Competitive Advantage

Competitive Advantage

In the InterClean scenario it is stated that the institutional and industrial cleaning and sanitation industry is changing from who has the best products to who has the services and solutions to consumers overall needs. Environmental safety and government regulation have also become increasingly important. The three possible solutions to meet their client’s needs would be to provide product training for employees, regular monitoring and info-sharing of new relevant regulations, and full cleaning service contracts. In order to gain a competitive advantage InterClean will can take a variety of steps.

As in the Circuit City analysis, InterClean and their new partner EnviroTech could hire a company to evaluate the scenario and produce a proposal of various packages to offer clients that would include product training and/or full services. Circuit City teamed with IBM to create a software program that would increase the company’s supply chain efficiency. IBM provided the training to merchandising and inventory managers who in turn trained other employees. By allowing IBM to handle the program set up and training this gave Circuit City the confidence that it was getting an accurate and through program that would not take time away from other projects. What InterClean can learn from this is that sometimes it is better to allow a company that specializes in certain areas to take the lead on projects. It can save both time and costs for a company. InterClean has so many other issues going on with the merger, employee morale, and HRM changes, that it needs to focus on simultaneously with developing a solution based selling process that this could be a viable option.

In the Wal-Mart analysis a competitive advantage was achieved by eliminating the middlemen. Wal-Mart owns and operates one of the largest privately owned fleets, with an on-time delivery rate of