1. What is competitive advantage

Competitive advantage can be identified as a very important factor for the businesses. Because it assists the organizations to be distinguished separately from its competitors. Therefore, the competitive advantage can be identified as the attribute that provides the organizations to be superior than its competitors or to outperform them. Achieving the competitive advantage may not be easier for the businesses due to the higher competition in the corporate world. (Twin, 2020)

Further, all the competitors in an industry is trying to outperform others and to gain a benefit by outperforming others. Due to that, most of the businesses are trying to introduce strategies and products to attract the market share and to gain a competitive advantage by outperforming their competitors.

Moreover, once an organization receives the competitive advantage edge over the other, it is very important to focus on maintaining that. Because, even though the competitive advantage is providing a benefit, competitors may try to copy those defeat the company and as a result, it is very important to focus on achieving the best ways to maintain their competitive advantage.

Further, this competitive advantage is providing an intrinsic value for the companies. Because, having a competitive advantage suggests that the organization is providing a superior product or a service and that shows that there is superior value, or the intrinsic value embedded in that product or the service. This is highly beneficial for the companies. ("Competitive advantage", 2020)

There are several ways in which the companies can focus on gaining the competitive advantage. As per Michael Porter, he introduced three main ways of achieving competitive advantage. Those three main ways are the product differentiation, cost differentiation and the focus strategy. All these three strategies will try to make a difference in the companies and to make them outperform their competitors in the industry.

2. Ways of gaining competitive advantage

As mentioned above, organizations can gain the competitive advantage mainly through cost differentiation, product differentiation and the focus strategy. These strategies are identified below;

2.1 Product Differentiation

Products differentiation can be identified as a very important method of gaining the competitive advantage. This method is focusing on providing a superior product or a service to the customers by focusing on the product. This should be differentiated from what the competitors are offering, and it should also provide a superior value for the customers. ("Competitive Advantage - Learn How a Competitive Advantage Works", 2020)

Discussion Questions 1. What is the ownership structure of Visa an...