Analysis Of Australian Company’s Strategy: Offshoring, Expansion, And Job Losses

Evaluate External Issues

To ensure the proper implementation of the business strategic management it is important to implicate the idea of strategic and diverse thinking. The idea of strategic thinking initiates the idea of generation and application of unique and uncommon business insights that allows in the development of a competitive advantage for the organisation. This report contains some of the common and prominent analytical tools that allow in the better identification of the strategies used by the organisation PWC (Price Waterhouse Coopers). The report also intends to cover some of the prominent issues to identify if the company would be successful in gaining competitive advantage for their business expansion. The primary idea behind this assessment is to consider if offshore activities would enhance the business capability of an organisation or ensure that they are better performers in their home nation. The business expansion does not have to be necessary on an international level but might be considered on a domestic level as well. However, this assessment would only cover the aspect of international business expansion.

For the identification of the external issues influencing the operations of the company, it is essential to take in account the macro-environmental factors that eventually motivated the company to employ a strategy to move offshore.

Macro-Environmental Elements	Analysis
Political Save Time On Research and Writing Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free Paper. Get My Paper	The company has to ensure that they are able to maintain their compliance with the political figures and regulations of the country. Due to Brexit, the political situation of the country has complicated the operations of some of the prominent companies (Moran, 2015). Most businesses are confused as to which would be appropriate for them to follow.
Economical	The economic chaos caused by the unfavourable political situation has tend to influence the functioning of multiple companies. Majority of the companies are suffering from maintaining compliance with the employment laws and the wage laws initiated by the country. The regulations have also restricted their business operations in some European countries.
Social	The company requires the compliance of highly skilled employees, implying that it is necessary to hire experienced professionals. This apparently results in the conflict and slightly degrades the potential of a fresher. However, the experiences professional allows in the better understanding of the market trends (Jammalamadaka and Dinar, 2018).
Technological	In the recent scenario, every organisation is opting for technological and digital innovation. Thus, this provides the company with a competitive edge to operate conveniently. However, frequent changes also cause disruption in their business performance.
Legal	It is essential for the company to ensure that they have been successful in procuring their intellectual property. The UK legislature has substantial amount of patent and copyright laws that protects the individuality and uniqueness of an organisation (Arrowsmith and Craven, 2016).
Environmental	It is also important for the company to comply with the environmental standards initiated by the country. It is also essential that they are able to instigate their consumers in taking actions for the protection of the environment.

Table 1: External Issues affecting the company

(Source: Created by the learner)

The international issues of an organisation act as a flagbearer of their capabilities that allow them to function conveniently in a particular market. The identification of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats would allow in gaining an insight for the company’s performance.

Strengths	Weaknesses
· The company has a strong brand portfolio that allows them to gain a competitive edge · The company has the reputation of performing extremely well in new markets (Angulo Cuentas et al.,  2015) · The company has a  strong supply chain management because of the involvement of reliable suppliers	· They have a less amount of investment for the research and development department · Their organisational structure is considered compatible with their present business model · The company has not been considered successful in integrating firms with diverse work cultures
Opportunities	Threats
· The lower inflation rate of their home country allows them to function effectively · The increase in the customer spending and new trends in their behaviour allows them to maintain their effective functioning	· The newly formulated environmental regulations poses as a threat for the action that are required to be undertaken by them (Andriof et al., 2017) · The increasing prices of the raw materials is also a threat to the organisation

Table 2: SWOT Analysis of PWC

(Source: Created by the learner)

The company considers it of vital importance to engage their stakeholders in their integral business operations. The key stakeholders of PWC comprise of the following:

• Partners, their people, potential recruits and alumni
• Customers
• Government body
• Suppliers
• Local communities and NGOs
• Media

The shift of offshore activities might have a negative implication on some of the stakeholders but there is a possibility that there would be substantial amount of benefits on ensuring that the organisation also incurs some amount of benefits. For instance, the potential recruits or the partners would be considered of great assistance if they are able to formulate an effective talent strategy and build professional personal networks (Esmail, Moore and Rein, 2015). Meanwhile, the customers would be completely aware of the challenges that are about to come and recognise the role of corporate sustainability as well. However, the organisation might have difficulty in complying with the regulations that are different from their operational headquarters regulations. Also, the suppliers might not be collaborative enough to make sure that they are economically benefited. The local communities and NGOs would mainly be concerned with the social responsibility of the organisation and transparency that can be gained with public engagement (Forsythe et al., 2016). Lastly, the media plays a role of conveying the strategies and ideas of the company to the customers implying that there might be a possibility of them gaining substantial amount of benefits from them.

