Strategic Management

Resource Dependence Theory (RDT) is a framework that suggests that firms are not self-sufficient entities but are instead reliant on various resources in their environment for survival. These resources include capital, raw materials, technology, expertise, etc. One can find the application of Resource Dependence Theory in organizational behavior and strategic management. This theory helps understand […]

There are several change management models that help organisations implement change successfully. Here we take a look at the various models and theories to help manage change. Introduction to Change Management Change management refers to changes to organisational structures or processes, and is indispensable for businesses to succeed and grow. Since organisational change has a […]

Various strategies (innovation, growth) adopted by Netflix to become the largest streaming service provider in the world. About Netflix Netflix, the world’s largest online streaming services provider, serves a diverse subscriber base globally. Its popularity over the years has been driven through original content and sound use of technology. Netflix maintains that member satisfaction is […]

The GE-McKinsey (9-box) Matrix (aka Directional Policy Matrix) is a tool that enables a firm to understand which are its strong products/segments, where it has a strong competitive position so that it can focus better on those areas. This tool enables a firm to carry out analysis of its portfolio of products or various areas […]

Here are various strategies adopted by Walmart over the years that has helped the company become a retail giant. Pricing Strategy The pricing strategy of “Everyday Low Prices” has been at the core of the business model of Walmart. This strategy is focused on selling goods at a lower price per item at all times, […]

Technological Environment (Domestic or Foreign Technological Factors) and its impact on business. Two of the principal divers of global development have been speed of communication and the reduction in cost of technology. New technologies in both home and host market impact strategic thinking and should be taken into account when developing a global marketing strategy. […]

Economic environment refers to the external economic factors that can influence businesses as well as consumer behavior, and in turn impact the performance of a business. Economic environment factors are further categorized as macroeconomic factors and microeconomic factors. It is important for managers to appreciate the importance of the economic analysis of foreign markets, to […]

The legal environment of a country is framed by its government and comprises of business laws that every business operating in that country must adhere to. Legal Environment (Domestic or Foreign Legal Factors) stems from the political stance and cultural attitude towards business in the domestic and foreign market in which the company operates. International […]

Political Environment (Domestic or Foreign Political Factors) includes any domestic and foreign political factors which may affect the organization’s decision making, planning, implementation and control mechanisms. Marketers have to work within the framework of each country’s ruling parties in which they operate. Each nation has a unique political culture that: reflects the relative importance of […]

Culture is an intangible and wide-ranging concept whose theoretical basis is based in several traditional fields of research including anthropology, management, psychology and other social sciences is culture. Culture has many views; however, a very common understanding of culture is that it is related to concepts such as behaviour, values, and norms of a certain […]

As part of the industry or sector analysis, it is important to examine the activity of competitors. Competitive analysis is about assessing the nature and extent of competition in the organisation’s market place. As part of competitive analysis, detailed information is needed on the following: Competitors: who are they, where are they, what are they […]

Ansoff Matrix, often referred to as the Product/Market Expansion Grid, is a strategic planning framework used by firms to help plan their growth initiatives. The matrix talks about four different growth alternatives – market penetration, market development, product development and diversification. The Ansoff matrix is named after Igor Ansoff, who published it in a Harvard […]

Strategic capabilities refer to the resources and competences of a firm that it uses to compete with rivals in the market. These usually comprise a firm’s strengths and weaknesses and could serve as a source of competitive advantage (or disadvantage) for the firm. Here we take a look at what strategic capabilities are, how they […]

McKinsey’s Three Horizons of Growth suggests that a firm should categorize its various goals into three different ‘horizons’ in order to effectively focus on growth as well as innovation. Horizon 1 Current core activities – extend and defend these activities. This is about conintuing to do what a firm does best. Horizon 2 Develop emerging […]

The Internal Environment includes all aspects that are directly within the span of control of the global company and can be altered, stopped or started at its decision, e.g. strategy, structure, people, processes, resources. What is the Internal Environment? The internal environment refers to the culture, people (directly or indirectly related to the organization), events […]

Understanding mission, vision and value statements. A mission statement talks about the organization’s business, its purpose, its objectives and how it intends to meet those objectives. A vision statement details what the organization hopes to become in the future, where it aspires to go. The values statement talks about the organization’s core principles and ethics. […]

