Tools and Techniques of Strategic Management - Coursework Example

TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Tools and Techniques of Strategic Management Introduction Tools and techniques of Strategic management are utilised widely and can be defined as various tools for supporting managers in every stage of strategic management with the objective of improving numerous deficiencies within the organisation for improved productivity as well as performance. These tools and techniques are beneficial because they help solve some of the organisational problems and enable managers to assess the business environment and make the appropriate decision. Besides that, they can be used for various strategic tasks and enable strategy participants to interact (Afonina & Chalupský, 2013, p.834). Some of the tools and techniques of Strategic management often utilised in our business organisation include Porter’s five forces, SWOT analysis, benchmarking, PEST analysis, as well as balanced scorecard. The objective of this essay is to examine how the tools and techniques of Strategic Management add value to the business organisation. SWOT analysis SWOT connotes internal factors, Strengths (S) as well as Weaknesses (W) which the organisation has some level of control as well as external factors, and Opportunities (O) and Threats (T) that cannot be controlled by the organisation. At the organisation, a SWOT analysis is commonly utilised for analysis as well as the audit of the business’s environment and its strategic position. The key objective of a SWOT analysis at the organisation is identifying the strategies, which could be utilised to generate a business model capable of aligning the capabilities as well as resources of the organisation to the environment requirements wherein the firm operates. Therefore, a SWOT analysis is the organisation’s basis for analysing the internal limitations and potential as well as the likely threats and opportunities from the business external environment. Therefore, it examines every positive as well as the negative factor outside and inside the organisation, which influence its success. By consistently studying the business environment where the organisation operates; thus, enabling the managers to predict the changing business trends and make correct decisions. With the view to the four factors of SWOT analysis, Strengths can be described as the qualities which enable the organisation to achieve its mission. Basically, Strengths are the foundation through which continued business success could be achieved as well as sustained. More importantly, strengths are considered to be the organisation’s beneficial aspects, and they involve brand loyalty, human competencies, process capabilities, services and products, customer goodwill, as well as financial resources. For instance, the strengths of our organisation include committed employees, broad product line, enormous financial resources, and no debt. Weaknesses can be defined as the qualities, which prevent the organisation from achieving its potential as well as the mission and weaken the organisational growth and success. In the organisation, some of the weaknesses include poor decision-making, inadequate R&D facilities, and depreciating machinery. Still, weaknesses can be reduced and eradicated. Opportunities are qualities that the business environment presents to the organisation and often crop up when the organisation can capitalise on its environment conditions to plan as well as implement strategies which can improve its productivity. Utilisation of opportunities can help organisations achieve competitive advantage. Some of the opportunities commonly arise from technology, government, industry, competition, and put the organisation’s profitability and reliability at risk. Unlike weaknesses, threats cannot be controlled; therefore, when they come, the survival, as well as stability of the business, could be at risk. Some of the threats at the organisation include increased competition and dissatisfaction amongst the employee. Without a doubt, a SWOT Analysis is beneficial because it enables managers to monitor the overall business environment and be able to identify as well as take advantage of new opportunities faster as compared to the competitors. Therefore, a SWOT Analysis enables the organisation build on its strengths, reverse its weaknesses, recognise its core competencies, plan strategically, and overcome threats within the organisation (Stubbs, 2011, p.26). As pointed out by Schmidt (2015), a SWOT Analysis add value to the business organisation by offering information which could help synchronise the firm’s capabilities as well as resources with its competitive environment. More importantly, a SWOT analysis offers a simple analytical model which enables the organisation to examine its business from every angle. Schmidt (2015) maintains that a SWOT analysis enables the organisation to prepare itself well and act effectively. For the analysis to become more valuable, the organisation should involve the stakeholders. At our organisation, SWOT analysis reminds us to build on our strengths, reduce weakness, neutralise threats, and seize opportunities. The SWOT analysis has remained more valuable at the organisation since it is utilised to support the already defined objective, mission, and vision. In addition, the SWOT offers us perspective and makes known connections as well as areas for action. According to Hagoort (2003, p.93), SWOT analysis is popular because