Strategic Management in Global Context - Assignment Example

Topic of Content PART 1: The nature of strategy………………………………………. 3 Viewing strategy from multiple perspectives, different issues this reveals…… 4 The influence of culture on strategy……………………………….. 4 Theories to understand the significance of perspective…………… 4 Managing Strategic Change: The need for & process of strategic change …………………………… 4 Approaches to managing Change…………………………………………. 4 Obstacles/ resistance to change………………………………………… 5 Strategic Change & Culture……………………………………………… 5 Bottom up / Top down Strategic change …………………………………… 5 Role of Change Agents……………………………….. 5 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………… 6 SONY: Visionary leadership……………………………………………………… 7 Pioneer advantage………………………………………………………. 7 Analysis and Teamwork …………………………………………………… 8 PART 2: Industry’s growth…………………………………………………………… 10 Innovation…………………………………………………………………….. 11 External environment……………………………………………………… 12 Competitive Pressures Exist within the Industry……………………………. 13 Brief Statement of the Current & Future Strategic Issues……………………… 13 Recuperate Focus………………………………………………………….. 14 Promote marketing to the boardroom…………………………………………. 14 Brand oriented leadership……………………………………………………….. 15 Design, features and the cool factor…………………………………………… 15 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….. 16 Executive Summary……………………………………………. 16 References …………………………………………………………………. 18 Appendix A Supporting Data…………………………… 18 Appendix B Sources………………………………… 20 Part 1: Strategic Management Process & Context: The nature of strategy: Strategy of any organization I build that reveals how to respond to the customers, environments, competitors etc. the strategy of a company also helps in describing what kind of relationships to be made with the dealers, raw material vendors, customers, competitors, business partners, workers and also tells how to survive in the business market( Kazmi , 2008). Viewing strategy from multiple perspectives, different issues this reveals: The process that explains the process and functionality of any organization is strategic management process. This provides a roadmap for an organization to achieve its set goals and objectives( Kazmi , 2008 The influence of culture on strategy: The culture has a great influence on strategy. The strategies of a business would be building according to the cultural in order to meet customer’s requirements as culture greatly affects the demands of a nation (Witcher,  Chau 2010) . Strategy Lenses/ Strategy Safari… & other concepts/ models/ theories to understand the significance of perspective: Different models are used to understand the significance of strategy. There are different models used within different organizations (Witcher,  Chau 2010) . Some of the key components are knowledge creation, transfer, utilization, exploration, tacit knowledge. etc. Managing Strategic Change: The need for & process of strategic change: There are no valid theories about business and the failure and success of the organization cannot be considered theoretically (Ungson , Wong 2008) .The processes change according to the demands of the customer. Therefore it is need for strategic change. Approaches to managing Change: While creating strategies it should be kept in mind that they are adaptive and opportunistic. The planning is done according to the capabilities of a firm. Adaptive strategy is constructed in approach to handle changes thayt may occur with the passage of time (Ungson , Wong 2008) . Obstacles/ resistance to change: It has been known for times that the companies that do not adapt according to the changes of the customers remain far behind. An industry not complying to the customers needs will loose its customers and market value (Morrill , 2007). The strategies for management should be well designed to adapt the changes. Strategic Change & Culture: Mostly senior executives are facing problems that specific cultural changes affect their businesses. There is always a need to manage strategies to handle such changes ( Balogun, Hailey, Johnson , 2008). Bottom up/ Top down Strategic change: Coping with change is a difficult challenge faced by every organization. It simply describes the change strategies from top to down or down to top. That is from planning and analysis to implementation or vice versa. Either of the strategy is adapted according to the requirement ( Dess , Lumpkin , Eisner 2009). Role of Change Agents: Change agents are those who are the professional for development within the organization. They are the middle managers who have the opportunity to bring about the changes in their organizations (Korine , Gomez , 2002). The role of change agent is of a designer, developer, manger, educator, marketer etc. Introduction: Sony is the most competitive manufacturer of audio/ video devices for communication, entertainment and technological products. Headquarter of Sony is in Tokyo but it has about 928 strong and combined auxiliary offices throughout the world. Sony is well known for being a comprehensive company because of its music, moving picture, television, video, computer entertainment, and online businesses. Sony is on rank 28, on the latest Interbrand scoreboard, revealing that Sony has a value of almost 11 billion dollars. Sony’s chief U.S. businesses include Sony Electronics Inc.; Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. Sony has also its 50% interest in one of the largest recorded music companies that is Music Entertainment. Innovation and technical advancement are the major key roles of the company. Walkman, which is recognized as an icon was the first major advancement by Sony. Sony has played an important role in different sectors, by developing vaio notebook with co-brand, Bravia high-definition (HD) flat screen television which provides the better picture system