...Chapter 8 Summary Strategic Management: It is what managers do to develop an organization’s strategies, a task that involves all the basic managements functions (Planning, Organizing, Leading and Controlling), they are plans that set how a company is going to do things, in order to compete successfully, and how to satisfy customers. Business model is a term usually used in strategic management and basically what it means is how the company is going to make profit, to achieve that they should focus on two things: 1) are the customers going to value what the company is providing, 2) will the company make money from doing this service or product? Why do some businesses fail while others succeed, even though they both share the same product and same environmental conditions? That’s because of whether a company uses strategic management or not, studies shows that performance is positively linked to the relation between strategic planning and performance. Strategic planning also minimizes uncertainty when a company is facing continual changing situations, and another reason is that companies are complex and diverse so finding a way for each department to reach the organization’s goal is essential. The Strategic Management Process: -Identifying the organization’s current mission, goals and strategies: Mission: A statement of the purpose of an organization. Goal: It sets what the organization should achieve and it sets standards for measuring performance...
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...Q1. Briefly describe the four management functions. Managers perform certain functions while directing the activities of other people working in the organization. Henri Fayol a French industrialist proposed that all managers perform five management activities: plan, organize, command, coordinate, and control. Now they are evolved to four functions: 1. Planning Planning is a primary management function because it establishes the basis for all other things managers do as they lead, organize and control. Planning includes * defining goals * establishing strategy, and * developing plans to integrate and coordinate the required activities 2. Organizing Organizing is the management function that creates the organization’s structure. This process involves making decisions about * how specialized jobs should be, * the rules to guide employees’ behaviours, and * at what level decisions are to be made 3. Leading According to this management function it’s part of a manager’s job to direct and coordinate the work activities of people. Leading includes * motivating employees * directing the activities of others, * selecting the most effective communication channel and * resolving conflicts among members 4. Controlling This fourth and last management function involves monitoring activities * to ensure that they’re being accomplished as planned and * correcting any significant deviations Q2. Briefly list and describe...
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...games in UK market from the perspective of marketing 2.0 Aims and objectives: 1. Obtain a preliminary understanding of the target market environment of SONY (1) Understand the basic development conditions of the UK game market. Is it a mature market or an emerging one? (2) Understand SONY's main products in the UK game market. Is there a market for lower-end video game products of SONY? (3) Understand the sales of SONY’s video game in 2013 in the UK. Is it impressive in the industry today? (4) Understand the conditions of main contenders of SONY. Compare the sales between SONY and its main competitors in 2013. (5) Understand the market share of the low-end video games developed by SONY in the UK. Is there a market for it? What kind of consumers prefer to buy such products? 2. Analyze the establishment of a viable product marketing mix of SONY in the low-end market from the perspective of 4P marketing theory. Price (1) What is the consumer expected price (2) What pricing strategy is appropriate for SONY (3) Estimate whether the product can bring profit Product (1) How to position a suitable product to meet market demand (2) How to increase the competitiveness of the products with an outstanding product concept. Place and promotion (1) How to select ideal sales locations to boost sales (2) What promotional tools would be appropriate? Through the answers to the first part of questions, it can be known that whether there are opportunities in the low-end market, what kind...
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...Question One: Strategic Management Process Strategic management is the process of clearly defining an organizations objective and assessing both its internal and external situation and formulating strategies, implementing the strategies, evaluating progress and making adjustments as may be necessary to ensure the organization stay on track. It is a method organizations use to conceive and implement a strategy that can lead to a sustainable competitive advantage. Through strategic management organizations establish goals and objectives, formulate actions (strategies) designed to meet these objectives in the desired timescales, implement the actions and assess progress and results. The process is a systematic or emerged way of performing strategic planning in organizations, through analysis, strategy formulation, its implementation and evaluation. The strategic management process model chosen by a company will depend on the organization’s culture, leadership style, and the experience the firm has in creating successful strategies. The components of a strategic management planning process fall in five main categories: initial assessment, strategic analysis, strategy formulation, implementation and monitoring. At the initial assessment phase the organization needs to identify its mission and vision. The vision will help the managers visualize the company’s future, managers will be able to know where they want to go and what they want to achieve. It is the ultimate goal for the firm...
