Business
Overview
As a marketing consultant to Tim’s Coffee Shop, the way to determine the brand’s advantage over its competitors is to create a competitive profile matrix or CPM. It is being used to compare the business against its competitors and determine the strength and weaknesses of each company (Hubbard, 2012). For this discussion, Tim’s Coffee Shop will be examined using CPM based on the weight criteria as 1- major weakness, 2- minor weakness, 3 – minor strength, and 4 – major strength. Tim’s coffee shop is located at Sunnydale, Illinois, which is a downtown business district near a large university. Among the biggest competitors in the location are Queequeg’s Coffee, and the international brand Starbucks Coffee.
Competitive Profile Matrix
Based on the the given weight factors, the three coffee shops were analyzed accordingly as shown on the table below
Based on the results of the CPM, it appears that Tim’s coffee shop ranks second only to the international brand Starbucks according. However, on the second CPM scores based on other factors indicated on the table, Tim’s coffee ranked ahead of the Starbucks because of the factors that are percieved as more competitive over the other brands. For example, price, service, social responsibility, and advertising gave Tim’s coffee the highest weighted score of “4”, which encompasses the major strengths of the brand over the rest of the competition. This means that Tim’s coffee is more affordable than the other brands, provides better service, more aggressive advertising strategies, and more engaged in social development activities in the area. The aforementioend strengths provide Tim’s Coffee with better advantage over its competitors.
References
Hubbard, L. (2012). How to Interpret CPM Matrix. Small Business - Chron.com. Retrieved 19 January 2016, from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/interpret-cpm-matrix-77261.html
