問19
頻出度★★★
企業を, 市場における競争上の地位によって, リーダ, チャレンジャ, フォロワ, ニッチャに分類したとき, チャレンジャの戦略の特徴として, 最も適切なものはどれか。
平成24年度 秋期 ITパスポート試験 問19
ストラテジ系経営戦略マネジメント › 経営戦略手法
This question's explanation and your answers so far.
解説
問 19
Incorrectア
“Assessing its own strength in the market, it follows the leader company” and “prioritizes securing stable profit over market share” describe the Follower's strategy. A Follower has scarce management resources, and spending heavily on development and sales promotion in order to aim at the top would not pay off, so it imitates and follows the Leader's successful products and measures, holds down cost and risk, and secures a profit that fits its own size. Compared with the Challenger, which goes out to seize the No.1 share, this is the exact opposite in terms of whether share or profit comes first, so it is wrong.
Incorrectイ
“Proposing new products and ways to use them to consumers, it seeks to expand the market size” and “broadening its product lineup to maintain and expand market share” describe the Leader's strategy. A Leader that already holds the No.1 share gains the largest increase in its own sales when the market as a whole (the pie) grows, so it cultivates the market itself by proposing new uses and the like, adopting an all-around strategy and a full-line strategy, and defends its existing position. This is a description of the defending side, not a characteristic of the Challenger, which is the side that attacks, so it is wrong.
Incorrectウ
“It attacks a specific market that the top companies do not target” and “By concentrating its limited management resources, it secures and maintains an advantage in that market” describe the Nicher's strategy (niche strategy). A Nicher does not fight in the market as a whole; it narrows down to a small gap market that large companies do not enter for reasons such as profitability, and builds its own distinctive position there. Compared with the Challenger, which goes after the Leader's share in the market as a whole, both the breadth of the target market and the purpose are different, so it is wrong.
- エ
正解 The correct answer is エ. In Kotler's strategies by competitive position, a Challenger is a company that ranks second or lower in market share yet aims to pull down the top Leader company and take the No.1 share — the challenger among the industry's upper ranks. The Challenger's basic policy is differentiation. Because its management resources are inferior to the Leader's, an all-out head-on fight on the same ground as the Leader offers little chance of winning, so the Challenger picks weak points where the Leader is still thin — regions, fields, or customer segments — attacks there, and builds a foothold by putting forward value that is unique to itself. Choice エ's “It adopts measures such as attacking regions or fields that the leader company has not yet strengthened” is exactly this Challenger behavior of differentiation and concentrated attack on weak points. The latter half, “While it sometimes confronts the leader company directly, it also takes share away from lower-ranking companies”, also accurately expresses the Challenger's stance of putting share expansion first: while setting the No.1 share as its ultimate goal and challenging the Leader head-on, it also goes after share from lower-ranking companies such as Followers and Nichers, from which share can be built up more reliably. Therefore エ is the most appropriate.
ここがポイント
- Memorize Kotler's four competitive-position types together with their basic policies as a set. Leader = expands the market as a whole and maintains share with an all-around, full-line approach; Challenger = challenges the Leader through differentiation and puts share expansion first; Follower = imitates and follows the Leader, prioritizing stable profit over share; Nicher = concentrates management resources on a specific gap market.
- To tell the choices apart, the fastest way is to assign each one to a type by its keywords. “Expanding the market size, broadening the product lineup” → Leader; “differentiation, attacking fields where the Leader is thin” → Challenger; “following, imitating, stable profit” → Follower; “specific market, concentrating resources” → Nicher.
用語