One key to predicting a competitor's strategies is understanding how

highlighted text " the other " in second paragraph
In the fast-food industry, for example, two players faced the same market trends, resulting from the public's concerns about high-fat diets, but responded in markedly different ways. The dominant player, as the target of consumer backlash, introduced a variety of foods It promoted as healthy. The other, foreseeing this move, saw an opportunity to find market share in the less health-conscious fast-food segment and so introduced high-fat, high-calorie sandwiches supported by aggressive, defiant ads.

Basically "the other " company understood what strategy the initial company has implemented towards the market trend and hence the "the other company " implements a strategy to enter into opposite market that is the market where consumers are less health conscious. Summary- "the other" company understood the initial company's probable strategy and used this knowledge wisely. And this entire paragraph tries to show how companies react differently to the same market trend.

The passage suggests most strongly that the company mentioned In the highlighted text

A) was less concerned with prevailing market trends than was its dominant competitor - it was actually concerned
B) was in a position to take over the leading market position from its dominant competitor-- it entered a different market so no point of comptition.
C) understood which strategy Its dominant competitor was likely to follow - Correct.
D) received little negative feedback based on concerns about high-fat diets - we do not know what feedback it received.
E) refrained from developing a comprehensive resource-based view of marketing strategy-- irrelevant.(the author suggests the resource strategy in later para)



hope this helps

reading the passage we see that the main topic is to predict competitors stratergy. there is also an example showing how two companies reacted differently. para 3 tells us the ways to predict. we can easily eliminate a,c and e. now option d states that the primary purpose is to analyse business stratergy used by companies , this is a generalised statement ie it doesn't points to the whole passage which is specifically about predicting a competitor's strategies and how to do it.

Thanks AdityaHongunti and goofytiwari69 for the explanations!

To post additional questions not already addressed in this thread, feel free to use the request verbal experts' reply button.

Hi,

I got the third question incorrect. I choose option A as the answer to this question. And the reason I did that was because company A responded by introducing a number of high fat products as opposed to the market trends.
So it looked it its response was more dependent on the strategy followed by the dominant company. Which means it was less concerned with prevailing market trends than was its dominant competitor. ( I interpreted this as it was less concerned with the prevailing market trends as compared to how concerned it was about its compitetors strategy)


And for a moment I thought that Answer C was the correct answer choice. But since C used the word likely I rejected the same. The company already knew which strategy its compitetor is following so why use the word likely.

Please let me know where am I going wrong in my reasoning. I am ready to accept that Answer A is a incorrect choice however I need a reason to select choice C. Please guide.

Question #3 asks what the passage suggests about the non-dominant company facing a market trend of public concern about high fat diets.

Let's first take a look at (A):

On a surface level, this option is tempting -- after all, the company responded to a health-conscious market trend by offering high fat sandwiches. It seems like they don't care too much about the trend, right?

Except look at how the company made this strategic decision: it foresaw that its competitor would offer a variety of healthy (or seemingly healthy) new options, and then "saw an opportunity to find market share in the less health-conscious fast-food segment." So, even though the non-dominant company reacts to the trend in a surprising way, its decision was still a reaction to the trend. Far from being less concerned about the trend, the non-dominant company is highly concerned about the trend, its competitor's reaction to the trend, and how it can use these conditions to increase its market share.

Note: Interpreting (A) to say that the non dominant company was "less concerned with the prevailing market trends as compared to how concerned it was about its competitor's strategy" significantly changes the meaning of the answer choice. The comparison is not between two potential concerns of the non-dominant company, but rather between the two companies' levels of concern about the market trend. Because the decisions of both companies can be tied back to the market trend, we cannot say that the non dominant company was less concerned than the dominant company.

(A) is out.

Now look at (C):

As explained above, the non-dominant company formulated its reaction to the market trend by anticipating what the dominant company would do.

The word "likely" is necessary (or at least not problematic) because of the timeline laid out by the author. While the passage was written after these events took place, the companies made their decisions in the middle of the events themselves. The non-dominant company had to foresee the actions of the dominant company, which inherently adds doubt to their analysis. (C) is the correct answer.

I hope that helps!

This is wrong.

It looks as if you're merely justifying the answer here.

The author doesn't recommend "a new one". He discusses the strategy in P1, gives an example of it in P2, and informs the reader on how to actually implement the strategy - "You can <IMPLEMENT THE STRATEGY I DISCUSSED IN P1> by < DOING THIS> (using a resource based view)."

There's also a typo in the last paragraph - its missing "The".


Q2 - primary purpose
A - is incorrect. Clearly there is no debate nor stand taken.
B - is correct because the last paragraph clearly highlights the purpose. "Your company can <DO THIS TOO!>". I think its fairly presumptuous of this answer choice to label "managers" since "managers" aren't really mentioned anywhere, but the fact the author is mentioning "your company" should be sufficient to indicate some seniority - I actually thought CEO/ Business owner at first.

The general passage goes like this:
P1: discuss a strategy -compare your company to competitors
P2: discuss its application with use of an example
p3: make recommendation to use said strategy and propose a method for incorporating it (Resource based view)

C - false. Two companies are discussed in relation to a market trend as an example of the strategy recommended.
D - the passage doesn't really analyse as much as propose the strategy. To analyse is to really put something under a magnifying glass and review it in some great depth. P1 discusses the strategy briefly, P2 provides an example of this, and P3 recommends a method of implementing this strategy. For this reason, the passage does not analyse the strategy and is thus incorrect.

FYI here's the google definition for analyse:


E - no prevailing beliefs are mentioned and nothing is called into question. Incorrect.

Hi avigutman - i got q2 incorrect. I have not seen how people eliminated B but the primary purpose (per my understanding) why the author got up and wrote this passage is to 'explain' why the author believes the below statement

I, the author, wrote this passage because the I, the author, believe this and i want to tell the world "Why" i say the below statement

^^ Rest of the passage is all about

(P2) giving an example of how you can 'anticipate' your competitor's strategy
(P3) give another way how you can 'anticipate' your competitor's strategy

Thus I eliminated B because of the word 'offer'

To 'offer' recommendations is not the primary purpose

To explain why I, the author, believe this --> is I thought the primary reason.

jabhatta2 If I'm understanding you correctly, you got the sense that the author wrote this passage in order to state and defend his position - to convince others that he's right and they're wrong.
Can you point at the words that gave you that sense?

I got the third question incorrect. I choose option A as the answer to this question. And the reason I did that was because company A responded by introducing a number of high fat products as opposed to the market trends.
So it looked it its response was more dependent on the strategy followed by the dominant company. Which means it was less concerned with prevailing market trends than was its dominant competitor. ( I interpreted this as it was less concerned with the prevailing market trends as compared to how concerned it was about its compitetors strategy)


And for a moment I thought that Answer C was the correct answer choice. But since C used the word likely I rejected the same. The company already knew which strategy its compitetor is following so why use the word likely.

Please let me know where am I going wrong in my reasoning. I am ready to accept that Answer A is a incorrect choice however I need a reason to select choice C. Please guide.[/quote]





"The other, foreseeing this move, saw an opportunity to find market share in the less health-conscious fast-food segment and so introduced high-fat, high-calorie sandwiches supported by aggressive, defiant ads."

the phrase(highlighted text) is followed by the word "foreseeing" meaning anticipating, and that's exactly what option c says, option a&b are just there to confuse you with your interpretation of the passage, but to avoid any confusions remember what the question is, is it asking for your interpretation or is it asking you about what does the passage say, so option c is the closest to what the passage said.