Competitive strategy is primarily concerned with how a business should deploy resources at its disposal to achieve and maintain defensible competitive positional advantages in the marketplace. Competitive marketing strategy focuses on how a business should deploy marketing resources at its disposal to facilitate the achievement and maintenance of competitive positional advantages in the marketplace. In a growing number of product-markets, the competitive landscape has evolved from a predominantly physical marketplace to one encompassing both the physical and the electronic marketplace. This article presents a conceptual framework delineating the drivers and outcomes of marketing strategy in the context of competing in this broader, evolving marketplace. The proposed frameworkprovides insights into changes in the nature and scope of marketing strategy; specific industry, product, buyer, and buying environment characteristics; and the unique skills and resources of the firm that assume added relevance in the context of competing in the evolving marketplace.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abell, Derek F.1980. Defining the Business: The Starting Point of Strategic Planning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
2.
Ackerlof, George
. 1970. “The Market for ‘Lemons’: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism”. Quarterly Journal of Economics84 (3): 488-500.
3.
Adam, Nabil
and Yelena Yesha. 1996. “Strategic Directions in Electronic Commerce and Digital Libraries: Towards a Digital Agora”. ACM Computing Surveys28 (4): 818-835.
4.
Alba, Joseph
, John Lynch, Barton Weitz, Chris Janiszewski, Richard Lutz, Alan Sawyer, and Stacy Wood. 1997. “Interactive Home Shopping: Consumer, Retailer, and Manufacturer Incentives to Participate in Electronic Marketplaces”. Journal of Marketing61 (July): 38-53.
5.
Bain, Joseph
. 1956. Barriers to Competition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
6.
Bakos, J. Yannis
. 1991. “A Strategic Analysis of Electronic Marketplaces”. MIS Quarterly15 (September): 295-310.
7.
Bakos, J. Yannis
. 1997. “Reducing Buyer Search Costs: Implications for Electronic Marketplaces”. Management Science43 (December): 676-692.
8.
Balasubramanian, Sridhar
, Vish V. Krishnan, and Mohanbir Sawhney. 2000. “New Offering Realization in the Networked Digital Environment”. In Digital Marketing. Eds. Vijay Mahajan and Jerry Wind. New York: John Wiley, 310-338.
9.
Barney, Jay B.1991. “Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage”. Journal of Management17 (1): 99-120.
10.
Barney, Jay B.
. 1996. Gaining and Sustaining Competitive Advantage. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
11.
Barrett, S.
and B. Konsynski. 1982. “Inter-Organization Information Sharing Systems”. MIS Quarterly6: 93-105.
12.
Benjamin, Robert
and Rolf Wigand. 1995. “Electronic Markets and Virtual Chains on the Information Superhighway”. Sloan Management Review36 (2): 62-72.
13.
Berger, Paul D.
and Nada I. Nasr. 1998. “Customer Lifetime Value: Marketing Models and Applications”. Journal of Interactive Marketing12 (1): 17-30.
14.
Blattberg, Robert C.
and John Deighton. 1991. “Interactive Marketing: Exploiting the Age of Addressability”. Sloan Management Review33 (1): 5-14.
15.
Brynjolfsson, Erik
and Abraham Seidmann. 1997. “A Call for Exploration: Introduction to Special Issue on Frontier Research on Information Systems and Economics”. Management Science43 (12): 1605-1607.
16.
Burke, Raymond
. 1996. “Virtual Shopping: Breakthrough in Marketing Research”. Harvard Business Review74 (March/April): 120-131.
17.
Burke, Raymond
. 1997. “Do You See What I See? The Future of Virtual Shopping”. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science25 (Fall): 352-360.
18.
Cairncross, Frances
. 1997. The Death of Distance: How the Communication Revolution Will Change Our Lives. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
19.
Christensen, Clayton M.
and Michael Overdorf. 2000. “Meeting the Challenge of Disruptive Change”. Harvard Business Review78 (March-April): 221-230.
20.
Clark, David D.1996. “Adding Service Discrimination to the Internet”. Telecommunications Policy20 (3): 169-181.
21.
Darby, Michael R.
and Edi Karni. 1973. “Free Competition and the Optimal Amount of Fraud”. Journal of Law and Economics16 (April): 67-88.
22.
