Strategic Management Approaches And Examples From Various Organizations

Sequential Approach in Telstra

Strategic management is a critical field of business study which is combination of a wide range of diverse business concepts (Todorovi?, Bjelica and Mitrovi? 2013). Entrepreneurs, in order to make effective changes implement various approaches of strategic management for the betterment of the organisation. This report will focus on different areas of strategic management approaches using examples of various organisation. It will further highlight company history and based on its competencies how the organisation has implemented and gained advantage. The nature of limitations and mitigation strategy will be discussed to in this course too.

This is considered to be the most standard approach of strategic management which involves sequential levels of improvements to achieve the desired outcome. It involves following levels to carry out the intention of a certain business organisation.

• The company capability along with macro and micro environmental analysis must be done to gather information at each stage about the current situation first.
• Based on this analysis, organisation decides the strategies and direction of improvement.
• Actions must be taken to implement strategies.
• Implementation is not enough as managers have to collect feedback to identify issues and amend accordingly. It must be supervised from the beginning till its completion. It would be helpful in detecting glitches and take the control immediately.

The advantages of such approach is, it is more generalised; moreover, organisations frequently adopted this approach irrespective of organisational structure and type of industry. The success of each activity is related to the prior one in terms of successful implementation of the entire procedure. In order to present a successful example of sequential approach, the name of Australian Telecommunication Company Telstra can be mentioned (Telstra.com.au, 2019).

With the progression of time Telstra realised the importance of customers’ feedback. Telstra understood how rate of their satisfaction contributes in organisational performance and sustaining competitive advantage. Therefore, they set a goal of improving customer experience by cutting cost and simplifying the structure of the organisation. They expected that it would help their customers to gain necessary solution at an affordable range.

Based on this expectation, Telstra structured following goals marinating the lean theory to succeed in developing customized solutions and advanced telecommunications experience for their customers by simplifying organisational structure and reducing cost too Saeed, Alsmadi and Khawaja (2013).

• Based on current market research, company decided to launch new customer plan at affordable price to let the customers enjoy benefits irrespective of demographic boundaries.
• In order to simplify company structure and cut down excess costs, company aims to eliminate low performing employees and dissolve few of the management layers.
• In spite of all these changes, perceived market value has to be kept as premium.
• Production must be increased along with advancing the infrastructure of business unit.

Telstra, followed the goal oriented direction. At first, researching on the demographic, psychographic and behavioural approaches the organisation understood the factors which are influencing the customers’ purchasing decision when it comes to choosing a talk-time plan or other telecommunication facilities. Secondly, Developing customized service and delivering desired experience helped Telstra to enhance customer loyalty. Thirdly, with the goal to provide that, apart from market research, they took strategy of increasing both the internal and external communication. Next, management has implemented such strategies with responsibility and utmost commitment. Finally, the entire crew worked together to supervise and monitor the change. Supervising the process in order to measure performance needs technological help. With the help of digitalised statistical data, customers’ behaviour, in terms of retention and repurchase rate, has been measured with accuracy.

Sustainable Approach in Woolworths

Telstra’s initiative of such strategic management approach has opened more options for the customers. Introducing budget plans for every demographic background Telstra not only achieved their goals, but also has appeared as a major competitor of premium market value to low budget telecommunication companies. In addition to that, they have become successful to reframe their operations from concept of profit oriented to customer oriented profit. As a result, both the company structure, product and service facilities have become simple, digitalised and under budget.

Although, the process achieved success while implementing the strategic approach Telstra faced wide variety of customers’ demand which leads them towards complexity. Most of the time, issue was clients morality or honesty while giving feedbacks. Besides, an issue occurred when participants are reluctant to share responses. The number of participants were so low to come to a conclusion. Survey results could have been more market oriented if the company could actually interview the desired number of participants for understanding the perception of market regarding telecommunication facilities. Later, they realised number of responses can be increased by conducting a digital page. Using social media as a tool of gathering response, the company achieved more success on this level of sequence.

Retail industry of Australia is wide and surrounded by arguments whether the sustainable standards are being fulfilled or not during business operations. Retail industry is highly dynamic based on fickle preferences of customers. Retail companies like Woolworths is consistently being accused of poor waste management (Woolworths.com.au, 2019). It has been suspected by experts that this factor restricts them to achieve sustainability targets by 2020. In order to deal with this issue, Woolworths admitted their incapability of controlling food waste and outlined their strategic corporate responsibility by taking a sustainable approach.

