...Business-Level and Corporate Level Strategies General Motors (GM) is a public company based in the United States that is headquartered in Detroit, Michigan. In the year 2011, the company was able to acquire the title of the largest automaker in the world by achieving the highest number of vehicle unit sales since inception (General Motors, 2012). General Motors led global automobile unit sales for 77 consecutive years from 1931 through 2007; however, the company lost its position to Toyota, which has continued to dominate the market with GM standing at second. The core competencies of a corporate corporation are focused on ensuring that the business entity is able to satisfy the needs and preferences of their customers. This stands as the main determinant in realizing above average returns especially in a highly competitive business environment. This is achieved through business level strategies, which are strategies that outline the various actions to be taken in order to ensure that the company is able to provide value to its customers in addition to gaining the critical competitive advantage by utilizing its core competencies in specific, service markets or individual products. Business level strategy therefore pertains to the corporation’s firm position in its operating industry compared to its main competitors and the five forces of competition. One of the fundamental business level strategies that General Motors has employed is cost leadership. The company has...
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...lifestyle/boutique, signature, select services and extended stay. Marriott own chains such as Marriott Hotels & Resorts, Courtyard by Marriott, Residents Inn, Fairfield Inn, and Marriott Vacation Club International, BVLGARI, The Ritz Carlton just to name a few. The commonality between all of the properties that Marriott International owns is that they all have a clear business-level strategy that allows them to focus on particular customer groups. Analyze the business strategies for the corporation you chose to determine the business level strategy you think is most important to the long –term success of the firm and whether or not you judge this to be a good choice. Justify your opinion. Marriott business strategies vary depending on the lodging segment. Examples include the Residents Inn is focused on customers that need amenities that go beyond the average but allow the traveler to have a sense of freedom, like they are at home or the Marriott Vacation Club International, which is classified as a luxury timeshare operation. The Fairfield Inn chain is currently using a focused cost leadership business-level strategy. In Fairfield Inns, there are several things that allow the Marriott Company to control cost and offer accommodations at a reduced rate to customers. There are usually no full-scale restaurants within in the main hotel. This means that the company does not have to employ staff to run it, which is costly to the bottom line. Also, the company uses value linens and furnishings...
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...restaurants in the fast food industry serving around 68 million people daily, in over 118 countries. McDonald’s has a loyal based of customers who have been patronizing the establishment for many years, operated by a franchise agent, an affiliate or the corporation. McDonald’s business strategies has been said to be the best in the fast food industry, maintaining cost leadership while producing dependable food with great service. Today we see McDonald’s in a mature industry that uses product proliferation to meet many needs in the fast food industry while deterring new entrants (Hill and Jones, 205). McDonald’s prides their strategy by setting the standards with their products and within the industry as well. I feel that the strategy McDonald’s incorporates within the company is the best for them, setting the standard to be the best in the industry promotes the necessary competitive edge needed to ensure the company continues to delivery its winning edge products that keeps customers loyal to the name. McDonald’s is also known for their child meal concepts selling hamburgers French fries soft drinks breakfast items chicken sandwiches and deserts. McDonald’s business level strategy also responds to the competitive dynamics of the industry by innovating new products, such as the Snack Wrap, market penetration, such as into the...
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...CHAPTER 6 Corporate-Level Strategies Learning Objectives CONTENTS After reading this chapter, you should be able to: Introduction 1. Understand corporate strategy and identify its components. Corporate Strategy 2. Evaluate and identify different approaches to corporate strategy development. The Portfolio Approach 3. Understand how organisations can create and sustain the multibusiness advantage. Corporate Strategy and Adding Value 4. Appreciate how different corporate strategies could add value to a corporation. 5. Appreciate the complexities of developing corporate strategy at the international level. The Core Competence Approach Creating and Sustaining the Multibusiness Advantage Corporate-Level Strategy in the International Perspective Summary Study Questions References and Further Readings 109 110 CHAPTER 6: Corporate-Level Strategies Opening Case The case study organisation is one of the largest international hotel chains operating in more than one hundred countries with its internationally recognised brands. However, the company does not have a culturally diverse workforce at the senior level. It usually recruits executives to the key decision-making positions either from the United Kingdom or the United States. In this respect, it is defined as Anglo-Saxon. Some people argue that the company should get the best from other nationalities involved in the development of an organisation’s strategy. Different...
