The Business Strategy that will Work Best for You

Written by Mark Munday


Ultimately, you have to settle for one of three business strategy

options. And it is important that you are clear on what one you are

going for.

Your business strategy choices are, atrepparttar end ofrepparttar 104771 day, very

simple. The big question is, how do you want to position yourself

in relation to your competition. Basically your options are :

1. To berepparttar 104772 cheapest

2. To berepparttar 104773 best

3. To dominate a market niche

Many small businesses go forrepparttar 104774 first option, inrepparttar 104775 mistaken

belief that it is only way to survive. The problem is, there will

always be someone who can do what you do, more cheaply than you can.

A cost leadership strategy is only really suitable for big

businesses. Businesses that have substantial economies of scale.

They are able to spread their overheads thinly over large volumes,

and charge low unit prices. So if you are running a small business,

this strategy probably won't work for you.

If, as a small business, you build your business reputation on

beingrepparttar 104776 cheapest, you are operating from a position of weakness.

Even if you can survive with your low prices, you will not be able

to withstand a price war with a bigger competitor. So why take the

risk?

The second strategy, beingrepparttar 104777 best, can be used to build a

powerful competitive advantage. It means, however, that you have to

have a unique product. Otherwise, you will have to spend a lot of

money on R&D to stay ahead ofrepparttar 104778 competition.

You need deep pockets to win with this strategy. Unless, of course,

your product is so specialised that no one else is producing it.

And big companies, for whatever reasons, don't want to produce it

Is This Really A Recovery?

Written by John Finger


Money Matters January 2004 Is This Really A Recovery? Presented by The Money Management Firm, Inc. www.moneymanagementfirm.com EBay I.D. optionsforyou ______________________________________________________________________

Bill Gates and General Motors Bill Gates is hanging out withrepparttar chairman of General Motors."If automotive technology had kept pace with computer technology overrepparttar 104770 past few decades," boasts Gates, "you would now be driving a V-32 instead of a V-8, and it would have a top speed of 10,000 miles per hour. Or, you could have an economy car that weighs 30 pounds and gets a thousand miles to a gallon of gas. In either case,repparttar 104771 sticker price of a new car would be less than $50." "Sure," saysrepparttar 104772 GM chairman. "But would you really want to drive a car that crashes four times a day?" ___________________________________________________________________________ Is This Really A Recovery? Sincerepparttar 104773 fall of 2003, we’ve received a mass of good news aboutrepparttar 104774 economy. First-time jobless claims have fallen and are consistently belowrepparttar 104775 400,000 per week threshold which is consideredrepparttar 104776 dividing line between an expanding and contracting labor market. Housing starts in 2003 were at 1.8 million, a level not seen since 1986. Worker productivity has increased substantially. The unemployment rate has dropped to 5.7%. The stock market was on a tear in 2003:repparttar 104777 S&P 500® gained 26%, whilerepparttar 104778 Nasdaq tacked on 50%. With all this good news, what’srepparttar 104779 problem? If you’re one ofrepparttar 104780 2.7 million people who lost his job overrepparttar 104781 past three years, you’re not seeingrepparttar 104782 benefit of this recovery. The Labor Department released a very disappointing jobs picture for December, noting thatrepparttar 104783 economy created only 1,000 net jobs that month. Economists had anticipated a jobs increase of 150,000. My guess is that most of those 1,000 jobs went to economists: they, along with meteorologists, arerepparttar 104784 professions where people make six figures a year for being wrong allrepparttar 104785 time. But that’s a story for another newsletter. Duringrepparttar 104786 final 5 months of 2003, according to Stephen Roach, only 278,000 jobs were added by non-farm businesses. That may sound okay, but nearly all ofrepparttar 104787 jobs came in three areas: temporary staffing, education, and healthcare. Temporary staffing is comprised mainly of low-paying jobs, while education and healthcare are shielded from foreign competition. Speaking of foreign competition, globalization has resulted in U.S. companies shipping many hundreds of thousands of jobs overseas to cheap labor markets like India and China. At first,repparttar 104788 bleeding was no big deal: most ofrepparttar 104789 shipped jobs were sweatshop jobs. But nowrepparttar 104790 shipment is getting more serious, involving not only manufacturing but also services. A company can hire six Indian engineers forrepparttar 104791 price of one American one, andrepparttar 104792 company need not worry about skyrocketing health care costs or other benefits. Indian workers don’t demandrepparttar 104793 same kind of benefits as their U.S. counterparts.

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