than the older ones. It is their aim to struggle for advancements in technology. Europe is the world's largest market for games consoles, when Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) was in the position to its send forth of the newest version of the games console, PlayStation2 (PS2); the company wanted a directly connected to the customer presence in Europe to occur at the same time with a fall 2000 launch. But the draw back was that SCE Europe had dispersed so many Websites that were providing information but there were no capabilities for e-commerce transactions. The company had to build a channel for direct connection to the customer in only eight months and had to complete it in an only enfolded step. This was considered that the growth was slowing by a senior management of a world-class packaged goods manufacturer The senior management of a world-class packaged goods manufacturer felt that growth was slowing. The company felt a need for future growing in a mature feminine care market and therefore asked for help. They created a new segmentation model in partnership with the company marketing research team and McKinsey customer insights experts in a 3-D marketing framework. This practice had a great affect on influenced the company's overall classification and division strategy, as well as its branding strategy. SONY: Visionary leadership: Sony is the best example to explain the strategic significance of a creative thinker leader in order to take their products to the highest apex of fame. An environment was created to take care if experimentation and innovation under the responsibility of Sony’s management team along with the CEO. After that, Sony became one of the early Asian brands to be acquainted with the significance of production, which is obviously have been led by and supported the management team. Pioneer advantage: Sony came into sight as the breaker of new grounds, as it gave an innovative border to the industry. As Sony was the pioneer in the category of invention, and the first in delivering services, it had breathing space in resolution of the rules of the strategy. It set the prospect for the other corporations that get into the group. The product representation improved every time a contestant duplicated Sony as it became a roundabout way to recognize Sony’s management point. Still it gave way to make more mistakes, check new thoughts, and trial with pioneering perceptions, as Sony is the pioneer. Analysis and Teamwork A precise survey of customers was conducted. And a new segmentation model was created in 3-D marketing framework, in partnership with client marketing research team and our customer insights experts. The focus of the team was on two or three key portions that could be more likely to respond to relationship benefits that had the most potential and could lead to numerous healthy business cases. The concepts were designed to refine further, and financial protrusions were established. Many points were included in the analysis and teamwork. One of them was unrelated diversification. It is an exclusive feature that has renowned more than a few Asian businesses from other Western businesses. Companies gust up into multinationals that do business in very varied and unconnected industries, where proscribed directed largely by business families. Many Asian companies such as LG and Samsung that have become global forces to deem with also started as overstuffed corporations. But these companies include learning the magnitude of meeting point on central part of competency. Sony seems to have trapped up in numerous businesses. These kind of unconnected varied and spread businesses exhaust the brand’s property to a huge scope and redirect the product focal point from the heart of the brand. Another point being analyzed was Innovation dearth which can be explained well by Case of Apples’ iPod .Sony became the leader in portable music player category after developing the walkman. Sony did not continue action with any exceptional and pioneering manufactured goods line up to maintain their preliminary victory. Apple came out with iPod that pleads to the not yet old age band international and also well thought-of its normal iTunes from where patrons could download songs for only an in name expense. This recognized Apple as the undoubted organizer in mobile music market and helped them set up the manufacturing set. This injured Sony’s trade name status. The decline of Sony in the past few years was also because of the Lack of brand evolution. Sony’s is well known for its past that surely made lager contribution for a huge amount of legacy, history and success into the brand identity. To be successful in the current globalized market place Sony has to make itself very appropriate to the in progress customer section. A huge mistake committed by Sony is that it has not been very triumphant in developing gradually and naturally as the product for the customers as the new masses having requirements according to the demand of the twenty first century. PART 2: Industry’s growth: The extra ordinary growth in the consumer electronics industry can chiefly be regarded as belonging to the condition requiring immediate action of a new fact or occurrence that appears called convergence, as the online magazine for digital imaging ´Let’s Go Digital` pointed out in this years March issue. The coming together and gradually blending of apart existing markets of digital-based audio, video and information technology, by doing so the barriers are removed and industry boundaries are no more limited, thus providing a vast range of manufacturing. Due to this approach, a greater demand is created from the customers requiring consumer devices that provide multiple functionalities. The involvement of great changes in the digital technology as well as the emergence of mobile telecommunications