Strategy Management in Entrepreneurial vs Large Public Corporations - Case Study Example

? Strategy Management In Entrepreneurial Vs. Large Public Corporations Differences in process An entrepreneur is an individual whoseeks to undertake a commercial venture with the sole objective of making profit (Napier, 2006). This is a comprehensive process that involves evaluation of a number of factors some of which include: competition, capital, customers, location, pricing, advertisement among others. To effectively consolidate these factors one needs to have a clearly laid out strategy. A public corporation, on the other hand, is an organization that came to be with the advent of mixed economies. It presents a state run corporation that has a sole mandate of leveling the playing field for other market players. A market that is left entirely at the mercies of private investors becomes capitalist in nature with every single investor coming up with individualistic schemes to maximize profits. It is, therefore, prudent for governments to protect their citizens from the exploitative nature of the private investors; this is best accomplished through the introduction of public corporations. In the transport sector, the government manages major train transport system and sets the fare for travelers. Other investors who would get interested in the industry would thus set their fares around that set by the government because should they charge exorbitantly no client would seek their services. From the above study, the difference between these two is very clear: entrepreneurial ventures are set to fetch profits while public corporations seek to level the market. The entrepreneur must consequently put into considerations the above stated factors and at the same time consider the position of public corporations. In most cases, the entrepreneurial ventures set their prices a little higher than the public corporations but they still get clients, this implies that they must manipulate the other factors so as to make their clients overlook the increased price. In as much as the public corporations do not exist to profit maximize, the fact that they are in business cannot be down played. They have staff to pay amongst other overheads they must cover. This means that they must aim to break even at the very least; this will enable the venture to cover important undertakings (Johnston, 1991). They must also be able to manipulate the market factors to ensure that they attract the highest number of customers that would enable them achieve just that. All that differs is the technique that both entities employ to maneuver these market factors. Techniques Entrepreneurial venture uses a combination of techniques to achieve maximum profit, the most common of these techniques and one that is most utilized is advertising. This is the easiest way of ensuring and enhancing brand visibility. Advertising is mainly aimed at creating publicity for the products and services that are offered by a given entity. This is normally accompanied by a brand positioning statement which in most cases is exaggerated. Some of the advertising avenues that are often used include television and radio. In modern times and following the invention of the internet and the onset of the social media, the limit and possibilities of advertising are endless. The adverts commonly run in the media are more attractive and more expensive. They are also run in both the public and public media which makes them the more expensive. The entrepreneurial ventures also offer much more complimentary services and reliability. A transport company would offer more comfort, safety and security of the customer and their luggage. The entrepreneurs normally study the market effectively before setting up to undertake any investment in the sectors in which they are interested. In this study, major concentration is normally given to determining the faults of other players and then capitalizing on these faults to better their services thus boosting their trades. The public corporations also use certain techniques to ensure that they get the customers necessary to keep them in operation. While the entrepreneurs go about improving their brand visibilities, the public corporations do not. Their existence is normally a result of acts of parliaments; this offers them enough official visibility. However, they also engage in advertisements as they as well appreciate the role that advertising plays in boosting sales, the bulk of their advertising are run on government broadcasting stations. The other aspect of businesses that require effective management is normally the human resource. Humans run machines and are the brains behind the progress made in a firm. For a venture to succeed then, it must bank on effective personnel acquisition which entails employing the most effective person to perform a given task (Yong, 2008). This is normally understood better by the entrepreneurial ventures. Such firms with the overriding objective of maximizing profits ensure that they employ the most competent and most qualified personnel. Management takes in the best brains that the general publics can offer so as to facilitate decision making and guarantee quality decisions. Public corporations also make use of personnel and, as a matter of fact, this is one area in which the two appear a lot more similar. The government is mandated with the obligation of enhancing the safety of the general public and hiring people who would jeopardize