Strategy Implementation - Essay Example

Name: Date: Institution: Strategy implementation Executive summary The paper will address new strategies adopted by Sony Ericsson and how the company aims to maintain its competitive capacity in the market. The paper also highlights the various challenges that Sony Ericsson has faced in the market since the Sony and Ericsson companies joined together to form a joint venture in the year 2001. The paper also highlights how the company has planned to ensure that new strategy is implemented. Strategy implementation, organization structure, organizational culture and organizational control systems have been defined and explained how effective they are in this paper. It also explains the suitability of the new strategy by the joint venture and also highlights suitable recommended strategies that would ensure that the company is competitive enough in the market and that it expands its market share. The main strategy by Sony Ericsson Company is termed as entertainment unlimited (Smith, & Tardif, 2009). The paper expounds on the suitability of the strategy in the company and how effective it is to the company to its competitive advantage. The paper also explains the need to consider other strategies instead of focusing on this new strategy as the only tool to achieve the company’s objective. It will also highlight a number of key issues that should be considered in the process of implementation of a new strategy. These key issues include; roles of the management, resource allocation, cross-functional coordination and organizational culture. Introduction Strategy implementation can be described as a process of translating the strategies chosen into an organization's actions in order to achieve the set strategic objectives and goals within the organization. It can also be defined as a manner in which an organization develops, utilizes, and merges the organization structure, organizational culture, and the control system, with the main aim of developing strategies that will lead to competitive advantages and also ensuring that the organization has a better performance. In the organization, the organization structure and organization control systems play a crucial role. The organization structure is involved in the allocation of the roles that the employees should play, tasks that will ensure special value is developed within the organization. The organization structure is also mandated to outline how these roles tasks are to correlate ensuring high quality, maximizing efficiency, and ensure that customer satisfaction is achieved. However, it is important to note that organization structure alone is not a sufficient tool to motivate workers. On the other hand organization control system is also vital in employee motivation in the organization. The control system is involved in ensuring that the managers are well equipped with motivational encouragements to the workers. The organization control system is also involved in giving a feedback on the workers and the performance of the organization. Organization culture can also be described as a collection of attitudes, values, beliefs, and norms that are shared by the organizational groups and members. An organization having excellently formulated strategies will not in a position to excel in case they are not implemented well. Strategic implementation is not important and it is impossible in any organization unless there is a stability between institutional dimensions such as reward structure, organizational structure, resource-allocation process among other crucial dimensions and the laid strategies (Barrick, et al. 2015). Background information of the organization In the study of strategic implementation, Sony Ericsson is a company that has been in the economy for a number of years and has been competitive in the economy due to adopting suitable strategies as well as implementing these strategies. This company has been in the market for more than 140 years offering communication technology services. The company has its commitment to ensuring that customer values are maximized through a continuous evolution. The company focused on ensuring that it remains the best company around the globe in offering ICT services. The company has almost 40 % of the mobile traffics carried over their network in the whole world. Sony Ericsson is a company that has its customers in more than 180 countries globally and it offers the following comprehensive industrial solutions; mobile broadband, cloud services, network optimization and design. These services offered by this organization has ensured that communication industry and other business sectors are in a position to do better in the economy, have an increased efficiency in service delivery and improving user experience as well as capturing new business opportunities within the economy. Sony Ericsson is a joint venture between two companies which amalgamated in the year 2001. The two companies that joined together are Sony and Ericsson. The main reason for the amalgamation was to ensure that the company would be the leading company in the world to offer communication services. It was also to ensure that it introduces a communication entertainment brand where people were to be inspired to take part in different fields and not only in communication. Individuals were also to be given a chance to participate in entrainment experiences. Sony was initially as a company was involved in the production of radios and televisions. It started by producing G-type recorders. It made its progress in the year 1967 when it released its first transistor radio into the market. In 1968 the company released the Trinitron television into the market (Stetler, et al. 2008). This company is a multinational company in Japan that manufactures; video, games, audio, communication and technology products suitable for both the professional and consumer markets. On the other hand, Ericsson founded in the year 1876. The