Module: Managing Competitive Advantage - Essay Example

Pickens (2008), says that for businesses, the increased competition does not mean good like it does for customers. Businesses are being forced to keep re-inventing their management, product development and marketing strategies in order to remain relevant and successful in the ever-changing business environment (Avadhani, 2010, p. 62). In this regard, those businesses that remain successful and competitive are those that keep abreast of the changes in the business environment. In order to do this, companies have to keep investing millions of money in market research and related activities.

According to Pickens (2008), one of the factors that have contributed greatly to the changing business environment includes the changing customers’ preferences and tastes for goods and services. In the face of increasing technological advancements, some customers are influenced by class, meaning, they prefer to have only products and services that suit their changing lifestyles despite their effectiveness. In this regard, companies making such products have to ensure that in their market research, they examine all these changes and others, then develop their strategies that enhance their competitive advantages (Pickens 2008, p. 65). This paper examines the process of business management and operations at Shell Company, which produces and sells oil and gas, focusing on the company’s process of creating its competitive advantages.

The contemporary business environment where firms operate their different business activities has different characteristics that have remained very dynamic. In this regard, the businesses’ external environment seems to be changing more rapidly as opposed to the internal environment. However, the process of gaining success in the external business environment requires that businesses change the way of operations in the internal