The Alamo Draft house - Service Management (Essay Sample)

The Alamo Draft house-Service Management
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Question 1: Give examples of service firms that use both the strategy of focus and differentiation and the strategy of focus and overall cost leadership.
As the American economy and market keep shifting companies have to implement strategies that will help them stay afloat as well as ahead of their completion. Many companies are using both the strategy of focus and differentiation as well as the strategy of overall cost leadership (Michael, 2008). This has been mainly implemented in service delivery firms for example the United commercial bank which is a bank that is based in San Francisco and mainly offers its services to the Chinese population in America. The branch has upwards of 40 branches in Carlifornia alone and also has offices in Taiwan and china and also has an office in Hong Kong. The company mainly focuses on offering business loans to the Chinese owned business in an effort to support their growth and development. The bank also capitalizes on the desire for Chinese-Americans to save their money in banks and offers a large number of savings accounts so as to meet the need of its customers.
Another firm that has effectively used this strategy is the Alamo Draft house which is a fuse between a movie theatre, a restaurant and a bar. The firm has concentrated its services to movie goers who would wish to have food and a drink while watching a movie. The company offers a number of services to its customers at the same time. This services include eating, drinking and at the same time watching their favourite movies. The company also deliberately offers poor services so as to place the burden of service on the customer. The waiters at the firm take orders, serve and collect on bills either during or after the movie. Another company is the El Banco de Nuestra Comunidad which is a financial institution which focuses its services on the Hispanic population. El Banco is however a franchise that can be licensed to any existing bank and the bank is expected to focus its services to the Hispanic population.
Question 2: What ethical issues are associated with micromarketing?
Micromarketing is a business strategy that is used by companies and firms to target a more precise market. This form of marketing involves the targeting of the company of a specific niche. Micromarketing collects information on the consumers who they consider as their target and use this information to make a profit or grow a product brand (Greg, 2010). Micro marketing suggests the use of customised products and services for customers so as to be able to build a good relationship between the organization and the customer. A number of ethical issues may arise to the use of micro marketing. First of all it may be viewed as ethically wrong for a firm to exploit and use consumer personal information to their benefit in order to make a profit. During micro marketing the company may carry out a study on the target population in an effort to identify the consumer wants and needs. However when companies utilize such information so as to make a profit an ethical issue arises.
There is a thin line between the acceptable way to use consumer information and also the unacceptable way to use consumer information. the strategy can also be viewed as an invasion of privacy since it seeks to find consumer information which relates to a consumers feelings, relationships, wants, needs and emotions which are private. However even when information is offered voluntarily in confidence by a consumer the use of such information to exploit a niche is ethically and morally wrong thus company must watch how they use the information collected from consumers so as to ensure that the right to privacy of an individual has not been breached (Greg, 2010).
Question 3: For each of the three generic strategies (i.e., cost leadership, differentiation, and focus) which of the four competitive uses of information is most powerful?
The most powerful strategy of the three strategies is the competitive service strategies is the overall cost leadership. This is because this strategy is geared at improving and increasing the company’s market share by appealing to customers who are conscious about the price of a commodity. The strategy seeks to find and maximize on the low cost consumers and achieves this by the...