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...Chapter 10 – Increasing Profitability through Diversification CORPORATE LEVEL STRATEGY ARTICLE SYNOPSIS References/ Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/arieladams/2013/03/14/montblanc-on-how-to-be-a-luxury-brand-for-many/ Ariel Adams is an Author and a Forbes Contributor Just to tell you a little about him, he covers both timepieces and other luxury items that interest him, such as cars and technology. He states that he has an unshakable interest in wrist watches mixed with a passion for curiosity afforded him the opportunity to make them his career. He has spent a lot of his time traveling internationally to Europe to meet with esteemed watch makers and to get a hands-on look at many of the rare and interesting timepieces and items he both loves and write’s about. CEO of Montblanc is Lutz Bethge The reason why Adams interviewed Mr. Lutz Bethge was due to the fact that he was curious how he maintained this strong image while diversify its products line that ranges from pens and watches to leather goods and fragrances, while still offering something for customers at the very top. Here is just a little of what Mr. Bethge had to say in reference to that: CEO Lutz Bethge states his company’s strategy for successfully diversifying its product line with new categories such as leather goods and timepieces, was due to the fact that they could rely on the trust of our customers, who believed in Montblanc as a brand that provided not only excellence in its core category...
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...Professor Rufus Robinson Assignment 3: Business-Level and Corporate-Level Strategies Business 499 February 17, 2014 The business that I chose to research is General Electric. GE is one of the oldest and largest businesses in the United States. They are ranked #26 largest firm in the U.S and the 14th most profitable. GE is a massive, diversified and profitable conglomerate with a lot of very good but unrelated businesses. GE has expanded to incorporate television, airplane engines, medical devices, household appliances and commercial financing. Analyzing GE’s business-level strategy is somewhat difficult being that GE has so many different divisions. Any of these products would serve as a large and viable business on its own but GE has them all under one corporate umbrella. GE’s business level strategy states “GE is building the world by providing capital, expertise and infrastructure for a global economy. GE Capital has provided billions in financing so businesses can build and grow their operations and consumers can build their financial futures. We build appliances, lighting, power systems and other products that help millions of homes, offices, factories and retail facilities around the world work better.” Figure 1 GE’s Organizational Structure and Business Portfolio. 2001 Figure 2 GE’s Organizational Structure and Business Portfolio. 2007 What is most important to the long-term success of GE is long term growth and investing in innovative opportunities...
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...Business-Level and Corporate-Level Strategies – Ford Motor Company Strayer University BUS499, 14 February 2016 Business-Level and Corporate-Level Strategies – Ford Motor Company It all began in 1896 when Henry Ford built the Quadricycle that rode on four bicycle wheels, operated by a four-horsepower engine with only two forward gears and no reverse ability. Henry soon joined a group that founded the Detroit Automobile Company but left within one year and would soon incorporate the Ford Motor Company with 12 investors and 1,000 shares in 1903. The Ford Model A was the first car sold on July 23, 1903 (http://www.corporate.ford.com). Ford Motor Company has endured many challenges during its 113 years in business. Altering business strategies and staying competitive have not been easy against other car companies, however they have overcome and are focusing on the One Ford Plan (One Team, One Plan, and One Goal) and their vision for future success. 1. Business Level Strategy The business level strategy deployed by Ford Motors is the cost leadership strategy, which puts emphasis on operating at lower costs, but not essentially offering the lowest prices in the market (Haines 2004). Therefore, a firm can use such a position to reduce its prices in order to increase its market share or maintain the current prices and increase its revenue per unit items compared to its competitors. The principal idea of the low cost strategy is that cost and prices are not dependent, and the...
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...Question 1. Discuss the three levels of strategic decision making with reference to an organisation of your choice. Solution Strategic decision-making is the process of developing and putting into action choices that will influence the long-term welfare of the organization. Strategic decisions are the decisions that are concerned with whole environment in which the firm operates, the entire resources and the people who form the company and the interface between the two. These choices often involve major organizational changes and large resource commitments that are difficult to reverse once they are implemented. Strategic decision-making reflects decision makers’ experience, the positions they occupy and their organizational environment. Work on improving strategic decision-making has focused on the content of decision outcomes and the process that produces these outcomes. Strategic decision-making takes place within a context defined by the organization’s strategy and varies according to the extent to which this strategy is a deliberate, as opposed to an emergent, process. The decision-making hierarchy of a firm typically contains three levels,the corporate level, business level and the functional level. The corporate level, composed principally of a board of directors and the chief executive and administrative officers. In a multi business firm, corporate-level executives determine the businesses in which the firm should be involved. Corporate-level strategic managers attempt...
