rivals head on. The retailer used to agree to second level shopping centers and unremarkable space in the enormous shopping centers. Be that as it may, now, Forever 21 is finished being tentative. Everlastingly 21 now has gone up against much better found spaces and regularly bigger estimated stores. It even has a Times Square lead specifically over the road from both Aeropostale and American Eagle (Markdhogan, 2013).

“Everlastingly 21 is winding up too huge for the strength retailers to disregard.” At this size, quick development could have gradually expanding influences on alternate retailers as Forever 21 takes more offer. It has announced as “the most transformative retail idea” in a note to customers. Forever 21 has extended to more than 450 stores in the U.S. also, almost 100 areas universally. It surged into Europe, put its foot into China, and now has its sights on Latin America. Bank of America assesses the organization’s deals at upwards of $3.5 billion in accordance with numerous enormous adolescent retailers, as compare to its competitors, it is expanding steadily. The enormous players in youngster retail, as Abercrombie and Fitch, Aeropostale, and American Eagle, will feel the weight. Hole has likewise been pressed by Forever 21, as it sees incomes and edges escaping (Bhasin, 2013).

References

Bhasin, K. 2013. The Competition Should Be Terrified Of Forever 21. [Online], Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/forever-21-dominating-teen-retail-market-2013-3, [Accessed on: 17th January, 2018].
Hendricksz, V. 2013. Clash of the Fashion Titans: H&M vs Forever 21. [Online], Available at: https://fashionunited.uk/v1/fashion/clash-of-the-fashion-titans-ham-vs-forever21/2013121712941, [Accessed on: 18th January, 2018].
MartinRoll, 2016. Forever 21 – Fast Fashion Retail Brand With An Edge. [Online], Available at: https://martinroll.com/resources/articles/branding/forever21-fast-fashion-with-an-edge/, [Accessed on: 18th January, 2018].
Markdhogan, 2013. Forever 21 Has Built a Brand on the Idea of “Fast Fashion”. [Online], Available at: https://markdhogan.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/forever-21-has-built-a-brand-on-the-idea-of-fast-fashion/, [Accessed on: 18th January, 2018].

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Social Work

Whole Foods Market has a policy that they at least donate 5% of its annual profits to the charitable causes. It comes from the store level donations throughout the year and also comes from different targeted projects.

Environmental Involvement

It ranked third on United States’ Environmental Protection Agency’s list of “Top 25 Green Power Partners” and received EPA award in 2004 and in 2005. It has got a partner of the year award in 2006 and 2007. It ranked second highest purchaser of Green Power nation-wide in EPA’s report in 2007.

Elimination of Plastic

Whole Foods was United States’ first supermarket, who eliminated disposable plastic grocery bags completely to help and protect the environment and it also eliminated the use of these bags company-wide.

Animal’s Humane Treatment

Animal compassion Foundation was created by Whole foods Market in 2005. It is a separate non-profit organization, which formed to help producers who evolve their practices just to raise animals in a natural and humanely manner. They prohibited pulling feathers from ducks, bill trimming, bill heat treatment, toe’s punching and toe removal. It has also announced that it does not intend to sell cloned animals’ milk and meat.

Organic and Natural Foods

Whole Foods Market’s main focus is on natural and organic foods, so it has a direct competition with the Fresh Market, Trader Joe’s and Sprouts Farmers’ Markets Inc. This is also a plus due to people inclination towards healthy organic food products.

Strong Brand Name

One of the greatest source of competitive advantages of Whole Foods Market is its strong brand identity as it established and developed itself into a leader in the organic and natural food segment.

Maintains High Quality

Whole Foods invested in the store quality and customer service heavily. Most probably these elements differentiate it from other competitors.

Promotes Exclusive Brands

It promotes exclusive brands by investing with smaller companies. One of the small brand Feridies natural peanut products got started with Whole Foods. Its organizational culture enables company to not only maximize productivity, but also to minimize the Human Resource spending for training and recruitment.Whole Foods Market only sells those products that meet the quality standards for being “Natural” set by itself.

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One of the reasons why Zong has been able to able to target and gain their targeted potential customers is their low rates. Whether it comes to call, messages or internet data, Zong has been able to provide all these services at a lower rate than other competitors. It first started marketing itself as a brand in Pakistan based on their low pricing strategy. Zong entered the Pakistani telecommunication market by targeting those customers who were looking for services in low prices and it marketed its strategies accordingly. Since then they have been marketing in the same manner. Even when they were the first ones to offer 4G internet in Pakistan, they promoted that with their low price strategy as well. This is because most of the users in Pakistan prefer low price over other factors when it comes to choosing a mobile network.

Zong has also been working on digital innovation in Pakistan by offering improved and advanced services in terms of data connection. Zong has been working on establishing its internet services and plans to innovate and transform the lives of their customers through this digital innovation strategy. Their main focus has been to develop a 4G ecosystem in the long term and extending these services even in the remote areas of Pakistan. To facilitate that, they also work internally in terms of developing a proper corporate culture that makes them stand apart from their competitors.

Zong is a part of China Mobile Communications Corporation, which is the largest telecom service provider in Pakistan and has been working in terms of development and innovation. Their research department constantly works on improving services for their customers and this has a very positive affect on Zong in Pakistan as they apply their strategies according to the research conducted by them. This is something that is peculiar with Zong only and it is the only mobile service provider in Pakistan with such a strong research network, which gives it a competitive edge in terms of development and growth.

