Case Study - Cirque Du Soleil 6b6i3t

Case Analysis on Cirque Du Soleil

Cirque Du Soleil started their journey with a dream to entertain people through live shows. They bring uniqueness in the circus, and their uniqueness and innovative ideas differentiate them from others till now even. Guy Laliberte, Gilles Saint-Croix, and Daniel Gauthier founded this new style circus company and they did their first show in 1984 during the 450th Anniversary celebrations of Jacques Cartier’s landing in Canada. They started their journey with a simple vision and goal and that is to entertain people of all kinds through live performance.

Mission: The mission of Cirque Du Soleil is, “To invoke the imagination, provoke the senses and evoke the emotions of people around the world.”

Core Values: 

To uphold the integrity of our creative process;

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To recognize and respect each individual’s contribution to our body of work;

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To extend the limits of the possible;

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To draw our inspiration from artistic and cultural diversities;

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To encourage and promote the potential of youth.

The Things We Are Looking at

Does Cirque Du Soleil have competitive advantages over others?

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Do they need the mega complex?

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How they can remain market leader in future? 1|Page

Case Analysis on Cirque Du Soleil

Sustainable Competitive Advantage Cost Leadership VS. Differentiator From the case we can say that Cirque Du Soleil positioned themselves as a differentiator in the market. They have all the attributes of being as differentiator, such as1. Higher price 2. Innovative features 3. Excellent service 4. Snob appeal

Cirque Du Soleil

Differentiator (Cirque Du Soleil) Average Market Price Differentiator Average Market (Cirque Du Soleil) Price

They have much higher prices than the others in the circus industry, but still because of their ideas, their innovations give them the edge and remain in the market as the differentiator. So they should keep working on the quality and bringing new ideas in their core service, so that people can always identify the value for money.

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Case Analysis on Cirque Du Soleil

Market Scope:

Niche Mixed

Broad

These are three different market scopes. However, Cirque Du Soleil spread their entertainment business in broad market; it’s all over the globe. They have offices in different regions, and they already did 19 shows in over 271 countries. But the problem is they are not specialized in most of the market.

Generic Competitive Positioning:

Cost Leadership

Cost/ Niche

Cost/ Broad

Diff/ Broad Differentiation

Diff/ Niche

(Cirque Du Soleil)

Though they have differentiated market in the industry, and they gain the competitive advantage Niche Broad through differentiation and innovative and quality ideas, apart from that they also spread their 3|Page

Case Analysis on Cirque Du Soleil

shows all over the world. They choose the whole world as their market scope. So they are actually providing differentiated experience in a broad market, and they are doing it in a nice manner.

Heterogeneous market with positive synergies between segments Heterogeneous market with negative synergies between groups of segments and positive synergies within groups.

Homogenous Market Broad

(Cirque Du Soleil)

Focused

Heterogeneous market with negative synergies between segments

One

Several

As we can see they have broad homogenous market in the world. They have wide coverage; doing live performance all over the world, and with only one product offerings and which is live entertainment or circus. It’s a good way to be efficient on the product offering, but we think they should consider different market segments. We can understand all the people around the world like shows of Cirque Du Soleil, but they should bring variations to attract the same customer attending their show again and again.

VRIN Framework: Resources Brand Artist Headquarter Premise Instruments Management Website Experience

Valuable

Rare

Inimitable

Y Y Y

Y Y Y

Y Y N

Nonsubstitutable Y Y Y

Y Y Y Y

N N N Y

N N N N

N N N N

X-Factors: The X-factors of Cirque Du Soleil are shown in graph below: 4|Page

Case Analysis on Cirque Du Soleil

X-factors Efficient Frontier

Infrastructure Affiliation with Government Global Citizenship Brand Creativity & Innovative ideas Minimal

Differetiation Uncompromised Quality Employee Engagement Decentralized Authority Make-up & Costumes Theme

Although from the VRIN Framework we found that most of the resources won’t have the competitive advantage because of not being rare or many of them got imitable by the competitors. But they have several X-factors which ensure the superior performance of Cirque Du Soleil and keep them market leader in the industry. But the challenge is they need to maintain it and they need to come up with new things to maintain it.

Recommendations for Cirque Du Soleil:  Opening up a Circus School: 5|Page

Case Analysis on Cirque Du Soleil

The idea of opening up a school will help to tackle the high turnover rate. Also through this they can monitor all the students over there and can train them according to their needs from their early life. However, Laliberte said the planet is full of talents, but the fact is competition is raising and their competitors are also exploiting these artists from all over the world, so they need to be prepared from now on, so that they can tackle the situations later on.  No Need of Creating Mega Complex: After analyzing the case we figured that they differentiated themselves at lot high scale from their competitors. Their competitors are copying them and they might become a threat in the long future, but at this moment the position Cirque Du Soleil has, is very strong and they don’t need any major investment like this, which is also against their vision.  Opening up a New Research Institute: However the idea of Cirque Du Soleil is always innovative, but competitors are copying it and showing it as well. So they should always need to come up with new ideas frequently, so that customers feel the difference. Also millions of people already watched their shows by now, and to bring them back again to the show, they need to show them different acts and they will find different value at different time. With the help of research institute they can become specialized in the broad market as well.  Using Saltimbanco as Star Product, not Discontinued: Though Saltimbanco is a 10 year old show and the oldest one, but the demand for the show is still growing and it remains as huge source of earning revenue. So they should not discontinue it, besides they can perform this show along with their new shows in the event.

(Total Words: 988 out of 1000.)

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