Unit 7 Assignment on Business Strategy

2.1 – Weekly Brief

The next week i.e. the second week of the business strategy course was commenced with the presentation which was been presented by myself. The feedback for the presentation was bit disappointing for me as I lacked many of the basics to be covered in it. In this lecture, the concepts such as objectives, goals, tactics along with the concepts of core competencies was discussed. In addition to this, the second session of the class was covered with the exploration of the Ansoff matrix and the strategic model (Dutt, 2015). However, the lecture was not completed in this session and the second part i.e. competitive advantage would be covered in the next week. Following aspects were discussed briefly:

• Goals: Goals are been mainly framed to convert the strategic issues into the performance targets particularly which lays an impact on the whole organizational activities. These goals could be either quantitative or qualitative.
• Objectives: Objectives are the ideal and specifically proven statements of the goals of the organization for the particular period of time. It is been considered that the objectives introduce a control over the strategies.
• Core competencies: The core competencies of an organization are been defined as the sources of the competitive advantage. These are basically used for developing the new products and services or bring improvement in the existing one (David and David, 2016). It also provides with the access to the new business operations or the new marketplaces.
• Exploring the strategy model: This particular model is been mainly concerned with the three interrelated circles. It mainly includes the strategic position of an enterprise, assessment of the possible strategic choices for the future and the management of the strategic actions.
• Ansoff matrix: The Ansoff’s matrix indicates that the initiatives of the  business law  to grow mainly depend on whether it introduces the new or existing products in the new or existing market. The matrix mainly includes 4 possible strategies which could be used by the businesses to establish their roots in the market (Bamford.et.al, 2015). The strategies are: market penetration, product development, market development and diversification. 

2.2 – Article:  Strategic Capabilities: Bridging Strategy and Impact

Commentary: In order to gain better understanding, I had gone through the article on above topic which made me gain me an enlarged concept of the strategies and the capabilities of the business. With respect to the lecture being provided to us in this week was much fruitful and the article presents a crux of the concepts. The article “Strategic Capabilities: Bridging Strategy and Impact” is not fully related to the topic but helps in knowing the importance of strategies and the knowing the capabilities to frame the objectives and goals of a business. Thus, as per my opinion the article acquires good content and presents relevant information.

In conclusion I can justify that the article depicts plenty of useful content which could be considered important for me in the development of my business management practices.

2.3. Reflective Journal

As I have talked about my presentation in the weekly brief here I will reflect some more about my presentation on the case study of “Tesco’s digital transformation”. The presentation as such was average but didn’t met the expectation of all and required to be included much précised information as it was supposed to be completed in 10 minutes.  However, I had been given one more chance to present the case study more appropriately.

With respect to the knowledge attained from the lecture, I was able to relate the concepts with the strategies and the business. The Ansoff matrix helped me develop new perspective about the business development and thus enhanced my interest in the business strategy as well.

References

Deloitte United States. (2016). Strategic Capabilities: Bridging Strategy and Impact | Deloitte US | Monitor Deloitte. [online] Available at: <http://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/strategy/articles/strategic-capabilities-bridging-strategy-and-impact.html> [Accessed 22 Jul. 2016].
David, F. and David, F.R., 2016. Strategic Management: A Competitive Advantage Approach, Concepts and Cases.
Bamford, D., Forrester, P., Reid, I., Dehe, B., Bamford, J. and Papalexi, M., 2015. Where is the competitive edge in Knowledge Transfer?: the impact of KTPs.
Dutt, S., 2015. Global development goals. New Zealand International Review, 40(6), p.27.

3.1 Weekly brief

The class in week three delivered the information on “Global expansion in food retail industry” It covered related information of the topics that is completed in week 2. I have received nice feedback on my presentation but I could have performed better by including more topics related to the case study.

In our next lecture we covered the important topics like Competitive capabilities, Strategic capabilities and distinctive capabilities. As the subject is quite difficult due to which we have covered only a fraction in our third lecture by gaining the knowledge about strategic development processes and competitive advantage. The definitions we covered are explained as follows:

• Competitive Advantage: It can be defined as ability that one gains through available resources to improve its performance over others.
• Strategic Capabilities: It refers to organisations capability to survive for long time or competitive advantage.
• Distinctive Capabilities: It refers to those capabilities which are valued by the customers and is hard to reproduce by the competitors.

3.2 Article: “The Fundamental Dimensions of Strategy”

Commentary: I have selected the above article as it gives a brief idea about competitive advantage, business model and competitions of various organizations like Mac Donald’s, Starbucks etc. In the 21^st century, the competition is increasing at a fast pace. In order to survive, organization must adapt to these changes as quickly as possible to sustain their competitive advantage. Also it is important that one should have unique resources and skill that is valued by the customer and the organization gets performance appraisal. It helps the organization in gaining competitive advantage.

