Due in Six Hours
Competitive advantages Section of the Paper
The Section was effective at:
Using easily understood formatting to guide the reader through the various sections
[On page 6] Using an opening to give an overview of the section before going into detail
[On page 11] Displaying the competitor comparison grid. The table was formatted so it was easy to read and understand.
[On page 6-8] Listing out the main competitors in an easy to read format. This section allows the ready to quickly determine the differentiation of each business.
[On page 10] Defining the sustainable advantage for the NexGen program as being able to provide the “best in class”
Finding substantial sources to give more credibility to the statements found in the business plan.
The Section could have been more effective if:
[On page 6] The overall format of the paper remained constant. Section 2 was written in bullet point format and if that is the desire, each section should remain in that format.
[On page 6, linking back to page 3] The competitors listed were also discussed in the market share section. Or if the companies in the market share section were also discussed in the competitors section.
[On page 6] The paragraph listing the competitors was removed. It is duplicate information that is covered in the sections below.
[On page 6-8] Tied more business related facts into the outline. What is the size of the company? How many volunteers do they have? How much money do they raise? What is their single point of differentiation?
[On page 8] The weakness on Score related to a business model. Having an outdated website is a small issue. If they updated it, what would be their weakness?
[On page 9] The weakness of the competitors better aligned with your stated sustainable advantage. Above, you stated NexGen was interested in “best in class” mentoring and the competitors’ weakness was lack of efficiency. Efficiency has connotations of reduced cost, the opposite of “best in class”.
[On page 10] There was more definition on how each company received the various scores. This is a great appendix feature where each rating is defined. There wasn’t any data defining market share pages 6-8, but the grid has given each competitor a score for the market share.
For example: Market Share (Score: 1) – Less than 100 mentor/mentee relationships. (Score: 3) – Around 1000 relationships. (Score 5) More than 10,000 relationships.
[On page 10] The first and second bullet was phrased as if the company was talking about itself and the third bullet on the caption was removed.
The section addressed social media sites like LinkedIn. The business related site has some overlap into the target market and services offered. I think it should be added to the competitor comparison grid. How is NexGen going to further differentiate itself from social media?
Overall, the section linked better with section 2, specifically the market share and the competitors.
