Strategic Management

You may complete the project in your organisation. You are also allowed to choose another company. By using the internet and the library, students should be able to track down a great deal of information about their companies. Many libraries now have electronic data search facilities. These enable students to identify any article that has been written in the business press about the company of their choice within the last few years. Students will also want to collect full financial information on the company that they pick.

Again, this can be accessed from electronic databases. Once students have chosen a company for this project, they should obtain information about its history, its mission and major goals, its internal strengths and weaknesses, and the opportunities and threats that it faces in its environment. They should also obtain information about its CEO. Strategic management project: Module 2 This module deals with the relationships that your company has with its major stakeholder groups. With the information you have at your disposal, perform the following tasks and answer the following questions: . Find out whether your company has a formal mission statement. Does this statement define the business, identify major goals and articulate the corporate philosophy? 2. (a) If your company lacks a mission statement, what do you think its mission statement should be? (b) If your company has a mission statement, do you perceive it as appropriate, given the material discussed in this chapter? 3. Identify the main stakeholder groups in your company. What claims do they place on the company? How is the company trying to satisfy those claims? 4.

Evaluate the performance of the chief executive officer of your company from the perspective of (a) shareholders, (b) employees, (c) customers and (d) suppliers. What does this evaluation tell you about the ability of the chief executive officer and the priorities to which he or she is committed? 5. Try to establish whether the governance mechanisms that operate in your company do a good job of aligning the interests of top managers with those of stockholders. 6. Pick a major strategic decision made by your company in recent years and consider the ethical implications of that decision.

In the light of your review, do you think that the company acted correctly? Strategic management project: Module 3 This module requires you to analyse the industry environment in which your company is based. Using the information you have at your disposal, perform the following tasks and answer the following questions: 1. Apply the five forces model to the industry in which your company is based. What does this model tell you about the nature of competition in the industry? 13. Identify any strategic groups that may exist in the industry.

How does the intensity of competition differ across the strategic groups you have identified? 14. How dynamic is the industry in which your company is based? Is there any evidence that innovation is reshaping competition or has done so in the recent past? 15. In what stage of its life cycle is the industry in which your company is based? What are the implications of this stage for the intensity of competition, both now and in the future? 16. Is your company based in an industry that is becoming more global? If so, what are the implications of this change for competitive intensity? 17.

Analyse the impact of national context as it pertains to the industry in which your company is based. Does national context help or hinder your company in achieving a competitive advantage in the global marketplace? Strategic management project: Module 4 This module deals with the competitive position of your company. With the information you have at your disposal, perform the following tasks and answer the following questions.

Identify whether your company has a competitive advantage or disadvantage in its primary industry (Its primary industry is the one in which it has the most sales. 2. Evaluate your company against the four generic building blocks of competitive advantage: efficiency, quality, innovation and customer responsiveness. How does this exercise help you understand the performance of your company relative to that of its competitors? 3. What are the distinctive competencies of your company? 4. What role have prior strategies played in shaping the distinctive competencies of your company? What role has luck played? 5. Do the strategies currently pursued by your company build on its distinctive competencies? Are they an attempt to build new competencies?

What are the barriers to imitating the distinctive competencies of your company? 7. Is there any evidence that your company finds its difficult to adapt to changing industry conditions? If so, why do you think this is the case? Strategic management project: Module 5 This module deals with the ability of your company to achieve superior efficiency, quality, innovation and customer responsiveness. With the information you have at your disposal, answer the following questions and perform the following tasks: 1. Is your company pursuing any of the efficiency-enhancing practices?

Is your company pursuing any of the quality-enhancing practices? . Is your company pursuing any of the innovation-enhancing practices? 4. Is your company pursuing any of the customer responsiveness-enhancing practices? 5. Evaluate the competitive position of your company in the light of your answers to questions 1-4. Explain what, if anything, the company needs to do to improve its competitive position. Strategic Management Project: Module 6 This part of the project focuses on the nature of your company’s business-level strategy. If your company operates in more than one business, then concentrate either on its core (most central) business or its most important businesses.

Using all the information you have collected on your company, answer the following questions: How differentiated are the products/services of your company? What is the basis of their differentiated appeal? Strategic management project: Module 7 This part of the project continues the analysis of your company’s business-level strategy and considers how conditions in the industry’s environment affect the company’s competitive strategy. Answer the following questions 1. In what kind of industry environment (for example, embryonic, mature) does your company operate? (Use the information from module 3 to answer this question). . How has your company attempted to develop a competitive strategy to protect its business-level strategy? If your company is operating in an embryonic industry for example, discuss the ways in which it has attempted to increase its competitive advantage over time. If it is operating in a mature industry, discuss how it has tried to manage the five forces of industry competition.