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...Functional-level strategies. Functional level strategies are more concerned with monitoring the working areas of the corporation; this can be something as simple as focusing on products and services or even the design and marketing. Functional strategies are more day-to-day operations and sales that are small pictures within the big picture of the corporate strategies. There are many functional level strategies that Air Industries Group uses; one of them is predominantly concerned with the efficiently in staging a specialist within the functional areas where critical levels need to be monitored to keep the overall goal on task. Another strategy on a functional level is questioning the activities within the functional areas for projections and proficiencies. These questions can be such as “think local, act local strategies”, this translate to understanding the products being offered are tailored to customers within the area or within the country. In this case it would be the United States Armed Forces for military aircraft, which makes a majority of the sales. Air Industries Group functional level strategies are divided into the four groups that are all centrally located in Long Island New York. This allows an ease of control due to the overall divisional locations from each other. When strategizing on the functional level, Air Industries Group uses the product targeting strategy separate for each division such as Air Industries Machining Corp. focuses their divisional strategies...
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...* Corporate level strategy is the overall strategy for a diversified organisation or company. It is usually concerned with a mix of businesses that the company should compete in and also the ways on which individual strategy units are integrated and co-ordinated. * Functional strategy- selection of decision rules in each functional area. Thus, functional strategies in any organization, some (e.g.,marketing strategy, financial strategy, etc.). It is desirable that they have been fixed in writing. Hierarchical Levels of Strategy Strategy can be formulated on three different levels: * corporate level * business unit level * functional or departmental level. While strategy may be about competing and surviving as a firm, one can argue that products, not corporations compete, and products are developed by business units. The role of the corporation then is to manage its business units and products so that each is competitive and so that each contributes to corporate purposes. Consider Textron, Inc., a successful conglomerate corporation that pursues profits through a range of businesses in unrelated industries. Textron has four core business segments: * Aircraft - 32% of revenues * Automotive - 25% of revenues * Industrial - 39% of revenues * Finance - 4% of revenues. While the corporation must manage its portfolio of businesses to grow and survive, the success of a diversified firm depends upon its ability to manage each of its product lines...
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...Strategic Management - An Introduction Strategic Management is all about identification and description of the strategies that managers can carry so as to achieve better performance and a competitive advantage for their organization. An organization is said to have competitive advantage if its profitability is higher than the average profitability for all companies in its industry. Strategic management can also be defined as a bundle of decisions and acts which a manager undertakes and which decides the result of the firm’s performance. The manager must have a thorough knowledge and analysis of the general and competitive organizational environment so as to take right decisions. They should conduct a SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats), i.e., they should make best possible utilization of strengths, minimize the organizational weaknesses, make use of arising opportunities from the business environment and shouldn’t ignore the threats. Strategic management is nothing but planning for both predictable as well as unfeasible | | |contingencies. It is applicable to both small as well as large organizations as even the smallest organization face competition and, by formulating| |and implementing appropriate strategies, they can attain sustainable competitive advantage. | Strategic Management is a way in which strategists set the objectives and proceed about attaining them. It deals with making...