D’Aveni, Richard A.1999. “Strategic Supremacy Through Disruption and Dominance”. Sloan Management Review40 (3): 127-135.
23.
Dickson, Peter R.1992. “Toward a General Theory of Competitive Rationality”. Journal of Marketing56 (1): 69-84.
24.
Dickson, Peter R.
and Alan G. Sawyer. 1990. “The Price Knowledge and Search of Supermarket Shoppers”. Journal of Consumer Research54 (July): 42-53.
25.
Douglas, Susan
. 1991. “Broadcasting Begins”. In Communications in History: Technology, Culture, and Society. Eds. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. New York: Longman, 190-197.
26.
Economides, Nicholas
and Frederick Flyer. 1998. “Compatibility and Market Structure for Network Goods”. Working Paper EC-98-02. Stern School of Business, New York University.
27.
Eisenhardt, Kathleen M.
and Jeffrey A. Martin. 2000. “Dynamic Capabilities: What Are They?”Strategic Management Journal21 (10-11): 1105-1121.
28.
Farrell, Joseph
and Garth Saloner. 1985. “Standardization, Compatibility, and Innovation”. Rand Journal of Economics16 (Spring): 70-83.
29.
Farrell, Joseph
and Garth Saloner. 1986. “Installed Base and Compatibility: Innovation, Product Preannouncements, and Predation”. American Economic Review76 (December): 940-955.
30.
Fidler, Roger
. 1997. Mediamorphosis: Understanding the New Media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
31.
Frank, Robert H.
and Philip J. Cook. 1995. The Winner-Take-All Society. New York: Free Press.
32.
Glazer, Rashi
. 1991. “Marketing in an Information-Intensive Environment: Strategic Implications of Knowledge as an Asset”. Journal of Marketing55 (October): 1-19.
33.
Grewal, Raj
, James A. Comer, and Raj Mehta. 2001. “An Investigation Into the Antecedents of Organizational Participation in Business-to-Business Electronic Markets”. Journal of Marketing65 (July): 17-33.
34.
Gupta, Sunil
and Rabikar Chatterjee. 1997. “Consumer and Corporate Adoption of the World Wide Web as a Commercial Medium”. In Electronic Marketing and the Consumer. Ed. Robert A. Peterson. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 123-138.
35.
Gurbaxani, Vijay
and Seungjin Whang. 1991. “The Impact of Information Systems on Organizations and Markets”. Communications of the ACM34 (January): 59-73.
36.
Hanson, Ward
. 1998. “The Original WWW: Web Lesson From the Early Days of Radio”. Journal of Interactive Marketing12 (3): 46-56.
37.
Haubl, Gerald
and Valerie Trifts. 2000. “Consumer Decision Making in Online Shopping Environments: The Effects of Interactive Decision Aids”. Marketing Science19 (1): 4-21.
38.
Hofer, Charles W.
and Dan Schendel. 1978. Strategy Formulation: Analytical Concepts. St. Paul, MN: West.
39.
Hoffman, Donna L.
and Thomas P. Novak. 1996. “Marketing in Hypermedia Computer-Mediated Environments: Conceptual Foundations”. Journal of Marketing60 (3): 50-68.
40.
Hoffman, Donna L.
and Thomas P. Novak. 1997. “A New Marketing Paradigm for Electronic Commerce”. Information Society13 (1): 43-54.
41.
Hotelling, Harold
. 1929. “Stability in Competition”. Economic Journal39: 41-57.
42.
Huber, George P.1990. “A Theory of the Effects of Advanced Information Technologies on Organizational Design, Intelligence, and Decision Making”. Academy of Management Review15: 47-71.
43.
Hunt, Shelby D.2000. A General Theory of Competition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
44.
Katz, Michael L.
and Carl Shapiro. 1985. “Network Externalities, Competition, and Compatibility”. The American Economic Review75 (June): 424-440.
45.
Keep, William W.
, Stanley C. Hollander, and Roger Dickson. 1998. “Forces Impinging on Long-Term Business-to-Business Relationships in the United States: An Historical Perspective”. Journal of Marketing62 (2): 31-45.
46.
Klein, Benjamin
and Keith B. Leffler. 1981. “The Role of Market Forces in Assuring Contractual Performance”. Journal of Political Economy89 (4): 615-642.
47.