A useful way of gaining insights into competitors and the competitive environment is through industry analysis. Porter’s five forces model is a framework that helps understand the competitive patterns within the industry in which a firm operates. Introduction An Industry is “a group of firms that produce products that are close substitutes for each other. […]

While strategies at the corporate level provide the broad direction, below this level are the business level strategies. Corporate level strategies lay down the framework in which business strategies operate. These strategies are then applied at the business level. Business strategies are the courses of action adopted by an organization for each of its businesses […]

Strategic management is the process of setting goals, objectives and developing plans, policies in order to achieve those objectives, and then allocating the requisite resources to implement those plans. This is done in order to make the firm more competitive. Strategic Management What is Strategic Management? Strategic Management is concerned with establishing the proper “organization […]

Understand the criteria available to evaluate potential strategic options developed within an organisation. Here’s how Strategy Evaluation is typically carried out in big organizations. First, the firm assesses the performance outcomes of the various strategies in terms of direct economic outcomes & overall organisational effectiveness. Then Gap Analysis is carried out to assesses performance & […]

Environmental scanning is an activity that helps an organization to identify the opportunities and threats in its environment. It is the systematic, ongoing collection and interpretation of data about internal and external factors that affect marketing and performance. According to Aguilar (1967), environmental scanning is the process of gathering information about a company’s external events […]

The Churchill & Lewis Growth Stage Model is a useful framework that helps analyse what particular stage of growth a small firm is at, and the issues and problems that they need to be aware of – now as well as in the future as the business grows. The five stages of small business growth […]

Strategies for different functions of management are known as functional level strategy. Functional Level Strategy is concerned with operational level decision making, called tactical decisions, for various functional areas such as: Marketing Finance Production Logistics Research & Development Human Resource Functional level Managers operate at lowest hierarchical level of strategic management. This level is responsible […]

McDonald’s Internal External Factors, SWOT, Porter’s 5 Forces, Strategy, Marketing Mix. About McDonald’s McDonald’s is a fast food chain which originated in America, and was founded by the McDonald brothers Richard and Maurice in California. On a revenue scale, it is the world’s largest restaurant chain, catering to over 69 million customers on a daily […]

The external environment comprises of all external (outside) factors or influences that has could potentially impact the operation of a business. There are large external environmental forces affecting the industry in which a business operates. These are factors over which a business usually does not have much control, but managers must keep an eye on […]

Corporate level strategies help to exercise the choice of direction that an organization adopts. What is Corporate Level Strategy? A corporate strategy refers to the actions that organizations undertake so that the company, or one or more of its business units, gain a competitive advantage which in turn let them carry out the value creation […]

Benchmarking is a strategy tool used to compare the performance of the business processes and products with the best performances of other companies inside and outside the industry. Benchmarking is used as a way to understand how an organization compares with others. It is a means of understanding how an organisation compares with others – […]

The value chain describes the categories of activities within an organisation which, together, create a product or service. What is Value Chain? Understanding how the company creates value, and looking for ways to add more value, are critical elements in developing a competitive strategy. Michael Porter discussed this in his influential 1985 book “Competitive Advantage,” […]

VRIO (acronym for value, rarity, imitability, and organization) framework helps understand the business elements that provides the business with a long-term competitive advantage. The VRIO Analysis was developed by Jay B. Barney as a way of evaluating the resources of an organization (company’s micro-environment) which are as follows: Financial resources Human resources Material resources Non-material […]

The model was developed by McKinsey & Company in the 1980s. Specifically, it was developed by Robert H. Waterman, Jr. and Tom Peters. Their research has shown that the success of an organization depends on a number of mutually supporting variables, besides strategy and structure. According to the 7-S framework, effective organizational change is driven […]

It is important to use the PESTLE and Five Forces Technique together for analysis as it helps to get a detailed picture of the situation that an organization faces. Both PESTLE / PEST and Porter’s Five Forces analysis provides an organization with more information about the external environment. However, using just one of the techniques […]