resulting in public outcry. It, therefore, ensures that those who are hired to hold positions in these corporations are qualified individuals who can effectively execute the jobs that are entrusted with the positions that they assume. Applicability The number one role that managers have to play to ensure the survival of their ventures whether entrepreneurial or public corporations is ensuring customer satisfaction which ensures retention. Any business setting has its survival pegged on how well it can get access to the customers and build a market for itself. This is normally a multi staged process involving: Market research is a study that is carried out by the individual who is to set up the business. The findings of this study are the foundations on which the business is built. In undertaking the research, one concentrates in a given sector of the economy that he or she is to set up an operation, an example would be the transport sector. In such a sector, one would set out to determine which is the most preferable to set up a business and what factors constitute the competitive advantages for the already existing players. With this information, one is able to determine what to capitalize on so as to achieve greater success. With the understanding of the sector in which one is to operate in the next task is building a name and creating a brand statement. The market is stratified in its own ways: largely into two, one must determine how his or her venture is to operate and which segment of the market to target (Lane, 2005). There are those who value quality and they normally careless about the price of the good or service. Then there are those who would want a cheaper product and they attach much attention to the price rather than the quality. Claiming to be providing the best quality at the cheapest price is far fetched and a lie that only the illiterate portion of the market would bulge to. After defining and committing to quality which is what most of the middle and the upper class societies want, an investor is there after tasked with ensuring that he/she does all that would evidence such assertion. In the transport sector, quality would be added through the inclusion of such things as comfortable seats made of materials such as leather or velvet and keeping the bus or truck clean and well polished. Security must be enhanced in and around the car as most of the middle and upper class attach much of their concern on their safety. The final stage involves a number of activities that would retain the customers. There are a number of these and they depend on the level of creativity of the marketing managers that the firm hires. It requires a lot of thinking and devising ways of packaging the products and services that the firm prides in. This offers much attraction and draws more customers; this would also help win over the undecided customers who will be first time users of the service or product. Most retail stores currently run the issuance of smart cards to their shoppers. The shoppers obtain reward points that they can eventually redeem to win an assortment of prizes. This was a major attraction as it forms some element of loyalty and the card holders are prompted to only shop in the outlets whose cards they hold (Carey et al., 2006). In the transport sector, most of the buses offer their customers complimentary snacks especially those plying the long distance routes. These strategies vary from one firm to another. The public corporations in most cases do not take this very seriously. They take major responsibility in providing the basics and ensuring that the market stays leveled. Their greatest incentive is mostly the lower fees that they charge. To them, security and safety are the only additions to their basic services. Outcome determination Outcome, in the most basic definition, refers to results. In business, outcome refers to the harvested yields that the strategies laid down by the investors made possible. The results are normally the greatest incentives that entice people into investing in whichever venture deemed ripe. Every single investor takes to the market expecting profits to be the out come of his or her endeavors. The process of attaining profits is one that involves every single stakeholder in the operation of the business since failure to produce the expected profits may imply that a business venture would be liquidated and this would again affect all those who took part in the setting up of the venture. This is the most feared outcome by every investor and, therefore, every strategy in management and operation that the firm seeks to undertake must always be in line with the attainment of the much needed profit (Weinhardt et al., 2008). Entrepreneurial ventures determine the outcome in either profits or losses and all their strategies are always aimed in ensuring that the firm makes as much profit as would be necessary (Maria, Cruz, & Joao, 2011). The market forces that would lead to losses must be avoided at all cost with those that promise profit heavily invested in. The outcome of a business is normally determined by the manner in which the management runs its activities; a business should progress and the progress is only realized when the business grows. A business should diversify and spread out with newer ventures being set up in other markets out of the areas of initial operation. The proceeds from the business, depending on the terms of engagement, should trickle down to other employees of