technology has a great influence in contributing in the increase of global sales of such consumer electronic industry. Japanese companies like Sony have taken hold on the consumer electronics market. Sony is listed as the most popular brand, according to the current international survey. Innovation: Sony of Canada, has long been a predecessor of innovation as it is the only company that is providing the solutions for electronic and computer products for Canadian consumers and businesses. Sony of Canada put into effect SAP R/3 for its central and most important part of financial, complete list of goods management and sales commercial dispersion of components to provide better functionality, in 1997. Corporately, Sony had resolute to move to world wide supervision for ERP. As the market leader for ERP even then, SAP was acknowledged as the corporate direction, The traits of Sony are defined by the innovation. Sony’s capability to create products even before other companies could put them for concept or idea of business, had led Sony to grow globally. When Sony introduced the Walkman, there was no existing market for such easily movable music. An entire generation of products had been brought out by Sony, and created a totally new category. That is how Sony had been differentiated from other consumer electronic brands, just because of its innovative culture. External environment: The operations of firms are done within the business environment, whereas the business environment lies outside the firms. It is the external environment of the firms that is continuously changing. Some changes are so spectacular that everybody notices them, but there are also some changes that may move stealthily up on an industry over the years and are not being noticed for very long times (Harrison ,  John , 2009). For an industry as a whole, with the passage of time customers needs and requirements are changed. As the new technologies are becoming more popular, they may let many new firms to enter the industry with different but better products(Harrison, John, 2009). They enable the inexpensive ways of doing things. As the new technology is used employees are required to up date their skills to take advantage of new technologies. (Harrison, John, 2009). Conventional starting places of provisions of raw material components commence to look less unswerving. New supply sources come forward. The major change is that if the industry is no more able to pull towards new, talented human resources (Harrison, John , 2009). Competitive Pressures Exist within the Industry: For individual firms within an industry, the external business environment also includes their contestants, who may bring in new, better techniques of production. Or they change the habits in which they struggle for business. There is a chance to enlarge their target markets by competitors. Or they may find new habits of pulling towards the attraction of key employees (Haberberg,  Rieple , 2008). Brief Statement of the Current & Future Strategic Issues: Recuperate Focus: Belongings of not linked diversions of several enterprises have been very well-defined for many Asian corporations that are owned by the families. It is often able to be justifying on the reason of level and extent cost-cutting measures, in working in a number of dissimilar businesses (Haberberg,  Rieple , 2008). But such diversification will be more disadvantageous than helpful, from a brand point of view. As doing Samsung, Sony also should carry out a suitable conscientiousness to appraise the monetary and product significance of its diverse trade components. It is beneficial for Sony to come out of such unrelated businesses before these business components wear down the evenhandedness of the central part of Sony brand. Retrieval of center of attention and endowing in development and expanding its center capabilities will be the first essential stride towards recapture of brand headship. Promote marketing to the boardroom: Sony should refurbish its branches that have a straight contact on generating physically powerful customer insight for the product, research & development, design, and marketing (Buckley, 2003). Consumer first choice is to be reproduced in any innovation to make brand intelligence. Innovation has to show the way to products and services that would improve the affiliation between the product and the consumer. Sony needs to lift up the advertising purpose to the hall and allow marketing to take a guide of the trade and the approach (Korine, Gomez , 2002). Marketing and branding can be downgraded to a strategic level griped by marketing managers who barely have a positive reception of the better representation. Brand oriented leadership: Sony has faced tough competitions through brands emerging from Asia in the last couple of years and as many American brands had risen again, the market became really tough and competitive on extreme. Sony’s trail reverse to brand preeminence, in such a condition, can happen only if it is directed by a brand oriented leadership. It is the responsibility of CEO and the top management of Sony to assess the sense and individuality of their brand to the customers in these varying eras and allow the brand squad to innovate and direct the businesses in which Sony functions in. Design, features and the cool factor: It becomes very significant for Sony to recoup the cool factor and grumble up its intentions and characteristics, customer leaning traits and the faithful subsequent of “cool” customers, as it has been seen that the violent policies of Apple, Nokia, Samsung and others along with their dominance in plan, have done. Significance to present customers and the aptitude to morph into a brand that can reproduce customer wants demonstrate very vital for Sony as it plans its pathway back to the top most position. Conclusion: In the long