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...be factors within the control of the firm. Opportunities (O) and Threats (T) are external factors over which the firm has essentially no control. It is the most prominent tool for assessing and analyzing the overall strategic position of the business and its environment. Its main purpose is to ascertain the strategies that will create a firm specific business model that will best align an organization’s resources and capabilities to the requirements of the operating environment. It is the foundation for evaluating the internal potential and limitations and the likely opportunities and threats from the external environment. It examines all positive and negative factors inside and outside the firm that will affect its success. A steady analysis of the environment in which the firm operates aids in predicting the changing trends and includes them in the decision-making process of the organization. If accurately applied, information gained through SWOT analysis can be utilized by the firm to determine its most desirable options in matching its resources (strengths and weaknesses) to the external environment (opportunities and threats) and in formulating long-term and short-term objectives, annual goals and grand strategies. Internal Environment Analyzing an organization's internal environment is the third aspect of assessing the strategic situation. This environment includes the values and...
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...a lot to do with technical and specific information. “Strategic marketing means looking at the whole of a company’s portfolio of products and markets, and managing the portfolio to achieve the company’s overall goals”. (Jain, 1987). “ Strategic marketing as seen as a process consisting of:analyzing environmental, market competitive and business factors affecting the corporation and its business units,identifying market opportunities and threats and forecasting future trends in business areas of interest for the enterprise ,and participating in setting objectives and formulating corporate and business unit strategies. Selecting market target strategies for the productmarkets in each business unit, establishing marketing objectives as well as developing, implementing and managing the marketing program positioning strategies in order to meet market target needs”. (Drucker, 1973) Its role is to direct the firm or company towards attractive economic opportunities. The opportunities that are adapted to resources and knowledge and offer a potential for growth and profitability. Strategic marketing includes the way to reach the customers with products and services. It provides competitive advantage by considering segmentation, branding, marketing messages, and positioning. With segmentation, firm can concentrate specifically to particular market as per their buying behavior or lifestyle. As a result, it saves time and money that could be wasted on marketing blindly. The 4 P’s of strategic...
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...gathering information from stakeholders, market players, professional entity, and government agency. The purpose of gathering information is formulating a realistic and a workable framework that any organization can implement and work with. Evaluation of information is a key aspect in determine the kind of plans that the organization wish to a chive over certain a period. Strategic planning ensures the implementation is, crafted well, and parties involved be acquitted with it. Developing a good Strategic plan helps a company to implement its missions and visions effectively, and helps the company to evaluate its weakness and asset (Pearson & Robinson, 2011). Proposed Research Outline of Application 1. Executive summary, this should include brief and exact information on objectives and hypothesis of Strategic planning. 2. Purpose of the document the aim of this is to give the reader of the research the idea and aims of formulating this document. It should include the purpose intended to be use. 3. Specific goals for Strategic planning, the basic achievement of the Strategic planning and research intends to achieve. 4. Understanding Strategic planning, this should show how the cycle of Strategic planning works and how effective it should be. 5. Cycle of Strategic planning and development, is coming up this certain targets set in a way that facilitates growth and development of an organization. 6. Collecting and analyzing information from various sources to facilitate...
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...introduction to management Prof: William Whitle Unit 2: Macro environment Name: KAlsayed Date: 09-08-2012 THE MACROENVIRONMENT The general environment; includes governments, economic conditions, and other fundamental factors that generally affect all organizations (Brady, 2009). The changes in the macro-environment are not affecting firm’s day-to-day operations, but they are important for the continuous of the business and for being healthy. The main factors making up these macro-environmental forces fall into the below groups. 1. Political and legal factors: Whatever industry the firm is involved in, changes in the political and legal environments at both the domestic and international levels can affect the company and therefore needs to be fully understood 2. Economic factors: Economic factors are of highly importance for any firm because they are likely to influence the demands, costs, prices and profits. These economic factors are out of control of the individual firm but it highly affects and directly affects any firm. 3. Social and cultural factors: Societal trends regarding how people think and behave have major implications for management of the labor force, corporate social actions, and strategic decisions about products and markets (Brady, 2009). 4. Technological factors: Technology is a major macro-environmental variable which has influenced the development of many of the products we take for granted today. Marketing firms themselves...
