Strategic Management - Effective Strategy Planning - Coursework Example

New Project Table of Contents Introduction 3 Beyond Addiction 4 Review and Critical Evaluation 4 Traditional Hierarchy 5 Porous hierarchy 5 Simple Rules 6 Distributed approach 6 Application in Organizational Context 6 Data is the next frontier 7 Review and Critical Evaluation 7 Emergence of new applications and services 8 Opening up of data in the private sector 8 Open source and platforms leading the way 8 Proliferation of unconventional data 9 Convergence of information architecture 9 Application in organizational context 9 Sustainability and competitive advantage 10 Review and Critical Evaluation 10 Application in organizational context 12 References 14 Introduction The 21st century world is marching ahead on the lines of fast change and rapid development. The steady technological development that has happened in the domains of telecommunications and networking technology since the beginning of the previous decade has transformed the world in to a well connected single entity. Because of the well developed capability of communication and digital networking, there has been a free flow of information across market around the world. Armed with the easy access to information and technology, consumers are becoming more aware as well as demanding in regards to their needs. The rising consumer needs in the developing as well as the developed markets is generating a uniform business opportunity. Companies of local as well as international origin are actively focusing on entering newer markets as well as expanding their presence in existing markets so as to capitalize the newly emerging business opportunities. The business firms of the 21st century are actively focusing on radical as well as disruptive innovation so as to effectively fulfill the needs of the masses. It is important to highlight that the because of the presence of multiple firms offering homogenous products and services, the competition in the market is extremely high. The availability of similar kinds of product and service offerings are resulting in the increase in power for the buyers. It has to be said that to deal with the intense market competition as well as to retain their competitive edge, the organizations needs to design as well as execute successful strategies. This particular assignment focuses on the aspects of strategy development, cutting edge technology as well as the sustainable competitive advantage which are necessary for present day organizations. Beyond Addiction Review and Critical Evaluation Traditionally, organizations around the world follow a well designed hierarchy, the top of which is often tasked with the responsibility of strategy planning as well as implementation. For the implementation as well as execution of strategies, companies in various corners of the world often follow the usual one way top down implementation approach. Over the course of execution of business, there have often been doubts about whether it is possible to design effective strategies without following the traditional top down route. In order to find a satisfying answer to this particular focus, it is important to highlight that there is a high level of persistence that is associated with the hierarchical concept of an organization. Organizations which generally prefer to take the alternative to following a hierarchy often retain some key critical elements that are associated with traditional hierarchy. Experts are often divided in their opinions as to whether the hierarchical structure is a boon or a bane for the organization. While analysts like du Gay feel that a hierarchical structure helps in the preservation of bureaucracy in the organization, others like Peters and Waterman feel that the hierarchy structure brings a strong burden to the organization’s natural way of execution of operations. It needs mentioning that there has been instances where organizations following the traditional top down hierarchies fail to ignore that people working at the lower level hierarchies and lacking formal authority to make influential changes in the strategy are the ones who are actually troubleshooting the multiple ground level challenges that keep on popping up on a daily basis. The ground level troubleshooting by people in the lower level hierarchy are the ones who are getting creative in terms of strategy designing. In order to develop relevant approaches which will help in effective strategy planning as well as implementation in all levels of the organization, a varying degree of focus has to be given on the levels of hierarchy as well as accountability. Traditional Hierarchy The first alternative can be traditional hierarchy itself. Discussing in a detailed fashion, it has to be said that in the event of a traditional hierarchy, there is a very high emphasis on hierarchy while there is a significantly low focus on accountability. The processes in a traditional hierarchy are often stable but are often slow in terms of adapting to dynamic changes that are happening in the marketplace. The focus on innovation is restricted in this kind of a hierarchy, while bureaucracy reigns supreme. Managers in the top level of a traditional hierarchy model often follow the roles of supervising as well as ensuring that the rules are being implemented and followed in the accurate manner. Porous hierarchy A good alternative can be the porous hierarchy, which has a high focus on accountability as well as hierarchy. This approach also has slow adaptability to change, but has significant areas of implementing innovation, though while abiding certain constraints. Leaders in this hierarchy focus on building an improvement culture and leading the strategy implementation system using formal authority. This kind of an alternative is very well followed in Toyota, an organization which is known worldwide for its quality focused innovations. In Toyota, the employees are empowered and are considered as knowledge workers who have the liberty to improve on the company’s front lines. The biggest advantage of this approach is that it promotes employee engagement as well as peer learning within the organization. The disadvantage lies in the fact that bureaucracy exists in the form of hierarchy within the organization. Simple Rules In this approach, there is a low focus on hierarchy but a high focus on accountability. The uniqueness lies in the fact there are simple bounding rules followed all through, while providing a great deal of freedom. This kind of an approach is the best fit for organizations in fast changing environments. Distributed approach The last approach can be the distributed approach, where there is a low focus on