Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Week 5 Blog Post #3 Chapter 10 Page 312

Differentiation

Chapter 10 discusses how organizations use the strategy of differentiation to stand out among competition. A great example that is brought up is Nordstrom. Though there are other department stores that sell the same product as Nordstrom, for some reason this particular company stands out compared to its competitors. I know that people think that Nordstrom is higher end than its competitors and I know that people would rather shop at Nordstrom rather than the other stores even though they sell the same exact products. I feel much more comfortable shopping at Nordstrom than I would shopping at Macy's because I feel the surroundings are more organized and cleaner and the customer service is excellent. There is a huge difference in the atmosphere in these two stores even though if you compared the two the sell almost the same items and even the same brands, with only a few differences. And this is how Nordstrom has effectively used differentiation to separate itself from the others and come out as the number one department store.

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  2. Yay I'm glad that you noticed hahaha I just actually started working there last month and I think I hear those two words (customer service) at least 20 times a day from my manager... However, just like you said, the approach of customer service as a differentiation strategy does work out well for the store. I often hear customers say that they only shop at Nordstrom because they feel like they really get taken care of and that they always have a pleasant shopping experience and although I enjoy working for a company that values its customers and is always clean and pretty, I cant help but think my job would be a lot easier if I worked for a company where their differentiation strategy was having the lowest prices... but then again I probably also wouldn't be treated as well as I am at Nordstrom

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