Management Of Business Products: A Case Study Of ST Kinetics

PESTEL Analysis

Discuss about the Management of a Business Product.

The company Singapore Technologies Kinetics ltd also referred to, as ST Kinetics is a business of the reputed ST engineering that handles the land systems and specialty vehicles. The Company is a global defense and engineering company and the ST Engineering takes innovation liveliness and creativeness that exists in their engineering capabilities to achieve the challenges in near future. The Company started in the year 1967. They transformed into a global defense and engineering group in the year 1997 (About ST Engineering, 2017). They manufacture small arms and ammunitions, which are the most important military products. They have turned the innovations in engineering to real world solutions in the defense and commercial sectors.

The Company promotes with a catchy ‘hook’ that helps the company to perform better. The hook is involved in the company marketing strategy to attract the customers. The company promotes by the tagline of ‘Engineering with Passion.’ The ST Group promises to bring value to their customers and the partners by delivering quality solutions and support. The company is a global entity with more than hundred subsidiaries, joint ventures and associated companies (O’guinn et al., 2014). Globalization is their most important strategy and they aim to deliver sustainable growth by venturing into new markets around the world.

The products of the Company are in the fields of aerospace, electronics, land systems and marine. The vision of The ST Engineering is to be a global defense and engineering group (Srivastava, Franklin & Martinette, 2013). They are determined to attain their vision, mission and the planned objectives. The company is dedicated to a particular purpose of their commitment towards the customers, business partners and stakeholders (Valencia, Person, & Snelders, 2013). The PESTEL includes the factors of the political, economic, social, technological, environment and law of the company.

Political

The imposition of a new tax or duty may lead to the change in the revenue of the company. The political factors involve the tax policies, fiscal policy and trade tariffs that may affect the business and economic environment largely (Christen & Schmidt, 2012). The political issues, which intervene in the country, affect the business of the company and its business with their partners. A rise in corporation tax (on the business profits) has the same effect as an increase in costs. Businesses can pass some of this tax on to consumers in higher prices, but it will also affect the bottom line. The company to protect the industry and economy creates tariffs. ST Kinetics is a world leader in 40mm payload and delivery systems. The changes in the fiscal polity affect the production of the company.

Political

Economic

ST Kinetics motivates their employees through the development of a workforce that promotes innovation that is guided by the company’s core values. The rate of inflation, interest rates, growth patterns and foreign exchanging rate are the factors, which may affect the revenue of the company (Saunders & Lewis, 2012). The Foreign direct Investment is also accounted for in the economic analysis of the environment.  The economic factors determine the economy’s performance, which directly affects the Company and has long-term effects. This would also in turn affect the purchasing power of the customer and bring a change in the demand and supply model of the respective economy. The ST Kinetics is a globally renowned company and has national and internal conditions, which are affected by the economic factors.

Social

The firm will succeed more if the adaptation of the products and the services provided by the engineering group are prevalent to the socio-cultural conditions (Srdjevic, Bajcetic & Srdjevic, 2012). The population size along with the ethnic mixture may tend to have a direct impact on the current and future business of the company. The Company has the capability for the provision of the product reliability testing, environmental testing and providing hallmark to the precious metals. An inspection for the vehicles is done by the Inspection subsidiary of the Company. The social factors help to examine the social environment of the market, which the Company works in. The demography and population analytics are also an important part of the socio-cultural environmental factors.

Technology

The firm has to stay at the top when changes in technology take place, so that they remain competitive in the products and services they provide. Technology and innovation are one of the most important factors, which maintain the position of ST Engineering, making them the leading provider of engineering solutions globally. The company develops through Innosparks, industry partnerships and their advanced engineering centre. The company has left its marks throughout the world providing solutions for shaping a better future. There is research and development involved with an awareness of the technology that is available in the target market (Peteraf, Gamble & Thompson, 2014). Technology and innovation are vital to maintain ST Engineering’s position as the leading global provider of engineering solutions. By challenging conventions, embracing new paradigms and redefining perspectives, the company aspires to do better each time through engendering concepts and ideas that transcend the ordinary.

Economic

Legal

Some laws affect the business environment and some policies are to be maintained by the company for themselves. Consumer laws, safety laws and labor laws are some of the examples. The company has good corporate governance. The annual report for the year 2016 shows the corporate governance processes, activities according to the guidelines of the Singapore Corporate Governance Code of 2012.  The code reflects the expectation for responsible behavior towards the material sustainability issues. There are guiding principles for behavior with the people they work with. The standards that are set out in the code are embedded in the policies and procedures of the company. The violation of the Code, laws and regulations are to be reported with the help of the whistle blowing channel (About ST Engineering, 2017).

Porter developed the five forces analysis as a reaction to the SWOT analysis.

The intensity of rivalry among the competitors increases with the rise in number of the competitors. The time when the industry growth is slow, there is unused capacity and high exit barriers there is a threat. Some of the competitors of ST Engineering are the Evergreen Marine Corporation Ltd., Aviall.Inc and Panasonic Avionics Corporation.

There are barriers faced due to the threat of new entries of competitors in the market, which can be resolved by the new high capital requirements, Government regulations and strong brand identification. Technological advancements lead to the development of new products. The company uses Innosparks and has an advanced engineering centre and partnerships for this (Lee, Kim & Park, 2012). ST Kinetics invests in high performing teams through provision of continuous development for their people by nurturing and grooming the leaders.