In retail industry, as supported by Hausman, Lee and Subramanian (2013), supply chain and logistics management plays a crucial part as indicators of success. Acknowledging the dynamic nature of industry, as described in Kazmi and Naaranoja (2015), managers have to act quickly to response against the trends, gather information about the suppliers and manage the costs and have to work on strategies to seize opportunities. In order to evaluate and make the business operations oriented to sustainability, it is not only the information but also technology has a major card to play in maintenance of the same. In order to do that Woolworths has followed few strategies to achieve sustainable strategic approach.

• As discussed in Chkanikova and Mont (2015), efficient inventory and logistics management is the key to succeed in retail business. Correct estimation of market demand and aligning the collected close to the trend help to lower inventory costs, electricity and wastage of FMCG products including foods.
• Small sustainable approaches can be implemented to create major impact to the society along with environment. Such as, Woolworths has implemented paperless system and make the system entirely digitalized or cloud based. It has ensured a prevention towards managing resources and energy costs too.
• Sustainability must be included as business practice for attracting the customers’ attention as well. People are becoming more aware towards environmental problems. It has been observed that the tendency of shopping eco-friendly items has increased among consumer in last ten years. People are choosing metal straws instead of buying plastic straws. The situation is true when they are offered to have plastic carry bags and they deny. In addition to that, they are deliberately choosing sustainable modes of travelling, choosing organic products at stores more than non-degradable ones.
• On the contrary, Woolworths has decided to promote sustainability and influence consumer behaviour following few business practices. Going paperless is one of those. Applying charges for plastic carry bags is making them carry things on their own carry bags or Woolworths has introduced alternative carry bag made of jute and paper years back.
• The organisation has realised innovation and cross-industry partnerships is helpful while dealing with costs and product development approach.
• Sustainable packaging is another factor of which customers are aware of now a days. Milk, packaged food, and use of preservatives this kind of factors have become crucial to them. Consumers care about the process it follows, ingredients whether it has been harming other animals or not etc. As mentioned in, Botha, Kourie and Snyman (2014), their purchasing decision has changed drastically with the progression of time as well as advancement of technology.  People trust organisations more if a business adheres to such regulations. Woolworths has responded to consumers’ preferences by maintaining an authentic and transparent marketing communication in order to make them aware about eco-friendly offerings that displays their concern regarding sustainability issues.

• After complying with sustainability norms Woolworths not only secures their name at the list of brands trying to reach the global goals, but also linking the CSR policies with organisational performance has made them one of the top recruiters. Improved CSR policies has helped the organisation to improve workplace culture. As a result, achieving efficient human resource, has become easy.
• Efficient human resource means production, professionalism and customer satisfaction increased.
• According to Boons et al. (2013), culture of innovation has turned into responsible organisational practice. Not only is that Woolworths creating an example for the other companies as well following the sustainable strategic approach.

• Natural resources can be easily available yet there are very few manufacturing units as compared to the market need, to process them into usable products. As a result, poor to middle class people even after having a sensitive heart cannot afford sustainable products from their retailers for daily use. Infrastructure must be rapidly transformed, in order to decrease the cost of processing and make these things more consumer friendly.
• Developed countries do not face much problems in terms of accessing these products, whereas in developing countries the scenario is different. Those nations cannot adopt new forms of energy due to high expenses.
• Although, retailers are promising to deliver eco-friendly items the changes are not coming as per the desire due to cost barriers. Results can be obtained in long-term yet the wait will not be over too soon. Therefore, it can be called as time consuming process.
• Instead of forming sustainable products, companies must develop practices that are more responsible towards environmental issues. Manufacturing units of factories or food processing units can think for new methods of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. They must adapt environment friendly waste management practices as discussed in Thyberg and Tonjes (2016), just as Woolworths did. By following such guidelines, developing countries can still make sustainable choices in spite of having cost barriers.

Resource-Based Approach in Tesla

It is known as a business theory used by managers to deliver solutions based on firms’ competence and resources (Tukker 2015).  This approach helps a business organisation to accomplish organisational objective using least amount of resources. According to Hinterhuber (2013), organisations sustain competitive advantage by managing resources in a smart way and ensures profitability. Considering Tesla, electric cars and solar panel manufacturing company as an example of organisation it can be said it has definitely taken a sustainable approach towards business (Tesla.com, 2019). However, as mentioned before environment friendly product formation is not easy and it needs huge investment. Based on the resources available for the company, Tesla has created a business practice which is valuable, rare, hard to imitate and improve organisational culture.

As resource based approach is for achieving sustainable competitive edge, a VRIO analysis can evaluate Tesla’s operations to determine if they have successfully explored their competence and gained advantage.