of its flexibility as well as simplicity. It can be understood easily and does not need specialist training or technical knowledge to implement it. Furthermore, a SWOT analysis makes many situational factors to become manageable. Porter’s Five Forces The Porter’s Five Forces model is utilised globally and normally involves continuously monitoring and scanning the business environment with the objective of gaining competitive intelligence on potential and present competitors. According to Indiatsy et al. (2014, p.76), most companies utilise scenario planning with the aim of responding to disruptive and volatile changes in the business environment. The intensity of the Porter’s Five Forces greatly decides the average profitability level expected in the industry and helps decides how to improve the organisation’s competitive position. Basically, all of the five forces’ strengths are inversely proportional to price as well as the profits such that a competitive force deemed weak could act as an opportunity and the one considered as strong could serve as a major threat. The first force is the potential of new entrants into the industry, which connotes the likelihood of the new competitors eroding the business profits. Basically, the level of threat posed by new entrant relies on the available entry barriers as well as the collective responses from the existing competitors. Clearly, when there are high entry barriers or the new-comer expects a quick reprisal from the existing competitors, then the threat of entry is reduced and disheartens new competitors. In the industry where our organisation operates, some of the entry barriers include ability to access distribution channels, product differentiation, and economies of scale. The second force is the bargaining power of buyers, whereby customers are often threatened threaten the industry to reduce prices, provide quality products, and easily switching to other competitors. As a result, the firm’s profitability is often reduced. The power of the customers relies on characteristics of the market situation as well as the significance of their purchases in contrast to the overall business. The third force is the bargaining power of suppliers, whereby the organisation can be pressurised by suppliers to increase prices or reduce the purchased products’ quality. The firms’ profitability is often squeezed by powerful suppliers with the objective of recovering the costs of raw material inputs. Suppliers are inclined to become powerful in an industry dominated by only a few companies and when their product is a crucial input to the business (Indiatsy et al., 2014, p.78). The fourth force is the threat of substitute products, every company according to Indiatsy et al. (2014, p.78) compete with industries that produce substitute services as well as products; therefore, substitutes reduce the potential of the firm becoming profitable. Basically, identification of substitute products involves looking for other services or products which could carry out a similar function as the products in the industry. For instance, Savings and Credit Societies are considered to be substitutes in the banking industry because of their low-interest levels as well as terms and conditions that are less strict with regard to their loan services. The last force is rivalry amongst the established firms, whereby companies compete to gain their rivals’ market share. In this case, companies utilise tactics such as increased customer service, advertising, price competition, quality competition, product introductions as well as warranties. A number of tactics used, like price competition are often very destabilising and define the industry’s profitability level. For instance, reducing the prices of the products could lead to reduced profitability. As mentioned by Hill and Jones (2009, p.54), Porter’s five forces define the company’s competitive environment, which influences its profitability. The suppliers and customers’ bargaining power have an effect on the capability of the company to effectively control costs and increase prices. When a similar product can be accessed from many suppliers, for instance, then the company has a high bargaining power over all the suppliers. Still, if a particular component can be provided by only one supplier, then the bargaining power over the company is high. Hill and Jones (2009, p.54) posit that high-entry barriers discourage new competition but low-entry barriers encourage it. Porter (1979) maintained that the value of formulating a strategy is to cope with competition. Still, competition can be viewed too pessimistically as well as too narrowly. In the industry, intense competition cannot be considered as a bad luck or coincidence. Furthermore, while fighting to gain more market share, Porter (1979) posits that competition is manifested not only to the other players but also to the underlying economics. That is to say, substitute products, potential entrants, suppliers, and customers are all competitors that could relatively be active or prominent based on the industry. PEST analysis The PEST analysis according to Gupta (2013, p.35) is an approach widely utilised to consider the external environment of the business. The PEST analysis provides a model of macro-environmental factors utilised to scan the external business environment and how to respond to existing changes. As pointed out by Gupta (2013, p.35), changes in political climate includes shifts in world power, government change, and a specific