Competitive Strategy and Digital Business Strategy
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Competitive Strategy
H&M's primary competitive strategy in the global market combines elements of cost leadership with differentiation. The company's fast-fashion business model is centred around outsourcing new designs to multiple independent suppliers. These suppliers produce small batches of H&M products throughout the year, which allows the brand to promptly launch apparel collections that align with the latest fashion trends.
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Digital Business Strategy
Developing a business digital strategy requires a fusion of existing approaches to business, marketing, supply chain management and information system strategy development (Chaffey, Hemphill and Edmundson-Bird, 2019).
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H&M Group's New Growth & Ventures is focused on creating new ways to generate revenue and develop business models through partnerships and investments. This initiative targets both new and established businesses that can grow quickly. It aims to engage customers in innovative ways while adding value and promoting sustainable development (H&M Group, 2023).
A prime example is Creator Studio, which is a user-friendly platform for designing and producing high-quality merchandise with digital printing and e-commerce integration. (H&M Group, 2023).
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Recommendations
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Implementing next-day and express delivery options would be a great opportunity to enhance H&M's online services. These options would allow customers to receive their purchases more quickly than the current standard delivery time of 3 to 5 working days.
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To promote sustainability, H&M should widely adopt climate-conscious delivery options, allowing customers to receive and return items via bicycle delivery, thus reducing CO2 emissions. In Sweden, Norway, and parts of Germany, deliveries are also made to climate-friendly lockers.