Culture plays an important part in our society. It refers to beliefs and codes of practice that makes a community what it is. It also plays the same role in organizations. A strong organizational culture will provide stability to an organization as it has significant influence on the attitudes and behaviors of organization’s members. Most of company’s top managers have a strong awareness that the culture of a company is crucial to everything they do and plays irreplaceable part in their success. However, not many companies can admit that they can describe their culture and fully understand how important it is in the success of their businesses. There are various explanations and elements to define organizational culture. For some, it means top management beliefs and values about how they should manage the organization and conduct the business. For some, it is an evolutionary process relating to people that creates unique Continue reading
Strategic Management Concepts
Business Level Strategies – Cases of Wal-Mart, Apple, Zara and Ikea
Business Level Strategy is concerned more with how a business competes successfully in a particular market. It relates to strategic decisions about the choice of products, identifying and fulfilling the needs of customers, building competitive advantages over competitors, exploiting or creating new opportunities etc. Business level strategies are essentially positioning strategies whereby businesses tend to secure for themselves an identity and position in the market. The aim here is to increase the business value for the corporate and stakeholders by increasing the brand awareness and value perceived by the customers. They can either focus on pricing or product differentiation to increase the perceived customer value. Customers are the foundation of successful business-level strategy – Who will be served by the strategy? What needs shall the strategy satisfy? How will the strategy satisfy those needs? The low cost strategy emphasizes having the lowest costs, not necessarily the lowest price, in a Continue reading
Hypercompetition
Hypercompetition is a relatively new term in strategic management, coined by Richard D’Aveni, professor of business strategy at the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College, in his book “Hypercompetition: Managing the Dynamics of Strategic Maneuvering.” In this book he defines hypercompetition as; “an environment characterized by intense and rapid competitive moves, in which competitors must move quickly to build advantage and erode the advantage of their rivals.” Richard D’Aveni (1994: 217-218) Hypercompetition results from the dynamics of strategic maneuvering among global and innovative combatants. It is a condition of rapidly escalating competition based on price-quality positioning, competition to create new know-how and establish first-mover advantage, competition to protect or invade established product or geographic markets, and competition based on deep pockets and the creating of even deeper pockets dalliances. In hypercompetitions the frequency, boldness, and aggressiveness of dynamic movement by the players accelerates to create a condition of constant disequilibrium Continue reading
The Concept of Business Growth
Meaning of Business Growth Business growth is a natural process of adaptation and development that occurs under favorable conditions. The growth of a business firm is similar to that of a human being who passes through the stages of infancy, childhood, adulthood and maturity. Many business firms started small and have become big through continuous growth. However, business growth is not a homogeneous process. The rate and pattern of growth varies from firm to firm. Some firms grow at a fast rate while others grow slowly. Also, not all enterprises survive to grow big. This may be due either to the nature of the firm or the entrepreneur. Some entrepreneurs do not want to grow their ventures, choosing instead to pursue other interest, spend more time with family or develop other business activities. Generally, the term ‘business growth’ is used to refer to various things such as increase in the Continue reading
Relationship between Strategic Management and Human Resource Management
Every organisation is trying to become more efficient and more productive. The key to an organisations success is to become more global and advance from a technological prospective. In order to become more efficient and to make its goals achievable, an organization should focus the most important assets of all other resources, which is the human capital or the intellectual assets. After all, none other than a person or an employee executes every achievement or any activity in an organization. Thus keeping this particular asset in good terms and managing it up to a standard is quite a challenge in terms of time and similarly finance. However, having a well organized and a well-managed human resource brings more significance to an organizations well being. This article will investigate how Strategic Management (SM) and Human Resource Management (HRM) are related, and then evaluated the role they play in providing organisations with Continue reading
Ecological Business Strategies
Ecological business strategies consist on the firm’s position vis- Ã -vis the natural environment; they define the firm’s relationship with nature. They describe strategies for use of environmental resources and acceptable environmental impacts of the company’s activities. Ecological strategies try to minimize long-term environmental damages by managing the company’s inputs, throughput’s, and outputs. Just as “Total Quality Management” in corporation demands attention to each stage of the design and production process, a “Total Environmental Management” perspective can optimize the performance of the total system. Every organization requires materials and energy as inputs to its production process. Primary industries such as mining, forest products, pulp and paper, and oil and gas are particularly oriented toward extraction and utilization of raw materials. Secondary (manufacturing) industries such as steel, construction, automobiles, and petrochemicals are important users of materials and energy. Service industries (e.g. health care, education, legal, consulting, etc.) maker fewer demands for materials Continue reading