Strategic Writing McDonalds' Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Sustainable competitive advantage is the distinctive position that a company establishes with respect to competitors that enables it to consistently perform better than them (Grant, 1991). A sustainable competitive advantage comes about when a company is in possession of value-creating procedures and situations that cannot be replicated or copied by other companies (Baron, 1995). As such, it is imperative for a company to sustain its sustainable competitive advantage at all times and for as long as possible (Schuler and MacMillan, 1984). It enables the company to maintain and improve the competitive position of the company in the industry and in the marketplace (Mehta and Mehta, 2013). As a result, the company is able to ensure competition for lengthy periods or spells. In is imperative to take note that sustainable competitive advantage can be established and developed over a certain period on the basis of a number of distinctive capabilities and proficiencies (Foon and Nair, 2010). For instance, this can be centered on innovation, expertise, experience, and distinctive use of information. Overall, a company's competitive advantage is considered relevant and beneficial only if it is experienced in the market or industry and the disparity ought to be seen as a significant buying measure to a considerable consumer base (Mishra and Dwivedi, 2013). For that reason, such competitive advantage will only continue to sustain if no one is able to copy and replicate it (Vinayan et al., 2012). This particular paper will focus on the sustainable competitive advantage of McDonald's, and how it relates to organizational success.

Diversity, Corporate Level Strategy and Business Level Strategy

McDonalds is one of the well renowned international organizations that have multiple products and services across the world across different...

The global organization is perceived to be one of the most successful organizations in its industry of operation. This success as perceived in the following analysis is tied to diversity in its products and services and also with regard to its corporate level strategies and business level strategies.
McDonalds is well-known to be one of the biggest fast food restaurants in the world. One of its competitive advantages lies on the aspect of innovation. McDonalds constantly comes up with new product lines with the purpose of staying at par with the new trends, tendencies and also preferences or tastes of the consumers. Its great diversity into newfangled business ventures is deemed to bring a competitive advantage over its rival companies. One good example is the decision of the company to join the coffee market by opening and unveiling a sequence of cafes within their fast food restaurants and named them McCafes. This is also perceived as a business level strategy because regardless of the early cynicism, McDonalds' product offering was considered of having the capacity to beat the severe competition. In fact, according to a taste test report from a consumer survey established that McCafe's drip coffee was more valued and loved in comparison to rival companies such as Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks (White and Moraschinelli, 2009).

Perhaps this could be attributed to the business level strategy undertaken by McDonalds of pricing their coffee at a lower price compared to that of Starbucks. It is imperative, however, to take note that the prices set by McDonalds were not lower at all times compared to Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts prices for similar products. Nonetheless, McDonalds undertook a corporate level strategy of marketing and advertising their specialty coffees as frugal and economical, less ostentatious substitute to Starbucks coffee blend products. McDonalds'…