What Is Pepsi's Competitive Advantage

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In order to obtain long-term profitability, companies must create and sustain a strong competitive advantage. In the quest for creating competitive advantage, companies struggle to build unique capabilities and to acquire the means to protect these capabilities. Consider the purchase of a Pepsi can. In the local supermarket the consumer considers buying the drink as part of a 6-pack for the smallest price available.
However, the same consumer may pay even 50% more for a single can of Pepsi sold from a local vending machine on a hot day. This price premium is not due to a better or different product, but to a more convenient means of obtaining it. Basically, the customer values the fact that he is not forced to remember buying the 6-pack, store it or lag a can the entire day until he is thirsty and figure out how to keep it chilled.
For sustaining this type of competitive advantage, companies create external linkages with customers, channel partners or even competitors (Dyer&Singh, 1998).
Creating linkages in the marketplace makes consumers unwilling or unable to switch to competitors, thus preserving competitive advantage. The general consensus is that only companies with a strong marketing orientation are capable of creating such linkages (Kirca et al. 2005). A company has a strong marketing orientation if it has mastered the art of listening to consumers, provides a better fulfillment of their needs than competitors and cares for customer satisfaction (Hedaa&Ritter, 2005).

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