Strategic Management: Corporate strategy - Essay Example

Examining the actions further at the business level of corporate strategy, every organization has to manage its strategies in three main areas: the organization's internal resources, the external environment within which the organization operates, and the organization's ability to add value to what it does." (p. 7) "Strategies can be made for different groups of people and/or activities within an organization. The lowest level of aggregation is one person or task, while the highest level of aggregation encompasses all people and/or activities within an organization.

The most common distinction between levels of aggregation made in the strategic management literature is between the functional, business and corporate levels. Strategy issues at the functional level refer to questions regarding specific functional aspects of a company (operations strategy, marketing strategy, financial strategy, etc.). Strategy at the business level requires the integration of functional level strategies for a distinct set of products and/or services intended for a specific group of customers.

Often companies only operate in one such business, so that this is the highest level of aggregation within the firm. However, there are also many companies that are in two or more businesses. In such companies, a multi-business or corporate level strategy is required, which aligns the various business level strategies." (De Wit & Meyer, 2005, p. 8)Part II: Financial Performance of Ford Motor Company and General MotorsPart III: Key Elements of the Strategies of Ford Motor's and General Motors"Automobile companies need to compete on configuration, though U.S. and European manufacturers have traditionally done it poorly.

Since manufacturing a car from scratch to a customer's specification is viewed as taking too long (at least outside of Japan, where it is commonly done), car companies have to forecast the types of vehicles and options customers will want, manufacture them, and send them to dealers. Far too often, the mixes of models and option packages have not been what customers want, so cars jave tp be substantially discounted to be sold during promotions or at the end of a model year. The mismatch between consumer desires and available product has been one of the biggest problems facing Ford and General Motors.

Both companies are trying to do something about configuration, but Ford is probably the more aggressive of the two. The company has begun to change its focus from producing whatever the factory could produce, and worrying later about selling it, to trying to closely match supply and demand. As part of this initiative, Ford is using configuration software to maintain rules about options and components, which will reduce the number of production mistakes and more closely match dealer orders to productions schedules.

Through a manufacturer/dealer partnership called FordDirect.com, Ford and its dealers also allow customers to browse dealer inventory, design a vehicle and match it to dealer inventory, and get a price quote and financing for a specific vehicle through the FordDirect.com Web site. FordDirect software is also used by dealers to track leads and measure the results from advertising. Ford has not yet entirely mastered the art of competing on configuration, but