Контрольная работа: Strategic Planning

Exchange rate movement

Economies of scale for the information technology industry are high

- Social

Lifestyle changes

Concerns about ‘disposal society’

IT user population are becoming ever more sophisticated and demanding in their use of IT technology

Availability and quality of IT talent

- Technological

Change in hardware

Server virtualization

Innovation

Broadband networks are becoming increasingly essential

Competitive advantage of Computacenter

When a firm sustains profits that exceed the average for its industry, the firm is said to possess a competitive advantage over its rivals. The goal of much of business strategy is to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. According to the Competitive Advantage model of Michael Porter, a competitive strategy takes offensive position in an industry, in order to cope successfully with competitive forces and generate a superior Return on Investment.

In keeping with M. Porter, the basic of above-average performance within an industry is sustainable competitive advantage. There are two basic types of competitive advantage: cost advantage and differentiation advantage. Cost advantage exists when the firm is able to deliver the same benefits as competitors but at a lower cost. And this is also one of most important competitive advantages for Computacenter.

Cost leadership is perhaps the clearest of the generic strategies. The sources of cost advantage are varied and depend on the structure of the industry. Computacenter drives down cost as low as possible to ensure that price are the most attractive to their customers. And in order to achieve this advantage, the company combines services and solutions to best practice processes. In the other words, Computacenter helps their clients make business sharper by removing cost, complexity and barriers, using over 25 years’ of practical IT ‘know how’. The company is an above-average performer in its industry, at equivalent or lower prices than its rivals.

Appendix 3 illustrates how the company positioning themselves.

Competitive advantage of Computacenter:

- Delivers the right solution for consolidation. has considerable track in delivering consolidation projects.

- Can implement migration projects at lower cost, with less risk and more quickly than competitors

- Has consultants accredited to the highest level with all major datacentre vendors such as IBM, SUN, Oracle, HP, Redhat, SuSE, Veritas, VMware, EMC, NetApp and HDS[12] .

- Knowledge, experience of deploying infrastructure management, skills and flexible methodology

- Vendor-independent organisation

- Consultancy capabilities cover all leading software and infrastructure vendors in the field of data

- Direct relationships with over 1,100 software vendors

- Hold more than 200 accreditations.

For several years the Group’s strategy remains unchanged. The group’s success is the direct result of a strategy founded of high investment in the development of the services capability over a number of years. Ongoing investment in staff reflects commitment to their goal – maintaining the position of market leader.

Computacenter sticks strategy that is stable and flexible, and can respond to the changing needs of the market. The company is continuing to pursue a strategy of growth in their activities to achieve economies of scale.

A leading presence in each of the major European markets for IT products and services, Extending presence in markets that offer greatest growth opportunity remains a core priority of Computacenter’s strategy.