The story of Avison Young illustrates how crucial a strong business strategy is in a rising company. In less than five years, the company revamped its vision to expand beyond Canada into the States and is already competing alongside international real estate giants.
In last week’s class about business plans and strategies, the concept of sustainable competitive advantage was introduced. Basically, it is an advantage that the company gains when it runs a combination of activities differently relative to competitors. Avison has a sustainable competitive advantage because…
- It is independently owned, not publicly traded or owned by a strong shareholders
- It focuses on the longterm (clients’ needs) over the short term (shareholders’ interest in profit)
- It carefully targets its markets, choosing cities in the US by analyzing their recovery from the recession
- As a new player, the company can enter markets cheaply
Overall, Avison has a clear mission, vision, and objectives with short term implementations that lead to long term approaches at strategy. In addition, it has BGHAGs to compete with large firms like CBRE and Colliers International with a relatively small brand image.
As an interesting thought, would Avison have had as much success if a Canadian CEO had taken over instead of an American one? Is Avison’s combination of Canadian roots with an American CEO confusing to consumers?