As a newly promoted vice president (VP), your chief executive officer (CEO) has invited you to participate in this year's upcoming strategic planning session. You know that this will be high-level type planning versus the more routine type planning you have done in the past. To prepare for this, you have done some research and noted the generic strategies model (cost leadership, differentiation, and focus) in a lot of the strategic-planning literature.

Using the Generic Strategies model, complete the following requirements:

· Identify and describe 3 retail firms.

· Note which of the 3 broad strategies that each firm seems to have chosen (low-cost producer, niche supplier, or differentiation strategy).

· Identify at least 2 specific tactics that each of the three employ to support your opinion of their method of competing.

· Do the tactics you cited seem to be working? On what evidence can you base your answer?