Value: Tesla using all their resources invent products which are increasing being adopted to solve issues related to environment. Their innovations are going to keep the usage of fossil fuel in control. Tesla has formed energy efficient products, yet the way they are serving needs of society at affordable range, is an evident of their cost effective business practices. As per the study of Wüstenhagen and Boehnke (2017), it can be stated that it proves company’s high end technological infrastructure and has created a remarkable incident by solving challenges regarding energy exhaustion.

Rare: It can be termed as rare, as the company has implemented innovation based technological development and introduces an approach of HR development. The company felt, not only in terms of monetary resources but also HR capacities is what makes an organisation efficient in its business. Therefore, extraordinary calibre of human resources, their investment on HR development and training programs and advanced technological infrastructure is what makes them rare.

Imitability: Tesla swears by technology and efficient and skilled HR department to execute business operation. They keep working on improving their resources with smart investment that other companies find it difficult to imitate or even try to align their business concept with Tesla. Therefore, other companies lacks competence to spend that amount of money to invest and Tesla continues to sustain competitive edge.

Organisation’s position: Another resource of the company is their professional approach in leading the workforce and creating an employee friendly atmosphere along with contemporary work culture. This has boosted the performance of workforce and directly reflects to improved organisational performance as well.

VRIO Analysis for Tesla

While talking about opportunities and threats, a company needs certain resources and strategies to capture or combat those respectively. In case a company is not capable of gathering resources to achieve a certain trendy opportunity that does not mean that company cannot achieve anything. This is where most of the company fails to make assessment. A company should evaluate themselves based on its resources, then it should look for opportunities whatever they are capable of achieving. Right assessment and right choice helps them to get rid of unnecessary competition too. Failures occur if generalised view of resources has been taken rather than evaluating their key capabilities. This theory can be successful in case of firms who are highly developed in terms of both the monetary and human resources. Most importantly they have a contemporary technological infrastructure. Therefore, small and medium sized companies hardly capture big opportunities following this frame work. However, this framework is definitely helpful to explore the most obvious opportunities available in market.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that different approaches of strategic management are being explored by different organisations according to market trend and existing opportunities. Mainly, companies look for increased profitability, capture value and some look for responsible practices and customer satisfaction. Whatever be the motive, business enterprises are untied to a single objective which is to sustain against all the odds. All the strategic approaches and practical implications shows how effectively business theories can be implemented.

References

Boons, F., Montalvo, C., Quist, J. and Wagner, M., 2013. Sustainable innovation, business models and economic performance: an overview. Journal of Cleaner Production, 45, pp.1-8.

Botha, A., Kourie, D. and Snyman, R., 2014. Coping with continuous change in the business environment: Knowledge management and knowledge management technology. Elsevier.

Chkanikova, O. and Mont, O., 2015. Corporate supply chain responsibility: drivers and barriers for sustainable food retailing. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 22(2), pp.65-82.

Hausman, W.H., Lee, H.L. and Subramanian, U., 2013. The impact of logistics performance on trade. Production and Operations Management, 22(2), pp.236-252.

Hinterhuber, A., 2013. Can competitive advantage be predicted? Towards a predictive definition of competitive advantage in the resource-based view of the firm. Management Decision, 51(4), pp.795-812.

Kazmi, S.A.Z. and Naaranoja, M., 2015. Cultivating strategic thinking in organizational leaders by designing supportive work environment!. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 181, pp.43-52.

Saeed, S., Alsmadi, I. and Khawaja, F.M., 2013. Lean Development: A Tool for Knowledge Management in Software Development Process. In Business Strategies and Approaches for Effective Engineering Management (pp. 142-150). IGI Global.

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Tesla.com (2019). Electric Cars, Solar Panels & Clean Energy Storage | Tesla. [online] Tesla.com. Available at: https://www.tesla.com/ [Accessed 17 Jan. 2019].

Thyberg, K.L. and Tonjes, D.J., 2016. Drivers of food waste and their implications for sustainable policy development. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 106, pp.110-123.

Todorovi?, M., Bjelica, D. and Mitrovi?, Z., 2013. Concepts and models for presentation of project success. Serbian Project Management Journal, p.47.

Tukker, A., 2015. Product services for a resource-efficient and circular economy–a review. Journal of cleaner production, 97, pp.76-91.

Woolworths.com.au (2019). {{metaController.metaData.title}}. [online] Woolworths.com.au. Available at: https://www.woolworths.com.au/ [Accessed 17 Jan. 2019].

Wüstenhagen, R. and Boehnke, J., 2017. sustainable energy. System Innovation for Sustainability 1: Perspectives on Radical Changes to Sustainable Consumption and Production, p.70.