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...FROM ‘STRATEGY’ TO ‘CORPORATE COMMUNICATION STRATEGY’: A CONCEPTUALISATION Paper delivered at the 9th International Public Relations Research Symposium, held at Lake Bled from 4-7 July, 2002 Benita Steyn APR Lecturer Dept of Marketing and Communication Management Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences University of Pretoria SOUTH AFRICA 0002 (27 12) 420-4040 w (27 12) 362-5085 fax bsteyn@hakuna.up.ac.za TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. 2. 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 INTRODUCTION DEFINITION OF TERMS CORPORATE COMMUNICATION PUBLIC RELATIONS STRATEGY STAKEHOLDERS AND PUBLICS 1 1 1 1 2 2 3. APPROACHES TO THE ROLE OF BUSINESS IN SOCIETY AS A METATHEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 THE SHAREHOLDER APPROACH THE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY/ETHICAL APPROACH THE CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIVENESS APPROACH THE CORPORATE SOCIAL PERFORMANCE APPROACH THE STAKEHOLDER APPROACH THE ISSUES APPROACH THE ‘CORPORATE COMMUNITY’ APPROACH CONCLUSION 2 2 2 3 3 3 4 5 6 4. STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AS A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 6 6 8 8 8 9 9 10 11 11 11 11 11 11 12 12 12 12 13 13 13 14 14 14 14 15 4.1 STRATEGY AS THE MAJOR CONCEPT 4.2 THE CONTEXT OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT 4.3 THE LEVELS OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT 4.3.1 Enterprise strategy 4.3.2 Corporate strategy 4.3.3 Business-unit strategy 4.3.4 Functional strategy 4.3.5 Operational strategy 4.3.6 Conclusion 4.4 THE PROCESS OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT 4.4.1 Environmental analysis 4.4.2 Goal formulation 4.4.3 Strategic thinking and...
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...Business-Level and Corporate-Level Strategies Christie Jones Christopher Zapalski Business Admin. Capstone 5-15-15 I am going to be discussing about corporate and business level strategies for C Company. The paper will also talk about valuing the organization, long-term success, differences in fast and slow cycle. C company was an organization in which they gather, valid, electronic data, automat collections, and retrieval system. The company develop and design, personal computer, electronics and software. They have had success and continue to do so. The business strategy for the company is cost leadership. They want to have success and ensure the competitiveness. C company has a competitive edge with products and prices. They also care about the business – level strategy by success, cost efficiency, and sustainability make this company part of who they are. Differentiation is another business-level strategy. They try and provide different characterizations and features for their products. They would make it low cost while still having high quality products. This all can be done with teho features, image, products reviews and features of the products etc, Theses business-level strategies would help have service, quality of control with production, cost of sales, develop and research, and a place where they could advance the arts that go into the products if you know what I mean. You need business level as well as corporate-level strategy for a company...
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...Introduction : Strategy and Strategic Management What is Strategy? Strategy is a plan, some kind of course of action which is deliberately taken, a protocol or set of protocols, to handle a situation. Strategy has a host of definitions in various fields. In management terms it can be a collective, comprehensive and organised plan. “Strategy can be seen as a multi-dimensional concept that embraces all of the critical activities of the firm, providing it with a sense of unity, direction and purpose, as well as facilitating the necessary changes induced by its environment”., Hax and Majluf (1991,p.2) The above definition by the authors proclaims that strategy is multi–dimensional and clings together all the resources and efforts in aiding the firm to bring about changes forced by the environment. Although the statement speaks about strategy being multi-dimensional, it is very general. According to Johnson, Scholes & Whittington (2009:3) Strategy is “the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term, which achieves advantage in a changing environment through its configuration of resources and competences with the aim of fulfilling stakeholder expectations”. The definition above gives a better understanding of the term strategy than the one given Hax and Majluf. The statement by Johnson, Scholes & Whittington (2009:3) accords with the significance of direction and scope of the firm and also that strategy is a long term plan. Consideration is given to the fact...
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...Levels of Strategies-Vehicles to Success BUSI600 Liberty University Abstract A corporation’s success is as intrinsically linked to the products or services it takes to market as to the strategies utilized in the normal course of its business. It is not enough to have a great product or to have the ability of providing an unparalleled service in order to achieve success. A strategy or group of interrelated strategies to develop, sustain and deliver these products and services must be constantly developed and implemented. But: * How many levels of strategy are needed? * Who implements them? * When should they be implemented? * Where would they be most impactful or relevant? * How are they evaluated and revised? * When should they be abandoned for another? It could be argued that the simpler the product, the simpler the business strategies needed in order to achieve success. This assumption and its corollary, that advanced products need complex business strategies, can be proven flawed today as it has been observed in the past. Whether a corporation is providing a simple product or complex service, the strategies they implement should constantly evolve, in response or in anticipation to ever shifting market demand conditions, not just the product’s intrinsic complexity. The right strategy or group of strategies is a corporation’s best vehicle to success. Vehicles to Success Since most technology [corporations’] revenues come primarily from...
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