The Competitive Strategy Is A Comparative Study

The market environments of firms face the continuous challenge of changes. When the environment and the structure of a company's competitors change, the firm must also adjust its strategy to achieve its goals. This is quite a common phenomenon.This essay analyses two firms in the alkaline battery industry, one of which is the famous American company Energizer who has entered the Chinese market, and the other a local firm: Nanfu Battery Company. The author of this essay wants to point out the importance of generic strategies and the building up of a firm's advantages based on its generic strategy.As we know, after the year 1992, pagers became quite popular in China. The users of the pagers were eager to find a new kind of batteries for their pagers. The traditional carbon zinc batteries were not the right choice because of their bad quality. Only alkaline batteries met the requirements. After entering the Chinese market, Duracell and Energizer soon became successful, owing to their high-quality alkaline batteries.One of the main reasons for Energizer entering the Chinese market was to capitalize on the world's largest market. Duracell is Energizer's main competitor on the American market and because of this, it was very natural to transfer this view onto the Chinese market. Because of this Nanfu was easily overlooked as a serious competitor, and through this situation, achieved the Number One status.Four or five years later, the local brand were able to supply good quality alkaline batteries at a lower price than Energizer and Duracell, and they got a big part of the market share from the foreign firms. Energizer reduced its price and introduced another brand "Gold Eveready". Energizer's strategy was changed from "Differentiation" to the situation of "Stuck in the middle", and because of this they lost a big market share.The local brand Nanfu became famous after 1997. Nanfu Company improved its management and set their strategy as "Overall cost leadership". They gained competitive advantages in production, marketing, human resources and other related factors.With a different system of various competitor and market analyze, Nanfu regards as competitors not only other alkaline battery manufactures in China, but also those all over the world. Nanfu is now the Number One Brand on the Chinese market.Perhaps one of the real reasons for Energizer's failure can be attributed to its lack of clear strategy and wrong competitor analysis.On the other hand, Nanfu owes its success to its generic strategy, competitive advantage and competitor knowledge more compatible with the Chinese market.In the marketing environment, both the competitor analysis and the generic strategy play important roles in a company's success or failure. The case of Energizer and Nanfu proves this point.We should not simply consider Energizer a failure and Nanfu a winner in this alkaline game. The factors leading to changes in a sales environment are various. Maybe Energizer left China for adjustments and reflections, and would return to China's cell market with a completely new look. Nanfu's present success does not mean that it will be the constant leader. The company's present challenge is how to keep the advantages and reach their ling-term goal: To become a world famous battery company.