Open Access Journal of Science
Review Article
Open Access
The role of business strategy to create a
competitive advantage in the organization
Abstract
Volume 4 Issue 4 - 2020
The business strategy is a significant factor that can be used to strengthen and improve
the organization. It can create competitive advantages as more significant than the foreign
market, thereby realizing sustainable commercial development where the survival and
continuity in the Organization for the best. Consequently, the study aims to explore the
relationship between the role of business strategy on creating a competitive advantage in
the organization. Previous limited studies have been highlighted the important role of the
business strategies in various fields in an organization. Therefore, based on the available
empirical literature, this study highlights the role of business strategy to create a competitive
advantage. We found the business strategy has a vital role in the competitive advantages
to gain the market. Moreover, the organization market affected by a good quality strategy.
Furthermore, the study offers useful suggestions to different stakeholders for the importance
of business strategy in the organization context.
Keywords: business strategy, competitive advantage, organization
Rasheed Abdulwase,1,2 Faroq Ahmed,3 Fuad
Nasr,4 AbdullahAbdulwase,2 Asma Alyousofi,4
Shuangsheng Yan1,5
1
Department of Business Management, China Pharmaceutical
University, China
2
Faculty of administrative sciences, Taiz University,Yemen
3
College of business administrations, Hohai University
4
Department of medical laboratory, Sana’a University,Yemen
5
Department of Social Science, China Pharmaceutical University,
China
Correspondence: Shuangsheng Yan, Associate Professor,
Director, the Philosophy of Teaching and Research Office, School
of Marxism, International Pharmaceutical Business School, China
Pharmaceutical University, No 639, Longmian Avenue, Jiangning
District, Nanjing, P.R. China, 211198, Tel +8613305151782,
Email
Received: June 07, 2020 | Published: October 26, 2020
Statement of intended contribution
The business strategy indicates the strong pillar of the economy,
where the business strategy represents a large sector in an economy,
that should be encourage to focus on marketing to earn the competition
market. Therefore, on this study have been highlighted the influence
of the role of business strategy to create a competitive advantage in
an organization.
Introduction
The survival, continuation and growth of any organization depend
upon the nature of strategies adopted. The future framework adopted
by the high administration in the light of considering the changes
that take place in society that can be achieved by adopting plans and
policies and taking procedures to implement these strategies to achieve
the goals has been determined. The business strategy viewpoint argues
that making competitive advantage hinges on pursuing a cohesive
competitive strategy.1,2
A good business strategy takes into account existing barriers and
resources, people, money, power, and materials that must be consistent
with the vision, mission, and overall goals of the organization’s
initiative. The initiative often uses various strategies to achieve its
goals - providing information, strengthening support, removing
barriers and providing resources to how the form of success will be
attained when attaining vision and mission. Conversely, strategies
suggest ways to be adopted and how to move on the road of success.
The strategies help the organization determine how to achieve the
vision and goals by working on the basics.3
The importance of business strategy is reflected in its ability to
analyze and address the challenges facing administrations including
the global business and global competition, accelerating the effects
of the driving forces of globalization in various fields of life, the
Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com
Open Access J Sci. 2020;4(4):135‒138.
emergence of knowledge societies, the tremendous and rapid
qualitative progress in the field of informatics and its root effects on
business activities, increasing the frequency of competition locally,
regionally and globally and continuing to change in the rules of the
business game.4
Strategic management can achieve a kind of planned dynamism
or some kind of positive spiral that drives senior management
and strategic decision-makers in the organization to acquire the
capabilities and skills of strategic thinking and vision of the future
by perceiving reality and predicting market variables, responding
quickly to consumer needs and predicting future behavior to achieve
a competitive advantage to these organization.5 This paper aims to
provide a basic understanding of a good business strategy way
on creating competitive advantages and attempts to explain the
advantages. Furthermore, to describe the importance of business
strategy for the competitive advantages in the marketing sector.
Background
The word of strategic comes from the Greek word as military
ingenuity and a good military commander, the strategy gives the
general direction of an initiativeor in the other words is a way of
describing how we will do things and how do we get there.6,7 The
strategic management includes the formulation and achievement
of the major goals and initiatives taken by an organization’s top
management on behalf of owners, based on consideration of resources
and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which
the organization operates.8 Strategic management provides the overall
direction of the business, including the goals of the designated
organization, the development of policies and plans to achieve those
goals, and the allocation of resources to the implementation plan.9
Strategic management is the highest level of management activity that
planned, developed or directed by the directors of organization and
135
©2020 Abdulwase et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially.
