Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) is the term coined by James C Collins and Jerry I Porras in their well known book “Built To Last”. Visionary Companies set Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs) that raise the bar and inspire people across all levels. According to Collins and Porras: “A true BHAG is clear and compelling, serves as a unifying focal point of effort…It has a clear finish line, so the organization can know when it has achieved the goal. It is tangible, energizing, highly focused. People get it right away; it takes little or no explanation.” BHAG is a goal, not a statement and it has a clear finish line. It’s a highly focused, tangible, and energizing goal. They typically take a 10- to 30-year commitment, but they are exciting, tangible and something everyone just “gets” without any further explanation. BHAGs only help an organization as long as it has Continue reading
Strategic Management Concepts
Organizational Performance – Meaning, Definition and Measures
Managers are concerned with organizational performance–the accumulated end results of all the organization’s work processes and activities. It’s a complex but important concept, and managers need to understand the factors that contribute to high organizational performance. After all, they don’t want (or intend) to manage their way to mediocre performance. They want their organizations, work units, or work groups to achieve high levels of performance, no matter what mission, strategies, or goals are being pursued. Managers measure and control organizational performance because it leads to better asset management, to an increased ability to provide customer value, and to improved measures of organizational knowledge. In addition, measures of organizational performance do have an impact on an organization’s reputation. Managers at high-performing companies do–they manage the organizational assets in ways that exploit their value. Asset management is the process of acquiring, managing, renewing, and disposing of assets as needed, and of designing Continue reading
Alignment – A Strategic Management Concept By Kaplan & Norton
Alignment is a key factor in effective implementation of strategy. Most large organizations are divided into business units which are out of sync and work at cross purposes. The challenge is to coordinate the activities of these units and leverage their skills for the benefit of the organization as a whole. Kaplan & Norton call this alignment on their book “Alignment: Using the Balanced Scorecard to Create Corporate Synergies.” “Most organizations attempt to create synergy, but in a fragmented, uncoordinated way,” Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton. By aligning the activities of its various business and support units, an organization can create additional sources of value in various ways. Financial synergies can be generated through centralized resource allocation and financial management. Value can also be created if corporate headquarters can operate internal capital markets better than external market mechanisms and share knowledge across business units, in a manner that Continue reading
Boston Consulting Group(BCG) Growth-Share Matrix
The BCG matrix (aka B-Box, B.C.G. analysis, BCG-matrix, Boston Box, Boston Matrix, Boston Consulting Group analysis, portfolio diagram) is a chart that had been created by Bruce Henderson for the Boston Consulting Group in 1970 to help corporations with analyzing their business units or product lines. This helps the company allocate resources and is used as an analytical tool in brand marketing, product management, strategic management, and portfolio analysis. Analysis of market performance by firms using its principles has called its usefulness into question, and it has been removed from some major marketing textbooks. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix is a four celled matrix (a 2 * 2 matrix). It is the most renowned corporate portfolio analysis tool. It provides a graphic representation for an organization to examine different businesses in it’s portfolio on the basis of their related market share and industry growth rates. It is a two dimensional Continue reading
Growth Strategies Followed by MNC’s
Growth is a way of life. Almost all organizations plan to expand. This strategy is followed when an organization aims at higher growth by broadening its one or more of its business in terms of their respective customer groups, customers functions, and alternative technologies singly or jointly — in order to improve its overall performance. There are four types of expansion (Growth) strategies Expansion through concentration Expansion through integration Expansion through diversification Expansion through cooperation 1. Expansion through concentration It involves converging resources in one or more of firms businesses in terms of their respective customer needs, customer functions, or alternative technologies either singly or jointly, in such a manner that it results in expansions. A firm that is familiar with an industry would naturally like to invest more in known business rather than unknown business. Concentration can be done through Market Penetration: It involves selling more products to the Continue reading
Business Level or Generic or Competitive Strategies
Business level strategies are popularly known as generic or competitive strategies. Business level strategies are intended to create differences between the firm’s position relative to those of its rivals. To position itself, the firm must decide whether it intends to perform activities differently or to perform different activities as compared to its rivals. Michael Porter classified these strategies into overall cost leadership, differentiation and focus. The first two strategies are broader in concept as their competitive scope is wide enough whereas the third strategy i.e the focus strategy has a narrower competitive scope. The experience curve: Cost has been correlated with the accumulated experience by the experience curve. The underlying principle behind the experience curve is that as total quantity of production of a standardized item is increased, its unit manufacturing cost decreases in a systematic manner. The concept of the experience curve was presented by BCG in 1966 Continue reading