Winning Strategies for Business - Essay Example

? Strategic Leadership The success of any company is dependent on the framework it puts in place for the successful implementation of the plans it designs to dictate who will do a specific activity and how they ought to do it. This requires a lot of monitoring and assessment of the progress and continuity of the operations of the company to ensure that the employees implement all the plans according to specific timelines and meet both the financial demands and the quality standards. In the process of delivery of services, all stakeholders should be involved actively in carrying out each role without causing delays or failures in the whole system of operation in the company (Baisya, 2010, p.4-7). These plans are the strategies and a company implements them so that it can ensure orderliness in operation as well as proper delegation of duties to different employees at specific times. The process of performance of duties involves different people in the company and ought to contribute to their wellbeing by focusing their effort to fulfil common goals as set out in the company strategies. The goals in a company mark the milestones that all employees should attain to ensure that it can thrive in its environment and compete favourably with its rivals. Companies implement strategies in areas that have potential of boosting the productivity and others areas which need enhancement to contribute positively to high profitability. The company leaders lay down strategies and supervise them to ensure that every employee has a duty, which they can be accountable of, even when other activities take place within or away from the organisational supervisors. In the process of implementation of services, a company may reform some of their strategies to conform to the market need of the prevailing time so as to remain relevant and productive. The leaders in such a company implement such steps so that they can ensure that it remains adaptive to the different environment and ensure it has a competitive advantage over its rivals in similar business competing over similar customers (Unhelkar, Ghanbary and Younessi, 2010, p.57). News Corporation is a media company, which operates in different parts of the world by supplying videos, producing and selling newspapers and other ways of communicating to the public. The company has always adopted different strategies that have enabled it to remain relevant in the market and have served to advance its position in the news industry. The leadership of News Corporation has always drove and enhanced strategies of the company by leading the process of decision making, which lead to taking of various courses of action that ensured its success in all of its activities. News Corporation, through its various stakeholders engaged its leaders, employees and shareholders in making decisions that have had a transforming impact to the company. Through the progress it noted when it implemented changes in its strategies; it recorded differences, noted even in the current time (Watson and Hickman, 2012, p.7). In some occasion in the past, some strategic issues that took place in News Corporation include: adoption of new organisational structures, change of leadership of the company, change of its marketing strategies among other strategies moves it used to ensure that it was productive even when the recessions and other rivalry issues threatened the its economic productivity (Lank, 2006, p.97). In the past News Corporation operated as one great company that was determined to establish itself in different issues and that coordinated its activities from one point. In the progress, the company through its owner and the CEO found it necessary to split the company into two integral parts, which would engage themselves in different activities. Following the agreement, between the leaders and the company shareholders, the company split into two independent companies, News Corporation and Fox Group. These companies adopted different strategic management plan and had autonomous sets of leadership who had different strategic plans to guide their coordination of business in the process. Fox engaged in different activities from the ones News Corporation had, although they previously worked as one company and under one leadership, which formulated strategies of operation. This was a strategy that aimed at diversifying the attention the company had, as it would venture in establishing different places for their own to accomplish their goals. When the company split, it aimed at accomplishing a better advantage than its business rivals because it was to establish its plan and focus on a narrower perspective than would have been with the larger company. This would maximise on the resources invested in generation of products and services through different platforms in the company and help to save some money. The investment that News Corporation or Fox group allocated to implementation of advantageous programmes in the company would increase because any innovation it develops, would serve a smaller population in terms of the employees, rendering it more productive than it would have been when the company operated as one (Walters and Tang, 2006, p.23). In the course of operation, News Corporation had to implement courses of action aimed to change their leadership structures and improve its decision-making processes. To ensure that the company established itself well in decision-making, sometimes it named a new vice president who was also the head of all the strategies that the company could implement for their success in business. Naju Narisetti assumed the position of the vice president in News Corporation on 25th February 2013, and has led the company in various deals and by offering an advisory role to all the people and management concerning any strategy that could give better results than others. In his time, the company has not only interacted with its employees but also made consultations from relevant organisation so that it was able take the most appropriate actions in its operations. Having a manager, who had the responsibilities of supervising and advising the company of different strategies it would implement to ensure success, News Corporation indicated that it was careful to take its own responsibilities in formulating and implementing well thought ideas according to different plans and timelines. The election depicted the importance News Corporation placed on the planning and implementing of its activities in a systematic way so that it realise increased productivity through optimisation of each and every activity and resources (Watson and Hickman, 2012, p.12-17). The company has entered into different business ventures with other organisations