Management of Organisational Behaviour - Research Paper Example

?Introduction In the previous assignment, a strategic analysis of Secret Garden Party/Secret Productions in terms of understanding the business environment and competitive positioning of the company has been conducted. This report will focus on the evaluation of a strategic option available for the company in order to strengthen its competitive positioning in the market. Key strategic Issues The Secret Gardens Party is held in U.K at the end of July in every year. It is a famous music and arts festival held in the country. Right from 2004 to 2013, the festival has gained its popularity among the individuals in the country. “Principle of Participation” is the underlying driving force of the success of the festival. However, few strategic issues have turned out to be nontrivial for the organization in the festival in the recent years. These issues are: The tickets of the concerts and the programs of the festival are very pricy. In the recent years, especially from 2009, the recession in the global economy has reduced the supply of money in the economy; this has reduced the disposable incomes of the consumers. The demands for the tickets of the festival have fallen for this reason in the recent years. The industry for entertainment has become highly competitive in nature. The occurrences of famous sports events like the Olympics have seemed to reduce the popularity of the music festivals. Rather there are also other companies engaging in the organization of music events. The entertainment and music festival market of UK has become more competitive due to entry of new competitors and service diversification of existing competitors. For example, competitors or creative entertainment shows like Northern Darkness, Dumbfest Music and Comedy similar offerings like Secret Garden Party/Secret Productions (Kuchler, 2013). Therefore, that entertainment festival industry in UK has become hypercompetitive due to presence of competitors having equivalent resource capabilities and product/service offerings. The uncertainty of bad weather conditions has also negatively affected the events of the Secret Garden’s Party. Strategic options- Secret Garden party (I have merged them into one. please check if the bullet points are under the right points) According to Ansoff Matrix’s Model (1987), marketers can have four types of strategic options: 1- Increasing penetration for existing product in existing market through tailor made marketing strategies. The organisation can apply this strategy by: Offering unique products and services and putting more variety in existing offerings such as Secret Emporium, Boutique camping, Soul Fire Restaurant, The Sanctuary and Secret Forum Improving the relationship with customers by developing customer community, online customer feedback forum and customizing the product offering as per request of customers Increasing brand credibility through developing unique promotional campaign consisting of brochures, mail shots, advertisements, website promotion , sales promotions, personal selling, exhibitions, and press publicity campaign 2- Offering new services in existing market by: Penetrating existing market by defining the market served and establishing strategic alliances with small level music festivals, public relation firms and music DVD selling companies 3- Entering new market by offering existing product portfolio by: The uncertain negativities of bad weather can be reduced by the company if it can organize its programs in the indoor halls of U.K Organizing the festival in new places apart from U.K. 4- Developing and diversifying the product portfolio as per requirements of new market. The company can enter in different types of strategic alliances with other event-organizing firms. This would help the firm to acquire more skills and expertise. Offering online broadcasting / streaming of the festival customers who do not have the time and opportunity to enjoy the festival by being physically present (Secret Garden Party, 2013). As a summary, it can be said that Secret Garden Party has the option to bank on any one of the previous options or they can use optimal portfolio of the above mentioned options which can help them to get more customers and revenue or achieve competitive advantage in two way manner, 1- diversified offering would fulfil entertainment requirements of additional customers and additional pool of customer would visit the festival and the company would get the opportunity to earn more revenues and 2- Offering online broadcasting would help the company to attract customers who do not have the time and opportunity to enjoy the festival by being physically present and in this way, the company will open another revenue stream. By using the above mentioned strategy, Secret Garden Party would develop resource driven competitive advantage. Evaluation of Strategic Options (must add new points from the above options into the evaluation) Evaluation of Strategic Options (must add new points from the above options into the evaluation) Option 1- Offering unique products Consideration of research work of Johnson and Cloonan (2009) reveals the fact that it is very difficult for markets to measure efficiency and success of diversifying music festivals and entertainment offerings due to involvement of intangibility and cognitive biasness among customers. Secret Garden Party/Secret Productions has already diversified its offering by incorporating items like Secret Emporium, Boutique camping, Soul Fire Restaurant, The Sanctuary and Secret Forum. At this point, diversifying the product portfolio would require further financial and non-financial resource investment for the company while certain level of uncertainty is associated with return on the investment due to two reasons, first saturated nature of the market and low margin as against investment in the music festival industry (Weinstock, 2010). Option 2- Penetrating in existing market Secret Garden Party/Secret Productions might think about serving the market in more efficient manner by establishing strategic alliances with small level music festivals, public relation firms and music DVD selling companies. Consideration of the report of Weinstock (2010) reveals the fact that Secret Garden Party/Secret