Gaining and sustaining Competitive Advantage is particularly important for businesses today. Businesses are now constantly evaluating how innovation and new advances in technology can assist them to stay ahead of their competition by enabling them to offer new products or services, or in many cases, to do things more efficiently or more quickly. Why does […]

The General Electronic (GE) Matrix was developed by Mckinsey and Company Consultancy Group in the 1970s. Whereas BCG is limited to products, business units can be products, whole product lines, a service or even a brand. The GE matrix is plotted in a 3 x 3 grid i.e. it includes nine cells based on: long […]

The BCG matrix framework by Boston Consulting Group evaluates the strategic position of the products in the portfolio of a business. While the Product Life Cycle is a great tool to determine how one or a group of products in the portfolio are doing, tools such as the BCG (Boston Consulting Group) Matrix are better […]

Bowman’s Strategy Clock presents various ways to position product/services and is a useful tool to understand how firms compete based on price and perceived value. Bowman’s strategic clock is another strategic tool that provides businesses with several options to position their products/services in the market. It suggests eight different ways to position product/services (BOWMAN & […]

The Suitability, Acceptability and Feasibility (SAF) method helps in evaluating strategies; as per the framework, a strategy must meet three criteria for it to be successful – it must be suitable, acceptable and feasible (JOHNSON and SCHOLES, 1997). SAF Method Suitability: An assessment of the underlying rationale or logic of the potential strategy. Does the […]

Porter’s generic strategies refers to strategies that companies can use to gain a competitive advantage in the market, such as Cost Leadership, Differentiation and Focus (Porter, 1985). Every business wants to assess and understand competition so that they can plan their actions accordingly, and stay ahead of it. They want to know who the competitors […]

Michael Porter is one of the most influential strategic thinkers of the twentieth century. he is credited for coming up with several theories, models and frameworks that helps analyze businesses in strategic ways. “He has influenced more executives – and more nations – than any other business professor on earth.” – Geoff Colvin, Fortune magazine, […]

The SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat) analysis is a useful tool for any business. SWOT is a two-dimensional analysis, in which the ‘Internal’ and ‘External’ dimensions of an organization are analysed. The objective of SWOT is to evaluate the internal strengths and weaknesses of an organization, along with its external threats and opportunities. What […]

Strategy involves setting goals, determining the best course of actions and allocating resources to achieve those goals. Here’s an introduction to Strategy and Strategising. Strategy is a set of processes and activities which involves: assessing environmental changes to identify opportunities and threats, assessing internal strengths and weaknesses and ability to respond to environmental change, creation […]

Doing business or investing in foreign markets, especially emerging countries, carry a certain element of risk. The risks could be from the government that may decide to make changes to the country’s foreign investment rules, or it could be a small buyer deciding to cancel a contract due to some economic concerns. Country risk refers […]

PESTLE analysis consists of components that influence the business environment and each letter in the acronym denotes a set of factors that directly or indirectly affect every industry. The Pestle analysis allows marketers to analyse the major environmental factors and examine the effect of these factors on marketing planning and implementation. What is PESTLE / […]

A strategy refers to the set of actions that managers in a company take to increase their company’s performance. The strategy formulation task is the task of selecting strategies, whereas strategy implementation is the task of putting strategies into action. Strategies can be divided into various categories such as Corporate-level strategies, Global strategies, business-level strategies […]

The resource-based view (RBV) of strategy asserts that the competitive advantage & superior performance of an organisation are explained by the distinctiveness of its capabilities. It is sometimes also called the ‘capabilities view’. Proponents of RBV (such as Birger Wernerfel, Prahalad and Hamel, Barney) suggested that a firm should look within the firm to find […]

The TOWS Matrix is a framework that enables businesses to come up with business strategies based on its SWOT analysis, by connecting the internal as well as the external factors (Weihrich, 1982). Considering the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities (SWOT) and these in mind, further strategies are formulated. Advantages of Using the TOWS Matrix A TOWS MATRIX […]

Mergers and Acquisitions An acquisition is when you buy another business and end up controlling it. A merger is when you integrate your business with another and share control of the combined businesses with the other owner(s). Mergers and Acquisitions are often treated together in the literature, legally they are transactions of a different kind. […]