company has shown a great improvement in the phones they are releasing into the market. These gadgets have a high potential for technological improvement. Since the formation of the Sony Ericsson joint venture, the company has faced a number of challenges; making the company to incur a lot of losses. The first challenge the organization faced is a tough market competition within the mobile phone market. This loss arose from misrepresentation of the company’s products in the market. Consumers are satisfied when they are in apposition to get new commodities that are of greater value (Hitt, Ireland, & Hoskisson, 2012). The company had not done a clear market research and they, therefore, had no enough market information. This contributed to the big loss in the organization. The other challenge the joint venture experienced is that they were not in a position to meet the demand of different customers in different markets effectively. The joint venture has not been successful as per the expectations. This is because; it has not been involved in the production of customer based products. The company has lost its customers to more competitive companies since their products are not reliable. Though the company has been producing innovative products, the marketing strategies employed by the company are not effective to attract more customers. The company also incurred heavy losses since it did not meet the set date profit. This implied that the company was not in a position to meet the set target due to poor coordination. Current strategies employed by Sony Ericsson Sony Ericsson has developed a new strategy that is based on entertainment. This is meant to ensure that individuals are in a position to share contents across different platforms. This strategy comes slightly after the company was affected by the global recession. The strategy, however, is expected to get the company back into track particularly focusing on entertainment and services sectors. The strategy the company has termed the new strategy as entertainment unlimited. This is a strategy that is aimed at bringing the mobile phones, TVs, and PCs together in order for them to share the entertainment content. In this strategy referred to as ‘entertainment unlimited,’ the company has proposed to develop MediaGo. This is an addition of the company’s PlayNow music service. Through the MediaGo users will be in a position to download movies using their PCs and then transfer these movies to the Sony Ericsson devices. This service is not only useful in the transfer of movies alone but also in transfer of other services such as; photos, audio, podcasts, and music. The MediaGo services are also designed in such a way that, an individual can sync his/her phone’s music library automatically. It will also help users to subscribe easily to the podcast. Finally, the MediaGo service is useful in the auto-conversion of files into the most suitable playback. Though it sounds as if the strategy is not by any chance new since individuals have been listening to music from their phones, the company argues that the new strategy ‘entertainment unlimited’ will take entertainment to a new level where users are in a position to access and share media across multiple electronic devices. Though the giant competitors in the mobile phone market have already taken this move, for example, Nokia which developed Ovi platform where individuals can share media files from the phone to the PCs and vice versa, Apple has developed iTunes media store where an individual is able to access video, podcast, and music. Sony Ericsson may not add a great revolution to the products it offers to its customers. However, this is a recommendable move by the joint venture. The company has also decided to develop new touch screen phones that will be useful in the implementation of this new strategy. The company proposed to develop the following devices; W995 Walkman phone. This is a phone that has the capacity to play the length film as downloaded. The other phone will have 12.1 megapixels camera and will contain an integration of multimedia services. Developing these two phones will positively impact on the company’s attempt to better the entertainment and communication sector (Pryor, et al. 2007). Sony Ericsson has made a necessary move by setting this strategy. However, consumers will always be attracted by new and innovative products. The competitors have already undertaken the move Sony Ericsson is undertaking. This is an implication that it has not introduced anything new in the market to the consumers. Therefore the company’s product will not attract new customers. The company should have clear market information in order to understand consumer’s expectation. This will ensure that the company will meet consumer demands and therefore it will increase customer loyalty. Old customers in any organization are very important in relation to new customers. This is because the old customers are in a position to give clear information and future expectation of the company’s products. This information would help the company to improve their products and services. It is therefore important that Sony Ericsson to come up with a unique strategy that will ensure that their old customers are regained as they get new customers. This will increase the volume of sales within the economy and as a result, the company is in a position to collect high revenue. In order for the company to have a huge market share, it is recommendable that the company to focus on the following strategies; the company should conduct an analysis of different markets in different countries. Different customers have different expectations and demands. For instance, customers from the developed countries will have different tastes and preferences from those in the developing countries (Atkinson, 2006). The company should, therefore, consider having an analysis so that they are in a position to meet the demands of different consumers in different