Though it is debatable that Zong has not been much successful in Pakistani market due to intense competition in the telecom industry, but it cannot be ignored that Zong has gained its position and developed a brand name in just a few years. Also, it has been able to gain their targeted customer base as well as be the pioneer in developing data services in the Pakistani mobile service sector.

References

Pakistan, Z. China Mobile Pakistan. Retrieved January 1, 2018, from https://www.zong.com.pk/about-zong/china-mobile-pakistan
TechJuice. (2017, October 19). Zong 4G announces internal cultural transformation to lead the digital revolution. Retrieved January 1, 2018, from https://www.techjuice.pk/zong-4g-announces-internal-cultural-transformation/

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Brand Image

The British airline has its own recognition in the Globe and the logo of this airline raises a powerful identity being a major airline and quality provider of the UK. The Virgin Atlantic has also founded a good picture. It is extremely famous and competes efficaciously with BA and different carriers. Nonetheless, BA is yet the oldest and biggest organization and keeps its foremost region above Virgin Atlantic in the airline industry.

Diverse Destinations

British Airways has its operations in 147 destinations in seventy-five nations, with a strength of 234 airplanes. The Airline has cautious for the additional advancement that includes 12 Airbus (A380) superjumbos, 24 Boeing (787s) a good way to bring new innovation and efficiency on board. (BBC news, 2007). BA’s followed method in acquiring a big fleet is seen as a frontrunner within the enterprise (“Benchmark”), which to a first-rate volume affects different provider’s choices. This approach has placed BA in the lead and as a consequence gives it an aggressive benefit over Virgin Atlantic which is running with just 38 aircrafts and is confined to 30 destinations (AirFleets.internet, Undated).

Partners & Alliances for Low Cost

British Airline has an alliance with other airlines, which comprises of American airlines, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, LAN, Maldives, and Finn air, Iberia, Qantas, Royal Jordanian and Brussels airways to form the ‘one world’ accomplice alliance. Virgin Atlantic on the other hand, is starting to kind partnerships or alliances with some of its principal rivals reminiscent of Malaysia Airlines, and Singapore airways, and thereby eliminating rivalry and competition between these organizations. British Airway’s alliance has validated a constructive that has an influence on Virgin Airline and it has got reap aggressive potential in the market. Hence, BA business has proved some growth opportunities and unfold it operation via 675 destinations, a hundred thirty-five territories and touching in the slogan in 500 airport departure lounges globally. (One World, Undated)

Corporate Social Responsibility

Because the past has been a pioneer in the British airline enterprise for adopting the important. It has offered applications like one vacation spot. It has had achievements like being the first to determine its wooded area footprint. It has invested in the study projects like Solena to enhance the sustainable alternative aviation fuels to be able to diminish the carbon footprint.

Customer Experience

BA goals on supplying a precise consumer experience. BA conducts the market research each month with its consumers to know them better and the people they have got advocated BA too, it reaches around fifty-seven thousand persons in one month via this program. Its current method is to improve the client experience by way of the introduction of text and cellular services for industry type patron. It conducts programs like the “Customer First”.

Continues Growth

BA has focused on natural and organic growth. It has shaped alliances and partnerships to attain aggressive capabilities over its opponents.BA has lately fashioned a joint alliance with American Airlines and Iberia to co-operate on transatlantic flights giving it a potential of connecting the predominant economic cores New York and London.

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Secure Network

The one outstanding advantage of Bitcoin is that it has maintained an effective network that is secure. Utilizing the block chain phenomena, Bitcoin has been able to maintain a network that has seen the verification of its transactions remain steady, fast and reliable. The block chain strategy has enabled miners benefit from the transactions verification by retaining a percentage of the total transactions done.

Mining

Bitcoin mining has contributed hugely to its popularity and reliability. Miners, who are the transactions’ verifiers have led to a prolonged unintentional marketing of the coins. There are two ways to acquire Bitcoins; mining or buying/selling of services or Bitcoins. Miners get their share based on the number of transactions that have been verified. The consistency and reliability of the transactions can be attributed to the system in place that ensures that miners have to wait for 99 more blocks of transactions to be processed for them to get rewarded. This way, the participants are always keen to ensure that the rules are maintained. The rewards also ensure that the currency is ever in circulation, therefore increasing on the coins popularity.

Store Value

Bitcoin’s store value has maintained a proven usage case. Most coins try to carve out their usage to smaller use cases so that the differentiation ensures that the market is predictable. Having existed for over 8 years without failure, Bitcoin maintains the largest store value. Bitcoin, therefore, has retained a reputation of a secure coin compared to its much younger counterparts with higher metric usage. This has made it the most popular coin for completely anonymous transactions that require a centralized name server.

Accessibility

Its accessibility compared to competitors has given it an edge. There are more exchanges, more hardware for mining, more merchants and more software compared to other coins. The developer ecosystem for coin is the largest and has higher implementation compared to other coins, thereby giving it more liquidity and transactions that are of larger volumes. This has made it the most entrepreneurial coin in creating companies.

Skyrocketing Prices

As one of the oldest coin, Bitcoin has gained much popularity lately due to the skyrocketing prices. As a pace maker, Bitcoin is viewed as the ideal coin that will define cryptocurrencies. Its presence in the global market makes it unique as the traders are distributed around the world. This ensures that the prices are fluctuating around the clock, thereby making it an ideal coin for transactionsRegarded as the largest user base in the cryptocurrencies, the development and mining team of the coins have ensured its presence on the top of the cryptocurrencies.

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