WRSX - Strategic Choices for Growth and Creation of Shareholder Value - Case Study Example

Name Course Lecturer Date WRSX strategic choices for growth and creation of shareholder value The way of doing business has recently changed, more so due recurrent recessions that have occurred over the past decade. In addition to that, competition in both local and international market has remarkably increased rendering traditional ways of doing business totally invalid. Stakeholders are now regarded as the lifeblood of an organization as the company’s survival is directly dependent on them. As such, companies are beginning to refocus on growth as well as creating value for their stakeholders. Delivering profitable growth and creating value for stakeholders is however, a major challenge for many companies in the current volatile world of business. Customer behavior and needs have changed substantially; they are looking for more distinctive, tailored products and services, are more interested in value-oriented offers and they have become more price sensitive. Even so, companies have a range of strategic choices to choose from in order to maintain their competitive edge. WRSX will apply the strategies discussed below to ensure sustainable profitable growth and creation of maximum value for its stakeholders. Leadership strategy Strong leaders are becoming increasingly important with the increasing volatility and uncertainty in the world as well the need to make difficult decisions. To ensure rapid response to changing competitive circumstances and customer needs, managers need to empower front line employees by making them critical decision makers so that they can be held accountable for results. In more robust definitions, leadership includes both formal and informal leaders. Practical leadership across organizations rarely occurs in the tidy and neat as presented in the organizational chart. Collaboration, influence and communication occur across, up and down the organization as though the organizational chart did not exist. Bleak and Fulmer (p. 307) state that having an organizational chart where all leadership positions are filled is not the surest way to become successful. What matters is the way people relate with each other within the organizational structure. A comprehensive leadership strategy states clearly what kind of leaders are required, behaving with what fashion, with what skills and how many leaders are required to spur the company to success. Essentially, WRSX should apply a leadership strategy based on a thorough analysis of the prevailing situation and informed insight to the future of the company. The strategy will therefore, attempt to reconcile the gap between the desired future and current situation. Strategic leadership basically entails managing strategy-making procedures in order to increase the performance of the company hence increase the value of the company owners or shareholders. Leaders are the lynchpin in these processes as they are responsible for the formulation of strategies to drive good performance. Wal-Mart is a compelling example of the important role played managers in ensuring success. Sam Walton and his managers were solely responsible for choosing of strategies that made Wal-Mart so successful. By way of thorough recruitment procedures, WRSX should ensure it has selected all its managers including the corporate level, business level and functional level who uphold a high degree of all the characteristics of strategic leaders: emotional intelligence, astute use of power, ability to empower and delegate, informed, committed, articulate business models, consistent, eloquent and visionary. Technological strategies and their continuous improvement For many years, technology has been viewed as the cornerstone of successful implementation of business strategies. In today’s world of business however, technology occurs at the intersection of the overall processing and marketing process and thus can be termed as an input to the strategy and not just an after-the-fact enabler. With this knowledge, companies across the board intending to take up the initiative in the highly competitive environment; that is, establishing technology-driven business strategy. There are many positive implications of using technology-driven strategy. First, technology is undoubtedly a source of growth and this has been widely accepted by leading Multinational Corporation such as IBM, Motorola and Cisco. Second, technology is prompted by sufficient know-how which implies that the company has wealth of highly innovative and knowledgeable work force. As such, a company needs to apply a unique market strategy factored in by technology and not necessarily application of new technology breakthroughs. Finally, the competitive advantage afforded by technology is short lived which implies that a company has to be in constant research to keep in pace with rapid changes in technology. This in turn means that the company remains nourished with new technologies and developments thus remains relevant in the competitive market (Orlikowski , p.430). The major concern for WRSX is how to use technology to drive growth and stakeholder’s value. Technology within WRSX should be perceived as a core input rather than an enabler of business strategies. In addition, the company will appoint or hire a research team to discover applicable technological innovations and assess their potential implications towards the business. Through the work of a research team, Boston Coach has reported a 10% increase in sales and simultaneous increase in productivity by 10-20% (IBM Corporation, p. 3). In order to explore the full potential of technology, WRSX will also revise its technological contexts and strategies regularly. Clearly, technology change