American Express

2.1_)

In regard of positioning by determining a competitive frame of reference both the major industry and market competitors include Visa and MasterCard The major competitors in The American Express is in the third place, the first two are Visa and MasterCard in the business of charge cards, travel services, and financial services. It’s well positioned because it has been around longer then its competition and it’s the only company with a strong, global presence across the entire payments chain. The most competition American Express faces is the transaction volumes of other competitors, like Visa and MasterCard. Their clients are primarily banks and financial institutions, known as issuers, who issue cards bearing the Visa logo to their customers. They have large transaction volumes and it is not exposed any credit risk.

During the 1980s the company expanded into a variety of financial categories, but faced problems in integrating them so it divested them and started to focus on its core competencies in early 90s. To commute to this transformation the company worked under the tagline of "Do More" and it started to increase its merchants that accept its cards. It also rebranded its Small Business Services and added more benefits. It even introduced two revolutionary new credit cards, Blue and Centurion Black. The company needs to seriously evaluate it's competitors marketing strategy as they have time and again turned on the pressure either by taking ownership of latest consumer trend or by creating a more profitable "priceless" ad campaign. Moreover apart from positioning the wealthier few it should target more.

With the competitors taking away the ownership of latest consumer trends and gaining popularity with 'priceless' ad campaigns the company needs to target and grow beyond its core affluent consumer base. Analysis show that company grew too fast from 2005-2007 and was therefore hit seriously during the time of recession when the global economy collapsed. The company had changed its core strategy of targeting wealthier, low risk consumers with a prestigious brand and valuable rewards in order to increase its total number of card members. Its newer products, which allowed consumers to carry over a balance and pay only the interest, came back to hurt the company to the bottom line during the age of turbulence. A company must secure its market share from the