How Weak Signals Can Improve Business Strategy - Essay Example

How and why can paying attention to Weak Signals improve Business Strategy? Introduction In the contemporary organisational setting, businesses are challenged with continuous changes from within its environment as well as from outside its controllable domain. The advent of globalisation has although provided business with the significant opportunity to expand but at the same time it has increased operational complexities indicating towards weak signals to business strategies. Consequently, the operations of the business are influenced with uncertainties relevant to external environment. In subsequence, there is a growing consensus amid business managers regarding the formulation and implementation of effective strategies. Nevertheless, there are numerous signals associated with the changes in the environment apparently observable today. In this regard, Ansoff has broadly categorised these signals into two dimensions, i.e. the strong signals and the weak signals. In this regard, strong signals are considered as an important factor influencing the long-term success of business, while weak signals are also recognised to play an imperative role in shaping the future of an organisation (Uskali, 2005). With due consideration to the above stated issue, the objective of this study will remain concentrated on describing about the importance of the signaling process in business operations. The study further explains the importance of paying attention to weak signals for determining effective business strategy. Need for paying attention to weak signals In a narrow sense, the weak signaling, whether strong or weak, refers to the several underlying threats or risks, which are related with the working process of an organisation. Often, the leaders in an organisation place little emphasis that any minute changes in the organisational process can have far reaching impacts on the overall sustainability of the business. Thus, the failure of the decision makers of an organisation to recognise the importance of weak signals later imposes huge challenges for them. The challenges can be massive ranging from heavy financial losses to dramatic fall in the production of the company. It is thus crucial that the decision makers within an organisation should meticulously consider the underlying risks or the weak signals for ensuring effective business strategy. Alongside considering weak signals are instrumental for deciding their future course of actions. The singling process is also important in terms of the technical approaches taken as well (Julien & Andriambeloson, n. d.). Observably, miscommunication within an organisation can also be a source of weak signals. The presence of weak signals in an organisation can create an unfriendly working environment and may disrupt the performances of a business in the long run. Owing to this, managers in an organisation need to be more careful regarding understanding, interpreting and working according to these signals. It can be further stated that detection of weak signals is the first step towards establishing early warning system in an organisation. It is worth mentioning in this regard that managers with an organisation can track weak signals directly by scanning the environment or indirectly by overseeing the events in the internal and external environment. The sole intention of the signaling process is therefore to strengthen the business environment of the business enterprises in the global prospect. In order to ensure accuracy in detecting weak signals, the managers within an organisation are required to ensure continuous improvement in the business process. Thus, it can be firmly argued that it is extremely vital for the managers and the decisions makers within organisations to consider weak signals for building effective business strategies to ensure enhanced future performance of the business (Sandor, 2010). Essence of Weak Signals in Improving Business Strategy Weak signals commonly refer to the underlying threats to an organisation, which need to be considered for effective business strategy implementation. As the weak signals are deemed hidden in nature and are uncertain too, the organisation needs to be more careful at the time of adopting the intended business strategies. In order to avoid weak signals from the organisation, the management initially needs to adopt few measures to manage positive changes within its organisational environment. Innovation of technology within organisational periphery has been regarded as a significant step often proved effective when dealing with the weak signals within the company. In addition, the company needs to develop its capacity of adopting innovative ideas for developing the business strategies that would subsidise negative waves and enhance competitive working environment towards the betterment of the organisation. Development of the new strategies for increasing the capacity of the organisation by understanding the changes in the modern market are also quite likely to be helpful for reducing the risks related to weak signals. Besides, there are several strategies, which are also applicable and useful to avoid the weak signals. PEST analysis, SWOT analysis and other industrial analyses frameworks herewith refer to be effective for avoiding the weak signals. Contextually, conducting effective market researches and investigations through PEST and other industrial analyses models can be helpful to avoid the threats of weak signaling from the organisation. SWOT analysis also acts as an effective strategy for an organisation to escape from the future possibilities of weak signals in an organisation (Kaivo-oja, 2012). Conclusion Evidently, the current business environment is highly competitive and challenging in nature. In such an environment, it has become quite difficult for business organisations to survive profitably. Here, the role of business strategy is extremely important wherein effective business strategy is crucial for businesses in the globalised era to reap the benefits obtained while proactively dealing with the inherited challenges. However, framing effective strategies is not an easy task. Managers in an organisation are thus required to consider various factors in order to devise strategies that would benefit it in a multidimensional manner. In this regard, it has been identified that managers and the decision makers within an organisation often fail to recognise underplaying risks arising from the slight changes in the business process. Such underplaying risks are also known as weak signals. Thus, it is essential for organisations to pay considerable attention on detecting these weak signals. Notably, by considering weak signals, managers can acquire significant knowledge about the prevailing environment and the events they can use to frame effective strategies. Suggestively, the managers, to detect the impact of minute changes in an organisation that may result in weak signals and devise strategies accordingly for enhanced future performances, can use the information obtained from the analytical frameworks stated above. References Julien, P- A., & Andriambeloson, E. (n. d.). Networks, weak signals and technological innovations among SMEs in the land-based transportation equipment sector. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 1-19. Kaivo-oja, J. (2012). Weak signals analysis, knowledge management theory and systemic. Socio-cultural transitions, Futures 44, 206-217. Sandor, A. (2010). Automatic detection of discourse indicating emerging risk. Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines, 4(2), 171-179. Uskali, T. (2005). Paying attention to weak signals. The Key Concept for Innovation Journalism, 2(11), 1-17. Read More