The driving force behind all the changes which are taking place in the all the firm of the world are two Cs: customers, competition. The demands of the customers are changing day by day and this change in demand of customers pose new sets of challenges to the firms every now and then and hence firms have to change or modify their offering to customers accordingly. Firms who are able to do it in less time and less cost turn out to be the industry leaders. Firms set their mission and vision statements on the basis of their short term and long term strategy and to attain those goals firms need to adjust themselves with the constantly changing environment. We have seen dominance of Japanese firms in automobile and electronic components, the reason for this dominance of Japanese firms over other firms round the world is their techniques. They change Continue reading
Strategic Management Tools
Resource Based View (RBV) and Sustainable Competitive Advantage
Resource based view (RBV) focuses on the internal factors that contribute to a firm’s growth and performance. It highlights the importance of firm’s resources and capabilities. Both of them will together form a competency that can create a competitive advantage. Resources can also be divided into tangible resources and intangible resources. Capabilities of the firm in utilizing the resources have a big impact on how a firm will be able to stand out among other competitors. Competitive advantage arises when a firm has a lower cost structure, products differentiation and niche markets. RBV also concerns in value creation in order to compete with others. On the other hand, in order to survive in this competitive world, a firm needs to fully prepare itself to achieve sustainable competitive advantage (SCA), which means having a superior performance in a longer term compared to other rivals. According to Jay Barney (1991), resources need Continue reading
Harmon’s Process-Strategy Matrix
Process-Strategy matrix by Paul Harmon will be useful in deciding how the process should be managed, it gives two variable one Is importance and other is complexity and dynamics. There may be other variables to consider in practice such as culture, cost and savings and quality. It should be used flexibly by considering all the variable affecting the current and future prospects of the organization. Advantages and disadvantages should be considered before reaching the final decision. How To Assess The strategic Importance? Strategic importance can be assessed by asking what would happen if a process is abandoned. If it impacts the business objective (Quality, cost control and reputation etc.) materially (more than insignificant) than it can be assessed as high strategic importance like threatening to the survival of business. Strategic importance can also be assessed by identifying key stakeholders. If the process affecting the key stakeholders like customers, Tax authorities Continue reading
Grid Training – Meaning, Process, and Evaluation
Grid training is basically based on grid organization development developed by Blake and Mouton. It is a comprehensive and systematic Organizational Development programme which aims at individuals, groups, and the organization as a whole. Grid training utilizes a considerable number of instruments, enabling individuals and groups to assess their own strengths and weaknesses; focuses on skills, knowledge, and processes necessary for effectiveness at the individual, group, inter-group, and total organizational levels. Its specific objectives are as follows: To study the organization as an interactive system and apply techniques of analysis in diagnosing its problems. To understand the importance and rationale of systematic change. To evaluate the styles of leadership and techniques of participation to produce desirable results. Process of Grid Training The basic content of grid organization development is managerial grid as discussed. The whole orientation is to develop managerial style through the application of behavioral science knowledge. The grid Continue reading
Strategy Change Cycle: An Effective Strategic Planning Approach
A strategic change cycle is mainly utilized to correlate the planning process of an organization with the vision, mission and values of an organization. This implies that an organization should focus developing its strategies that may assist it to accomplish its long run vision. This will assist the organization in managing the entire organization in a strategic manner in order to gain a sustained growth in the future. The key objective of the strategic change cycle is to make sure that the organization continues to provide maximum value to the stakeholders by undertaking the right strategies at the right time. With the help of the strategic change cycle, the organization should also ensure that a proper vigilance is kept on the internal and external environment to understand the future challenges and opportunities. Hence, this is one of the key concepts that may assist an organization to gain success. 10 Steps Continue reading
Managing Collaborative Relationships with Stakeholders in Organizations
Understanding the principles of effective collaboration with other organizations is important in an organization as the current stakeholders have an active interest, the interests could be financial, environmental or charitably within the organizations. Within an organization, building relationships with stakeholders can prove to help your business by using their expertise’s and knowledge. There can be both moral and business reasons to collaborate with stakeholders. By working with stakeholders that have current interests allows you to have a common ground and want the best outcomes for your organization, it allows you to create outcomes together, improve current systems and work on these together to create a better functioning organization. Collaborating with stakeholders allows new ideas and helps towards problem solving. Looking at the stakeholders allows you to gain experience and feedback to create a better working business, it also allows you to build relationships which can help towards future cost, flexibility Continue reading