Challenges and Opportunities in Current Economic Climate - Essay Example

?Introduction Managers face both challenges and opportunities in current economic climate. Competition moves to an upward spiral. The global market has remarkably changed, although the basic about exchange and realising demand have remained to be guided by the traditional core foundation of doing business. However, this is not enough reason why managers will not face various challenges and at some point opportunities along the process. The current economic climate has contributed to the level or kind of challenges and opportunities managers are facing. The work at hand presents some of these challenges and opportunities. Finding unique strategy There are many innovations, as upshots of reaching certain competitive advantage in order to be on top of the competition, especially now that the current economic climate demands key players to do the right move in order to survive the tough and challenging times. The challenge therefore is to think of a strategy that is something new or as a new way, one that is unique and hard to emulate in order to achieve a highly sustainable competitive advantage. According to Porter, the only way to ensure a sustainable competitive advantage on the part of an organization is to employ strategies that are unique or hard to outdo (Porter, 1990). The current economic climate for instance allows the mobile phone producers to initiate strategies that are far better than the other. However, common to their prevailing strategies is to come up with new innovations from time to time, leading to facing off the old product trends or models. This gives the opportunity for consumers to become more sophisticated and look for what could benefit them to the fullest, including the opportunity to find for the best price at their advantage resulting to a strong market power that is enough for them to have remarkable bargaining power. On the other hand, this may challenge the competing companies to look for a more feasible strategy that along the way will have the ability to meet both the needs of the target consumers and the company. Finding for the best resource Considering the point that the current economic climate would mean finding the available or best resources in order to guarantee continuous operation, the other challenge for most managers in various organizations is finding the relevant resources linked to their actual operation. This is evident to many outsourcing activities initiated by major international companies (Cornejo, 2009). The case of call centers for instance is a perfect manifestation that many companies are employing third parties in order to minimize their cost and guarantee profitability on the process. Not only that. Outsourcing human resource is proven effective especially if organizations will have to employ human resource with associated low labour cost. This is evident how international companies like call centers outsourced or instituted their operation in developing countries like in Asia where they could save on their actual operational cost. China for instance is a remarkable country with available resources especially the human resource that could be tapped to guarantee higher profitability. The challenge on the other hand is that there is on-going competition for allocating the best resource, which means individual companies will have to compete in this aspect, the hard way, knowing that having limited resources is not far from the impossibility with the current economic climate. Opportunity for creativity Despite the associated challenge in finding a sustainable competitive advantage through having unique strategy that is hard to emulate or copy, managers will have the opportunity to be as creative as possible in this aspect so as to initiate their goals (Chaston, 2012). They will have the opportunity to go beyond the limit, and think of possibilities that are not yet realised in the current set up of the prevailing economic climate. Consider the point of the highly differentiated offerings for mobile communication gadgets and the remarkable upgrade from time to time. These are some of the manifestations of highly evolving creativity among managers who are looking forward to achieve a highly sustainable competitive advantage even if for a certain span of time. Under the marketing context, marketing managers for instance would ensure that they have managed the demand in a most efficient way, something unique from what their competitors are doing in order to manage their target segments in the most efficient ways. This requires them to become creative at some point so that they could think of the best or unique concept or idea. Opportunity for innovation Many managers find it challenging to acquire resources that are becoming scarce, which makes the possibility of looking forward to new alternatives and acts of innovation to surface. Innovation is an opportunity to create something new or better (Abbing, 2010; Tucker, 2008). Consider for instance how many organizations turn to alternative sources for them to save on additional cost that at the same time allows them to continue their operation. Think of the fact how managers employ creative means in order to come up with new innovations that would lead to competitive edge, at some point. These are all common observations that we clearly have at present around us. Try to consider how marketing activities are pointing us to new alternatives and innovations, from time to time. In fact, marketing nowadays compared to its traditional approach has been lifted up through the emancipation of modern information technology and the upgrading of the media. Internet marketing has become the coolest thing today made into full realisation like doing it via social networking platforms and other effective means of transferring marketing information online from the source to the target audience. We see the trend and it remarkably changes from time to time as managers are able to draw the line between sticking to the traditional approach and innovation. Conclusion The work at hand introduces two of the most common remarkable challenges facing managers in today’s current economic climate. Furthermore, this also introduces two corresponding opportunities that these challenges may pose them. As observed, there is a link point between these challenges and opportunities. In the presence of these challenges, dynamic managers may significantly come up with finding ways leading them achieve opportunities along the way. References Abbing, E. R. (2010) Brand Driven Innovation: Strategies for Development and Design. Laussane: AVA Publishing. Chaston, I. (2012) Strategy for Sustainable Competitive Advantage: Surviving Declining Demand and China’s Global Development. New York, NY: Routledge. Cornejo, L. K. (2009) Multinational Companies: Outsourcing, Conduct, and Taxes. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated. Porter, M. C. (1990) Competitive strategy. New York, NY: Free Press. Tucker, R. B. (2008) Driving Growth Through Innovation: How Leading Firms are Transforming Their Futures. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers Read More