Gulf Air says its business strategy will stay unchanged

Gulf air is originally consists of an alliance of three majors co-owner governments; Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, and Oman governments. In September 2005, The Abu Dhabi Government has decided to withdraw from Gulf Air. Their decision was made out of Abu Dhabi's desire to concentrate its efforts on Etihad. Bahrain and Oman confirmed that Abu Dhabi, the third co-owner, was withdrawing from the alliance.
Bahrain and Oman said they respected Abu Dhabi's decision. Gulf Air President and Chief Executive James Hogan said that “Gulf Air's business strategy would not be changed” after Abu Dhabi’s withdrawal from the alliance.
This situation can be analyzed using Harmel Force Frame work:

Core Strategy:
Business mission: to build upon our successes, enhancing our brand and our services to reinforce our position as the leading airline in the region.
Basis for Differentiation: focusing on customers, on staff and on services.

Strategic Resources:
Core Competencies: Gulf gain its core competencies from their values and services offered to their customers.

Value Network:
Partners: currently are Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, and Oman governments, but Abu Dhabi Government is withdrawing its shareholding over six months.

Wealth Potential:
Efficiency: I believe that efficiency is much needed to cover up for the lost partner. Although, "The two governments also confirmed their unequivocal support to the national carrier, Gulf Air," it is necessary for them to find more innovative ways to be more efficient and sustain their profits.
Furthermore, I believe that Gulf Air, should keep on providing substantial services to their customers to ensure the uniqueness of their service in the competitive airline industry.

99c store

The 99c store was first established in August 13th 1982 in Westchester of Los Angeles by David Gold. The philosophy of this store is “buy low, sell low”, of items with brand-name. Their core strategy in their business mission is to make truckload purchases of a particular consumable item of need.
They also concentrate to show the customer that they are not just a store with low price item but with high quality and will known brand, this way the store differentiates itself in the sense that it only provide bargains on everyday name-brand consumable items in certain standard sizes at an evidently lower price – 99 cents. plus the store it self provides value in its clean and friendly salesman which also gave them a compatible advantage. In terms of product/market scope, they have a narrow scope due to the fact that they carry a limited amount of goods with a limited variety in terms of sizes which they get it from the suppliers which are leftover from the store extra production, or a small defect in it or even off season items. Like for example they serve icecream in winter that you can’t find it in any other store just the 99c you can. And also sell product in amounts like Pepsi, they don’t sell one can of Pepsi they sell like 6 packs and sell it in less wile you can get the two can from original stores with that price. 99c store also not just provides food it also provides clothes that are in a good shape or even small defect but not show able, they also provide household items even. Customers Benefits is what they want and need are satisfied in the form of discounted name-brand products that offer both value and quality, it serve not just low wages of family its more bargain hunters and also families that are looking for quality discount even university students who are working and trying to pay their study they also are looking for quality discounted, yet branded goods. That’s what we call it a customer interface.Now, about their strategic assets, these assets could be composed of the automated systems they implement, such as the financial reporting system and the purchase-order management system. These systems keep overall control of the business and allow efficient management of financial and inventory related matters. Their distribution center could also be an asset, not to forget the key human resources that exist within the organization, such as David Gold the CEO and Helen Pipkin. Furthermore, they have a fundamental organizational asset which is their decentralization of authority, in which purchase orders are generated by store managers not distribution center people and buyers make most of their purchasing decisions independently and punctually. Their value network for 99c store have a great relationship with their suppliers due to their “easy to work with” reputation, which further increases their ability to acquire large amounts of a product for lower prices. This is due to their payment of bills on time, regularly accepting shipments that are late, early, or slightly damaged, and making purchases during “seasonally slow times.” The only negative part I can see in 99c stores which are it consider a risk, is that the management is all relayed on the CEO so if anything happen to him the 99c is history, also by knowing the strategy of the 99c store the problem comes here if the customer stops buying from certain brand or an item which 99c store have this will be then a left over for them and a lost of sale. So I believe what the 99c store should do is making sure not to relay only on the CEO and also to build up a database so follow up with customer needs and what they like the most to buy so they wont fill in the trap of having items not sellable

The Al Maya Group in the Middle East

The Al Maya Group in the Middle East started operations as a stand-alone supermarket in Ajman in the later part of 1979. In 1981 the Group was overhauled by its new partner and Chairman, Mr L. K. Pagrani. What followed was an overgrowth as the Group set up 18 stores in the next 18 months. Al Maya Group opened offices in the UK and Warsaw, in order to buy more efficiently for the mother company in the UAE. In 1985, the Group acquired the prestigious British Home Stores (Bhs) franchise for the Northern Emirates.