regulation and legislation. On the other hand, economic changes that affect organisations includes world trade patterns, capital markets changes, economic cycles effects, conversion rate of changing currency, prices of commodity, labour rates and markets, as well as the effects of economy on customers and suppliers. Social change often involves habits and tastes, demographic patterns’ effects, and issues surrounding business environment. Change in technology on distribution channels, processes, and products can influence organisation’s performance. Without a doubt, the PEST analysis has been effective in our organisation for research reports, strategic as well as business planning, product and business development, and marketing planning. As indicated by Abdullah and Shamsher (2011, p.1448), PEST adds value to business because it makes sure that the performance of the company is positively aligned with the powerful change forces which influence the business environment. The PEST analysis is valuable when a firm penetrate new countries and new markets since it breaks away the unconscious assumptions and enable the organisation to successfully become accustomed to the new environment’s realities. Normally, PEST is utilised prior to SWOT analysis since it helps in identifying the SWOT factors. As emphasised by Abdullah and Shamsher (2011) the PEST analysis has developed into a more relevant and useful tool utilised by organisations to examine the external business environment. Spending by governments could result in increased money supply thus, making the capital markets more afloat. With the view to the performance of the company or their readiness to offer additional equity funding, the shareholders’ expectations can also be affected by government spending. Basically, the labour market depicts the accessibility of certain skills at regional as well as national levels, and is often influenced by government agencies. The costs of labour can be influenced by inflation, market trends as well as the power and role of the trade unions. On the other hand, the socio-cultural environment outlines the consumers’ tastes and demand that differ with disposable income, fashion, and the wide-ranging changes which could offer both threats as well as opportunities for certain organisations. Technology has been identified as a crucial tool that could be utilised to create competitive advantage. Political factors in PEST analysis connote various factors such as government policy and political environment where the organisation operates. Many aspects of the business could be influenced by political decisions such as the nation’s health, workforce education, and infrastructure system. Economic factors as mentioned earlier include economic growth, taxation changes, interest rates, exchange rates, and inflation. Business operations can be hampered by high interest rates and a strong currency could reduce exports since the price could be increased by the foreign currency. With regard to social factors, Chandan and Gupta (2011, p.52) posits that when the social trends changes, the demand for the products could be influenced and the willingness as well as the availability of individuals to join the labour force can be impacted. The growing labour pool has forced a number of companies such as Asda to recruit older workers. Technological factors involve technologies that create new processes as well as new products. For instance, computer aided design, bar coding, and online shopping are some of the technological improvements to the way of conducting business. Technology is very important because it results in innovation, improves quality, and reduces costs. In our organisation, the benefits associated with PEST analysis are maximised regularly so as to facilitate the identification of major trends in the industry. PEST analysis has added value to the organisation by offering an easy-to-use and simple framework to examine the external business environment and facilitates the reduction of effects and impact of possible threats to the organisation. Furthermore, PEST analysis has enabled the organisation to develop strategic thinking and offers a mechanism that allows for identification and exploitation of new opportunities. Benchmarking Benchmarking can be defined as the process of examining the industry or competitive products, functions and practices and searching for ways to improve them. Our organisation utilise benchmarking to and pinpoint its shortcomings and gauge its success. Generally, the benchmarking process involves finding areas where there is a problem, choosing top competitors excelling in the market where the company is failing and making the required changes. Utilisation of benchmarking in the organisation results in numerous benefits such as reduced labour costs and improved product quality. For instance, our organisation recently studied how the main competitors were utilising robots for various functions in the company. Such robots were helping the competitors cut costs such as labour costs. Therefore, the company’s managers gained information regarding these robotics systems by means of online articles and competitor's website. Upon identifying the company that installed the competitor’s robotics system, the company utilised benchmarking to contact the robot manufacturer who helped us install our own system. A number of companies have utilised benchmarking to improve the overall quality of the products. Occasionally, engineers buy products manufactured