What new strategies would you advise your company to pursue to increase its competitive advantage? What types of strategy towards buyers or suppliers should it adopt? How should it attempt to differentiate its products in the future? . Based on this analysis, do you think your company will be able to maintain its competitive advantage in the future? Why? PART 2 Strategic management project: Module 8 This module requires you to assess the vertical integration and diversification strategy being pursued by your company. With the information you have at your disposal, undertake the following tasks and answer the following questions. 1. How vertically integrated is your company? If your company does have vertically integrated operations, is it pursuing a strategy of taper or full integration?

How diversified is your company? If your company is already diversified, is it pursuing a related diversification strategy, an unrelated diversification strategy or a mix of the two? 3. Assess the potential for your company to create value through vertical integration. In reaching your assessment, also consider the bureaucratic costs of managing vertical integration. 4. On the basis of your assessment in question 3, do you think your company should (a) outsource some operations that are performed in-house or (b) bring some operations in-house that are outsourced? Justify your recommendations. . Is your company involved in any long-term cooperative relationships with suppliers or buyers?

If so, how are these relationships structured? Do you think that these relationships add value to the company? Why? 6. Is there any potential for your company to enter into (additional) long-term cooperative relationships with suppliers or buyers? If so, how might these relationships be structured? 7. Assess the potential for your company to create value through diversification. In reaching your assessment, also consider the bureaucratic costs of managing diversification.

On the basis of your assessment in question 7, do you think your company should (a) sell off some diversified operations or (b) pursue additional diversification? Justify your recommendations. 9. Is your company trying to transfer skills or realise economies of scope by entering into strategic alliances with other companies? If so, how are these relationships structured? Do you think that these relationships add value to the company? Why? 10. Is there any potential for your company to transfer skills or realise economies of scope by entering into (additional) strategic alliances with other companies?

If so, how might these relationships be structured? Strategic management project: Module 9 This module asks you to identify the type of organisational structure used by your company and explain why your company has selected this form of differentiation and integration. If you are studying a company in your area, you will probably have more information about the company’s structure than if you are studying a company using published sources. You can make many inferences about the company’s structure from the nature of its activities. Further, if you write to the company, it may provide you with an organisational chart and other information.

Based on the information that you gather, answer the following questions: 1. How large is the company as measured by the number of its employees? How many levels in the hierarchy does it have from the top to the bottom? 2. Based on these two measures and any other information you have, would you say your company operates with a relatively tall or flat structure? What effect does this have on people’s behaviour? 3. Does your company have a centralised or a decentralised approach to decision making? How do you know? 4. How do the company’s vertical differentiation choices affect the behaviour of people and subunits?

Do you think the company’s choice of vertical differentiation is appropriate for its activities? Why? 5. What changes (if any) would you make to the way in which the company operates in vertical direction? 6. Draw an organisational chart showing the main way in which your company groups its activities. Based on this chart, with what kind of structure (functional or divisional) does your company operate? 7. Why did your company choose this structure? In what ways is the structure appropriate for this business? In what ways is it not appropriate? 8.

What changes (if any) would you make to the way in which your company operates in a horizontal direction? 9. Given this analysis, does your company have a low or high level of differentiation? 10. What kind of integration or integration mechanisms does your company use? Why? Does its level of integration match its level of differentiation? 11. Based on the analysis of your company’s level of differentiation and integration, is your company coordinating and motivating its people and subunits effectively? Why? 12. What changes would you make in the company’s structure to increase the company’s effectiveness?

What changes has the company made to improve effectiveness? Why? Strategic management project: Module 10 For this part of your project, you need to obtain information about your company’s control and incentive systems, which may be difficult to do unless you can interview managers directly. Some forms of information, such as compensation for top management, are available in the company’s annual reports. You may be forced to make some bold assumptions to undertake the following tasks and answer the following questions. 1. What are the major control problems facing your company?

How do these control problems relate to your company’s structure (which you identified in the last chapter)? 2. With the information at your disposal, list the main types of control system used by your company to solve these problems. Specifically, what use does your company make of (a) financial controls, (b) output controls, (c) behaviour controls and (d) organisational culture? 3. What behaviours is the company trying to (a) shape and (b) motivate through the use of these control systems? 4. What role does the top management team play in creating the culture of your organisation?