At the time, Dubai-based Al Maya Group is investing Dh40 million in an expansion involving the setting up of eight new supermarkets and at least two fashion retail stores in the next 12 months, said a senior company official. In Dubai, The Company, which split with Al Maya Lal's Group three years ago, currently operates 30 retail outlets including 15 supermarkets. As mentioned in the article “Al Maya Group plans expansion”, according to Deepak Pagarani, Al Maya Group's chief executive, the market has room for more hypermarkets. I agree with Pagarani as with the rapid development in Dubai, and the increase in population and truism the market defiantly allows more room for super/hypermarkets.



There are several competing hypermarkets in Dubai that create a rivalry in the market. According to Porter’s Framework the following reasons cause a rivalry in the market and if applied to hypermarkets in Dubai it can be seen that a rivalry exist:
Number of competitors is relatively high for such a market sector. Usually there are a small number of hypermarkets within one city as usually one can cover the demand of this city, but in Dubai we can see that there are many such Carrefour and Giant with many branches.
Balance among competitors exists as they all are of almost the same size and with the same power.
Industry Growth Rate exists as Dubai is growing rapidly and everything within the city is also growing.
Fixed or Storage Costs are high as many of the products at the hypermarkets are sensitive such as dairy products.
Switching Costs are low to costumers as they tend to switch to whichever suits them and has what they want.
Exit Barriers are high for the hypermarket industry as the initial investment is very high.



From the previous points it can be seen that rivalry exists in the industry of hypermarkets. To overcome the rivalry, Al-Maya did a little differentiation as mentioned by Pagarani: “We see great opportunities in neighbor stores …. With traffic growing and high gasoline prices increasing by 30 per cent, we feel this segment of the market will only grow. Most people will spare themselves the inconvenience of driving to hypermarkets where parking is a problem, for a few bucks”. I believe that focusing on this market sector would bring a great deal for Al-Maya group as they are planning to spread all over Dubai to make sure that they are the closest to their customers.

meca cola

The article “Mecca Cola rides anti-West wave with cafe chain plan” by Husain, discusses UAE-based Mecca Cola, which sells its beverages as a substitute to the American cola drinks. Furthermore, Mecca Cola will launch coffee shops under the brand name Mecca Cafe to provide an alternative to established Western outlets such as Starbucks in Muslim countries. Currently, due to the boycott of Western products the demand of Mecca Cola is increasing. In fact, the demand for Mecca Cola is estimated to be 1.5 million cans per month in the Gulf region only, but the company is able to meet only half this demand. To be able to overcome this high demand, Mathlouthi, Mecca Cola chairman, said the company has signed an agreement with Dubai Industrial City to acquire 300,000 square feet of land to set up a plant. To overcome the high barriers of entry discussed by Poter’s five force model, Mecca Cola mainly used its strong political message that comes along with its product as it supports the Muslims’ customers’ views of boycotting Western products and supporting local brands. Its name Mecca Cola is another strong support for its marketing and strong entry in the market. Furthermore, the question of imitability discussed by Barney comes into discussion as Mecca Cola is facing cost disadvantages having a resource already possessed by a competitor. Its product Mecca Cola is very similar to Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola for example and acts as a substitute for them. To face those disadvantages, again the political message behind Mecca Cola played a major role. Moreover, Hamel’s customer interface also can be applied on this article. Under the subtopic of customer relationship dynamics, Hamel discusses the type of relationship that exists between the customer and the business. Although, with Mecca Cola there is no face to face relationship what so ever with its customers, Mecca Cola and its customers do share the same beliefs and are behind the same goal which is to boycott the Western products. This type of politics used to market this products, makes Mecca Cola customers feel that they are buying from a company which supports their voice which creates a unique type of relationship between the company and its customers. Finally, I personally believe that Mecca Cola is falsely using Muslims emotions and the campaign to boycott Western products to market its product. Although, it might be a good substitute to the Western soft drinks, I find myself unsure of whether the Chairman of Mecca Cola really believes of the boycott of Western products or he only saw and opportunity to market a product names Mecca Cola. (^-^)

The article “The New School: how a poor job market is affecting how business schools” taken from www.blackenterprise.com discusses how some fresh graduate students chose to complete an MBA degree right after they graduate.

The article mentions that a main reason for students to complete their studies is due to the lack of jobs in the market. Furthermore, it is mentions that employers always wonder “Even if the applicant has an M.B.A., does the job seeker really have the aptitude to do well in the job?” This is a very logical question for an employer to think about. In such an economy with high competition an employer has to ensure that their new graduates (considered as a company resource) can obtain several advantages that are mentioned in Barney’s article which are:
1- Are they of value to the company?
2- Are they a rare resource?
3- Can this resource help the firm’s organization to exploit the full competitive potential?
A company can not ensure that those graduates would have give the company those advantages just because they have obtained their MBA degree having no work experience.