The role of business strategy to create a competitive advantage in the organization
then implemented under the supervision of the organization’s senior
management team or senior management.10 Strategic management
provides the overall direction for the company and is closely related to
the organizational research field. In the field of business management,
it is useful to talk about the strategic consistency between the
organization and its environmental or strategic alignment.11
The strategic literature proposes several business types or
competitive strategic directions to describe how an organization
develops a competitive advantage in an industry relative to its
competitors. The common tendency of all these types of business
strategies is to focus on the relative importance of efficiency and
market effectiveness.12 In a rapidly changing economic environment
thanks to various innovations and technological developments,
companies must be able to adapt and quickly anticipate these
developments through the creation of sustainable innovations adapted
to the needs of the market. Business strategy orientation and social
capital are very important to promote the capacity for competition
in the market. It is very important for companies to improve the
entrepreneurial orientation which includes innovation, proactivity
and risk taking which are useful for renewing established businesses
and increasing competitiveness in the market. The tendency to engage
and support new ideas, new things, experiences and creative processes
require knowledge, skills, technology and the support of various
stakeholders involved.13
The theory of RBV, which supposes that companies whose
orientation about its own capacity is one of the means to acquire a
competitive advantage compared to its competitors. The moderating
effect of the age of the company on the influence of innovation on
competitive advantage so that political decision-makers can channel
funds and consider granting subsidies to young companies to ensure a
return on investment profitable in the future (Figure 1).14
Copyright:
©2020 Abdulwase et al.
136
functional areas of the enterprise to achieve long-term organizational
goals. Balanced scorecards are often used to assess a business’ overall
performance and its progress in achieving its goals.15
The business strategy in organization
The business strategy defined as the medium that determines the
long-term direction and field of the company and determines how
the company will obtain the resources needed to meet the needs of
the market and stakeholders.16 The most important strategies must
be present in companies asbusiness strategythat aims to succeed
in individual markets and must be linked to corporate strategy
objectives. The first step is to develop a strategy at the business
division level in analyzing the competitive market by gathering the
necessary information about competitors in the market, and people
must be at a high level of competence to meet the needs of customers
in the best way possible. In addition, options to exploit and develop
opportunities in the market should be explored. The business division
strategy is likely to be the most visible in every area of business,
and people within each department should have the ability to link
their work directly to their department’s strategy. They should also
be aware of the appropriate ways to apply this strategy by the best
means. There is a clear definition of the business department and
its tasks, vision and values.17 Team Strategy in organizations need a
group of opposing work teams to implement company and business
strategy strategies successfully. Each team must have its own strategy
to carry out its assigned tasks. All strategies should support each
other to ensure success for the organization. As a whole. One of the
most important elements of success and effectiveness in the work of
the team is to apply the best management methods to help the team
to achieve success, in addition to managing resources, focusing on
quality at work, and excellence in the implementation of business.18,19
The business strategy construct
Many different definitions and typologies of business strategy
have been proposed in the strategy literature. The original typology is
that of Porter, it encompasses the generic strategy of differentiation,
cost leadership and focuses. The strategic classification scheme
employed based on Porter’s strategies of differentiation versus cost.
The research considered the generic strategies of differentiation
and cost exclusive of focus because these are the two basic types of
competitive advantage a firm can possess. However, the Strategies
may be dimensions along which firms can score high or low.20–23
Classification of business strategy
Figure 1 The hierarchical triangle of successful business strategy.
The business strategy represents the fundamental of a hierarchical
triangle of successful marketing.
Business strategy management is the art, science, and process of
developing, implementing, and evaluating cross-functional decision
making to enable organizations to achieve their long-term goals. It
is the process of designating an organization’s mission, vision and
goals, developing policies and plans, usually in terms of projects
and programs, achieving these goals, and then allocating resources
to implement policies, plans, projects and programs. Strategic
management aims to coordinate and integrate activities across all
The classification of a firm’s business strategy into different
categories of descriptions. The sample distribution across categories
appear in parentheses, Differentiation Company’s business strategy
is to differentiate its product offering by creating a product that is
recognized industry wide as being unique and which can command
a premium price due to the uniqueness of its attribute. Company
managers devote a great deal of attention to product differentiation,
although cost reduction is not ignored. The approach or approaches
that company uses for differentiating its products from others
may include one or more of the following: quality, brand image,
superior product performance, innovative product technology,
product reliability, a large number of product features or options,
excellent customer service, superior accessibility to product, speed
of delivery.24 The company’s business strategy is to differentiate its
products from similar, competing products based on one or more
attributes e.g., quality, service also to provide a competitively priced
Citation: Abdulwase R, Ahmed F, Nasr F, et al. The role of business strategy to create a competitive advantage in the organization. Open Access J Sci.
2020;4(4):135‒138. DOI: 10.15406/oajs.2020.04.00162
Copyright:
©2020 Abdulwase et al.