regions. This will ensure that the company expands its market share as well as its revenue. This research would be important based on the fact that consumers are rational beings; they have to consider cost effective products and where their utility is maximized. The company should also develop a connection with the consumers. Customer connection in any business is very important since the company is in a position to understand customer expectations in advance. Development of a customer connection would be very important to the company since it will be in a position to get a higher market share in the mobile phone industry. The company should, therefore, conduct a number of meetings with their customers. This could either be online or on the grounds. Meeting with the customers would ensure that customer experience is improved and a close rapport is developed. The main aim of conducting meetings with the customers is not only to expand the market share but also to understand what the customers think about the company’s products. It will also make it easy for the company to understand what products the customers want and how it would provide such products to them. Through listening to the customers, the company will be in a position to identify the potential needs of their customers. This will ensure that the company develops measures that would result in effective solutions. The company can maintain customer connection through feedback technique. This is a technique that should be done periodically and will ensure that the company has clear market information. In consumer satisfaction, all business units should be well coordinated ensuring that the services delivered are of high quality and they meet customer’s expectations. Product promotion is also very important in any given organization. Sony Ericsson could use the social marketing platforms to market their products. This would, for example, be a good target for the youths who spend much of their time in the social platforms such as; Google, Facebook twitter among other social media platforms. Implementation of the strategy In the implementation of the new strategy, Sony Ericsson has identified various steps that would make it easy for the implementation process. The first step is that the company will ensure that it has invested in strong online campaigns. The company has decided to involve their customers in decision making. The company wishes to create awareness of the existence of the new strategy to the customers who are part of their stakeholders. The company has set 15% of the marketing budget for online advertisement. The company will have an improved feedback panel where the management is in a position to reply to the concerns of the customers. Through the online campaigns, the customers will be in a position to understand the new strategy and the importance of the company adopting this strategy. The company also decides to use online campaign in order to reach youths who are creative and resourceful. Secondly, the company develops a detailed market plan. The main aim of the company is to win customers’ loyalty and also to expand market share which in return will ensure that the company’s revenue is increased. Implementation of the new strategy would not be effective and would bear no positive gains to the company if it has a poor marketing plan. In the marketing plan, the company will encourage an active customer participation in product improvement. The company has developed a tag “make. Believe” this is a tag that indicates a strong collaboration in the process of developing new brands. The company aims at gaining support from leading global agencies in the achievement of the set strategy. It is through collaboration with these agencies that it will achieve in providing high-quality brands to the customers. The company has been so competitive in the market though its competitors such as Nokia Company, Apple Company had undertaken this move earlier on. Sony Ericsson Company had started losing its customers to the rival mobile phone manufacturing companies. However, it hopes to regain its customers after the implementation of this new strategy. It will also increase customer loyalty through a direct interaction with the customers in different social platforms. Creating awareness is also a crucial move by the company. This will help the company to attract new customers and also help retain the current customers. This will ensure that the market share and the revenue collected are enlarged. It will also ensure that customer experience is built and a close rapport among different stakeholders is maintained. Key issues in strategy implementation In the implementation of the new strategy, the joint venture has to identify several key issues in order to the company to meet its objectives and realize the set goals. First, the company has to consider cross-functional coordination. This involves matching different departments within the company in such a way that they work together and not against each other. The two companies have to work in a collaborative manner in order to offer products that will meet consumer expectations. These departments in the different companies need to be motivated and coordinated in such a way that they are able to share the same goal, speak the same language and also work harmoniously without the issue of territorialism. If tension arises in the different departments it is important to note that implementation of the strategy is at stake. Secondly, resource allocation is also another key issue that should be considered during the strategic implementation; human resources are the key strategic resources that a company should keenly focus in. in developing and implementing the new strategy, Sony Ericsson Company should have a maximum utilization of the skills and experiences of their workers. This will encourage consultation and sharing of ideas which will ensure that the company develops the best products. Involving