Ben and Jerry

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1. Discuss the competitive landscape in the Japanese ice cream market. Does Ben & Jerry’s possess any resources that could give the company a competitive advantage in Japan? If so, what are they? In my opinion, Ben & Jerry’s does not possess any resources that could give the company a sustained competitive advantage in Japan. In order to determine whether or not Ben & Jerry’s actually has a competitive advantage, I had to perform a VRIO framework (exhibit 1) first to see whether or not Ben & Jerry’’s has resources or capabilities controlled by a firm as source of competitive advantage. All of the resources that could give the company competitive advantage in Japan are valuable but it is important to understand which ones are rare and how hard is to imitate them, since this is the factor that determines what is and what is not a source of a competitive advantage. I listed the resources that I believe are important for Ben & Jerry’s. The resources that matters the most are the ones that are hard to imitate which are the recipe for the ice cream and its unique variety of chunks, the logo as a quality symbol, its socially responsible image and its brand name in general. The problem is that these are valuable resources in United States, not necessarily in the Japan. The only resource that could be a source of competitive advantage (in Japan) through product differentiation are Ben & Jerry’s unique chunks which are unfortunately not enough to guarantee a success in a foreign market. The competitive landscape in the Japanese ice cream market creates a sufficient barrier to entry for most of the companies. There are six major Japanese ice cream manufacturers that sell premium Ice cream and on top of that there is another American premium ice cream manufacturer- Haagen-Dazs that already keeps a large share of the market. Therefore Ben & Jerry’s would have a really

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