The Mattress Industry
Name
Date
The mattress industry
Question one
Conducting a value chain analysis of the mattress industry creates various added advantages for a company in the industry. The analysis helps identify competitive advantages, improve material, finances, and information flow, identify the complex interrelationships and dependencies, and formulate specific firm strategies. In describing the porter’s value chain analysis of a mattress firm, a firm must consider all activities in an equal magnitude. The primary chain activities are involved directly in producing and selling the mattress to its target market consumers.
Primary activities
Inbound logistics; Developing a strong supplier relationship is necessary to help receive, store, and distribute the mattresses. Without proper analysis of the inbound logistics, a firm will greatly face challenges in the product development phase. It focuses on the aspect of raw material transformation to the finished final mattress product.
Operational activities, such as packing, assembling, and testing mattresses. Analyzing and describing the operations activities helps maximize efficiency and improve productivity while ensuring the mattress business’s competitiveness.
The outbound logistics involves activities that deliver the final mattress product to customers, passing various intermediaries. Such activities include; scheduling, order processing, warehousing, transportation and deliveries, and mattress material handling. Timely managed outbound activities create optimal costs and mattress delivery process to a minimum negative effect and maximize customer satisfaction.
Sales and marketing activities play a crucial role in the success of a mattress store. Ensuring customers are aware of your product and why it is better than its competitors (Sarwar, 2017). This phase’s activities will include; advertising, promotional activities, selecting the right channel and pricing strategy and creating channel relationships. A company can use a market funnel approach to help in structuring a good market and sale activities.
The pre-sale and post-sale services given by a mattress firm play an important role in developing customer loyalty and creating a good image.
Secondary activities
The support activities that ensure the coordination and facilitation of the primary actives in the value chain analysis. The firm infrastructure involves financing, strategic planning and management, legal matters, and accounting.
Human resource management handles various HRM aspects like selection and hiring, training, rewarding, and employee performance management. An effective HRM allows the firm to decrease competitive pressure through its workforce’s commitment, motivation, and management skills.
Technology development is a support activity that is dependent on all the value chain activities. This activity can be divide into product and process technological development. Some examples will include automation of the mattress manufacturing process, customer support service and mattress design and research.
Procurement involves the purchasing of inputs are necessary for the production and manufacturing of the final product. The inputs purchase may range from raw materials, machinery, equipment and other necessary material needed. Proper consideration of the procurement activities helps optimize the inbound, operational and outbound value chain activities.
Question two
A mattress firm should have the following resources;
- Inimitable, the mattresses offered to be able to be differentiated from other mattress firms.
- Have a competitive superiority in that the services and mattress products to be provided creating an advantage for the company
- Have a non-substitutable mattress product
- Create a high-value customer base for its product
- The firm should be able to freely extract value and have a good financial resource for its sustainability.
- Creating a brand image that creates a competitive advantage as an intangible resource for the company
Have capabilities to provide the customer with differentiated mattress products and services, offer high ended mattresses valued to customers and ensure they provide durability and sustainable mattress products.
All the above resources and capabilities ensure that any mattress business is competitive in the field. They add a competitive advantage for the company and create sustainability.
Question three
The approach preferred would be the differentiation strategy. The approach would focus on the production and selling of unique products and services to the customers. (Scheele, 2014). Offering distinctive mattress products that are different from the competitors. The company can expand its customer base through a differentiation strategy by emphasizing the unique mattress features and products. Ensuring that the final mattress products are of high standards and unique to ensure competitors are incapable of imitating or coping with either the designs or processes involved in the company’s success.
Providing a wide variety to match the various customization of mattresses unique as per customer’s preferences and demands creates a unique competitive advantage for the firm. Providing services and products that are different from other companies creates a good marketing strategy for any company to be competitive and successive in any given industry. At the same time, it builds customer loyalty and the right brand image.
References
Haider, A. A., Zafar, A., Khalid, A., Majid, A., Abdullah, M. A., & Sarwar, M. B. (2017). Marketing Management. Head, B. 22.
Scheele, D. (2014). The trade-off between cost leadership and differentiation. Munich GRIN Verlag GmbH 2014