The company has a particular vision and uses innovation to maintain its position as a leading global provider of solutions for engineering. New engendering concepts and ideas are used for innovation of substitutes of products and services. There are systems designed by the company for communication networks enabling them to forge in new business areas. They have processing algorithms, which enable to overcome the threat from new products and do not supplant existing ones. The employees are challenged by the company to push themselves to provide their best to the company. ST Kinetics provides continuous learning and development opportunities to strengthen the technical competencies. The company’s total 40mm solutions is  adopted by many armed forces and are battle proven that fully meet the war fighter’s needs across diverse operations. They offer a wide range of capabilities to overcome a spectrum of challenges, ranging from engagements in urban settings to battles without fire support, with a family of 40mm munitions ranging from low and high velocity rounds to less than lethal rounds.

Social

The power of the supplier increases when there is availability of few other sources of supply, when the supplier has other buyers, when there are no satisfactory substitutes and the cost of switching suppliers is high. The bargaining power of customers increase when there is purchasing of the large share of the output, the product is important, close substitutes are easily available and the product generated is standardized.  The customers of the ST Engineering rely on the products and services of the company, which perform their intended functions effectively and efficiently (Dobbs, 2014). As the integrated defense and engineering group of companies, they bring innovation and technology together to create smart solutions for their customers in defense, government and commercial segments.

The company strives to minimize and reduce the environmental impact that is from the manufacturing and use of their products and services. The company recognizes the influences and risks in the supply chain. They are committed to work with their suppliers that is embedded is the principles of sustainability of the company in the process. This ensures a balanced consideration of social, environmental and economic impacts that are undertaken throughout the procurement process. For embracing of sustainable procurement, the company adopts five principles for sustainable procurement. They practice the value for money procurement, not compromising on quality and safety of products and services, practicising ethical procurement, protecting the the health and safety of their workers and the environment. According to sustainability, report of the company the year 2016 was a year of continued technological advances that brought more digitization and business disruptions. Despite the challenges, the company has achieved a commendable performance in the difficult environment. The technological advancements open up the new sustainability development opportunities and bring about new risks.  The solutions of the company depend on creativity and the ingenuity of the employees of the company across the world. The well-being of their employees and contractors is the primary responsibility and focus of The ST Engineering group. The new products support energy efficient initiatives that they have developed and launched. The most important commitment is to embrace the principles of sustainable procurement by integrating ethical, environmental, social and economic values into their procurement processes.

The four management recommendations are differentiation, cost leadership, vertical integration and strategic planning. These have been discussed below:

The approach of the company is to develop and market its unique products for the company’s different customers of defense, government and commercial segments. The company applies the differentiation method to clear the competitive advantages and sustain an expensive advertising campaign (Banker, Mashruwala & Tripathy, 2014). Differentiation marketing strategy acts as insulation against competitive rivalry and tends to increase margins. The firm is better positioned by the substitutes than its competitors are by differentiation. It acts as a barrier for the competitors due to customer loyalty and the need to overcome the competitor. There is mitigation of buyer owe as there are no alternatives.

Technology

The consumers constantly look to increase the purchasing power and buy more at a less price if the desired profit is not received. The modern business environment is complex and the customers are aware of the choices available to them (Valipour, Birjandi & Honarbakhsh, 2012). Competitive pricing differentiates one company from the other. The business, which has the least production cost offers the same level of quality compared to their competitor at a lower price.

ST Kinetics takes complete control over the stages in the production and distribution of the product and services provided by the company (Joskow, 2012). The company uses vertical integration to have a full control over the supply of raw materials to manufacture its products. This can also be used for the distribution of the products manufactured by the company (Michelini & Fiorentino, 2012). The company may use forward, backward and balanced integration to achieve a gain in the results. Each member of the supply chain produces a different product specifically for its market, which satisfies the need of the customer.

ST Kinetics uses strategic planning, which, involves the use of strategic management. The company formulates and implements major goals and initiatives. This includes specifying the objectives of the organization (Bryson, 2012). ST Engineering uses the strategic planning to administer the formulation and implementation of strategy. This is analytical in nature and there is production of data and inputs, which result in synthesizing of the data. The company uses control mechanisms to implement the process through environment analysis, scenario planning, measuring of the implementation and evaluation (Hill, Jones & Schilling, 2014). A responsive evaluation provides for the humanistic approach to the program evaluation.

Conclusion

Thereby, this report discusses the management of the ST Kinetics and The ST Engineering group. The Company has sharpened their focus in the creation of innovation solutions, building of positive impacts across their operations and developing efficient internal management structures. The Company ensures that the core segment will remain fundamentally strong while they invest in exciting new growth areas. The factors of PESTEL have been discussed along with Porter’s five forces analysis. The company being a military technology manufacturer that is responsible does not design, produce or sell anti-personal mines, cluster ammunitions, and key components. The Company believes the foundation of their business success rests on the unyielding honesty, trust and responsibility of their actions, striving to do the correct thing and fulfill the promises made to their customers, partners and stakeholders. Various political issues affect the company’s manufacturing process regarding the production of the small arms and ammunitions. They practice the value for money procurement, do not compromise on the quality and safety of the products and services, practice ethical procurement, protect the health and safety of their workers and protect the environment. The report also highlights the marketing recommendations. A responsive evaluation provides for the humanistic approach to the program evaluation.

References

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