Corporate and Global Strategy - Term Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages According to the view of Pritsker (1997, 32) ‘industry analysis typically focuses on a company's external dimensions such as its markets, customers, and competitors’. In this context the ‘research on industry structure has investigated the influence of economic structure on competition, the advantages of strategic industry control, and the industry factors that influence profitability whereas research stream has examined how external changes such as changing customer needs, new technology, government policy, globalization, and economic cycles affect a company's strategy’.
Furthermore, Nattermann (200, 22) examined another tool of strategic analysis, this of benchmarking. According to his study ‘Best-practice benchmarking--the measurement and implementation of the most successful operational standard or strategy available in an industry--can be one of the most effective tools for increasing a corporation's efficiency, productivity, and, ultimately, earnings; broadly speaking, strategic decision making occurs along three dimensions: product characteristics, price, and market opportunity; when a company enters a new market, management's choices are restricted to the first two dimensions; the third element, market opportunity, consists of consumer preferences and income, which are beyond a company's ability to influence directly’. However, he noticed that benchmarking may be an ‘important way to increase operational efficiency’ but it cannot be characterized as a ‘tool for strategic decision making’.
In any case, the strategy that a company chooses to follow should be visible to the public at least to its shareholders. According to Parnell (2003, 16) ‘in many respects, the evidence for the existence of a strategy can permeate an organization; its customers appreciate knowing what a company is attempting to accomplish and prospective investors tend to hesitate when they do not have a clear grasp of the firm's position and future priorities; sharing strategic information with lower-level managers and employees may enhance both job comprehension and organizational commitment; hence, the arguments for a "public" strategy are intuitively obvious’. ...Download file to see next pagesRead More