run, Sony, by systematically appraising its brand civilization and following the methods described above, could surely revive itself. This attempt prejudiced the clients on the whole category strategy, as well as its branding policy. Particularly, the company took a new move towards the overall placement of two dissimilar brands within the feminine care category. The consequence was a 5 percent pretax profit augment in 18 months, without any noteworthy scheme or managerial modifications. This comprehensive work provides an applied and integrated strategic framework for developing capabilities that lead to global success. Executive Summary: In this part of the report, I would sum up with an outline of the main management strategies followed by world renowned companies, which originate in different parts of the world. Management Strategies have a main goal to bring a product in the market for consumers with a difference so it can be noticed by the costumer. Management is a complete process starting from an idea to its implementation and completion in the form of a product. Companies growing profile can easily tell that strong management strategies are being observed. Management comes in every department of an industry either housekeeping or business development. Errors made in any can take a company to a loss. But some of the departments need extra effort to keep a company from an excessive loss for example Merchandising, Business Development, Production and Marketing. Management Strategies should be designed and implemented according the demands of the product, cultural values, religious faiths for example setting up a Toiletry industries using pork fat in a Muslim country would be a complete disaster. To avoid such blunders, companies take a thorough survey beforehand and go through all its statistical analysis and a large sum of capital is spent to avoid a major loss. After survey reports have been studied by analyst, it is also analyzed according to a demand of a product that what production strategy should be taken forward either Lean, Batch, Individual, or as per order. For example if a society living in a particular region is of low income power, so individual production would cost effectively high. This is thought to be a designer wear or brand which is costly. When a product is ready to go in the market, marketing skills are required to create hype with all its innovative features, style and glam. It not only requires a specific budget of a company but a lot of investment comes at stake, if marketing is done successfully then a product is going to be accepted among public very rapidly. Marketing can be done by giving a discount, an exclusive introductory offer, a lucky coupon and many more. All these strategies are based on the management of a company. Benchmarking is another assessment program which keeps the working spirit high and stays in a market with competitive progress. These are some of the things which mainly depends upon a strategic management, which is strictly done by almost every leading brand on the globe. References Balogun Julia, Veronica Hope Hailey, Gerry Johnson (2008), ‘Exploring strategic change”, FT Prentice Hall Financial Times Buckley Peter J. (2003) “The changing global context of international business” ,Palgrave Macmillan, Dess Gregory G. , G.T. (Tom) Lumpkin, G. T. Lumpkin, Gregory Dess, Alan Eisner (2009)“Strategic Management: Creating Competitive Advantages” McGraw-Hill Irwin. Harrison Jeffrey S. , Caron H. St. John (2009) “Foundations in Strategic Management” Cengage Learning . Haberberg Adrian, Alison Rieple (2008)“Strategic Management: Theory and Application” Oxford University Press. Kazmi (2008) “Strategic Management and Business Policy” Tata McGraw-Hill Education Appendix A: Supporting Data “STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT IN GLOBAL CONTEXT” Strategic Management Process & Context The nature of strategy Viewing strategy from multiple perspectives, different issues this reveals The influence of culture on strategy Theories to understand the significance of perspective Managing Strategic Change: The need for & process of strategic change Approaches to managing change Obstacles/ resistance to change Strategic Change & Culture Bottom up / Top down Strategic change Role of Change Agents INTRODUCTION SONY: Visionary leadership Pioneer advantage Analysis and Teamwork Industry’s growth Innovation External environment Competitive Pressures Exist within the Industry Brief Statement of the Current & Future Strategic Issues Recuperate Focus: Promote marketing to the boardroom: Brand oriented leadership: Design, features and the cool factor: Conclusion Executive Summary BY APPENDIX B: Sources Balogun Julia , Veronica Hope Hailey, Gerry Johnson (2008) ‘Exploring strategic change” FT Prentice Hall Financial Times. Buckley Peter J. (2003) “The changing global context of international business” ,Palgrave Macmillan, Dess Gregory G. , G.T. (Tom) Lumpkin, G. T. Lumpkin, Gregory Dess, Alan Eisner (2009)“Strategic Management: Creating Competitive Advantages” McGraw-Hill Irwin. Harrison Jeffrey S. , Caron H. St. John (2009) “Foundations in Strategic Management” Cengage Learning . Haberberg Adrian , Alison Rieple (2008)“Strategic Management: Theory and Application” Oxford University Press. Kazmi (2008) “Strategic Management And Business Policy” Tata McGraw-Hill Education Korine Harry , Pierre-Yves Gomez (2002) “The leap to globalization: creating new value from business without borders” ,John Wiley and Sons. Morrill Richard L. (2007) “Strategic leadership:  integrating strategy and leadership in colleges and universities” Greenwood Publishing Group. Witcher Barry J. , Vinh Sum Chau (2010) “Strategic Management: Principles and Practice” Cengage Learning EMEA, Ungson Gerardo R. , Yim-Yu Wong (2008)“Global strategic management” M.E. Sharpe. Read More