Analyse Internal Issues

The use of Porter’s five forces would be considered applicable for the identification of the competitive advantage that the company has. Given below is the Porter’s five analysis of the company for expanding their operations offshore:

Bargaining Power of the Suppliers

The company has established a cohesive relationship with their suppliers and but their bargaining power cannot be considered high (Fleisher and Bensoussan, 2015). The bargaining power of the suppliers is always low allowing the company to gain a dominance over the supply chain management and allowing the suppliers to be associated with a reputed company.

Bargaining Power of the Buyers

Here, the bargaining power of the buyers can be considered high because the company has to permit their functioning according to the choice of the clients. Customer satisfaction is of primal importance to the company.

Threat of New Entrants

The company is the leading player in its respective industry, thus, it can be said that the threat of new entrants is low because it would be a barrier for them to compete with such a reputed company (Rothaermel, 2015). Further, it would require them to have loyal clients and huge amount of customer base.

Threat of Substitute Products

There is an intensive amount of competition in the industry that the company operates, implying that the consumers are provided with the ability to ensure that they can go for the services of the substitute companies if not satisfied with the services of PWC.

Competitive Rivalry

As mentioned earlier, the competitive rivalry in this industry is extremely high implying that the company would be subjected to being replaced by the customers. Some of the prominent competitors of the company are Deloitte, EY, KPMG and many others (Téguia, Chambost and Stuart, 2018).

The external and internal analysis led to the identification of various factors that would impact the functioning of a prominent organisation like PWC. It has also been identified that the organisation would be accustomed to certain amount of risks because of the external environment of an offshore country. Also, it can be said that the company would be accustomed to the almost similar threats that would possibility result in the decline in their cost revenues or labour costs (Farrell and Gallagher, 2015). The primary risks involved comprise of extreme amount of political obligation, recession or inflation rate in the emerging countries. That has the best possible tendency to ensure that the company would be instigated to take a drastic step, eventually leading to cause a huge loss in their business operations (Lwin et al., 2018). A formation of a proper risk management strategy is essential for PWC to make sure that their offshore operations do not suffer much as their existing operations in their home country. It might also be difficult for the company to cope with the numerous legal and the socio-cultural differences that would hamper their functioning.

Identify Stakeholders and Discuss the Impact of Offshoring

Conclusion 

The report intended to focus on some of the integral aspects associated with the strategic management ideas persuaded by the organisation named PWC. The assessment also led to the use of various analytical tools that permitted in the identification of the internal capabilities of an organisation and the extent of competition that lies in the offshore market. The assessment led to the identification of the external factors that might impact the functioning of an organisation and at the same time focused on the intensity of the choices initiated by the stakeholders of the company. Thus, it can be said that the stakeholders play an essential role in the decision making process of an organisation. The assessment also led to the identification of the strategic implications of the existing methods considered applicable by an organisation.

Reference List 

Andriof, J., Waddock, S., Husted, B. and Rahman, S.S., 2017. Unfolding stakeholder engagement. In Unfolding stakeholder thinking (pp. 19-42). Routledge.

Angulo Cuentas, G.L., Camacho Pico, J.A. and Jaime Arias, A., 2015. Frameworks to identify best practices at the organization level: An analysis. Journal of Business Economics and Management, 16(4), pp.861-875.

Arrowsmith, S. and Craven, C., 2016. Public procurement and access to justice: a legal and empirical study of the UK system.

Esmail, L., Moore, E. and Rein, A., 2015. Evaluating patient and stakeholder engagement in research: moving from theory to practice. Journal of comparative effectiveness research, 4(2), pp.133-145.

Farrell, M. and Gallagher, R., 2015. The valuation implications of enterprise risk management maturity. Journal of Risk and Insurance, 82(3), pp.625-657.

Fleisher, C.S. and Bensoussan, B.E., 2015. Business and competitive analysis: effective application of new and classic methods. FT Press.

Forsythe, L.P., Ellis, L.E., Edmundson, L., Sabharwal, R., Rein, A., Konopka, K. and Frank, L., 2016. Patient and stakeholder engagement in the PCORI pilot projects: description and lessons learned. Journal of general internal medicine, 31(1), pp.13-21.

Jammalamadaka, U.K. and Dinar, A., 2018. Managing water resources under scarcity: the role of social norms. Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, 7(1), pp.16-40.

Lwin, M., Lu, J., Sheldenkar, A. and Schulz, P., 2018. Strategic Uses of Facebook in Zika Outbreak Communication: Implications for the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication Model. International journal of environmental research and public health, 15(9), p.1974.

Moran, M., 2015. Politics and Governance in the UK. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Rothaermel, F.T., 2015. Strategic management. McGraw-Hill Education,.

Téguia, C.D., Chambost, V. and Stuart, P.R., 2018. Systematic assessment of triticale?based biorefinery strategies: market competitive analysis for business model development. Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining, 12, pp.S35-S45.