Social Entrepreneurship Peculiarities - Essay Example

Executive summary Share our strength has been extremely successful raising over $200 Million through volunteer-led events, because marketing campaigns and more. In addition to raising $200 Million and funding the work of hundreds of the most effective anti-hunger organizations, Share Our Strength raises awareness about hunger and its impact on the lives of children and families through our national campaigns. Share Our Strength also has built a powerful network of thousands of volunteers, chefs and restaurateurs, corporate partners, and foundation leaders who are committed anti-hunger advocates. Share our Strength's performance is attributable to industry attractiveness as well as to competitive advantage. Introduction Industry attractiveness refers to the prevailing situation in the core business of an organization which favors the specific organization. For example in monotheistic business environment, a business is more likely to be favored in terms of business performance since it can manipulate market forces to its advantage. Share our Strength's faces great competition from competitors and has only succeeded in that, it has continually applied strategic measures in all its important decisions. Share our Strength's performance has been termed as sterling by many business analysts. The chain of businesses has recorded an after taxes profit of above $1 million. By applying concepts like vendor managed inventories as well as just-in-time concept, Share our Strength's has continued to maintain leadership in the wines and foods market in the US Share our Strength's, endeavors to remain a low-cost retailer, and by that it has been very effective in maintaining market attractiveness. By all means, Share our Strength's has achieved low cost retail prices something which has contributed to client faithfulness. This is core in terms of ensuring that, by utilizing this strategy, Share our Strength's is able to save extra costs associated with poor planning. By keeping products and services as low as practically possible, Share our Strength's can afford to lower prices since there are less expenditures. In long term this contributes to industry attractiveness. The other area in which the company has achieved competitive advantage is in terms of adapting information systems. By choosing to be a low cost producer the organization has set out to be a market leader. In terms of incorporating information technology, Share our Strength's has computerized its purchasing systems to incorporate E-purchasing. As purchasing strategy e-purchasing is economical, reliable and cost effective. Compared to a competitor who does not recognize the e-business concept, Share our Strength's has been able to save a lot by embracing e-business as a marketing strategy as well as incorporating ebusiness in its internal and external processes. In the case of Share our strength, competitive advantage is also dependent on how company utilizes and takes advantage of buyer power at its disposal, the threat of substitutes, supplier power, ease of entry as well as the intensity of intra-industry activity and convert all of those factors to its advantage. By integrating IT through out the whole retail chain Share our Strength's ensures that, its partners are free and feel respected and therefore trade is done in an environment of cordial relationships. Share our Strength's principal functions and activities include; purchasing, distribution in-store operations, marketing, Information Technology, Human Resource Management, and organization and management systems/style. However, Share our Strength's main competitive advantages lie in the ability of the organization to identify new opportunities as well as staying ahead of competitors in terms of innovativeness and adoption of effective business systems. With a retail net work of over 10 branches all over the America, the management styles as well Share our strength's; purchasing, distribution and warehousing, in-store operations, marketing, Information Technology, Human Resource Management, and organization and management systems/style have to be maintained at a high notch. Otherwise, it would be impossible for the outlets to achieve unity of purpose. With such a big number work force, success can only be achieved only if the is proper human resource management. A well motivated staff is the greatest asset for a company and therefore Share our Strength's has been able to achieve that through introducing modern employee management systems which aim at ensuring that, the best staff are retained and also that, staff get well compensated for their hard work. This has given Share our Strength's a cutting edge advantage, in that, it is able to attract and keep the best workers. In terms of supplies, Share our Strength's has been able to cut lead time after streamlining its supply chain management. By doing that, Share our Strength's have come to be regarded as the industries leaders in terms of efficiency and cost-cutting. Share our Strength's is one of America's food and wine retailers with over $10 million worthy of annual sales. The organization has adopted various strategies to become and remain a market leader in the industry. Of all strategies, it is its affordable cost of products that has made the biggest contribution to its market attractiveness as well as its competitive advantage. Share our strength has over 100 employees all of which are well trained through programs initiated by the organization. Also as a strategy in supplies management the organization has avoided reliance on single suppliers but has instead engaged different suppliers. This is effective in that, it becomes very hard for suppliers to collaborate and decide the terms for the organization. Share our strength also ensures proper communication through the setting up of a computer network which interlinks all its departments to a central command. McDonalds is one of the key competitors which have found the going getting tough. Soon Share our strength aims to overtake McDonalds in sales in the next 20 years. All has not been smooth for Share our strength, several, problems and challenges such as slow economic growth have meant it very difficult to project growth and therefore plan well. Managers at Share our strength are motivated in that, the organization always rewards creativity and effort as well as originality. This has been a plus for the company as productivity is always related with highly motivated staff as well as employees who can identify well with the organization. Its people friendly approach such as offering high quality products led to such a good relationships with customers that, a very loyal client base was realized which Share our strength it boasts of, to date. Share our strength's competitive advantage is sustainable. Share our strength competitors have not been very successful in imitating Share our strength strategy and duplicating its competitive advantage. This can largely be attributed to their strategy of affordable and high quality which is not very replicable. The current market environment is very competitive and therefore Share our strength must put in place some measures so as to sustain its recent performance and defend against competitive (and other) threats. Share our strength has been favored by globalization, however, it needs to be wary of emerging issues such as the ones touching on ethics. Ethically, it has been accused of oppressing employees to an extent whereby, they are forced to lay-off employees hence causing joblessness. Bargaining power is another crucial strength for the organization; it has a big influence on policies as well as all the decisions or contracts entered with other companies. Share our strength engages in a continuous improvement campaign in what consumers view as being on the move every time. To consumers and customers this is viewed as an advantage since they know that every time the Share our strength makes a move, prices drop and quality of products improves or atleast is maintained. Conclusion Efficiency is one factor which Share our strength has achieved by investing in modern systems the company has been able to transact business in different states all over the U.S. with ease while at the same time minimizing cost. The fact that Share our strength has created a positive image for itself has ensured a constant demand for services and goods something which most competitors have not been able to match. Share our strength has maintained a public image and therefore this helps organization in all its strategic plans. References http://www.strength.org Accessed on 15/03/2007. Read More