2 Miele are now facing more and more competition in a changing market. Do their resources provide them with a sustainable competitive advantage?
3 What new resources might they need to develop/acquire to remain successful in the future?
Answers:
1/ The key resources that have made Miele successful are an intergration of tangible, intangible and organizational capabilities. Particularly, the firm is oriented around the customers and their consumption habits, and focuses on providing higher quality, more innovative and better for the environment than their rivals, responding and forcasting consumer needs. They have dynamic marketing capabilities, so the key resources can be divided into organizational, technological, intellectual and human, and financial. These can be placed under each category, as marketing assets:
Customer-based assets: Brand; Reputation; Product based on the value of quality, innovation, sustainabilities and “green”.
Internal support assets: Technical skills; R&D; Intellectual and human.
Supply-chain assets: Distribution strength; Fairly treated workforce, Patents, Environmental protection, Safe appliances.
2/ At least in the next few years Miele have to fend off more competitors at the top end of white goods market, moreover, to interest new generations of increasingly cost-concious consumers. However, a well-strategic combination of Miele’s resources and their dynamic marketing capabilities can help them mantaining a sustainable competitive advantage. “They have a focus and a single- mindedness which I think will ensure they can continue to do well. Thirty years ago people were asking the same questions and they have come through. The company has shown that making things in Germany can- in the right product area- still act as an advantage” said Hermann Simon.
3/ Miele is successful thanks to their good exploitable