Strategic Brand Management - Case Study Example

Strategic Brand Management Introduction Operating any business at present without any strict strategy for its development, as well as without any knowledge in the field of strategic risk management means leading this business to decline and bankruptcy. Thus, the role and meaning of the strategic management as a whole and separate strategy is essential for the present day business development. In order to develop right business strategy it is essential to appoint a well-qualified person or apply to professional consultant. In fact, it is stated that a consultant is an independent contractor, who sells his professional knowledge. After consumer agrees at the actions and solutions, proposed by the consultant, these actions are performed by this consultant for some set fee. It depends to the great extent, in what field of expertise consultant wants to work, as some of them may be highly competitive. As consultancy has once become a very profitable business, it is necessary to note, that consultancy in the sphere of accounting, finances, IT-technologies and advertising is supposed to be among one of the most competitive spheres, while it is very difficult to find a good consultant in the sphere of sports and entertainment. However, for the small businesses, which don’t yet have an opportunity to hire a full-time specialist, hiring an independent contractor may become the best time- and cost-saving choice. This was a choice of a company Craiglock Nurseries which needs to develop a new strategy, which will be proposed and analyzed in this paper. The overview of the company’s strategic planning The resources of each enterprise should closely viewed and correspond to its objectives and goals. Craiglock Nurseries was created as an accidental idea but it was also made a successful enterprise; though to keep this success there had to be developed a whole set of measures to keep the company from the fall and decline in sales. There has been a whole set of events, which made it obvious that Craiglock Nurseries needs ‘fresh breath’ and absolutely new turn in its development. Budgeting is a part of any strategic planning and management, and planning without budgeting are the two areas which cannot exist separately. It is essential that the development of any company goes according to the cycles, thus periods of increase in sales is usually followed by certain declines, but through these short cycles the general line of the company’s development must display the tendency to growth. It is accepted, that the company could have survived through the proper management and clearly defined strategies. Based on the knowledge of the theoretical risk management and the case study on the Craiglock Nurseries company, working in the sphere of the healthcare, and as well as looking through the history of the development of this organization, it becomes clear, that a number of serious strategic failures in managing company can lead to the necessity of transformations. The main factors are: lack of clear strategic objectives; lack of budgeting; lack of skilled managerial staff to amend the strategy of the enterprise with the requirements of time and consumers; absence of any strategic plan of development as well as the absence of any clear vision of the way the enterprise should expand and develop. The importance of learning The skills of people are crucial. Without proper skills it is impossible for organizations to reach the proper level of productivity, advancement and success. They can provide the customers with excellence and preference they want. Good skills can help decrease the level of unemployment, and realize people’s aspirations. Maintaining high level of competitiveness and productivity that can increase the standard of living and help people reach the positions they want, needs all the time increasing quantity of intelligent, and well- qualified experts. People will not be able to create a good society, if they can’t eliminate the void between the well-educated and uneducated people. Moreover, skills maintain the employment industry flexibility required to guarantee quickly-responding economic system in the modern altering conditions. The lack of skills and the importance of the appropriate policy It is well-known that skills are very important and mean much. However, it is also not a secret that the United Kingdom does not pay to them as much attention as it must be paid. In comparison with other states, the UK has high showing in the field of higher education due to its well- known and appreciated higher level institutions, which provide people from all over the world with perfect education. However, the United Kingdom has significant deficit in the field of basic skills required to maintain the good level of employment. The delivery of skills is unbalanced. Consequently, a great number of citizens appear in a weak position, because they do not have proper skills to find good and reliable job with all the advantages that it can provide. Lack of such skills represents the problem of the whole nation. Different level of education in various areas of the state is the most important aspect that predetermines regional dissimilarities in activity effectiveness. The problems met in one area differ much from the problems met in another. Consequently, the solution of this problem will require carefulness to make innovations and react to changing environment and meet altering client’s requirements. In order to achieve success it is necessary to make a continued and corresponding attempt directed on achievement. It is necessary to create and structure, inside of which the different people will know what they should do. Every person must have his own task and be aware of the results he must reach. That will help make the process faster. In order to improve the skills it is necessary: - To make people realize the importance of skills improvement - To increase the aspiration for obtaining skills To encourage more people to invest their financiers and efforts in skills attainment. In the modern global conditions it is necessary to act on the foundation of the country’s ability to innovate, to be superior providing highly-demanded goods and services. And this is impossible without good skills base. Some progress has been already made in this direction. In spite of the noticeable advancements, the problems connected with the lack of appropriate skills are still present. Amount produced per hour is considerably higher in the countries-competitors. At the same time as United Kingdom is very competitive in the area of higher education the percent of well-qualified workers is not high. Many citizens of United Kingdom do not possess the skills necessary to find a good job. That appears to be a problem not only for employees, but for employers, because they can’t find the specialists with the skills they need. Consequently the level of productivity of their companies is