Advantages and Disadvantages of Franchising Business

Franchising is a style of business which has a lot of different but same branches throughout the world. Franchising business is an arrangement for a continuing relationship in which one party – a franchisor provides an accredited opportunity to another party – the franchisee to do business using its trade name and offers assistance in organizing, training, producing, marketing and managing a good or service in adherence to certain specifications, in return for monetary exchange. The franchisee usually pays a one-time franchise fee plus a percentage of sales revenue as royalty, and in turn gains instant name and recognition, tried and tested products, standard infrastructural design and interior decor, detailed techniques in running and promoting the business, training of employees and on-going help in promoting and improving the product The advantages of franchising from the franchisee’s point of view are myriad. First, the franchisee can benefit from the widely recognized Continue reading

Business Strategy: The Three Generic Strategies

Three of the most widely read books on competitive analysis in the 1980s were Michael Porter’s Competitive Strategy, Competitive Advantage, and Competitive Advantage of Nations. In his various books, Porter developed three generic strategies that, he argues, can be used singly or in combination to create a defendable position and to outperform competitors, whether they are within an industry or across nations. The strategies are (1) overall cost leadership, (2) differentiation, and (3) focus on a particular market niche. Cost Leadership, Differentiation, and Scope These strategies are termed generic because they can be applied to any size or form of business. We refer to them as trade-off strategies because Porter argues that a firm must choose to embrace one strategy or risk not having a strategy at all. Overall lower cost or cost leadership overall cost-leadership strategy, a strategy in which an organization attempts to gain a competitive advantage by Continue reading

Steps Involved in Strategic Management Process

Strategic management is a particular course of action that is meant to achieve a corporate goal. The Strategic Management Process defines the goals and objectives for a business, it creates the action plan so that a company can reach them and then it follows the plan. There are nine steps in Strategic Management Process which managers need to follow; which are defined as under: Identify the Organization’s Current Mission, Objectives and Strategies: It is important to identify the goals and objectives of the company. It defines the present purpose of the organization as a mission and the strategies currently being followed. The mission statement becomes the identification of an organization so it is very much necessary to identify it. Analyze the Environment: It is a process of monitoring the organizational environment to identify competitor’s actions and to confirm if it is suitable to let the firm goes to already set Continue reading

Financial Problems after Mergers and Consolidation

After merger and consolidation the companies face a number of financial problems. The liquidity of the companies has to be established afresh. The merging and consolidating companies pursue their own financial policies when they are working independently. A number of adjustments are required to be made in financial planning and policies so that consolidated efforts may enable to improve short term and long term finances of the companies. Some of the financial problems of merging and consolidating companies are discussed as follow: Cash management. The Liquidity Problem is the usual problem faced by acquiring companies. Before merger and consolidation, the companies had their own method of payments, cash behavior pattern and arrangements with financial institutions. The cash pattern will have to be adjusted according to the present needs of the business. Credit policy. The credit policies of the companies are unified so that same term and conditions may be applied Continue reading

Advantages and Disadvantages of having a Mission Statement

Mission statement is a summary statement of a company’s or organization’s purpose about what it wants to accomplish in the larger environment. Mission statement is playing an important role with the overall strategic planning of an organization. All of the strategic planning of an organization should base on the mission of an organization that had been set. Strategic planning include all the long-range plans, strategic plans and also annual plans which include decision making about the human resource management, production and operation, finance and it is also concerned about the marketing planning. A well-defined mission statement is very important to guide people in the organization, clearly defines who the customer is and what services and products the businesses are intended to provide. A good mission statement should contain some criteria. First, a good mission statement should be market-oriented. A market-oriented mission statement focuses on satisfying customer’s needs. A mission statement Continue reading

Porter’s Five Forces and Three Generic Strategies

The long development of Porter’s Five Forces Analysis has brought to the fact that those forces become the determinants of the industry’s competition. These five forces are treat of new entry, rivalry among existing firms, treat from substitute products, bargaining power of buyers, and bargaining power of suppliers. Furthermore, five forces analysis is treated by the organization to measure the level of competition, besides that, it is used as a strong first step in understanding how one industry compares to another and also to determine industry profitability because they influence the prices, costs, and required investment of firm in an industry. In order to be competitive enough, a normal company that seeks profitability would have to understand how they work in its industry and how they affect the company in its particular situation. Therefore, Three Generic Strategies were implemented to establish a strategic agenda for dealing with these five forces. Continue reading