Moreover, the article has states “To effectively compete for students, many business schools have had to adjust and enhance their programs to better prepare graduates for the competitive work environment they now face.” For example, Associate Dean Bill Lawler, Ph.D of Babson College's F. W. Olin Graduate School of Business F. W. Olin Graduate School of Business in Babson Park explains “we've made arrangements with certain companies to enable our students to go right into their industry as a part of their first-year curriculum. This strategy ensures that [students] receive a hands-on approach to learning."

Additionally, other graduate business schools such as Babson have implemented in-house M.B.A. programs for employees of and have developed distance-based programs. Finally, Wake Forest University's Babcock Graduate School of Management has taken M.B.A. training one step further. "All about Business is a collaboration between Wake Forest's graduate business school (Babcock) and undergraduate business school (the Calloway School of Business)”. Their system exposes its students to the basics of business, including accounting, marketing, operations, strategy, finance, and the management of information systems. All those developments to the MBA program were to improve the program in order to better prepare its students to the real work world and make them a better match for their employers in the market.
Now I believe that the best way is after graduating train them for work experience and mean while let them get their MBA as this will help them also after getting this certification while they are working to gain two goals in one time. Which can be a good resource to help the firm’s to be prepared to grow more.

Remora

“Retailers must do more to stay on top of competition” this is an article I have read it from the gulfnews.com

That talk about Dubai shopping festival, and their retail outlets need to deliver experience as innovating new ideas to add to the atmosphere to be more memorable which reflect the customer interface that shows one of its elements which is the relationship dynamic in Harmel, and not just concentrating on their good and how to show it to the customers. In this case it will lead the retailers to maintain their standard in the market as increasing or stabling their performance but who doesn’t get this point or do this performance this will lead to decreasing and this will determine the loss.

The article mentions some speeches and comments of the director of leasing and marketing at Dubai festival city, McArthur, one of his speeches was warning the retailers and the managers of the regional shopping center of increasing their barriers to maintain or if they are aiming to be in the top, because middle east in general is getting more attractive and grapping more attention to the international companies in all over the world

so a lot of new entry are getting in and its increasing the rivals and the competition so if they don’t want this they need to increase the bar to make it hard to the other innovators or shops to enter the market and decreasing the space to enter, because as he include “competition will be fierce as the amount of leas able area will double to over 118 million square feet by the end of the decade”.

McArthur, mentioned Dubai as an example of how Dubai is the third most successful country in the whole world in shopping market centers, he said that how Dubai strategies is moving in the right track as rising their retail industry and he highlighted the change of development and some strategy that they develop as such how Ikea got moved from city center to another place bigger and more fancy. So he thinks that Ikea is by moving to a new store is getting more attention which leads to successful and he mentioned also that Dubai festival with all this entertainments and the hospitality and more theme parks that will definitely lead to keep the consumers entertained, so he is so definite in this case in this article.

Now in my opinion, which I don’t know what to say (*_*), but I wouldn’t be that sure as he is for Dubai, because other countries are developing and increasing so they he should be more alerted, and by mentioning Ikea, I believe Ikea by moving from city center to another place as being independent store this didn’t lead to be a successful retail store because unfortunately by asking around they didn’t like the idea to have the idea that Ikea is away from city center because it is hard. So I wont be so definite and their success. Or what do you think people ^-^?

Remora: January 2006

Remora: January 2006
After reading the article “Google Is Destined to Fail in China” By Perry Wu, a comparison between the major internet companies in North America and China can be compared. There are three major competitors North America which are Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Each of those companies is mastering a different sector such as “Google rules search, Yahoo rules the Web, and Microsoft rules the operating system”. This has made the competition less rival between the companies as each one makes the standards for the sector where it is best in. on the other hand, the competition in China is more rival as in China “rival Internet companies have developed a symbiotic relationship. Sohu, Sina, and Netease all provide pretty much the same services and they all developed along the same faddish tracks: first, a portal with free email; second, news and community; third, wireless/SMS/MMS content; and now, online gaming”. According to Porter Since they all provide similar services and all have almost same sizes this has increased the rivalry between the competitors. Furthermore, as mentioned in the article about internet in china “Late arrivals like the Carpetbagging Tom.com can even get a slice of the Internet pie”. This shows that entry in the Chinese market is not that hard and the barriers to entry mentioned in Porters article can be considered less than those in North America.