Productions already serving the market in efficient manner and establishing strategic alliances with small level music festivals, public relation firms and music DVD selling companies might cannibalize the brand positioning of Secret Garden Party among customers Option 3- Improved Relationship with Users Improving the relationship with customers by developing customer community, online customer feedback forum and customizing the product offering as per request of customers can be considered as plausible strategic option. However, consideration of research works Erin, Katie, and Hellen (2011) and Weinstock (2010) reveals the fact most of the players in music festival and entertainment space of UK have already taken steps to develop customer community or online customer feedback forum and Secret Garden Party/Secret Productions has already invested in developing customer community, online customer feedback forum. On the other hand, focus of the company should be to cater requirements of customers who might not be able to enjoy the festival by being physically present. In such context, diversifying the product portfolio or developing community would not serve the purpose of the company. Option 4- Increasing brand credibility According to Weinstock (2010), Secret Garden Party/Secret Productions lacks the marketing enthusiasm and apart from vivid website promotion, the company spends pretty less on promoting the brand. In such context, developing promotional campaign unique promotional campaign consisting of brochures, mail shots, advertisements, website promotion, sales promotions, and personal selling, exhibitions and press publicity campaign would likely to create brand awareness among customers. PWC (2011) also reported that demand for online streaming of music festivals has been increased significantly and young people and working professionals are showing preference for enjoying the online broadcasting / streaming of festivals through Smartphone. Moreover, the literacy rates of the individuals in U.K. are more than 95%. Over the years, the proportions of internet users in U.K. have increased significantly. By publishing its programs in the internet the organizers would be able to reach up to a wide base of viewers. Amidst all the boundaries of geographic deviations, the company can park customers from different parts of the world who would not be able to come and attend the program physically. This would augment the popularity of the Secret Garden’s Party in the market (Aaker, 2011). In such context, Secret Garden Party/Secret Productions should go for offering online broadcasting / streaming of the festival customers who do not have the time and opportunity to enjoy the festival by being physically present. However, certain risks are involved in broadcasting / streaming online such as: 1- it will decrease the physical presence of audience in the festival and that will decrease ticket selling and revenue earning opportunity for Secret Garden Party/Secret Productions 2- due to open access environment of web world, Secret Garden Party/Secret Productions is bound to face difficulties to protect the proprietary security of online streaming 3- streaming online would defeat the purpose of living the moment in the festival and the spirit of it among customers and that may negatively affect brand equity of Secret Garden Party among target market. Optimal Strategic Option Based on the above analysis, Option 4 (Increasing brand credibility) has been selected as most viable strategic choice for Secret Garden Party/Secret Productions. In order to address the risk factors associated with the selected strategic options, following risk register can be used as contingency plan. Table 1: Risk Register Risk ID Risk Description Probability (P) [0-1] Impact (I) [1-3] Detection (D) [1-3] Ranking= P* I*D Mitigation/Contingency Action By 1 Online broadcasting / streaming of the festival would decrease physical attendance of audience. 0.6 3 2 3.6 Limited content of festival in online platform should be broadcasted and customers should be asked to physically visit the festival to enjoy all the moments Marketing Department 2. Defeat the purpose of living the moment 0.5 2 3 3 Promoting the benefits of physically enjoying the festival among targeted segment Marketing Department 3. Security of online streaming 0.4 2 3 2.4 Increase IT security of online streaming IT department (Source: Author’s Creation) In such context, stakeholder interest associated with the strategic options can be defined in the following manner; Table 2: Stakeholder Analysis (Mendelow’s Matrix) (please check the diagram if it has been edited correctly, I have merged and tried to make it easier to understand) Stakeholder Power Low UK Government Marketing department who will implement the change initiatives High Top level management of Secret Garden Party/Secret Productions Loyal audience of Secret Garden Party would resist the change in terms of online streaming of festival. Customers who do not have the time and opportunity to enjoy the festival by being physically present will welcome the change. Low High Probability of power exercising (Source: Author’s Creation) Using the research work of Hersey and Blanchard (1988), reveals the fact that Secret Garden Party/Secret Productions needs to change its marketing communication style and introduce online streaming of festival for target customers. Therefore, the company just need to change the product processing and no massive organizational restructuring is being required. In such context, following leadership diagram will depict how leaders can address the conflict among stakeholders. Leaders of the organization should use relationship oriented behaviour by empowering the marketing personnel and festival content designers to make decisions during contingent period. Organizational leaders of Secret Garden Party/Secret Productions should communicate and listen to the feedback of marketing department and festival content designers and participate in the process of designing online streaming content of the festival. Consideration of research work of Thomas (1976) reveals the fact Managers of the company should use collaborating approach in order to form team with marketing and creative personnel of Secret Garden Party/Secret Productions while going for