Implementation of Ad Hoc Brilliant Strategy and Mediocre Strategy - Coursework Example

Strategic Management Student name Professor’s name Date Introduction The outcome of a strategy is always as a result of the strategic actions and inputs, effective actions, and the right inputs that when used result into outstanding outcomes. Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson (2007) put forward that properly planned strategic actions that happen in the context of a prudently integrated strategy design and implementation actions result in anticipated pleasing outcomes. However, the question we need to ask ourselves is if a single ordinary strategy should be applied all the times, or if we should allow the possibility of other actions that emerge under particular set of circumstances. The main character in the video’ “ the duck and the lemonade” stands faced by these choices. Whereas he had his strategy of offering lemonade juice of different tastes, was it a must for him to start selling grapes because that is what the duck wanted? While a series of great, brilliant strategies would give the business a competitive road to success, however, if a mediocre strategy is constantly employed it may lead to the business succeeding since the regularity of the strategy would adapt to the environment (Chapman, 2005). By that understanding, this essay argues that both types of strategies, having a mediocre strategy consistently applied and having an ad hoc brilliant strategy that is well applied, are important for the success of the business. The implementation of the two strategies just needs to fit in the environment appropriate for that implementation process. The duck acted stupid asking the man at the lemonade stand to give it grapes when the stand was well indicated to be offering only lemonade. Even after the man had told the duck that he did not sell grapes, the duck still came back the following day to ask for the grapes. The lemonade stand man started getting angry at the duck as it kept coming to him repetitively even after being told that the stand did not sell grapes. But the duck being consistent caused the lemonade stand attendant to start liking the fun part of what the duck was doing and took the duck to the corner shop to buy the duck some grapes. The persistence of the Duck in its mediocre thinking finally got it a grape! The duck story firstly shows that the strategy applied is supposed to be applied consistently. Consistency in the application of a strategy in an organization will assure the stability of the organization basing on the overall landscape of the business. Just like the environment will always impact on the operation of a firm, it is necessary that the organization applies its strategies so that it fits into the landscape (Schäfer, 2009). This would result in helping it to remain at it position or even gain regional and international competitiveness. Moreover, flexibility in making strategic decisions allows the firm to endure risks and uncertainties. Hitt et al (2007), defines flexibility in strategic decision as a combination of several abilities that an organization can use to respond to various opportunities and demands that exist in an uncertain and dynamic business environment. Organizations should strive to enhance flexibility of strategic decisions in many areas of operation. John Browne (cited in Prokesch, 1997), the CEO of British Petroleum, said that organizations should be able to learn better than their competitors in a bid to come up with extraordinary value for shareholders. In addition, an organization has to be able to apply that knowledge learned throughout its business more widely and faster than its competitors. Understanding Business Lanscape Understanding the business landscape is important. It is vital to know the key players and all other players in the market. The business landscape will entail the competition around the market and the customer Behavior (Porter, 1986). The customers’ needs are a big part of what controls the business landscape. In coming up with the strategy, the customers’ needs should come first on the requirements of the strategy. What the customers need would greatly be the determinant of how the landscape would look like. Different players trying to satisfy the needs the customers must understand the strategies that may result into the competition and therefore a proper strategy by the organization would ensure it is not the loser in the landscape (Ghemawat, 2001). For instance, the case of Sony Corp involves a company that tried to apply its strategy in fitting with the landscape that had changed. Sony Corp. in September 2005 unveiled a new strategy that had intentions of ensuring that the firm gets the ability to earn returns that are above average. Examples of issues Sony addressed were making changes in the way it manufactured and distributed televisions and production of its portable music players, all this was done when it was changing its strategy (cited in Sony Global, 2015). Contrastively, General Motors (GM) got in trouble in mid-2005 for not being aware of the changes in the environment. It was during that time when the costs of steel and other raw materials were undergoing dramatic increase across the globe. It was expected that the company could cut production costs but the company progressively increased their noncore business which involoved manufacturing vehicles like handicaps and trucks, and the company still offered high number models and brands, while its competitors produced fewer vehicles which were distinctive and attracted low promotional costs (cited in media.gm.com, 2014). It is assumed that, if GM had actively analyzed the micro-environment and applied flexible strategy aimed at fitting into the environmental changes, perhaps the company could have achieved better results The cases depicted by Sony Corp. and the General Motors Company illustrated the need of firms to have flexible strategies. The organization has to understand the landscape of the market they are dealing with and the nature of business environment. The changes in the landscape of the business are important to the organization, and it would depend on the strategies the organization put in place to be able to deal with the situations (Thomas, Pop and Bratianu, 2013). The initial strategy a firm has could be normal and rigid but learning from the facts, and based on