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...Glossary | | Chapter 1 | | Autonomous Action | Action taken by lower-level managers who, on their own initiative, formulate new strategies and work to persuade top-level managers to alter the strategic priorities of a company. | Business Unit | A self-contained division that provides a product or service for a particular market. | Cognitive Biases | Systematic errors in human decision making that arise from the way people process information. | Competitive Advantage | The advantage over rivals achieved when a company’s profitability is greater than the average profitability of all firms in its industry. | Devil’s Advocacy | A technique in which one member of a decision-making group acts as a devil’s advocate, bringing out all the considerations that might make the proposal unacceptable. | Dialectic Inquiry | The generation of a plan (a thesis) and a counterplan (an antithesis) that reflect plausible but conflicting courses of action. | Emergent Strategies | Strategies that “emerge” in the absence of planning. | Escalating Commitment | A cognitive bias that occurs when decision makers, having already committed significant resources to a project, commit even more resources after receiving feedback that the project is failing. | Functional Managers | Managers responsible for supervising a particular function—that is, a task, activity, or operation, like accounting, marketing, Research & Development, information technology, or logistics...
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...Apple Inc. is a very successful producer of computer software and hardware that leads in its competitive industry. To evaluate the progress, success, and faults of the company, the SWOT analysis is used. SWOT analysis stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat for a particular organization, which can help in formulating a strategy for its business and can also help in analyzing its internal environment (Strengths & Weakness) and external environment (Opportunities & Threats). First of all, according to the article “Apple Inc. : Services - Company Profile, SWOT & Financial Report”, the author states that strong R&D capabilities and great brand image are the biggest strengths of the company. Apple’s strength relies on focusing Research and Development, “In the last three years, the company invested more than $7,592m in research and development. The R&D team of the company executed several projects to enhance and develop various products and technologies.” (“Apple Inc. : Services - Company Profile, SWOT & Financial Report” 19). R&D helps the company to create innovative products and stand out from its competitors. Apple expenditure trend shows that the money spent for R&D increases year after year. Apple’s return of investment on R&D paid off with innovative products and with company’s revenues. Moreover, Apple’s brand image is highly recognizable and holds brand awareness to the majority of consumers. This solid brand image can increase the sales of the new products compared...
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...art and science of formulating, implementing, and evaluating cross-functional decisions that enable an organization to achieve its objectives .Strategic management is used synonymously with the term strategic planning. Sometimes the term strategic management is used to refer to strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation, with strategic planning referring only to strategy formulation. Defining Strategic Management- A strategic plan is a company’s game plan. A strategic plan results from tough managerial choices among numerous good alternatives, and it signals commitment to specific markets, policies, procedures, and operations. Stages of Strategic Management = (strategy formulation, strategy implementation, Strategy Evaluations) Strategy formulation - Includes developing a vision and mission, identifying an organization’s external opportunities and threats, determining internal strengths and weaknesses, establishing long-term objectives, generating alternative strategies, and choosing particular strategies to pursue. Strategy Formulation Deciding what new businesses to enter what businesses to abandon How to allocate resources whether to expand operations or diversify Whether to enter international markets whether to merge or form a joint venture How to avoid a hostile takeover Strategy implementation -- requires a firm to establish annual objectives, devise policies, motivate employees, and allocate resources so that formulated strategies can be executed, often...
