Rethinking Competitive Strategy in Mature Industries: An externally focused in depth study into how companies in mature industries can rethink their competitive strategies.
Today's rapidly changing environment amplifies the need for companies no matter the industry, to stay on top of their game and not lose market share to competing firms. This is particularly true of companies in mature industries, and therefore, is a worthy area of study and the focus of this thesis. Rethinking Competitive Strategy in Mature Industries is an in depth, exploratory study, with an empirical focus on a single case study, Business Unit Building (BUB) Qualitative data was collected from thirteen interviews based on semi structured questions. Published reports were additionally considered. Although it is advisable not to generalize, the single case study acts as inspiration for other companies in similar positions seeking to rethink their strategies. The theoretical framework includes Porter's five forces, Porter's generic strategies, as well as other more general competitive strategy theories. These are rendezvoused into one model that shows the theories in sequence, which can be implemented when developing competitive strategies. The conclusions show that the stage of the industry life cycle is a defining factor of the competitive strategies that firms must take. A key take away is that companies should not be afraid of proactive strategic change, which may be the only way to maintain or re gain a competitive position amongst multiple competitors, who oftentimes follow similar strategies and provide customers with similar product offerings. Thus regardless of the generic strategy that companies decide to pursue, they must adopt a proactive competitive strategy in then deciding which generic strategy(ies) would be most useful.