both accountability as well as hierarchy. This particular approach works on the lines of identification of a purpose. Leaders in organizations adopting this approach focus on developing employee motivation through inspiration, development of an identity as well as a strong network. It is interesting to state that this approach provides the right fit for organizations which has a high need for skills expertise as well as creativity (Cunha and et.al, 2011). Application in Organizational Context Talking about the various organization hierarchies, a reference can be drawn to the highly popular global automobile company named Toyota. The company Toyota is highly popular all around the world for its manufacturing process based efficiency like Kaizen and Just in Time concepts. Talking in brief details, it has to be highlighted that the Kaizen concept brings into light, the need for continuous improvement. It needs to be mentioned that the Just In Time concept of the popular automobile company is focused on designing lean manufacturing, which helps in freeing important manufacturing resources. The organization is known for its quality focused innovations as well. In Toyota, the employees are empowered and are considered as knowledge workers who have the liberty to improve on the company’s front lines. The biggest advantage of this approach is that it promotes employee engagement as well as peer learning within the organization. The promotion of employee engagement as well as peer learning efforts in the front line assembly process will create the bed for steady process improvements for the company. However, the disadvantage lies in the fact that bureaucracy exists in the form of hierarchy within the organization. Data is the next frontier Review and Critical Evaluation The modern day internet powered world is generating a lot of structured and unstructured data. These large chunks of data are often termed as Big Data, a terminology which is getting increasingly popularized in the business, government as well as academic circles. Generally, the large amount of data generated from the digital world is the outcome of operations executed by various firms. It is important to highlight that a firm’s ability to properly synthesize the large sets of data determines its ability to derive competitive advantage in the highly connected market place in today’s date. In the recent times, business leaders are increasingly turning their focus towards data in order to drive product as well as service based innovation. An estimate provided in the year 2010, revealed that firms around the world stored around 7 exabytes of new data. Experts have predicted that the global data storage capacity is expected to touch around 100 zettabytes by 2020 (Yiu, 2012) While discussing about the importance of data to the organization, focus has to be given on the five trends which provide an indication as to how analytics can drive innovation as well as build competitive advantage in the upcoming days. Emergence of new applications and services The first trend is that a lot of new applications and services will be built surrounding the vast amount of data. These applications, which will be of actionable analytical applications category, will help in redefining the apps architecture with better visualization, usability and interactivity. Opening up of data in the private sector The second trend is the opening up of data in the private sector. While the main barrier to opening up of data in the private sector is related to privacy concerns as well as issues surrounding intellectual property protection, the developments in analytical capabilities along with the growing importance of widely networked business models will helps in neutralizing the concerns and thereby pave the road towards free sharing of data (Arthur, 2010). The implementation of proper regulatory frameworks, which can facilitate data sharing collaborations on a intra as well as inter country basis will helps in unmasking of better prospects for the private sector organizations, because of the benefits of open innovation. Open source and platforms leading the way The third trend is related to the fact that the open source and related platforms will pave the way for faster development of applications which can generate a vast amount of relevant data. Because of collaborative networks becoming a dominant factor in the market, data is generated as well as obtained by the private as well as public sector firms from multiple sources, which often include suppliers, consumers and even competitors. It is important to point out that because of the capabilities of modern day analytic applications; a lot of open innovations are happening the marketplace. Developers in various markets are increasingly taking the advantage of open source platforms and are creating new products and services which can serve their specific needs in a more efficient manner Proliferation of unconventional data The trend number four is the rapid growth of unconventional data. Discussing in greater details, it can be said that while in the previous days, data of numerical nature was the only input for analytics, in the current times, unstructured data in the form of conversations, videos, text as well as brief dialogues are gaining acceptance. Experts have predicted that a lot of event – driven architectures will be developed because of the improving ability of advanced analytics to merge unstructured data along with predictive algorithms. Convergence of information architecture The fifth trend is associated to the convergence of information architecture. In the current times, the issues of performance, compliance and risk management are getting converted in to frameworks, which design firm specific strategy and governance. So, in order to derive firms specific competitive advantage, the focus has to be on building their ability to process fragmented information using the integrated frameworks (Wong, 2012). Application in organizational context In relating to an organization, where the five trends can be applied, the focus has to be on Facebook Inc, the company which runs the number one networking site. Talking in direct relevance, it can be said that the company has already made plans of sharing its data with Yandex which is the largest search engine of Russia (BBC.com, 2014). This simply promotes the fact that the organization has already progressed in to sharing of data among the private sector. Also, talking on the lines of service development through open source platforms, Facebook recruited a large number of developers for translation of the website into multiple languages (Kwan, 2009). The advantage associated with the sharing of