The role of business strategy to create a competitive advantage in the Organization
product offering. Therefore, although the company’s major strategic
emphasis is on product differentiation, the firm is also concerned with
minimization of costs and pays a great deal of attention to operating
efficiencies. The company’s primary strategic emphasis is to provide
the lowest or one of the lowest priced product offerings available in
the industry. The company aggressively pursues cost reductions from
experience, and places a great deal of emphasis on operating efficiency
and fixed cost and overhead control. A secondary strategic emphasis
is on differentiating the company’s products from competing products
based on one or two actual or customer perceived product service
attributes.23 The company’s business strategy is to achieve overall cost
leadership within its industry. Important components of this strategy
include the aggressive construction of efficient-scale facilities,
vigorous pursuit of cost reductions from experience, emphasis on
operating efficiency, tight cost and overhead control, avoidance of
marginal customer accounts, and cost minimization in areas like
R&D, service, sales force, advertising, etc. Company managers
devote a great deal of attention to reducing costs although quality,
service, and other areas are not ignored.25
Successful business strategy
Creative a good business strategy should keep in mind before
implementing a strategy, remember what your primary goal is,
remember your audience or target customers, focus on your products
and services, brag to the public about the uniqueness and quality of
the products and services you are offering, to communicate effectively
and justify the price you are charging customers, make realistic and
attainable plans, perform an analysis to identify the possible risks and
have a backup plan ready that you are always equipped to face any
kind of competition.26
Competitive strategy and performance
The competitive strategy is primarily a result of the managerial
decision-making model to guide the organization in how to compete
in a highly competitive business environment.27
The basic idea of the general strategy concept is that competitive
advantage is the core of any strategy. Therefore, to gain a competitive
advantage needs to make decisions, establish a viable organizational
structure and adopt a good management approach to achieve the
desired competitive advantage and the scope of achieving the goal.
The previous study found that strategies that achieve above-average
performance in any industry are cost-leading. Each common strategy
involves a fundamentally different path to achieving performance,
and the organization must decide what to pursue the competitive
advantage (cost leadership, differentiation or focus) to achieve the
above industry performance. However, there are two variants of the
focus strategy, cost focus and differentiation focus. Organizations that
develop, practice, and maintain differentiated strategies will enjoy
industry performance if they are at a premium price.28,29
The organization shows more likely to adopt differentiated
strategies to differentiate themselves from industry competitors.
Similarly, if an organization gains overall cost leadership and performs
construction work at a comparable or lowest response price to its
competitors, they can also achieve performance above the industry.
However, it is intended to adopt any of these strategies, especially
in a project-based industry where each strategy is unique and the
organization must bargain and utilize all possible sources of cost
advantage.30,31 The strategic management and general strategies affect
organizational performance in different ways, so they are adopted by
organizations that wish to surpass competitors.32
137
Conclusion
In conclusion, this study highlighted the influence of the role of
business strategy to create a competitive advantage in an organization
based on the limited previous studies, so the study shows the
importance of business strategies on creating competitive advantages
in organization to gain the market, which is one of the essential pillars
of competition. The study presented the relationship between the
business strategy and its role to create a competitive advantage in
the organization, also the study offers useful suggestions to different
stakeholders for the importance of business strategy in organization
context. Business strategy includes the products or management
policies that enhance competitive advantage in the business sector.33
This study provided ways of increasing the value of business strategy
to create a competitive advantage in organizations by making the
customers consistently choose it over competitors. So to do a good
business strategy focus on the defining your brand, knowing your
competition, identifying customer preferences, identifying your
personal preferences, strategies for gaining competitive advantage
and remaining unique.34 Effective competitive strategy based on
knowledge of what the organization’s goals and how can achieve them
to stay ahead of the competition. The effect of business strategy on
generating a competitive advantage in this sector needs more research
to know the most important factor for success the business strategy in
the competitive market.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
None.
Ethical approval
Not applicable.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Mr. Abdulalem Mohammed and Mr. Kamal
Hezam for their ideas and guidance for Article design.
References
1. Child J. Organizational structure, environment and performance: The
role of strategic choice. Sociology. 1972;6(1):1–22.
2. Grant RM, R Shani, R Krishnan. TQM’s challenge to management
theory and practice. MIT Sloan Management Review. 1994;35(2):25.
3. Aaker DA, D McLoughlin. Strategic market management: global
perspectives. USA: John Wiley & Sons; 2010.
4. Furrer O, H Thomas, A Goussevskaia. The structure and evolution of the
strategic management field: A content analysis of 26 years of strategic
management research. International Journal of Management Reviews.
2008;10(1):1–23.
5. Burgelman RA, Intraorganizational ecology of strategy making and
organizational adaptation: Theory and field research. Organization
science. 1991;2(3):239–262.
6. Mintzberg H. The strategy concept I: Five Ps for strategy. California
management review. 1987;30(1):11–24.