the employees in the implementation of the strategy would help the entire organization have a common interest and the process easier and productive. Organizational culture is also a key issue that Sony Ericsson Company should focus on. Every single organization has its own culture which is influenced by; organizational history, if a company has a history of making a great profit within the economy, it follows the well-laid strategies and keeps on adjusting in accordance to the demands and needs of the customer. This history may for long influence organizational culture through the management staffs and other support staffs. It is also influenced by the people in the organization; workforce in the company determines the organizational culture. In case most of the employees are self-motivated and self-driven, then any new employee will have to adapt to the organizational culture. Similarly, organizational culture is influenced by other factors such as management among other factors. Sony Ericsson, therefore, needs to come up with a suitable organizational culture that allows; free interaction, consultation, sharing of ideologies, and an active participation. Finally, it is important to understand the role of the management in the organization as one of the key issues. The management in any organization plays a major role in controlling the organization and giving direction in order to achieve the set goals. Sony Ericsson’s main objective is to become the leading organization in offering communication and entertainment services in the entire world. The management is, therefore, entitled to give directions, to review the progress and to allocate resources where required to. The management also should also give a room for employee’s creativity. This is because customers appreciate innovative and unique products. Creativity within the company will ensure that it meets its consumers’ demand and also gives a chance to develop the best marketing strategies (Chaffey, 2007). Conclusion In conclusion, market competition is healthy in any business. This is because with a high competition organizations are made to develop new products that meet customer’s expectations. It is therefore important that every business organization to have clear market information so that it can manufacture products of high quality that will meet demands of various customers in different regions within the economy. Organizations should develop strategies which help them realize their objectives and goals. It could be expensive to implement a new strategy since it requires a lot of resources to be allocated; a market research has to be conducted in order for the organization to have sufficient market information suitable for the strategic implementation (David, 2011). Sony Ericsson is a joint venture which was started in the year 2001. It was founded two companies which include; Sony Company and Ericsson Company. Initially, Sonny was involved in the production of radios and televisions. On the other hand, Ericsson was used in ICT service delivery. Amalgamation of the two companies aimed to improve communication and entertainment. This led to the manufacturing of the Sony Ericsson phones. Sony Ericsson Company has faced a number of challenges; the first challenge is that the joint venture did not have a clear understanding of customers’ preferences and tastes. Due to lack of enough market information the company lost its customers to main competitors such Nokia. This also contributed to the loss of revenue and therefore incurred heavy losses. Secondly, the company did not have technological advancement; consumers are attracted by new products and services. This company did not advance their technology and their products were not reliable leading to decrease in customers’ loyalty. Finally, the company lacked global brand awareness. This was a challenge since most of the potential customers were not aware of the existence of their brands. This had a greater contribution to their losses. The company should develop several strategies so that it will remain competitive in the economy. First, the company should develop a strong connection with the customers. This will ensure that the company builds customer experience. It should also conduct a market research analysis. It is difficult for any organization to identify the customers’ preference and tastes in different regions without conducting a market research. This will ensure that the company will satisfy its customers in different regions. A market research will also help the firm to identify the areas where their products are not known and therefore encouraging awareness campaigns. References Atkinson, H. (2006). Strategy implementation: a role for the balanced scorecard?. Management Decision, 44(10), 1441-1460. Barrick, M. R., Thurgood, G. R., Smith, T. A., & Courtright, S. H. (2015). Collective organizational engagement: Linking motivational antecedents, strategic implementation, and firm performance. Academy of Management Journal, 58(1), 111-135. Chaffey, D. (2007). E-business and E-commerce Management: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. Pearson Education. David, F. R. (2011). Strategic management: Concepts and cases. Peaeson/Prentice Hall. Hitt, M. A., Ireland, R. D., & Hoskisson, R. E. (2012). Strategic management cases: competitiveness and globalization. Cengage Learning. Pryor, M. G., Anderson, D., Toombs, L. A., & Humphreys, J. H. (2007). Strategic implementation as a core competency: The 5P's model. Journal of management Research, 7(1), 3. Smith, D. K., & Tardif, M. (2009). Building information modeling: a strategic implementation guide for architects, engineers, constructors, and real estate asset managers. John Wiley & Sons. Stetler, C. B., McQueen, L., Demakis, J., & Mittman, B. S. (2008). An organizational framework and strategic implementation for system-level change to enhance research-based practice: QUERI Series. Implementation Science, 3(1), 30. Read More