3.3 Reflective Journal

In my personal opinion the information delivered was quite promising and topic I chose was interesting. Despite of the fact that the topic was interesting the presenters did not paid much attention as I have putted much of the meaningless information which was not related with topics covered in the class. I hope that I can improve my presentation and I will perform much better next time.

References

Technology, M. (2006). The Fundamental Dimensions of Strategy. [online] MIT Sloan Management Review. Available at: <http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-fundamental-dimensions-of-strategy/>  [Accessed 22 Jul. 2016].

Lecture 4: strategic planning and strategic tools

4.1 Weekly brief

With the firth lecture of fourth week, we were supposed to have two presentations from the course book of fundamentals of strategy but only one student was prepared with the presentation and this was the most effective one so far. The presentation was very clear and simple to understand and included most relevant information about the topic. After the presentation we managed to complete the topic of strategic planning in which we were introduced with the top down and bottom up planning. In the next part of the session, different strategic tools were been discussed in details. It has very much interesting to explore the tools like Ansoff matrix which was already discussed earlier, Boston consulting group matrix, McKinsey’s 7S model, etc (Úbeda.et.al, 2015). it was much interesting to know how these tool could be implemented in the business and gain profits. In addition to this, we have also explored about behavioral approaches of strategic planning, internal and external tools, etc.

4.2. Article: Five Essentials of Strategic Planning

Commentary: The above article was been published in the Stanford social innovation review and found to be useful in understanding the concepts of the strategic planning and helped me relate the aspect being detailed in the lecture. With respect to the article, it has been stated that there are five essential aspects which must be considered while carrying out the strategic planning effectively (Ssir.org. 2016). It has provided with the information about the elements which could help in planning for the future terms and had helped me in implementing the same in my start up business. in addition to this, the strategic tools are also found to be helpful for carrying out the business activities effectively.

In the conclusion I can state that the use of these essential elements could help in establishing the business and understanding the concepts more deeply. It states that there must be flexibility in the business which helps in modifying the planning easily and carry out the business in our own way.

4.3 Reflective

As I have discussed in the weekly brief about the presentation I would like to add more in its specification. The presentation was much impressive and acquired good quality information which helps the students in understanding the lecture more effectively. I found that way he presented to be very interesting and was successful in grabbing the attention of everyone. This had helped me a lot as I have to present my presentation as well. in addition to this, I found this lecture much more useful as it explained the use and importance of  the strategic tools which could be used by me in my business development as well.

References

Ssir.org. (2016). Five Essentials of Strategic Planning (SSIR). [online] Available at: <http://ssir.org/articles/entry/five_essentials_of_strategic_planning>  [Accessed 22 Jul. 2016].
Úbeda, R., Alsua, C. and Carrasco, N., 2015. Purchasing models and organizational performance: a study of key strategic tools. Journal of Business Research, 68(2), pp.177-188.

Lecture 5: external strategic tool: pest, porter’s five forces, stakeholders

5.1 Weekly brief

In the fifth week, we started with the in-depth studies of external strategic tool which mainly included the stakeholders, porter’s five forces, pest analysis, etc. This information was explained with the help of a presentation which found to be interesting and more helpful. The presentation was focused on mainly on the Pestle analysis, Porter’s five forces analysis, stakeholders mapping, etc. The Pestle analysis was explained us with the help of a video clipping of recycling the wastage in US.  This method helped us largely to relate the concepts and acquire more detailed information out of it (Arline, 2015). However, all the topic were been covered in this week and with a deeper knowledge these topic were already studies ion out other courses like porter's five forces was covered in marketing principles, Pestle analysis was covered in business environment but this session gave more detailed and specific understanding about the same.

5.2 Article: The five Competitive forces that shape strategy

Commentary: According to porter, it is a social responsibility of the business to enhance its profits. I found the above article much fruitful as it includes ample of information about the five forces which helps an organization to develop its strategies and make higher profits out of it. I had gone through the entire article and found much interested to know that how the businesses are been influenced with its surroundings and could overcome with the same effectively. The porters’ five forces specifies the elements such as bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of customers, threats of entrants, threats of substitute of products and services  and the rivalry among the existing suppliers.

In conclusion I can state that the business world had changed with the time and had been influenced with the external forces to the great extent

5.3 Reflective

In my opinion the porters’ five forces are much useful for acquiring the information about the external factors which affects the organization largely. I explored that it was bit easy to relate the strategies with the concepts with the help of the lecture along with the article. I had also explored the concepts of other external tools which helped me to apply in the practical life and improve my basics in much broader ways.

References

Harvard Business Review. (2008). The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy. [online] Available at: <https://hbr.org/2008/01/the-five-competitive-forces-that-shape-strategy>  [Accessed 22 Jul. 2016].
Arline, K., 2015. Porter’s Five Forces: Analyzing the Competition. Retrieved October, 16, p.2015.