practice, the firm stands a chance to achieve a brilliant outcome from its set strategies. However, applying the rigid approach may only work suitably for firms which operate in industries that do not witness stiff competition and exhibit stability over long period of time (Hoffman, 2000). In most cases, many companies come to realize that there is need for them to analyse the environment and be able to apply their strategies in a way that would fit into the landscape, but sometimes it becomes difficult because of the rapid changes and the way that the environment is unpredictable (Bennett, Freierman and George, 1993). In a case like this one, abrupt or urgent strategic decision becomes appropriate for the company to succeed. Thus, a series of events to formulate brilliant strategies is important to enable a company to hypercompetitive and uncertain environments. To accomplish such events call for alignment and combination of the following factors as propped by (Ng, 2013). These include:Competitive situation, Organizational Culture, Business Strategy, and Leadership style The competitive landscape in the 21st Century is filled with profound uncertainty and changes, fierce competition; the market changes dynamically, there is increase in the number of stakeholders who are involved, and there is increased philosophy of customer-centric (Hsu, Zhang and Lok, 2007). These many changes and trends make business not to be able to predict changes including changes in the environment and customer needs. Therefore, like Drucker (1998) says, any management style or strategy is appropriate only when it is being applied in a specific set of circumstances; searching for universally applicable management styles and strategies is almost impossible. The business has always be on the lookout for the events that occur in the business landscape that cannot be predicted (Sachdev, 2004). There are many theorists and authors who recommend for organizations always to be aware of uncertain situations and unpredictable events. Pech and Slade (2004), in his theory “under the manoeuvre” suggests the need for flexibility among managersso as to respond to unpredictable business environment and competition. In addition, managers should be always ready to deal with uncertainties that take place in the modern business environment. Similarly, the game theory proiposed by Neumann and Morgenstern and documented by( Turocy and Stengel, 2001), it isrecommended that managers must at every time strive to understand both the macro and micro environmental factors. This is important in that it helps the managers to understand and analyze different situations thereby taking the ncessarry actuions for the success of the business. For instance, understanding the environment helps the managers in monitoring the moves of competitors and therefore develop the necessary flexible strategies in the environment. Adding on that, the blue ocean strategy by Kim and Mauborgne (2005) suggests that action plans need to be taken in dealing with rapid moves from competitors. Under the organizational perspectice, John Kotter (cited in Robbins and Judge, 2007) gave eight steps that could help in managing change. He says that business success is most of the time determined by the effectiveness of how an organization can manage change. The uncertainty in the business landscape increases the need for change and organizations are to be capable of having an effective change so as to succeed in the future (Starling, 1980). A business needs to study its external and internal environments. Understanding both the environments gives the business a better choice of coming up with the best strategy that it could use in the market or dealing with the landscape (Baron, 2006). The external environment of the business comprises of all the players in the whole field and the levels of competition. It is important to understand the actions and the movies of all key players. This enables you as a business to make moves and adjustment that enables the company to counteract the efforts of the competitors (Monsen, 1973). Understanding the external environment gives you a better chance of being able to deal with competition (Worthington and Britton, 2006). The internal environment, on the other hand, measures the strengths and capabilities of the business to deal with issues. Management is even more important because they should be flexible enough to be able to change to situations without putting the business to a loss. According to Lynch (2006), variation in execution of plans depends on the uncertainty in being able to predict changes in the environment. Even when the strategy looks to be the best, managers should be able to implement it basing on the information that is there at the current time regarding the external and internal environments. A study by two hundred and seventy-five portfolio managers (cited by Kaplan and Norton, 2001), maintains the argument that the quality of a strategy is not more important as the execution process of the strategy. A case study of the change in business landscape The industry that specializes in manufacturing portable audio players serves as an example of the manner in which changes occur in a business landscape. The digital revolution in the world since 2001 occasioned by Apple through invention of iPod prompted a huge impact on the business landscape. The Apple Company revolutionalized completely the idea of portable music. To start with, the company offers a related range of services such as software, hardware as well as digital retail services. The diversity in one field enabled the company to land into unique position in the market and completely brought change in the digital business landscape at a time when its competitors seemed relaxed and unaware (Hayden, 2010). Whereas Apple is enjoying the new market landscape, its competitors remain a suffering lot still grappling with the chabges in the market landscape. For instance, Sony Corp., a company that invented the sony Walkman and which has remained in the market for close to 30 years, the new market landscape threatens to overthrow the company out of the market. In addition, Danwood (2010), would later remark that one of the most influential music player in centuries was finally being laid to rest. The rising of digital media players was brought about by Apple iPod and as a result demand for the cassette-based devices dried