decreasing. Thus, more changes must be implemented and now this is the main concern of many organizations. It is necessary to detect possible gaps in the education that can disintegrate a strong and progressive business and so contingent measures are always at hand to put things always under control. Moreover, the managers of the companies should well-prepared to train its employees involving the interests of the firm and its relation to its human resource considering that the latter is the number one component that can make or break a company. It is necessary for managers for eliminate the tendencies to commit erroneous plans and arrive at wrong decisions applied towards wrong business directions are but signs of poor utilization of human resources. The manager and the employee must agree that the performance discrepancy must help the worker understand why the disagreement is of concern. This should include a discussion of the negative consequences of the performance discrepancy. The manager and the employee must agree that the performance discrepancy exists and the employee must agree that the performance discrepancy exists. Mutual problem solving is dependent on the employee acknowledging the existence of the performance discrepancy: The manager and employee together should identify and discuss alternative solutions. The manager and employee must mutually agree on the action to be taken. The manager must gain the employee’s commitment to the plan. A follow-up should be scheduled to evaluate the outcome of the action taken. - The manager must recognize any improvement that occurs. Recommendation and conclusion In the changing global situation the important mission of the authority is to guarantee that managers and companies’ owners have the proper knowledge to hold up the success of their activity and workers possess the appropriate skills for them to be able to get a prestigious job and for their self-realization. Surely, success can’t be achieved at once and as it was mentioned above, the situation with skills improvement in the UK is still not satisfactory. The program realization has already gave positive results, however, in order to achieve success it is necessary to make a continued and corresponding attempt directed on achievement. It is necessary to create and structure, inside of which the different people will know what they should do. Every person must have his own task and be aware of the results he must reach. This variety of attitudes might surely include usual, formal training events, though it should also contributes to reflective, permanent, individualized, and/or collective activity by means of self-directed learning, deciding of problems, all-round open planning, advocacy, using theory in practice, and guarantee of quality. And it goes without saying that specifically important is ensuring and recognition of constant informal training. Learning must be conducted by the means of making mistakes, though not repeating them. Let's take into considerations another positive example. Craiglock Nurseries didn't understand in what way his own way of communication (or seen by some staff-members scarcity of communication) showed a scarcity of commitment throughout the organization to a change initiative. Proposed strategy Actually, Craiglock Nurseries was greatly committed to this initiative. It seemed to him that his few communication vehicles by the means of his formal channels on the question of the change program initiative imparted to others his approval and concernment in its future success. At the moment the change consultant and initiative manager saw that staff-members didn't perceive Craiglock Nurseries as committed to this change program, they began to act immediately. Craiglock Nurseries upheld change initiative and any of their attempts for its implementation, staff-members didn't even try to contribute to implementation of new program required under the change initiative. Eventually, that change program failed. And now let's imagine another situation. Thus, it's important that in such a case the ideal organization has the necessary infrastructure as well as the culture that are essential for supporting the proceeding of individual and organizational learning. Thus, the learning has to be bi-directional and shows that the organization considers all volunteers-members as worthy of development the process of organizational learning and changing. Such an idea also implies to the qualities that Watkins and Marsick (208) have covered as 4 major aspects of any learning culture. It (a) forms steady learning opportunities, (b) contributes to inquiry and dialogue among staff-members, (c) supports co-operation and team learning, and, at last, (d) contributes to collective vision among the members. The factors of overcoming resistance in the management of organizational changes are also described by this author in the following form: accounting the reasons of organizational behavior of each employee; the meaning of the leader’s authority; giving all the necessary information relating to the change to the group which will be directly touched by this change; achieving common agreement; the feeling of belonging to the group; the group’s authority for its members; the support of changes by the group’s leader; the awareness of the group members. (Klein, 1996) Piderit (2000) described the methods of overcoming the resistance; these methods are admitted to be universal and may (and should) be used in the practical work of the change managers for the better implementation of the organizational changes: 1. Awareness and communication; 2. Participation and involvement; 3. Assistance and support; 4. Negotiations and agreement; 5. Manipulations and co-optations; 6. Open and hidden coercion. (Piderit, 2000) Thus, it has become evident that the literature on organizational changes represents vast opportunities for studying and researching the problems of this field of management, with the possible solutions to the common problems appearing at the stages of developing and implementing the changes. Strategy evaluation and implementation There are five principles of the organizational change management, which should be born in mind by any change manager. The knowledge acquired through literary sources and practical experience may be used for the improvement of the changes implementation and understanding the main sources and implications of the resistance which any change faces. First of all, it is necessary to coordinate the methods and processes of changes with the usual activity and management processes in the organization. The struggle for the limited resources is possible in this case; some people may be used for the planning and development of changes, as well as for performing current business processes. This problem becomes extremely urgent and delicate in the organizations, where major changes occur, for example when the transition to the new product or new production technology requires