Question

Thomas is the owner of a landscaping company that caters to a very wealthy clientele. His company has struggled to differentiate itself from the other high-end landscapers in the area, but because he has hired several expensive but highly-qualified team members, Thomas is unable to shift to a cost leadership strategy. Which strategy is most likely to achieve a competitive advantage?A. Offer similar services as competitors but raise prices to increase profits
B. Lower prices but continue employing high-paid expert gardeners
C. Narrow the scope of competition and focus on unique features such as the use of organic materials
D. Maintain prices but replace all the expert employees with less-skilled workers to control costs

Answer 1

Answer:

C) Narrow the scope of competition and focus on unique features such as the use of organic materials

Explanation:

Thomas must engage in a focused differentiation strategy. He already caters wealthy clients, but offering the same as everyone else is not enough.

A focused differentiation strategy refers to offering unique features that will probably make Thomas's market even narrower, so he will be catering a niche market within wealthy home owners. By concentrating his marketing efforts on what makes his company unique, Thomas will not need to worry that much about the price of his service, instead he should focus on offering different things than his competitors.  

Answer 2

Answer: The correct option is C.

Explanation: From the scenario given above, we can see that Thomas has not shown any intention to replace the expensive team members, the only option in this case would then be to properly utilize their expertise to the advantage of the company.

In order to do this therefore, a SWOT analysis would need to be carried out and utilized in gaining an edge over the competition.

In this case, Thomas would make sure that the expertise of all his team members are brought to bare, the company would analyze the competition to see where it is lacking in customer satisfaction, and then try to gain the upper hand by including features in their product that the competition does not have in theirs.

This strategy will help in achieving a competitive advantage.