Eco 561 Week 3 Research Paper

Learning Team Reflection Week Three
ECO/561

Learning Team Reflection Week Three Learning Team B discussed and summarized the objectives for week three. The objectives are as follows: determine pricing strategy to meet organizational goals, determine ways to create nonprice barriers to entry based on market structure, determine ways to increase product differentiation based on market structure and determine ways to reduce costs for an organization.
Determine pricing strategy to meet organizational goals The four market models are pure competition, pure monopoly, monopolistic competition, and oligopoly (McConnell, Brue, & Flynn, 2009). Depending on the type of market and the organizational goals the pricing strategy can vary.
Team B’s discussion focused on the differentiated products. The five factors to consider are product attributes, service, location, brand names and packaging, and some control over pricing. Product attributes are “differences in functional features, materials, design, and workmanship” (McConnell, Brue, & Flynn, 2009, p. 223). For instance, one fast food hamburger restaurant may feature the thick burger although another may feature special sauce on the burger. Another example is the sale of shoes. One store may cater to the high end name brand whereas another store may cater toward the low price store brand. Service is another factor in differentiation of products. Team B discussed that for the fast food hamburger restaurant; one may offer fast service by pre-making the hamburgers where another restaurant may offer the service of obtaining the hamburger the way the customer wants the hamburger resulting in a longer wait time as the hamburgers are not pre-made. Service in the shoe example would be for the high end name brand store there would be shoe specialists to wait on customers and assist the customers with trying on the shoes, etc. Whereas the store that caters toward the low price store brand may not have any shoe specialists to assist, the customer simply has to find the shoe in
The budding entrepreneur juggling limited funds stretched way too thinly in an effort to achieve the envisioned goal. Or even the seasoned senior manager who has identified an opportunity to streamline operations while still increasing productivity and profitability. Every organization at some point or several points explores various strategies for cost reduction. Team B discussed several primary and secondary observations of organizations using technological advances, staffing realignment, renegotiation, logistics and supplier management, and outsourcing, among other things, to reduce costs. All of these areas usually hold several cost-incurring skeletons, however when attempting to eliminate unnecessary cost without disenfranchising revenues generating stakeholders, companies have to get creative. Authors Anupam Agarwal, Eric Harmon, and Michael Viertler in their article, “Cutting Sales Costs, Not Revenues”, advise companies that, “understanding customers allows companies to focus sales resources where they are needed and to cut waste, not value” (p.2, 2009). Organizations that take time to evaluate the true needs and expectations of current and potential customers achieve cost conservation while improving customer service. Ultimately, it seems that investing in technological