the strategic change. As part of collaborative approach to handle conflict among marketing and creative personnel (internal stakeholders), managers should conduct team meetings and weekly knowledge sessions which can gel up the team members to make collaborative approach to successfully implement strategic change regarding online streaming of festival. Figure 4: Conflict Handling Style (Source: Thomas, 1976) Critical Success Factor Among all the above-mentioned strategies, the usage of internet to forecast the programs of the festival would be the most critical success factor for Secret Productions. The Institute of National Statistics have claimed that the proportion of internet users have increased to almost 73% (36 million adults) in U.K. (The Independent, 2013). This is also a cost saving method of popularizing the events and increasing the number of viewers of the program. It is also true that this strategic method would also be able to park those viewers in the festival events that are not able to visit manually. It has also been studied that about 71% of the youth in the contemporary world (16 to 24 years) have access to good internet connection (BBC, 2011). The arts and the music festivals of the Secret Garden’s Party are mainly liked by the young individuals. Thus the strategic usage of internet would be able to capture a large proportion of potential viewers for the programs (McCubbrey, 2010). In order to telecast the programs of the festival in internet media, the company can make a business deal with WaveFx, the famous online steaming company in U.K However it should be considered by the company that there are various risks associated with the usage of internet media. Like online telecasting of the programs may reduce the number of actual viewers present in the events of the festival. A technical failure of the broadcasting may disappoint the viewers and may thereby harm the image of the company. The cost of streaming the programs of the festival online would also be expensive. The company may require to invest about ? 1.2 million for streaming its events in internet media. This is extracted from the previous assignment that you have wrote. I would need the critical success factors and the key competencies to be evaluated to develop this strategic option Implications and the Resources (please bear in mind resources, size and how realistic the strategy is , how many people we are targeting , how will work on it, resources the business will require) Following resource capability analysis can be used in order to highlight implications and resources requirements for strategic change regarding streaming online of festival content. Table 3: Resource Based View for Secret Garden Party/Secret Productions Tangible Resource Intangible Resource The company has sufficient financial liquidity to finance the strategic initiative. Debt to capital ratio of the company is small enough to back up the strategic initiatives. In last 5 years, the company has developed four new festival platforms which will help the company to variety in online streaming. Brand name and reputation of the company can be classified as intangible resources and Secret Garden Party can use its intangible resources to promote online streaming of festival. Able and talented marketing professional of the company would help the brand to backup the strategic initiatives. (Source: Weinstock, 2010; Secret Garden Party, 2013) This is extracted from the 1st draft please tailor according to this draft The most lucrative strategy that must be addressed by the organizers of the Secret Garden’s Party is using internet media for telecasting the events of the festival. This would help the company achieve a greater goodwill and popularity of the Secret Garden’s Party. It is true that social media has become the most appropriate approach of enhancing business-to-consumer dealings in the modern world. However it is important to consider that the company would require implementing more changes in management and resources in business to realize the proposed business strategy. The official internet site where the programs and the concerts of the Secret Garden’s Party can be telecasted should use appropriate tools of social media like Postano and Hootshoot (Social Fish, 2013). The official website of the company must be attractive and should be colourful. The company must appoint a team of efficient officers who would be to control the whole broadcasting event. The company can implement an Open Text Media Management System (Social Fish, 2013) that would look into the control of the cost effective means of securing the digital assets. This is done by this management process by introducing multichannel programs. The resources or the factors that would be required by the company for the purpose of the implementing the proposed success strategy is less costly. The company would require a team of skilled technical labour resource for this purpose. However a substantial amount of capital would also be required for the purpose of upgrading and uploading the technology and events in the internet media (Johnson and Scholes, 1997). Reference List Aaker, D., 2011. Strategic market management. 9th ed. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Ansoff, H. I., 1987. Corporate strategy. 2nd ed. London: Penguin. Erin, J., Katie, J. and Hellen, M., 2011. Rock of the Woods. [Pdf] Rock of the Woods Inc. Available at [Accessed 30th November 2013]. Hersey, P. And Blanchard, K., 1988. Management of organisational behaviour. London: Prentice Hall. Johnson, B. and Cloonan, M., 2009. The dark side of the tune, violence and popular music. Farnham: Ashgate. Kuchler, H., 2013. Revellers desert music festivals. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 30th November 2013]. PWC., 2011. Global Enetrtainment and Media Outlook. [pdf] PWC. Available at [Accessed 30th November 2013]. Secret Garden Party., 2013. Home. [Online] Available at [Accessed 30th November 2013]. Thomas, K., 1976. Conflict and conflict management. In Hoy, W. K. and Miskel, C. G., 1991. (Eds.). Educational administration: Theory, research, practice. New York: McGraw-Hill. pp. 100-102. Weinstock, L., 2010. Festival Review: The Secret Garden Party. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 30th November 2013]. Read More