Product Differentiation Costs and Global Competition

The growing competitive intensity on the markets determines the emergence of competition costs that are expressed at a corporate level and have implicit repercussions for the supply system. This type of costs makes it possible to identify a close link between competition costs and supply differentiation costs. Classification by competitive intensity presupposes that the analysis performed identifies the classification of company costs as the discriminating element, in terms of the competitive pressure of the context in which the firm operates. The emergence of competition costs is linked to an attempt to squeeze them as an aspect of vertical, or more specifically, horizontal cooperation strategies.Product Differentiation; Differentiation Costs; Over-Supply; Global Competition; Marketing; Market-Driven Management; Global Corporations; Global Markets DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.4468/2005.1.06garbelli

Ouverture de 'Market-Driven Management and Global Markets - 2'

Global markets endorse the principles of market-space competition, where competition space represents a factor of competition. Firms compete with one another in extensive markets, without geographical and administrative boundaries; they adopt highly flexible managerial directions, featuring the absolute predominance of intangible assets and aimed at exploiting global economies of scale, focused on dimension and relationship. Global markets redefine market-space competition and substantiate global managerial economics. The distinctive features of these are: asset management without physical or administrative limits; increasingly sophisticated products which are rapidly rendered obsolete because they are easily imitable at decreasing cost; competitive interrelations, developed between transnational networks, which go far beyond the multinational (or multidomestic). Globalisation changes corporate organisation and the role of strategic alliances, imposing collaborative network strategies on groups of firms with competitive relations; these then tend to form ‘closed’ relationships of cooperation to pursue a global vision in keeping with their huge corporate size

Auction Pricing and Market-Space Competition

The volume of trading carried out through auctions has increased over the last few years as information technology has spread ever further and data transmission connections have improved. An auction is a tool used to determine the exchange ratio, that is the price to be paid for goods, services or rights. The auction system is an alternative to the so-called ‘take it or leave it’ offer in a normal sales situation in which the seller sets a posted price and buyers decide whether to accept or reject the deal each time

Market-Driven Management: the Policy Implications

The first policy implication of the diffusion of a Market-Driven Management approach is the same as the spreading of globalization, i.e. the obsolescence of industrial policies as traditionally designed and managed by Nation-States with the established toolbox of protectionism and subsidies, picking ‘national champions’, etc. The growing asymmetry between the physical jurisdiction of political bodies and the global operation space of modern corporations feeds the apparent trend toward company ‘denationalization’

Management Consulting and Knowledge Creation

Frequent environmental discontinuity, and intense changes in the competitive dynamics and logics of client business areas, are transforming the management consulting industry and the complexity and the articulation of the consulting demand is also growing. The value chain of client firms is being reconfigured. On the one hand, both material activities and low-value added immaterial ones are being increasingly outsourced. On the other hand, knowledge-intensive activities (hard to imitate and reproduce), are being increasingly internalized. The client’s tendency to internalize intellectual activities (intellectual in-sourcing), acts as a strong stimulus for management consulting firms to go beyond their traditional intervention models

Innovation, Imitation and Competitive Value Analysis

The most widespread kind of innovation in global markets is incremental innovation, which modifies business processes, typically without visible manifestations outside the company. Incremental innovation is also applied to products, bringing changes to their characteristics, and/or impacting on the supply profile, with the aim of attracting customers and even of stealing them from competitors. These incremental innovations are usually the result of imitation processes that are the effect of the application of passive and competitive value analysis. Value analysis implies the breakdown of processes, products and offers, looking for alternative solutions and improvements that are economically and competitively viable

Global Markets and Contemporary Art

Today’s contemporary art world has to come to terms with a highly unstable socioeconomic context that is evolving rapidly and constantly, with the result that any analysis to establish the state of the demand and supply of artistic goods and services ina global scenario is quite complex. The supply of contemporary art is renewed and must continue to be renewed, in line with the recent requirements of demand and with economic and technological changes

Global Retailers and Competitive Customer Value

Global competition involves large retailers in a continuous development of their activity in relation to market stimula. In this regard efficient management of commercial functions, innovation of offer attributes and dynamic management of retailing mix allow large retailers to reformulate their offer creating competitive customer value

Market-Driven Management in Fashion and Luxury Industries

The Market-Driven Management requires that the continuous attention to customers is combined to constant and direct competition in all reference markets. The Market-Driven Management, in the specific context of companies competing in the fashion and luxury industries can be traced back to three main factors: a growing attention to brand equity; the reinforcement of the direct relationships with final consumers; the improvement of the information flow management system