by the leading competitors. After purchasing, they disassemble the product with the objective of studying them and finding how the competitors' products outperform other products or live longer. For instance, chemical engineers often study competitor’s cleaning or food products by comparing their own product line with different elements in the competitive products with the objective of improving the product quality. Benchmarking also increases sales as well as profits since the company’s products and services, operations and functions are improved. When customers notice such improvements the sales are inclined to increase leading to high profits. Our organisation normally uses sales representatives, television and magazine ads, and company brochures to promote these improvements. Such efforts have led to improved sales, particularly amongst the core consumers. The organisation has become more efficient and has reduced its expenses drastically because of benchmarking. Such savings have resulted in increased profits. Information achieved through benchmarking is valuable because it can be utilised to find out gaps in the processes of organisation with the objective of achieving a sustainable competitive advantage. As mentioned by Attiany (2014, p.42), benchmarking is the process of continually measuring our business practices, services, and products against companies deemed as industry leaders or the toughest competitors. The process of benchmarking normally depends on the design as well as the implementation of different tests to verify the technological systems and rationalise by means of comparisons. Benchmarking process according to Attiany (2014, p.49) helps in the business performance by achieving the external knowledge as well as utilising it in the internal process and practices. Furthermore, benchmarking can be utilised as a tool for learning from others and enables the organisation to weigh its procedures and processes against those of the best-in class performer with the objective of improving the company’s performance and attain competitive advantage. In addition, benchmarking adds value to the organisation by improving customer satisfaction, reducing errors, cutting costs, and enhancing profits. Therefore, benchmarking is a crucial tool for making decisions regarding the organisation’s activities that required continuous improvement. Clearly, benchmarking enables the firms to change their way of thinking from relative complacency to more robust sense of urgency in order to achieve competitive advantage. Balanced Scorecard The balanced scorecard offers business managers with an all-inclusive framework which translates the strategic objectives of the company into consistent performance measures set. Basically, the balanced scorecard is considered as a system of management which can be used to encourage breakthrough improvements in some important areas such as developing market, product, process, and customer. The balanced scorecard offers managers with four varying perspectives whereby they can select measures. Still, the measures vary from those that were traditionally utilised by business organisations. This is attributed to the fact that scores of companies by now have many physical as well as operational measures for their local activities. However, such local measures have been sourced from ad hoc. On the other hand, the balanced scorecard measures are anchored on the competitive demands as well as strategic objectives of the organisation. Furthermore, by demanding managers to choose only a few critical indicators in all of the perspectives, the balanced scorecard enables the organisation to concentrate on its strategic vision. Besides that, although the traditional financial measures focus on the previous happenings devoid of providing ways on how managers could improve the organisational performance, the balanced scorecard serves as the keystone of the organisation’s success in the present and future. Furthermore, in contrast to the conventional metrics, the four perspectives’ information offers a balance between internal as well as external measures such as new product development and operating income, respectively. As a result, these set of measures that are balanced show the trade-offs which have already been made by the managers amongst performance measures as well as enable them to realise their goals sooner or later devoid of carrying out trade-offs amongst the main success factors. As pointed out by Kaplan and Norton (1993), the majority of companies trying to put the local improvement programs such as empowerment of employees, total quality and reengineering are short of the sense of integration. Therefore, the balanced scorecard functions as the organisation’s efforts focal point, outlining as well as conveying priorities to customers, investors, employees, and managers. Kaplan and Norton (1993) maintain that the balanced scorecard cannot be used generally in the industry since different competitive environments, product strategies, and market situations need different balanced scorecards. For this reason, our organisation has devised tailored scorecards in order to fit the company’s culture, strategy, mission, and technology. Balanced scorecards have been used widely in the for-profit sector, whereby business organisations design key performance indicators and measures after defining strategic priorities with the objective of determining how such strategies can be executed effectively (Niven, 2010, p.88). Some of the