data by Facebook with international firms as well as adopting opens source platform is that it will provide a lot of relevant information to the firms, which will help them build their competitive edge (Warr, 2012). Also, the sharing of data will provide a new stream of revenue for Facebook. The disadvantage of data sharing in this case is that there are chances of incorrect utilization of consumer specific sensitive data, thereby creating the scope of frauds as well as data theft. Sustainability and competitive advantage Review and Critical Evaluation With the increase competition in the marketplace, along with the strong influence of multiple macro economic variables that are influencing the business environment, organizations around the world are increasingly focusing towards the factor of sustainability. This has resulted in the fact of the issue of sustainability becoming a hot topic in various corporate as well as governmental debates. To understand the how firms around the world are focusing on sustainability and are trying to determine their competitive advantages, an exhaustive survey was conducted, which comprise of above 1500 corporate executives and managers around the world. Also, to have a balanced view, interviews of 50 global thought leaders were also considered. As a result of the survey, it became pretty clear that the companies around the world has a united view of the fact that sustainability will become a strong issue to be dealt in the business context in the upcoming future, and that it has the power to influence the ability of a firm to think, act as well as compete in the marketplace. Views provided by the thought leaders revealed that the global economic turmoil may have increased the focus of firms in regards to sustainability. Respondents of the survey, who considered themselves expert in the domain of sustainability, revealed that they feel it is a very important aspect for the firms to engage their suppliers across the value chain in regards to the value chain. The survey as well as the interviews of thought managers revealed that a lot of difference in views exists in regards to sustainability on the issues of government legislation, consumer concerns as employee interest. Talking broadly, it can be said that while a considerably large number of respondents felt that government legislation is a strong factor in determining firm’s approach towards sustainability, the thought leaders felt otherwise. The thought leaders felt that firms should be proactive in their approach towards sustainability, rather than being reactive because of government interference. In connection to consumer concerns, while a little over half of the respondents acknowledge it as a strong influencer for sustainability, the thought leaders felt that it is a reality that firms must be aware of and take necessary steps. On the domain of employee interest, while above half of the respondents feel that it might have a strong impact on the firm, the thought leaders often attributed a little importance to it. The though leaders felt that the better recruitment, retention as well as higher employee engagement are ways of addressing sustainability issues in a organization level. The thought leaders as well as the survey respondents realized that sustainability has the ability to bring an influence on all aspects of a firm along with the ability to increase the scope of value creation in short and long term. The interviews as well as the execution of survey revealed that a few companies have already adopted measures to build as well as improve sustainability in the organization. Popular companies like GE, Toyota, IBM, Shell, Wal-Mart along with companies like Rio Tinto, Better Place as well as International Watc Co. have already taken steps to address sustainability issues. However, because of the misunderstanding of the top level executives about the importance of sustainability in their firms, a lot of hurdles are getting created on the path of designing as well as implementing planned corporate action to design and adopt sustainability standards. Thought leaders as well as self considered experts in the area of sustainability feel a range of factor comprising of shortage of natural resources, increasing pressures from various stakeholders as well as focus of capital markets on the sustainability aspects of an organization will lead to the process of adoption of sustainability measures and frameworks by more and more firms in the upcoming future (Berns and et.al, 2009) Application in organizational context Now talking about implementation of sustainability framework from an organizational perspective, the focus has to be given on the internationally acclaimed technology company, Intel. Intel, by focusing on implementing sustainability measures throughout its organization has been successful in designing a solar powered processor, which has the ability to power modern day sophisticated gadgets. It has to be highlighted that the company, by focusing on sustainable product development has developed a niche competitive edge in the market, and thereby has gained a huge upper hand in the market of sustainable as well as green technology. It is very interesting to highlight that apart from focusing on sustainable product development, the company has also taken the imitative to empower its employees in regards to engaging themselves in active participation of various sustainability initiatives (Foxnov, 2011). The advantage associated with the adoption of sustainability framework by the technology company is that it has helped in developing radical innovation for the company’s product line, thereby enhancing its core competency. Needless to say that, the enhancement of the core competency of the company will eventually transform into sustainable competitive advantage in the upcoming future. The disadvantage of adoption of sustainability framework by Intel is that it might create a strain on innovation as well as human resources, which might indirectly impact the financial performance of the company. Also, it can be assumed that increase in liberty towards sustainable product development might result in blockage of vital resources, thereby hampering mainstream development for the company. References 1. Yiu, C., 2012. The Big Data Opportunity: Making Government Faster, Smarter and More Personal. London: Policy Exchange 2. Arthur, C. 2010. Businesses unwilling to share data, but keen on government doing it. [Online] Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/jun/29/business-data-sharing-unwilling [Accessed 14 March 2014] 3. BBC.com, 2014. Facebook to share data with Russias Yandex. 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