What Is Competitive Strategy

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the study

Since the 1980s to date, there has been an increasing awareness and implementation of practices associated with TQM as well as other manufacturing practices (Cua, Mckone, & Schroeder, 2001).

We have seen the growing adoption of a range of quality and management systems standards, the emergence of total quality management (TQM), business excellence, performance excellence, Lean thinking and Six Sigma, statistical process control. The battle weary could be excused from taking a rather jaundiced view of this ever-lengthening list of ‘quality’ offers but, by and large, they share many of the principles and elements that are found in TQM (Oakland, 2014).

1.1.1 Concept of Competitive Strategy

Chandler (1962) defined strategy as the formulation of basic long term goals and objectives of a firm and the adoption of courses of action and allocation of resources necessary to implement those goals. Mintzberg (1978) on the other hand defined strategy as deliberate plans conceived in advance of making specific decisions or a pattern in a stream of decisions and categorized strategy into ‘realized’ and ‘intended’ perspectives and that it was a possibility for firms not to succeed in strategies they were pursuing yet end up pursuing strategies they never intended. Finally, Porter (1985) distinguishes between two types of strategies namely; competitive and corporate strategy.

The strategy literature offers a number of strategy directions, some of which are relevant and have been pursued by firms. These include Porter generic strategies and Miles and Snows strategy types. Porter (1980,1985) identified three types of generic competitive strategies that could be pursued by almost any firm namely; cost leadership, differentiation and focus. Miles and Snow (1978) identified four types of strategies that could be effective for any organization namely; defender, prospector, analyzer and

Deming (1986) proposed a framework emphasized the systematic nature of organisations, the importance of leadership and the need to reduce variation in organizational processes. Deming is well-known for his 14 points of management and the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) Cycle that is still used today.

Juran (1989) framework consisted of three set of activities namely quality planning, control and improvement (the quality trilogy) and ten steps to quality improvement. It emphasized the use of statistical tools to eliminate defects.

Crosby (1979) framework involved focused efforts to reduce cost through quality improvement and stressed that both high end and low end products have quality and is well-known for his Quality is free and zero defects concepts. Crosby’s philosophy can be described best by his 14 quality steps.

Feigenbaum (1991) was the originator of total quality control concept which he introduced in the 1950s as a business method and proposed three steps to quality; quality leadership, modern quality technology and Organizational