Corporate Strategy Analysis: Virgin Group - Essay Example

The other sectors in which the group has invested comprise of transport sectors such as railway, airway, and spaceport (Temporal, 2011:253). The Virgin Group announced to venture into the energy sector particularly in bio-fuel in the year 2006. The group has created employment opportunities for about 50,000 people in the countries where it operates. In 2011, the global revenues of the group amounted to approximately 21 billion US dollars (Temporal, 2011:254). The question that lingers unanswered is what makes the Virgin Group Limited most successful in all its ventures.

This paper analyses the Virgin’s corporate strategy in two sections. The first section considers the current and past fifteen years. The second section focuses of future plans and gives recommendations on what the Virgin Group ought to do to maintain a strong hold of the market amidst its competitors. Corporate Strategic Analysis Corporate strategy entails the purpose and limits of organisation, which it puts in place to attain success and meet shareholders expectations. It makes different business units with a major enterprise work to together to attain the set goals and objectives.

Sound corporate strategy helps business ventures to gain a competitive advantage and to meet challenges tactfully during their operations (Whittington, 2003:321). Therefore, corporate strategy has many advantages such as providing a prudent approach to overcome business difficulties while facing competition, develops effective leadership, and offers sound ways to manage changes in business venture. In addition, corporate strategy gives directions to deal with complex business environment with different social, political, cultural, and competitive forces.

It therefore implies that an effective corporate strategy is critical for an organisation to realise its big picture. Understanding the relationship between the customers and an organisation is crucial for its long-term success and sustainability (Temporal, 2011:255). Virgin group has laid a lot of attention to the corporate strategy. Since its conception in 1970, the group has been under Sir Richard Branson as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Virgin Group draws its culture and image from Branson’s personality.

This enables the group to develop value adding products and services to their customers and shareholders. Corporate Rationale The Virgin Group encompass varied types of business. The group has a touch in a variety of businesses such as Virgin Travel, Virgin Rail, Virgin Cinemas, Virgin Media, and Virgin Hotels. Other sectors in which Virgin Group has an investment include Virgin Music and Trading. This rationale is an extension of Sir Richard Branson’s philosophy that holds the returns from any venture come from the amount that a person invests.

The core values and approach of Virgin Group has not changed for the last fifteen years. The group continues to venture into new markets, which its competitors have not tapped (Maag & Kasermann, 2010:2). The Virgin’s corporate strategy encourages an explicit research before it ventures into new businesses. The main objective of this prior research is to establish whether the venture is cost effective and profitable to the company. This is because Virgin business objectives are to spread its brand name and reputation at a very low cost.

Virgin Group has to assess whether its intended project meets four criteria