rapidly and therefore, companies ought to revise and manage technological strategies in a continuous manner in order to proactively take advantage of technology-driven markets. With the insight that technology is rapidly changing, WRSX will have a diversified portfolio of capabilities- emerging technologies and sustaining technologies. Moreover, technology within WRSX will focus on customer and stakeholders priorities so as to maximize their value. Technology will not be exclusively based on internal efficiencies but will concentrate on needs and problems of their customers and try to identify technologies and business models that will impact the particular issues. Green practices A search through the corporate sites of big companies in the world indicates that social responsibility is a major building block to a profitable organization. Green practices are gaining popularity as potential tools for marketing as they indicate a company’s engagement and concern towards the environment. Global CXO outlook (p. 6) states that sustainable practices are critical in terms of business growth perspective. According to research, organizations resort to eco-friendly actions to comply with regulations, meet customer demands and improve operational efficiency. Even so, most companies are inhibited from participating in environmentally friendly practices due to the perceived high costs involves. Nevertheless, it should be understood that cutting carbon cost basically means reduction of a significant proportion of wastes during production; which implies efficiencies. Efficiencies can be converted to cost savings which can serve in expansions and growth. As a way of boosting environmental responsibility, WRSX will become part of corporate innovation strategy and more specifically green strategies. This means that it will comply with both local and international regulations governing environmental issues. IT and communication companies are on the lime light due to the amount of energy consumed in their facilities. IT solutions that are more environmentally friendly and consume less energy therefore, should be priority for companies. WRSX will establish an organizational framework to stimulate green practices. Global CXO outlook (p. 5) posits that the framework can only work through a strong executive leadership which demonstrates the ability to make decisions the company wants now and in the future. Going global Developing areas such as Eastern Europe and Southern Asia are fundamental to the growth of global enterprises. Khanna, Palepu and Sinha (p. 74) maintain that organic growth of companies can only be achieved via investments and expansions into foreign and emergent markets where the rate of growth is rapid and promising. China, for example should be given priority during WRSX’s plan to invest globally. This is because China has multiple opportunities for growth in addition to high capacity and lower costs of operations. Besides that, emergent markets are resilient and customers in those areas are value-oriented. Thus, competitors in such markets tend to pursue technological capabilities to strengthen their competitive edge. This represents a prime opportunity for WRSX to reduce costs, enhance efficiency and improve production and hence focus on its core business. Market sensing is important during global expansion due to the growing demand and changing consumer needs in emergent markets. Effective market sensing basically entails comprehensive and sophisticated analysis of what customers in the prospective market need as well as their behavior and also what competitors are doing (Borchradt, Dailey and Rea , p. 4). To achieve this objective, WRSX will require a proactive marketing team to provide timely, accurate and deeper insights into the desired market. Other cheaper and convenient ways that WRSX can employ are the social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Companies are now using social networks to understand their customer needs thus improve their product or service offering. Conclusion Sustained profitable growth indeed creates value for stakeholders as they are able to get returns for their investment. Although economies are much better in comparison to the past few years, growth reaching sustained growth does not come easily. Strategic leadership is a vital tool that WRSX will use to drive its growth since such leaders will empower all other employees to reach target. In addition, it will invest in technological innovations and continuous improvement of these technologies to remain at par with changing market trends. Greener practices have also been identified as a viable opportunity for WRSX’s growth as this portrays the company’s commitment and engagement in environmental affairs. Development to foreign and emergent markets is another sure way to sustain the growth of WRSX. WRSX should ensure integration of all these strategic choices in order to create value for its shareholders through sustained growth. Works Cited Bleak, Jared and Robert Fulmer. Best practice in leadership development Handbook. San Francisco: Pfeiffer, 2009. Borchradt, Wayne, Jill Dailey and Isobel Rea. Growth strategies in the new reality: The same success factors really do still apply. 2012. 2 October 2012 . Corporation, IBM. Boston Coach drives to the new heights of efficisncy with real time dispatch system. August 2004. 2 October 2012 . Khanna, Tarun, Krishna Palepu and Jayant Sinha. "Strategies that fit emerging markets." Harvard business review, 1(1) (2005): 63-76. Orlikowski, Wanda. "Using technology and constituting structures: A practice lens for studying technology in organizations." Organization sceince, 11(4) (2000): 404-428. outlook, Global CXO. Growth strategies for 2012 and beyond. 2012. 2 October 2012 . Read More