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...Overview Strategy: set of related actions that managers take to increase their company’s performance -for most, if not all companies, achieving superior performance relative to rivals is the ultimate challenge -if a company’s strategies result in superior performance, it is said to have a competitive advantage -Ex: Dell’s strategies produced superior performance from mid-1990s until mid-2000s, as a result, Dell enjoyed competitive advantage over its rivals -How did they achieve competitive advantage? -due to successful pursuit of varying strategies: Direct selling, customization and efficient supply chain mgmt. -enabled company to lower cost structure, charge low prices, gain market share, and become more profitable than its rivals -Dell lost competitive advantage in later half of 2000s HP offered bundled products, needed to find ways to sell to intermediaries & Apple differentiation -first step toward achieving objective is to describe in more detail what superior performance/competitive adv mean and to explain pivotal role that managers play in leading strategy-making process Strategic Leadership: creating competitive adv through effective mgmt. of the strategy-making process -strat-making process is the process by which managers select/implement a set of strategies that ain to achieve a competitive adv Strategy Formulation: selecting strategies based on analysis of an org’s external/internal environment Strategy Implementation: putting strategies into...
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...CVS Web Strategy Case Analysis Brandon Matthews 9/30/2009 1 Overview Introduction Consumer Value Stores, better known as CVS opened its doors in 1963 as a health and beauty supply store in Massachusetts. Since then it has evolved to one of the largest retail pharmacy chains in North America. In 1999, CVS was faced with a new business strategy. It appeared that there was a lot of traffic on Wall Street involving online pharmacies. The consumer and stakeholder demand for a strategic web presence for companies, with no exception of pharmacy giants like CVS, pressured the executives to implement a business strategy of incorporating its pharmaceutical retail services with the web. Helena Foulkes, Vice President of Marketing at CVS, was charged with ensuring that this new business strategy succeeded. CVS acquired a web company, Soma.com whose entire business strategy was similar to what CVS was attempting to achieve. Foulkes was faced with critical strategic challenges in transforming their new Information Technology (IT) initiative, Soma.com, to CVS.com. In this paper, we will introduce the retail pharmacy industry and its protagonists, achieve a bird’s eye view of CVS’s organizational structure, understand who CVS’s customers and competitors are, introduce the term Alignment Link in terms of overall strategy, implement the SWOT analysis tool to gauge ...
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...a small container shop. It started with the production of shampoo and liquid soap. This performed very well on the market giving the edge to produce more. Two years after ATQ came out with it hair relaxes for both adults and children, popularly known as soft and beautiful. It gradually introduced different ranges of cosmetics to suit all category of people on the market. It produce very affordable products to suit the market. It currently has a work force of 35, producing for both the local market and international market. It has trucks and van used for deliveries to the major wholesalers in town. Reasons for Conducting Marketing Research for ATQ Cosmetics There is the need for market research to be conducted by every business and this should not be a onetime activity. Most businesses that do succeed conduct research on continual basis to know the market trends and to maintain a competitive edge. This is necessary regardless of whether the business is now starting or an existing business. This enables the business to understand its target market. Firstly the research is being conducted to know the people using the products. This will enable the company know the demographic characteristics of the people using the product. If the products are used mainly by children or within a certain age bracket, this will enable the company to better strategies for the market. It will also help to know the location of the buyers to know whether to provide delivery channels. The educational...
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...INTRODUCTION Defining Strategic Planning - Overview Strategic management can be defined as the art and science of formulating, implementing, and evaluating cross-functional decisions that enable an organization to achieve its objectives. As this definition implies, strategic management focuses on integrating management, marketing, finance/accounting, production/operations, research and development, and information systems to achieve organizational success. The term strategic management in this text is used synonymously with the term strategic planning. The latter term is more often used in the business world, whereas the former is often used in academia. Sometimes the term strategic management is used to refer to strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation, with strategic planning referring only to strategy formulation. The purpose of strategic management is to exploit and create new and different opportunities for tomorrow; long-range planning, in contrast, tries to optimize for tomorrow the trends of today. Strategic management can also be termed as a bundle of decisions and actions which a manager should undertake and one that can decide the results of a firm’s performance. A manager must have a thorough knowledge and analysis of the general and competitive organizational environment in order to make the right decisions. The management should conduct a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats). They should make out the possible utilization...
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