Assignment:
When reading through the chapter thinking about competitive strategies, I found that one stood out to me. The idea of horizontal integration which is when a firm seeks ownership or increased control over their competitors. This was very present in my previous job with Office Depot. Over the course of the 4 years that I worked with the company, Office Depot merged with their competitor OfficeMax creating a large company. The reason they were allowed to merge was because there was still enough competitors to keep the companies from creating a monopoly. When Office Depot and OfficeMax merged the companies had to solidify their image into one company in the eyes of the consumers.
This took the remaining time that I worked with the company for customers to finally understand that the two companies were the same. Recently in 2015 office supply giant, Staples wanted to buyout Office Depot. This strategy would have left only small departments in larger multi-item stores as well as the internet as the competitions for the companies. So this deal was denied by the Federal Trade Commission. I do think that the strategy of Office Depot aquiring OfficeMax was a good deal for the company. The reason for this is that brand recogntion would be strong between the two companies because people had already been getting them confused. Also, with both companies having stores within a couple miles of each other it would allow for the companies to reduce their footprint of stores in an area thus cutting cost. This also eliminated a major competitor for Office Depot because now both brand names are making money for the company.