Assessing the Strategic Position - Essay Example

The Strategy Experience Introduction The report is aimed at assessing the strategic position and strategic choices evolve over the four year period at WRSX. The report also seeks to highlight about the key changes occurred, or new information emerge, that changed the initial concepts. In addition, this report will also highlight about the underlying principles for pursuing specific objectives in the board meeting rather than other objectives. Hence, considering the operating environment of WRSX, the basis for the decision making will be also elaborated. Finally, whether the expectation or the outcomes were fulfilled or not will be discussed. All these will be supported through strong theoretical backgrounds. Discussion The key agendas in meeting 1 were Market opportunity in china, Sustainability policy, culture change in New York and consultants report on opportunities in digital media. The agendas in meeting two were client churn- critical success factors, sponsorship opportunity, knowledge sharing and communication coordination and corporate governance. The agendas of third meeting were launching cine FX in London and New York - core / non core business services, market opportunity Asian SME\s - strategic directions / diversification / market development, changing organisational structure to meet our strategic challenges and bringing down print costs - the power of buyers / suppliers in procurement. Lastly, the agendas of meeting four were competitor action puts pressure on margins in our market insights business, profiting from sustainability, strategic alliance Indian advertising market and rationalisation and cost cutting. In the first board meeting, the company’s first agenda was to discuss about the market opportunity in china. Initially, the company had a thought that there is no assurance that entering this market will be beneficial for the company. In addition, it was also identified that increased profitability will not be an immediate venture, but at the same time not entering the Chinese market will have financial impact on the company. The next key agenda of discussion was sustainability policy. This issue was discussed because of the fact that sustainability has clearly been a key issue in this present business context. Moreover, sustainability issues can impact WRSX Group both internally and externally. The strategic intention as well as the strategic choice pertaining to management of sustainability has remained the same. It has been observed that management of sustainability is increasing the confidence of investors. The third one is related culture change in New York. This was discussed owing to the fact that cultural issues impact the business and hence it was important to get insights into the culture. The framework used for underpinning cultural differences was Hofstede’s cultural dimension framework. Lastly, consultants report on opportunities in digital media was the topic of discussion. The robust development of digital media created opportunities for the business houses (Bull and Compton, 2006). This was probably the biggest driver to discuss about this issue. It has been also observed that WRSX Group gives enormous importance to the reports of consultants and devised strategies on these bases only. The aforementioned factors were discussed with the notion that the profitability of the firm will increase with these agendas. In addition, the aforementioned factors also have the ability to make comprehensive development of the company. In the next board meeting, the first topic of discussion was client churn- critical success factors. This was principally discussed because knowing customer requirements was extremely important in order to retain them. Reports have already shown that the WRSX Group has already started to lose their consumers in the US market. Hence, this was an essential discussion. CSF model was used to sort out this issue. Next was sponsorship opportunity and this was an effort to strengthen marketing initiatives. Although financial cost is low but the benefits are questionable. As a result of that, the company had chosen to go with brand endorsement with celebrities. The next was knowledge sharing and communication coordination, the aim was to win orders through better coordination with the external stakeholders. Strategic capabilities and competitive advantage were the two key frameworks used in this context. In the similar way, corporate governance was also discussed with the aim of strengthening the company’s law and order and also promotes transparency (Love and Bullen, 2009). Most of the decisions in the meeting were made by applying theoretical models and it supported the decision making process greatly. Moreover as a result of that the company succeeded to resolve or minimize the possible conflicts that could have taken place. The other factors not discussed in the meeting because owing to the current market trend, those factors were found to be more important and thus required attention of the management. The key issues in the third board meeting were launching cine FX in London and New York - core and non core business services, changing organisational structure so as to meet the strategic challenges facing the company, ways to minimize the printing cost - the power of buyers / suppliers in procurement and market opportunity in the Asian SMEs - strategic directions, diversification or through market development. The aforementioned factors were discussed with the aim of identifying which are the companies that are central to the strategic position of the firm. In addition, the aim was also to analyse the market opportunities in the Asian SME market. However, along with the evaluation of the external opportunities, the study also tried to assess the internal factors in the form of evaluating whether the current organizational structure of the company is consistent with market requirements or whether it needs modification. Also discussion was made about how the company can reduce the various types of cost associated with the company’s operation. In this context, analysis of the power of the stakeholders through Porter’s five forces analysis can be a wise option. With the application of the theories and frameworks, the results were as expected, as the company succeeded to identify the major forces impacting their operation and at the same time determined the changes they are required to bring in their system. The key agendas of the last board meeting were discussion about whether the competitor’s action puts pressure on margins of the company, does the company gains profit from sustainability, strategic alliance in the Indian advertising market and rationalisation and cost cutting. This meeting was arranged with the aim of underpinning the external opportunities of the firm. More than the external opportunities, the key agenda was to identify the chances of success for the company in other business domains (Zeithaml, 2010). Along with opportunity analysis, the aim was to also evaluate the options of reducing the operational cost. The important strategic frameworks put into practise were drivers of internationalization, business strategy: sustaining price-based / differentiation-based advantage etc. In this meeting session, various theoretical concepts were used and that enabled the company to devise strategies as well as implementation plans. Conclusion This essay was aimed at discussing the key agendas of four of the board meeting took place WRSX group. The discussion revealed that the company discussed the factors on the basis of the current market trend. In addition, the meeting were also arranging to evaluate the possibilities of reducing the operational cost. Various theories and strategic frameworks were used to strengthen the points made in the discussion. Therefore from an overall point of view it can be concluded that strategic positions were highly consistent with the strategic choices of the firm. Reference List Bull, M. and Compton, H., 2006. Business practices in social enterprises. Social Enterprise Journal, 1 (2), pp. 42-60. Love, P. and Bullen, A., 2009. Toward the sustainable adaptation of existing facilities. Facilities, 27 (9/10), pp. 357-67. Zeithaml, V. A., 2010. Delivering Quality Service. New York: Simon and Schuster. Read More