LEARN MORE...

Strategic Management

Content type

User Generated

Subject

Management

Type

Homework

Uploaded By

qbhtc758

Pages

Showing Page:

1/4

Surname 1

Student’s Name

Professor’s Name

Course

Date

1. According to Housenbold, success is to "figure out what you're good at, figure out where

you can make money, and focus". How is his remark related to strategic management?

“Figure out what you’re good at” can be interpreted as finding core competence of company

and use it to gain competitive advantage.

“Figure out where you can make money” can be interpreted as selecting the customers and

finding customers need. “Focus” can be interpreted as choosing one of three approaches to market

segmentation which includes no market, high market, and focused market (Grundy, p.33).

2. What industry is Shutterfly competing in? Use the five forces model to briefly analyze this

industry.

Shutterfly is competing in a photograph-derived manufacture, photo sharing industry.

New entrants: In my opinion, there are high barriers to entry photograph-derived manufacture,

photo sharing industry, making the threat of new entrants low. The first reason is brand loyalty.

Just like our case, Shutterfly launched in 1999, after years of persistent effort, the company gained

lots of loyal customers which made customers almost impossible to switch brand. The second

reason is high capital requirements, photograph-derived manufacture requires the huge investment

on purchasing printing machine and building factory.

Bargaining power of suppliers: In my opinion, the bargaining power of suppliers are low. The

major suppliers for photograph-derived manufacture, photo sharing industry is a paper mill,

printing company, and design company.

Bargaining power of buyers: In my opinion, the bargaining power of buyers are low to middle.

As consumers, we don’t have any bargaining power unless we purchase large quality, but average

consumer would not purchase large quality, so bargaining power for the average consumer is low

(Grundy, p.85). But when companies purchase larger quality such as company’s calendars they do

have some bargaining power. The switching costs are very low because the consumer has plenty

Showing Page:

2/4

Surname 2

of option available to choose. Therefore, the bargaining power of buyers is low to middle.

The threat of substitute products: In my opinion, the threat of substitute products is high

because, with the development of technology, computers are capable of doing many works, for

example, photo editing and printing. The Younger generation is able to use a personal computer

to edit image and print at home. In addition, they prefer to keep images in computer or smartphone

rather than printing it out because they think this is more convenient.

The intensity of rivalry among competitors: In my opinion, the intensity of rivalry among

competitors is middle. The first reason is consumer switching costs are low. The second reason is

products are undifferentiated, although Shutterfly has more than 60 million combinations, another

company is easy to copy.

3. Define Shutterfly's generic business-level strategy. Who is the targeted customer? What

customer need does the company satisfy? How does the company use its competencies to

satisfy the need?

In my opinion, Shutterfly's generic business-level strategy is focused differentiation.

Unlike other competitors, in order to keep the great quality of the image with good resolution,

Shutterfly never downsample or compress images, and not only that, Shutterfly does not force the

customer to delete their images, because they are considered images as the memories. Shutterfly

also provides a variety of combinations. High-quality perfect customer service is also another core

advantage of Shutterfly. Because Shutterfly has their own manufacturing, it allows company

greatly decrease the cost and increase the profit margins. All these factors are company’s

differentiation. Because Shutterfly is only targeting a small segment of customers who are willing

to pay more money for a high quality product and perfect customer service, so based on the

company’s competitive advantage and competitive scope, Shutterfly is using focused

differentiation.

Shutterfly is targeting females as their targeted customer. These females are 25 to 55 years

old, and they are the one responsible for capturing and sharing and telling the stories. Shutterfly's

customers want to document all the memorable moments with high quantity in some form such as

photo, card, calendars and so on. In order to satisfy customer need, Shutterfly provides over 60

million combinations of fonts, layouts backgrounds, designs and book size with high quality no

Showing Page:

3/4

End of Preview - Want to read all 4 pages?

Access Now

Unformatted Attachment Preview

Surname 1 Student’s Name Professor’s Name Course Date 1. According to Housenbold, success is to "figure out what you're good at, figure out where you can make money, and focus". How is his remark related to strategic management? “Figure out what you’re good at” can be interpreted as finding core competence of company and use it to gain competitive advantage. “Figure out where you can make money” can be interpreted as selecting the customers and finding customers need. “Focus” can be interpreted as choosing one of three approaches to market segmentation which includes no market, high market, and focused market (Grundy, p.33). 2. What industry is Shutterfly competing in? Use the five forces model to briefly analyze this industry. Shutterfly is competing in a photograph-derived manufacture, photo sharing industry. New entrants: In my opinion, there are high barriers to entry photograph-derived manufacture, photo sharing industry, making the threat of new entrants low. The first reason is brand loyalty. Just like our case, Shutterfly launched in 1999, after years of persistent effort, the company gained lots of loyal customers which made customers almost impossible ...
Purchase document to see full attachment

Tags: management quiz