7. Ansoff HI. Implanting strategic management. USA: Springer; 2019.
8. Armstrong M, S Taylor. Armstrong’s handbook of human resource
management practice. USA: Kogan Page Publishers; 2014.
Citation: Abdulwase R, Ahmed F, Nasr F, et al. The role of business strategy to create a competitive advantage in the organization. Open Access J Sci.
2020;4(4):135‒138. DOI: 10.15406/oajs.2020.04.00162
The role of business strategy to create a competitive advantage in the organization
9. Hoogma R. Experimenting for sustainable transport: the approach of
strategic niche management. USA: Routledge; 2005.
10. Bryson JM, Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations:
A guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement.
USA: John Wiley & Sons; 2018.
11. Ansoff HI. Implanting strategic management. USA: Springer; 2018.
12. Ko WW, G Liu. Environmental strategy and competitive advantage:
The role of small‐and medium‐sized enterprises’ dynamic capabilities.
Business Strategy and the Environment. 2017;26(5):584–596.
13. Sulistyo H, S Ayuni. Competitive advantages of SMEs: The roles of
innovation capability, entrepreneurial orientation, and social capital.
Accounting and administration; 2020:65(1):10.
14. Abd Aziz NN, S Samad. Innovation and competitive advantage:
Moderating effects of firm age in foods manufacturing SMEs in
Malaysia. Procedia Economics and Finance. 2016;35(2016):256–266.
15. Peng MW, TA Khoury. Unbundling the institution‐based view of
international business strategy. The Oxford handbook of international
business. 2008;
16. Bailey C. Strategic human resource management. USA: Oxford
University Press; 2018.
17. Auzair SM, K Langfield-Smith. The effect of service process type,
business strategy and life cycle stage on bureaucratic MCS in service
organizations. Management Accounting Research. 2005;16(4):399–421.
18. Noe RA. Human resource management: Gaining a competitive
advantage. 2006.
Copyright:
©2020 Abdulwase et al.
138
23. Vickery SK, C Droge, RE Markland. Production competence and
business strategy: do they affect business performance? Decision
Sciences. 1993;24(2):435–456.
24. Snow CC, DC Hambrick. Measuring organizational strategies: Some
theoretical and methodological problems. Academy of Management
Review. 1980;5(4):527–538.
25. Craig CS, SP Douglas. Strategic factors associated with market and
financial performance. Quarterly Review of Economics and Business.
1982;22(2):101–112.
26. Von Krogh G, I Nonaka, M Aben. Making the most of your
company’s knowledge: a strategic framework. Long range planning.
2001;34(4):421–439.
27. Mohammed AA, BB Rashid, SB Tahir. Customer relationship
management and hotel performance: the mediating influence of
marketing capabilities—evidence from the Malaysian hotel industry.
Information Technology & Tourism. 2017;17(3):335–361.
28. Seedee R. Moderating role of business strategies on the relationship
between best business practices and firm performance. International
Journal of Business and Social Science. 2012;3(24).
29. Porter ME. Competitive Strategy, Techniques for analyzing industries
and competitors. Competitive Strategy. 1980;
30. Gabrielsson MP, Gabrielsson T, Seppälä. Multiple Sales Channel
Strategy and Performance: The Moderating Role of International
Experience and Globalization Potential. Ideas in Marketing: Finding
the New and Polishing the Old. 2015;458–458.
19. Satcher D. National strategy for suicide prevention: Goals and objectives
for action. USA: Diane Publishing Company; 2003.
31. Anumba CJ. Perspectives on an integrated construction project
model. International Journal of Cooperative Information Systems.
2000;9(03):283–313.
20. Flynn BB, RG Schroeder, S Sakakibara. The impact of quality
management practices on performance and competitive advantage.
Decision sciences. 1995;26(5):659–691.
32. Dikmen I, MT Birgonul, C Budayan. Strategic group analysis in
the construction industry. Journal of Construction Engineering and
Management. 2009;135(4):288–297.
21. Zott C, R Amit. The business model: A theoretically anchored robust
construct for strategic analysis. Strategic Organization. 2013;11(4):403–
411.
22. Radut C. Strategies of change for the hotel industry. Porter, Kotler,
Bowmann positions. Knowledge Horizons. Economics, 2015;7(4):79.
33. Ahmed FA. Creative Thinking and Its Influence on the Decision Making
Process. 2019.
34. Abdulwase R, A Abbas, S Yan. Ginger as a commercial product in
China. MOJ Biol Med. 2020;5(1):1–2.
Citation: Abdulwase R, Ahmed F, Nasr F, et al. The role of business strategy to create a competitive advantage in the organization. Open Access J Sci.
2020;4(4):135‒138. DOI: 10.15406/oajs.2020.04.00162