Comparison of First Mover Advantage and Late Mover Advantage

The managers of your company are deciding whether to develop a brand new product not yet seen in the marketplace or a version of a competitor's product that has already been launched into the marketplace.

Management has called a meeting to discuss which way to go. They want to know if they should follow the "first-mover" theory or "late-mover" theory. You have been assigned the task to develop a neat and organized report for this meeting that will give evidence that describes and discusses either supports or disagrees with these theories.

As a new consultant, you really don't know much about the company involved, the potential products that the managers want to discuss in their meeting, nor the personalities of the managers who will be attending the meeting. The very best that you can really do within the given scenario is to thoroughly and factually explore both of these theories in your report as input for their discussion during the remainder of the meeting.

I need to provide an unbiased comparison of the two theories.

1. Identify at least four advantages and four disadvantages for each theory and comprehensively show how each advantage or disadvantage affects the use of that theory (a minimum of 16 pros/cons in all).

2. Identify at least four examples of real firms who have been successful and four examples of real firms who have been failures using each theory (a minimum of 16 real firms in all).

3. Provide a definitive and unbiased recommendation of which theory to use. You should provide the specific attributes which constitute the most advantageous context in which the chosen theory operates and justify your recommendation with researched support, logic and examples.

Require a minimum of three (3) however, make sure to use a minimum of at least three (3) scholarly sources as well. I MUST include a reference list. All research should be cited in the body of the paper. The report should contain an abstract, a short introduction, and conclusion in addition to the body of the paper. Please note that if you have a source in your reference section, you need to cite it in the body of the paper per APA guidelines and vice-versa.

Objective: The Objective of this work will involve the following the Course Outcomes:

-Discuss the opportunities provided by technology for businesses.
-Identify examples of good and bad business practices in the use of strategy design components.
-Apply critical thinking skills to analyze business situations.
-Use effective communication techniques.