organisations in the non-profit sector have started to adopt balanced scorecards in order to the essence of their existence and to communicate explicitly their strategy and vision. As mentioned earlier, the balanced scorecard uses four perspectives to examine the organisation before developing objectives which satisfy all the perspectives as well as gathers data for them. Therefore, these perspectives include the financial perspective, which is used to answer various questions such as what the organisation desires to deliver based on profits, the level of costs they desire to cut, how they plan to improve their revenues, and the type of value they want to return to the shareholders. The focus of financial perspective in our organisation is normally on balancing expenses with revenue. The second perspective is the internal business process, which exhibits if the business is running effectively, and whether services and products are in line with the requirements of the customers. The third perspective is the customer, whereby the organisation considers objectives like improving customers’ satisfaction using the delivered products and services or enhancing the perceptions of the public towards the organisation. The last perspective is learning and growth perspective, which includes corporate leadership as well as cultural attitudes and employee learning. This perspective key objective is to maximise improvement at both corporate and individual level. Our organisation is not bound by the abovementioned perspectives since it has freely created its own perspectives to behold, but they rely on what is crucial to the success of the organisation. As a result, the organisation is currently shifting from the conventional balanced scorecard and developed new scorecards which can effectively fit with the overall organisational goals. Balanced scorecard started as a passive document but has evolved with time to offer a valuable framework, which offers performance measurements and enables decision makers to find out what they should do and measure. Normally, the balanced scorecard’s final results are evaluated through interpretation of data and investigation of improvement options. Evaluation plays a crucial role in the original development of balanced scorecard; for instance, it helps define the key performance indicators of the organisation, especially in the internal business practices as well as the customer areas. Furthermore, evaluation helps the organisation to discover the balanced scorecard’s data sources and facilitates the gathering and summarising of all the data. Therefore, the evaluation enables the organisations to deeply analyse the surface of performance indicators and taking action on established results. Customer Value Analysis As pointed out by Horne (2014), it is imperative to understand the non-price factors in the competitive marketplace which steer the purchasing decisions of the customers since it could offer a crucial insight regarding how the company can improve marketing and product development so as to grow market share and increase profitability. Eventually, when the company’s products are considered to offer good value, the organisation will gain competitive advantage, attract new customers, and increase sales. On the other hand, when the company’s products provide poor perceived value, the sales are inclined to suffer. As emphasised by Horne (2014), all customers normally look for value in the products they purchase. In view of this, a value can be described as the measure of the product quality in relation to its price. Therefore, when a product has good quality and is sold at a customer-friendly price is inclined to have a great value. Engineering an improved perceived value devoid of altering the base product’s nature is achievable. Therefore, our organisation normally optimise the perceived value by understanding ways through which the customers rate the characteristics of its products, ways of weighing the rating, and comparison of these ratings with those of the competitors’ products. The organisation relies on detailed customer feedback to get this valuable information, which consequently used to reveal the company’s crucial value drivers. Such value drivers generate the foundation of a convincing value proposition which is utilised to appeal the consumers and is also used to differentiate the company from other the competitors selling the same products. After revealing the products’ perceived value, the organisation is able to vary pricing with the objective of exploiting any opportunity to engineer the prices. Price Analysis Price analysis can be defined as the process of determining whether the asking price for a service or product is reasonable as well as fair, devoid of assessing the specific profit and costs calculations utilised by the vendor to set the price. Price analysis can also be described as the process of examining the price with recognised indicators of fairness and reasonableness. Without sufficient price competition, the need for other forms of analysis arises. Price competition adequacy can be influenced by a number of factors such as production capacity limits and specifications. In our organisation, price analysis is a valuable tool used to make contract proposals decisions, especially when planning to introduce a new product in an already established market since it helps determine the asking price. Price analysis is very important because it helps the organisation to make sure that the price given