Levitt, Theodore
. 1981. “Marketing Intangible Products and Product Intangibles”. Harvard Business Review59 (3): 94-102.
48.
Lynch, John
and Dan Ariely. 2000. “Wine Online: Search Costs and Competition on Price, Quality, and Distribution”. Marketing Science19 (1): 83-103.
49.
Malone, Thomas W.1997. “Is Empowerment Just a Fad? Control, Decision Making, and IT”. Sloan Management Review38 (2): 23-35.
50.
Malone, Thomas W.
, JoAnne Yates, and Robert I. Benjamin. 1989. “The Logic of Electronic Markets”. Harvard Business Review67 (May/June): 166-172.
51.
Mayntz, Renate
and Thomas P. Hughes. 1988. The Development of Large Technical Systems. Boulder, CO: Westview.
52.
Nelson, Philip
. 1970. “Information and Consumer Behavior”. Journal of Political Economy78 (March/April): 311-329.
53.
Oliver, Jim R.1996. “A Machine-Learning Approach to Automated Negotiation and Prospects for Electronic Commerce”. Journal of Management Information Systems13 (3): 83-112.
54.
Peppers, Don
, Martha Rogers, and Bob Dorf. 1999. “Is Your Company Ready for One-to-One Marketing?”Harvard Business Review77 (January/February): 151-160.
55.
Peterson, Robert A.
, Sridhar Balasubramanian, and Bart J. Bronnenberg. 1997. “Exploring the Implications of the Internet for Consumer Marketing”. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science25 (Fall): 329-346.
56.
Porter, Michael E.2001. “Strategy and the Internet”. Harvard Business Review79 (3): 63-78.
57.
Porter, Michael E.
and Victor E. Millar. 1985. “How Information Gives You Competitive Advantage”. Harvard Business Review63 (July-August): 149-160.
58.
Prahalad, C. K.
and Gary Hamel. 1990. “The Core Competence of the Corporation”. Harvard Business Review68 (May-June): 79-91.
59.
Rao, Akshay R.
and Mark E. Bergen. 1992. “Price Premium Variations as a Consequence of Buyers’ Lack of Information”. Journal of Consumer Research19 (December): 412-423.
60.
Rayport, Jeffrey F.
and John J. Sviokla. 1994. “Managing in the Marketspace”. Harvard Business Review72 (November/December): 141-150.
61.
Salop, Steven C.
and Joseph Stiglitz. 1977. “Bargains and Ripoffs: A Model of Monopolitically Competitive Price Dispersion”. Review of Economics and Statistics54 (December): 493-510.
62.
Shapiro, Carl
and Hal R. Varian. 1999. Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
63.
Shostack, G. Lynn
. 1977. “Breaking Free From Product Marketing”. Journal of Marketing41 (April): 73-80.
64.
Sinha, Indrajit
. 2000. “Cost Transparency: The Net’s Real Threat to Prices and Brands”. Harvard Business Review78 (March-April): 3-8.
65.
Steuer, Jonathan
. 1992. “Defining Virtual Reality: Dimensions Determine Telepresence”. Journal of Communication42 (Autumn): 73-93.
66.
Stigler, George J.1961. “The Economics of Information”. Journal of Political Economy69 (June): 213-225.
67.
Tapscott, Don
. 1996. Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence. New York: McGraw-Hill.
68.
Teece, David J.
, Gary Pisano, and Amy Shuen. 1997. “Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management”. Strategic Management Journal18 (7): 509-533.
69.
Urbany, Joel
. 1986. “An Experimental Examination of the Economics of Information”. Journal of Consumer Research13 (September): 257-271.
70.
Urbany, Joel
, Peter R. Dickson, and William L. Wilkie. 1989. “Buyer Uncertainty and Information Search”. Journal of Consumer Research16 (September): 208-215.
71.
Webster, Frederick E., Jr.
and Yoram Wind. 1972. Organizational Buying Behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
72.
Weill, Peter
and Marianne Broadbent. 1998. Leveraging the New Infrastructure: How Market Leaders Capitalize on Information Technology. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
73.
Yadav, Manjit S. and Rajan Varadarajan. 2001. “Interactivity in the Electronic Marketplace: An Exposition of the Concept and Its Implications for Product Migration”. Working Paper. Department of Marketing, Texas A&M University.