Can you identify the characteristic norms and values that describe the way people behave in your organisation? How does the design of the organisation’s structure affect its culture? 5. Collect the salary and compensation data for your company’s top management from its annual reports. How does the company use rewards to shape and motivate its managers? How much of top managers’ total compensation, for example, is based on bonuses and share options, and how much is based on a straight salary? 6. Does the company offer other employees any incentives based on performance? What types of incentive?

Is there an employee share ownership plan in operation, for example? 7. Based on this analysis, do you think that your company’s control system is functioning effectively? Is your company collecting the right kinds of information, for example? Is it measuring the right behaviours? How could the control system be improved? 8. To what degree is there a match between your company’s structure and its control and incentive systems? That is, are its control systems allowing it to operate its structure effectively? How could they be improved? Strategic management project: Module 11

Take the information that you have collected on organisational structure and controls, and link it to the strategy pursued by your company at the functional, business, corporate and international levels. 1. What are the sources of your company’s distinctive competencies? Which functions are most important to it? How does your company design its structure at the functional level to enhance its (a) efficiency, (b) quality, (c) innovation and (d) responsiveness to customers? 2. What is your company’s business-level strategy? How does the company design its structure and control systems to enhance and support its business-level strategy?

What steps does it take, for example, to further cross-functional integration? Does it have a functional, product or matrix structure? 3. Hoe does your company’s culture support its strategy? Can you determine any ways in which its top management team influences its culture? 4. What kind of international strategy does your company pursue? How does it control its global activities? What kind of structure does it use? Why? 5. At the corporate level, does your company use a multidivisional structure? Why? What crucial implementation problems must your company manage to implement its strategy effectively?

What kind of integration mechanisms, for example, does it employ? 6. Based on this analysis, does your company have high or low bureaucratic costs? Is this level of bureaucratic costs justified by the value that the company can create through its strategy? 7. Can you suggest ways of altering the company’s structure to reduce the level of bureaucratic costs? 8. Can you suggest ways of altering the company’s structure of control systems to allow it to create more value? Would each change increase or decrease bureaucratic costs? 9. In sum, do you think your company has achieved a good fit between its strategy and structure?

Strategic management project: Module 12 Your task is to examine how your company has managed the process of strategic change. Undertake the following tasks and answer the following questions: 1. Find examples of recent changes in your company’s strategy or structure. What types of changes did your company implement? Why did your company make these changes? 2. What do you think, are the major obstacles to change in your company? 3. Given the nature of your company’s strategy and structure, is conflict a likely obstacle to change in your company?

Can you find any examples of conflicts that have occurred in your company? . Is there any evidence of political contests or struggles between divisions or functions in your company? What can you find out about the power of the chief executive officer and the top management team? 5. Using the informal sources of power discussed in the chapter (for example, centrality and control over resources), draw a map of the power relationships among the various managers, divisions or functions inside your company. On the basis of this analysis, which are the most powerful managers or subunits? Why? How do managers in the powerful subunits use power to influence decision making?

How well do you think strategic managers have managed the change process? What other changes do you think your company should make in its strategy and structure? Strategic management project: Module 13 This project asks students to select a company and find out issues regarding evaluation that have been discussed in this chapter. Students must identify a strategy that the company has implemented. As a further step, students should find out whether the company they have selected has evaluated this strategy. Students should also examine whether their company has a process in place to evaluate its strategies.

We have discussed the concepts of ‘intended’ and ‘emergent’ strategy processes. In the light of that discussion, students must identify the type of evaluation process — intended or emergent — that their company has followed. The ultimate goal of strategy evaluation is to find out whether a strategy was a success or a failure. Students should also find out whether the strategy they had selected to study was a success or a failure. Judging success or failure requires criteria. Managers quite frequently differ in their selection of criteria to judge the performances of strategies.

Students are required to examine what criteria the company they have selected had used to evaluate success or other wise of their strategies. Questions 1. Identify a strategy that your company has implemented. 2. Find out whether your company has evaluated this strategy. 3. Identify the type of evaluation process — intended, emergent or resource based — that your company has followed. 4. Find out the results of this evaluation — that is, whether it was a success or failure. 5. Examine the criteria that your company used to reach its conclusion about the strategy.