considerable reorganization of the production processes, and the issue here is how to achieve the goals without too large losses in production and productivity. Second, the senior management must define in which actions exactly, to what extent and in what form it should take part directly. The main criterion is the complexity of the actions to be performed and their importance for the organization. In large companies senior managers are not able to personally participate in all changes, but they still need to take part in some of them or to find the means of displaying their support to the major changes taking place in the company. An important stimulus in performing changes is supporting messages of the board to the change managers. (Klein, 1996) Various processes of organizational changes and reconstructions should be agreed, and if it may be easy in the small company, but considerable difficulties may appear in a big company. Such perspectives must be applied to the topic of the organizational change management and be closely considered, as it is often that different company’s departments work with similar issues and may come out with the suggestions which don’t correspond with the general policy of the organization, as well as standard methods; it may also occur that one of the departments comes out with a brilliant suggestion for organizational change and the task is to persuade other departments in the necessity for this change. In such cases management of the company should be very delicate in interfering with such matters. Organizational change management includes various aspects, - technological, structural, methodical, human and psychological. This makes the management obligations even more complicated, as the specialist taking part in the change process; try to impose their viewpoint and limited view at the complex problem (Goodstein, 1991). The most widely spread mistakes which managers perform on their way to implementation of organizational changes and which should call for closer attention with the aim of avoiding these mistakes, are the following: (this knowledge is based on the practical experience and may be actively used by managers in their change managerial practice) 1. Excessive attention towards expenses. Managers may consider that financial expenses are the most important and may also be unable to realize the importance of the organizational changes which don’t directly lead to the changes in the expenses structure – for example, the changes aimed at increase of the employees’ motivation and the level of customer satisfaction. 2. Inability to realize the profits. Any significant changes will cause both positive and negative results; it would be necessary to inform managers and co-workers for their realization of the positive consequences. Besides, if the system of rewards in the company does not work the striving for risks, many workers may refuse from changes considering the risk to be too high. 3. Lack of coordination and cooperation. Disunity of the organization often leads to the lack of coordination at the stage of change implementation. Besides, in the case with the new technologies implementation, both the old and the new system should be compatible. This recommendation is very important for the practicing change managers, as the incompatibility of the systems may lead to serious negative consequences and higher expenses for correction of the situation. 4. Striving to avoid indefiniteness. At the individual level the employees are afraid of indefiniteness and instability, which are associated with changes. The constant connection with the senior management is needed for all co-workers to know the situation and to understand how the occurring changes influence their work. 5. The fear of losses. Managers and employees are afraid of loosing power, status and even their work. In such cases the performing of changes must be delicate and gradual, and all employees should be involved into this process to the maximum extent. (Piderit, 2000) Thus, it has become clear that even with the vast volumes of the professional literature related to the topic of the change management in organizations, the number of problems, challenges and resistances faced by managers in their striving for changes is numerous. The present paper is important for the better understanding of the processes which usually occur when any changes are to be implemented. Senior management must understand, to which extents its interference with the matter will have reason, and change managers must understand their obligations, strategic goals and expenses which can be reasonably afforded through the stages of implementation and development of change ideas. It has been already written that organizational change management is a part of general change management as a science, and its notions are readily applicable to the sphere of business and organizational changes. Conclusion As strategic management has become an important field of studies, with the resistance notion being its key component and with the understanding of the organizational culture being an integral part of the change process success, there are some recommendations for the practicing managers which may be useful and will provide better their performance in the changing environment. First of all, the notion of organizational culture includes certain bans and limitations, which practicing managers must take into account. Any manager must perform deep analysis of the situation, which will define the problems of the current situation and the reasons of these problems, with the specifying the necessary changes. It is essential to make thorough choice of the change strategy, based on the abovementioned analysis, the volume of work to be carried out and the level of other people's involvement; it is even more important o closely monitor the process of changes as at the stage of implementation there often appear problems of unexpected character which should be quickly dealt with. All the notions and theories described in this work have both explanatory and predictive character. Some of them explain the processes which occur during the process of change implementation; others give recommendations for prediction of behavioral reactions to changes in organizations. This knowledge is general is very valuable for strategic consultants managers in their daily performance and will surely present new practical knowledge in their desire to better fulfill their tasks. References Keller, Kevin Lane .2002. Strategic brand management, Pearson US. Nichols, Grove. 1996. Strategic plans that work are a must, ABA Banking Journal, 88, p. 27-34 Peppers, Don. 2004. Managing customer relations: A strategic framework, London: Wiley & Sons. Proctor, Tony. 2000. Strategic marketing: An introduction, London: Routledge. Stone, Marylin. 2004. International strategic marketing: A European perspective, London: Routledge. 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