the firm through remuneration with possible raise in income where possible. The large public corporations, on the other hand, receive most of their funding from the treasury; the proceeds that they get from their daily operations all go back to the government coffers where the management lies. Their performance does not in any way affect their operations as some of them stay in the market even when performing poorly. The only source of pressure for improvement would come from the public whose tax money is used in their maintenance and operation. Management employee/involvement In the process of strategizing, all stakeholders are normally involved with a proper path for the flow of information defined. In most of the public corporations, information should flow one way; from the top management down with only feedback flowing the other way. This is one of the reasons that have in the past resulted in poor management in most of these corporations (Psaila & Wagner, 2008). The junior officers, despite their levels of competence, receive orders from the offices above theirs and they should execute the orders without contemplating what the possible outcomes would be. This is not how the management should run and in most successful ventures, information is allowed to flow freely from whichever quarter. Most of the entrepreneurial ventures employ this model in which each member of the staff is entitled to an opinion geared towards profit generation. The type of relationship that exists between the management and the employees determine how the firm performs. A business venture in which the environment is tense with respect reinforced with fear and threats of contract termination would encourage employees to steal from the firm in an attempt to seek freedom. On the contrary, there should exist a free environment in which the junior staff would respectfully hold a discussion on a social issue with the management. In this way, the employee would hint to the manager an undertaking that would be of essence to the attainment of the goals of the company. Practicality The practicality of these differences in strategies is observed in the daily operations of the different markets that exist. In America, all train stations and the entire rail transport is such an example of a large state corporation; it is operated and funded by the treasury and all the proceeds from the train services are drawn back to the treasury (Gotham, 2004). This system sets pace for other players in the transport industry as the train services reach ever single part of the country, any citizen who is not impressed by the services of other means of transport offered by other market players can access the train and receive the essential service. The management of the train is on a timeline. A train gets to destination at stipulated time and departs are all based on the same technique. Their arrival and departure is not influenced by the presence or absence of customers. One of the leading American retail stores that deals in the retail of a variety of products, Wallmart, a firm that has employed a number of strategies to ensure that it retains its market position. To set a customer loyalty mechanism, the store gives its customers a card with which they earn points that they eventually redeem through purchasing some other products. This has played an integral role in the growth of the firm that now has branches overseas (Mansley, 2000). Usefulness The different strategies that are employed by these institutions have different usefulness just as the structures of the very firm are. All these ventures have their own underlying objectives and it is this difference in the main objective that sets other differences. The fact that entrepreneurial ventures are up to make profit ensures that they are strategized in line to the attainment of more profits. The differences in their usefulness is thus determined by the difference in the objectives that they both posse. In the entrepreneurial venture, the strategies are used to generate profit for the investors while in the large public corporations the strategies aim to improve service delivery to the populace and elevation of the market in favor of the very citizens (Klaene, 2007). References Klaene, B. (2007). Structural Fighting: Strategies and Tactics. New York City: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Carey, M., Knowles, C., and Towers-Clark, J. (2006). Accounting: A smart Approach. New York: Mc Graw Hill. Gotham, E.T. (2004). Sabine Pass: the Confederacy’s Thermopylelae. Austin, Texas: University Of Texas Press. Johnston, M. (1991). Houston, the Unknown City, 1836-1946. Texas: Texas University Press. Lane, M.J. (2005). Socially Responsible Investing: An Institutional Investoras Guide, Euromoney. London: Aspen. Mansley, M. (2000). Socially Responsible Investment: a Guide for Pension Funds and Institutional Investors, London: Monitor Press. Maria, M., Cruz, C., and Joao, V. (2011). E-Business issues, challenges and opportunities for SMEs Driving competitiveness. Cincinnati: Hershey PA. Napier, A. (2006). Creating a winning E-Business. New York: Cengage. Psaila, G., and Wagner, R. (2008). E-Commerce and web technologies: 9th International conference. Dublin: Springer. Weinhardt, C., Luckner, S., and Stosser, J. (2008). Designing E-Business systems markets, services and networks. 7th workshop on E-business. Paris: Springer. Yong, J. (2008). Computer Supported Cooperative Work In Design. Melbourne: Springer. Read More