up. Consequently, Sony had to stop eventually the production of the legendary cassette Walkman. Hayden (2010), made assertion that Sony was good in making software and in retailing the same software but failed to invest in developing the software. In fact there are speculations that the failure by Sony to invest in developing the walkman software was a clear sign that it had no intentions of remaining in the business landscape. What Sony lacked was persistence in its strategies. Just like the Duck and the Lemonade stand video, Sony would have been a bit more persistent in its strategy, perhaps it would have kept pace with Apple iPod. Instead, Sony gave up silently and was hard for it recovering the market it had enjoyed for decades. David Taber a marketing consultant (cited in Weibein, 2008) said, “While all other players in the industry were making MP3 players that were cheaper, better and faster, Apple, on the other hand, was making electronic jewelry that could also play music like an MP3. It never had its focus on the price, they brought more value to the market, more style, and brought new ways in which people interacted through digital media.” Apple invested in educating its customers and focused on customer satisfaction. In addition, Apple understood its customers and their needs, they knew the exact product they could give to the customers. The realization that a customer is an external environment made Apple to come up with a strategy of manipulating. They wanted to be unique from all other competitors and offer products that would satisfy all their customers’ needs. For instance, they invented the iPod which is unique and works well on the Mac than on a PC. This was a deliberate effort made to attract more people into buying Apple computers. As a result both Mac and iPod sales benefited from this strategy and the volume of sales increased. The impacts of the change in business landscape to other firms The example of Sony and Apple shows the winner and the loser in the landscape. Even though Sony had a much more experience in the production of software, the changes that Apple brought in the landscape required different core competencies. Perhaps, if Sonny had some ad hoc strategy, it would have had better results. Apart from the main players in the industry, other companies also feel the impact brought by the change in the landscape (Contractor and Lorange, 1988). For instance, several other industries had to start modifying their products to be able to work better with the iPod line from Apple and the other products Apple produced. For example, iPod Camera Connector, Nike+iPod pedometer, wireless earphones and external speakers are other features that other companies added to their products. To add on, there was also a response from the automobile industry to the influence iPod had brought. For instance, BMW was first in making the iPod automobile interface that could allow drivers to control an iPod using either the radio head unit buttons or the built-in steering wheel controls as (BMW, 2011), remarks. Other brands also followed. Soon almost all car models will have iPod support. Choosing the strategy to use Changes of the landscape are unpredictable sometime as the essay has mentioned. Being flexible in management allows the managers to be able to respond to the changes quickly (Asheghian and Ebrahimi, 1990). In this understanding, having a series of ad hoc strategies will be able to work better than the ordinary one. Nevertheless, a given set of circumstances will give the company an appropriate choice. What a type of strategy that should be used does not matter. As long as the strategy being applied is able to bring better strategic outcomes that would assist the firm to adventure core competencies and be able to gain competitive advantages, then the firm should take it (Martin and Lebsen, 1989). The strategy that a company chooses should aim at meeting the needs of the customers. To come up with a fruitful strategy, managers should comprehend the environment and time for recognizing strategic inputs that can appropriately enhance the efficiency of strategic actions (strategic implementation and strategic formulation) (Cherunilam, 2010). This is impoetant because it is able to bring about the best strategic results for the organization to succeed. However, the real worth of strategies can only be acknowledged through execution. The highlighting of the execution process exposes the truth: the efficiency of a strategy depends on the execution process of the strategy (Aaker, 1984). Many organizations are able to formulate the right strategies but fail during the execution process of the strategies. Conclusion To sum up, it is worth noting that this paper has examined the necessity of having flexible strategies. Moreover, the paper suggests two types of strategies as mediocre strategies and brilliant strategies. Looking at how the essay has argued earlier, all the two types of strategies are important but what matters is the implementation process in line with the business environment. The prevailing circumstances at any given time define the appropriate strategies to use (Csikszentmihalyi, 2003). Further, the essay highlights different circumstances that require different strategies. Mediocre strategy should be applied consistently to guarantee the stability of the organization basing on the overall business landscape (Kruger, 2011). Nevertheless, this approach may only appropriate with some industries that have a low level of competition, are more stable and change slowly. Conversely, brilliant strategies can enable a firm to be able to respond successfully to uncertain, hypercompetitive environments. Notably, it is difficult to predict changes in the business landscape.. Hence having flexible management would enable mangers to quickly respond to the changes (Dinsmore, 1999). From the discussion that has been outlined, and examples that have been given, this essay would finally like to suggest that it does not matter what type of strategy that should be used as long the strategy can bring better strategic results that satisfy customer needs, and fit in the environment. References Aaker, D. (1984). Developing business strategies. New York: Wiley. Asheghian, P. and Ebrahimi, B. (1990). International business. New York: Harper & Row. Baron, D. (2006). Business and its environment. 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