is both reasonable and fair. Still, there are a number of factors that the organisation have to take into account while carrying out price analysis like the number of sellers and buyers in the market, the demand, the production cost, the existing substitutes, and the probable profits to be gained. Besides that, while carrying out price analysis the organisation often evaluate the resources needed and sometimes perform technical analysis in order to find out the breakeven point through estimation of prices as well as evaluation of price summary. Analysis In Afonina and Chalupský (2013, p.835) study, they identified numerous categories of tools and techniques of strategic management with the view to the Czech Republic companies. The first category was the rudimentary tools, comprises of tools that have low utilisation as well as satisfaction. They include the Balanced Scorecard, win-loss analysis, portfolio analysis, customer purchase plan analysis, advertising effectiveness analysis, finance analysis, product lifecycle analysis, and value-chain analysis. Another category is the speciality tools, which contains tools with high satisfaction level and low utilisation. They include customer value analysis as well as the relative profitability analysis. As mentioned by Afonina and Chalupský (2013), Blunt instruments are tools and techniques that have low satisfaction level and high utilisation level such as customer’s defection analysis and benchmarking. The last category identified by Afonina and Chalupský (2013) is the power tools which includes tools having high satisfaction and utilisation levels such as price and customer satisfaction analysis, Porter’s five forces, PEST analysis, SWOT analysis, customers’ complaints analysis, , and many others. Our organisation often uses the rudimentary tools (balanced scorecard), Blunt instruments (benchmarking), and power tools (Porter’s five forces, SWOT analysis, and PEST analysis). This differentiation is attributed to the fact that the organisation is more satisfied with the effectiveness of these tools. For instance, the SWOT analysis is utilised by the organisation to examine how to build on its strength, reduce weaknesses, capitalise on the opportunities, and limit the existing threats. Therefore, SWOT analysis involves monitoring both the internal and external business environment. For this reason, SWOT analysis is considered as the most valuable tool for examining the external as well as internal factors. The analysis of customer satisfaction is commonly utilised to offer the company ability to examine the loyalty, dissatisfaction and satisfaction of both the company and products. As mentioned earlier, the Porters five forces is normally utilised to analyse the external environment that could affect the business operations and profitability. In their study, Afonina and Chalupský (2013, p.837) established that some of tools and techniques of strategic management such as Customer Life-Time Value and Promoter Score have very low satisfaction as well as utilisation rate. This is attributed to the fact that the majority of managers prefer using tools that are understood widely and those that have been effective in the past. The SWOT and PEST analysis have continued to bring more benefits to the organisations, and their utilisation is projected to increase since the help companies improve their effectiveness. Conclusion In conclusion, this essay has provided theoretical and empirical evidence concerning utilisation of the strategic management tools and techniques. Evidently, SWOT analysis, Porter’s five forces, PEST analysis, benchmarking, customer value analysis, balanced scorecards, and pricing analysis are common tools and techniques of strategic management utilised by business organisations to improved performance and productivity as well as achieve sustainable competitive advantage. SWOT analysis, benchmarking, PEST analysis as well as Porter’s five forces are commonly utilised because they examine both the external and internal factors the affects the operational environment of the business. Identifying and evaluating different possible strategies have led to numerous conceptual techniques or tools for different purposes. Such as tools as well as techniques are associated but different; therefore, managers have to decide the level to which they will participate in making operational and strategic decisions. SWOT analysis is the most used tool due to its flexibility as well as simplicity. Understanding it is very easily and users do not require specialist training and technical knowledge in order to put it into practices. References Abdullah, M.N. & Shamsher, R., 2011. A Study on the Impact of PEST Analysis on the Pharmaceutical Sector: The Bangladesh Context. Journal of Modern Accounting and Auditing, vol. 7,no. 12, pp.1446-56. Afonina, A. & Chalupský, V., 2013. Investigation of strategic management tools and techniques. Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, vol. 61, no. 4, pp.833-840. Attiany, M.S., 2014. Competitive Advantage Through Benchmarking: Field Study of Industrial Companies Listed in Amman Stock Exchange. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 4, pp.41-51. Chandan, J.S. & Gupta, N.S., 2011. Strategic Management. Delhi: Vikas Publishing House. Gupta, A., 2013. Environment & PEST Analysis: An Approach to External Business Environment. International Journal of Modern Social Sciences, vol. 2, no. 1, pp.34-43. 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