Literature review

 Topic: Creating competitive advantage and unity in the workplace

Research Question: How can we turn an upside down business into a profitable organization?

 Introduction

            The biggest challenges affecting today's businesses are competitive challenges and lack of employee cooperation. Today, companies are operating in a dynamic environment that is characterized by changes in technology, law, and regulation, new competitors, environmental uncertainty, among other economic changes. For a business to maintain their competitive position in the dynamic environment, they must compete aggressively. To achieve the aggressive competition, the firms should first conduct a competitive market analysis to understand the market and financial performance of the competitors. After following the competitors in terms of their strengths and weaknesses, products and services, positioning and branding, among other relevant information, the firm should promote cooperation in the workplace. These strategies; knowing the competitors, identifying internal and external factors that affect your competition, and ensuring unity in the workplace will at long last, help the organization achieve a competitive edge.

  Gaining competitive capabilities and competitive intelligence through environmental analysis

  Adom et al., (2016) asserts that it is essential for organizations to understand the external business environment, the changes occurring, and the impact that these changes have on business. One of the elements in the external business environment is the competitive environment. Even though there are other elements as technological elements and political and legal elements, organizations must understand the competitive environment since it is the primary sector that is hindering organization from achieving competitive advantage (Adom et al.,  2016). The author asserts that today, businesses are influenced by various forces, and one inevitable force is competition. All firms, big or small, have direct and indirect competitors.  Failure to understand the competitive environment affects the business in that the organization does not add value to the products, it does not upgrade products, customers do not get more options, and the business remains unproductive (Adom et al., 2016). Thus, the author states that in order to improve the business, it is important to analyze the competitors. Note that the analysis will help understand the industrial environment, identify the competitor's strengths and weaknesses, their competitive strategies, how they achieve success, their customer motivators, their assets and skills, and other relevant information. This information will help the organization come up with a strategy to achieve a competitive advantage (Adom et al., 2016).  An important point to note is that if the organization does not understand the competition, it will end up producing similar products and compete for the same resources. However, once the organization understands the competitors, the organization will be in a position to produce unique products and services, and more importantly, will improve all business performance.  

Bergen & Peteraf (2002) state that the organization should understand all types of competitors; that is; direct competitors- these are companies that produce similar products and services. The competition by these companies is intense in that customers have a higher opportunity to compare product and prices. Other competitors are indirect competitors- these are companies that produce goods and services that are comparable. Consumers believe that the products are different, but they have the same value proposition. The last competitors are future competitors-these are companies that have not entered in the marketplace, but if they enter the market, they will offer an intent competition and take a high market share (Bergen & Peteraf, 2002).  For the business to tackle competition challenges, it is important to understand the external environment. These include the industry and competitors, and the information will help identify the area of improvement, solve the current challenges, and more importantly, achieve strategic success.

Dasgupta et al., (2015) add that for the company to understand the competitive environment and develop strategic decisions, it must have a competitive intelligence (CI).  Currently, the organization relies on business profile information. However, the information is incomplete, and as it lacks facts.  In most cases, the organization derives information from a single data sources which lacks reliability and validity. The author recommends that for the organization to derive sufficient data, it is important to use text mining (Dasgupta et al., 2015).  Note that in gathering competitors' data, the main aim is to understand the opportunities and threats and ultimate make informed decisions. It means that organizations must gather enough data in order to gain competitive intelligence. Note that in the past, competitive intelligence was achieved by analyzing the company performance and derived data from big players. This method is not effective in that there is restrictions, and only a few competitors are found in such a focal firm's domains. The article asserts that the organization can now analyze competitors and derive the information from internet resources (Dasgupta et al., 2015). These sources improve the competitive intelligence in that the organizations will access both primary and secondary data in large quantities. Companies can access hiding knowledge from news articles and social media postings. The author recommends an advanced approach for information extraction, which is text mining. This approach will help the organization identify significant competitors, including direct and indirect compositors (Dasgupta et al., 2015). These sources will increase the company's competitive intelligence and help the company design competitive strategies.

 

 Cooperation at the Workplace

  Čič & Žižek (2017) assert that lack of employee cooperation in the organization can affect productivity and competition, and lead to interpersonal conflict. The authors assert that in today's labor market, there is four different generations of employees. It is important to understand that these employees have different behaviors which improve business processes, but at times, they may lead to adverse outcomes (Čič & Žižek, 2017). Thus, to avoid conflict among the four generations, the organization should ensure intergeneration cooperation. Note that the generations do not only vary in attitudes, but they also vary in age, race, among other factors. To unify the older, young, experienced, inexperienced, and male, and female employees, the organization must promote intergenerational cooperation (Čič & Žižek, 2017). This entails bringing together all four generations in a joint work to eliminate gap and conflict, encourage career development, and foster knowledge transfer. Note that intergeneration cooperation will expand social networks, and the different generations will help each other, and through the exchange of knowledge, individuals will reduce inter-generation stereotypes (Čič & Žižek, 2017). Leaders should identify the strengths of the different ages and create an organizational culture and supports cooperation. Cooperation should be based on having a common organizational culture, common vision, and valuing diversity. Tinuke (2013) adds that in the workplace, managers should improve cooperation through team building. The latter improves team performance in that the employees work closely as cohesive units. They support each other and plan and make decisions corporately. Thus, managers should not only create inter-generational cooperation, but they should also develop a culture of teamwork through clearly communicating the expectations, and rewarding the teamwork.

 Conclusion

 The literature review has found that a company cannot survive without competition. Big companies are using the latest technology and other competitive strategies to achieve competitive advantage. For a company to survive, it should not fear competition, but rather it should analyze the competitive environment and understand the products, policing, strengths, strategies, among other relevant information concerning other organizations. The analysis will help the organization identify the direct competitors, understand the competitive position, understand competitor's strategies, and select strategy. The strategy will help the organization improve performance and ultimately, gain a competitive advantage. Another important point is that competitive analysis and implementing the best strategies in the organization will not work if there is no employee cooperation. Therefore, managers should bring the four generations of employees into a cohesive unit and create a cooperative culture that entails helping each other, valuing diversity, and working as a team.

 

References

 

 Adom, A., Nyarko, I., & Som, G. N. (2016). Competitor Analysis in Strategic Management: Is it

a Worthwhile Managerial Practice in Contemporary Times?. Journal of Resources

Development and Management, 24.

 

Bergen, M., & Peteraf, M. A. (2002). Competitor identification and competitor analysis: a broad‐

based managerial approach. Managerial and decision economics, 23(4‐5), 157-169.

 

Dasgupta, S., Xue, Y., & Zhou, Y. (2015). Examining Competitive Intelligence Using External

and Internal Data Sources: A Text Mining Approach.

 

Čič, Ž. V., & Žižek, S. Š. (2017). Intergenerational Cooperation at the Workplace from the

Management Perspective. Naše gospodarstvo/Our economy, 63(3), 47-59.

 

Fapohunda, T. M. (2013). Towards effective team building in the workplace. International

Journal of Education and Research, 1(4), 1-12.