without failure of any kind but making decisions that promote its relationship with other companies that increase the productivity (Unhelkar, Ghanbary and Younessi, 2010, p.44). Marketing is an integral part of any company in the process of operation for it serves the purpose of making its products and services reachable to the intended and potential customers. Although some companies are able to efficiently carry out marketing on their own, some other companies enter into joint ventures with other companies so that they can reduce the cost of advertising and reach the people in accordance with their plans. At one moment, after proper communication between the decision makers, News Corporation implemented a strategy to work together with another company in marketing its products so that they can reduce the amount of money they give to the advertising company (Unhelkar, Ghanbary and Younessi, 2010, p.83). As has always been with different other companies, the joint venture lead to reduction of the risk that is likely to befall a company in the case of failure of the targeted company to give the expected level of quality of the standards. This does not only indicate the prudence of the company leaders but also it led to increase in the profit margin for the News Corporation (Arcangel and Johnson, 2011, p.73). To address the various needs represented by the company in its operation, it found it necessary to reform its organisational structure. News Corporation needed departments, which would steer its performance to rise above the challenges it faced in the past. Reform of the organisational structure led to the creation of offices which never existed in the past and which were necessary to coordinate activities that were able to maximise its productivity (Cunneen, 2008, p.12). For instance, New Corporation realised the need for a department of creativity, which had not existed before 2010, it introduced a management post for the chief creativity officer in the company. New Corporation needed some people who could be accountable in developing and implementing different strategies in the company to ensure that the company can match the market needs. The chief creative officer in t News Corporation was responsible for creation of new brands, developing new commercial opportunities, launching new products as well as implementing and advising on all the digital initiatives the company would need to perform (Arcangel and Johnson, 2011, p.23). Also, in relation to the change in organisational structure, News Corporation realised the need to invest in establishing a new way of streamlining its strategies. In 1st February 2013, they named Anouskha Healy the chief strategic officer who was to be responsible for activities in News Corporation like focusing their strategies, implementing best practices and assisting in development of young talents within the company. This came in order to re-establish the company in a position of growing talents that could be essential in their future of their operation. The organisational structure inevitably changed to accommodate the needs that would have led it to improve its productivity as well as increase its potential in production and exploiting it for its benefit (Watson and Hickman, 2012, p.13). News Corporation kept its name so that its customers could continue to identify with it, long after transition happened in the company modes of operation and strategies. In February when New Corporation divided itself into two autonomous companies, the New News Corporation retained the popular name that it had used in the past. This is method of identifying themselves in the market perpetuated its position as leaders in the market in the field of media which helped its potential customers to link the past advertisement information with the current information. Although the company had a chance to change its name to adopt a different name, it was necessary for it to keep its former name, which was well, established in the minds of different people. Perpetuating the name of the company was a strategy that favoured News Corporation as a company that had produced quality brands of products to the customers and it was easy for them to continue trading. The effect of change of name of the company could have affected it in that it would have required establishing its new customer base after losing most of the one they may have had in the past (Griffin,2008, p.26). Companies establish themselves on various principles, which sometimes have to undergo reforms to accommodate the different changes in the market as time goes. The companies need to formulate different frameworks that help to exploit the market by enhancing the potential in their employees. Also in order for companies to remain relevant in their market, they need to get rid of structures that do not facilitate the performance of individuals in the company. Through reformulation of organisation structures, different stakeholders get different responsibilities that keep them accountable to the management of the company. Through delegation and assignment of duties to different stakeholders also, the company achieves its goals as their employees’ efforts target the achievement of set out objectives. For the News Corporation, it was necessary to implement different strategies that would enhance its market position during the course of their operation. Their strategies focused on the change of organisation structure, retention of their former name and collaboration with different companies. The News Corporation did not only focus on the attainment of success through the use of what it had but also focused on strategies to enhance creativity of the already existing workers. References List Arcangel, D., & Johnson, B. 2011. Everything you want to know about Organisational Change. Ely: IT Governance Pub. Baisya, R. K. 2010. Winning strategies for business. New Delhi: Response Books. Cunneen, P. 2008. Organisational structure: An essential lever in managing change. Blackrock: Blackhall. Griffin, A. 2008. New strategies for reputation management: Gaining control of issues, crises and corporate social responsibility. London: Kogan Page. Lank, E. 2006. Collaborative advantage: How organizations win by working together. Basingstoke [England: Palgrave Macmillan. Unhelkar, B., Ghanbary, A., & Younessi, H. 2010. Collaborative business process engineering and global organizations: Frameworks for service integration. Hershey, PA: Business Science Reference. Walters, B. A., & Tang, Z. 2006. IT-enabled strategic management: Increasing returns for the organization. Hershey PA: Idea Group Pub. Watson, T., & Hickman, M. 2012. Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and the corruption of Britain. New York: Blue Rider Press. Read More