Corporate Strategy

Question: Discuss about theCorporate Strategy. Answer: Introduction According to Burns, (2013) corporate strategy is the choice of the organization reading the type of market and the type of business function that the organization wants to operate in. Strategic management is the function within the organization that formulates and identifies the best corporate strategies for the business and makes use of the appropriate resources for implementation of the strategies. The report focuses on three aspects of corporate strategy. Firstly the report will highlight the key points within corporate strategy. Secondly the features of a good strategy along with the disadvantages will be discussed. Finally the concept of strategic management will be evaluated. Key Ideas from the Links Video link 1: corporate strategy The first video focuses on the concept of corporate level strategy. The video point out that determination of a corporate level strategy depends not only upon the top level management but also on the overall management of the organization. Depending upon the three levels of the strategy implementation three major issues are noted: Directional issue: Occurs when the organization makes a move toward growth, stability and retrenchment Portfolio issue: Occurs when the company has to decide the market for competing Parenting issue: Occurs within the manners in which the management co ordinate activities and use resources (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aku1HUmJzDY) Based on the types of strategies applied there can be two board divisions namely Grand strategies: Hughes, (2012) stated that the grand strategy is the major strategy that provides direction for the specific strategic and functional direction of the company. The companies formulate the grand strategies by focusing on the long term goals. Generic strategies: These are the strategies that require specific skills and organizational arrangements and resources for the purpose of proper implementation. Thus for choosing the appropriate generic strategy, the company needs to focus complete on the success of that sole strategy. Video link 2: Features of a Corporate Strategy According to Lazonick and Teece, (2012) good and successful corporate strategies are attained with the help of high focus on the resources that are to be used for the implementation of the strategy. Moreover, the companies must have a clear direction of the strategy and a good understanding of the core resources of the company. Finally Hill and Jones, (2012) added that for a strategy to be successful, the company should be able to clearly describe the strategy in simple terms which makes the strategy achievable. However Rieger, (2013) argued that there are certain hindrances for generating strategies. Firstly, the company results are required to be evaluated in order to ascertain the degree of accomplishment of the strategies. Secondly, the company faces problems regarding the choice of the strategy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43kZDnyDXOc). Video link 3: Strategic Management This video highlights the fact that corporate strategy is a combination of strategy formulation and strategy implementation. In order to formulate a strategy, the company firstly needs to identify external competitors, industry analysis and industry evaluation. Secondly, the company needs to make SWOT analysis in order to identify the internal resource capabilities and competitive advantage. Finally, the evaluation of the control system and organization structure indicates the tools required for the success of the strategic implementation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ2tmqRkiCM). Organizational Application of the Ideas Different organizations choose different types of corporate strategies based on the availability of their resources. Wal-Mart for instance has chosen the cost leadership strategy and captured huge market share by providing low costing goods (Ishikawa and Saisho, 2013). This strategy has helped the organization to make up in volume sales for the loss they have incurred in the price levels. On the contrary companies like Lexus have adopted the luxury branding strategy and has targeted only the higher class of customers with high priced items. Nike, for instance adopts niche marketing strategy and targets a very narrow market segment of only the sports persons and the athletics and produces the goods accordingly. The example of Mc Donalds can be taken in case of grand strategy formulation. The fast food retailer adopts the grand strategy in order to increase the sales of the current product or services that they offer with the current distribution channels (Pitt and Koufopoulos, 2012). Mc Donalds focuses on marketing and promotion of the current products in the market rather than focusing on an overall promotional strategy. The company sends coupons to the customers residences that offer some of the old products at discounted rates along with a purchase of the new food items. This stagey attracts the customers attention towards the new products and the sale of the of items are also maintained equally (Lasserre, 2012). Apart from the above mentioned strategies, the tow most commonly focused strategies by the companies are the product development strategies and the market development strategies. Electronic consumable companies like Samsung focuses on the market development strategies. For market development, Samsung focuses on sell of the saturated electronic products in a new market. This helps Samsung to capture a new target market for the old products and simultaneously introduce a new product for the old market. In case of car companies like Ford the adoption of the product development strategy are generally seen. By adopting this strategy the company successfully innovate the present features of the cars by installing safety items and auto driver systems (Lynch, 2012). The product development strategy depends on the product life cycle stage and if the product is in a declining stage or in the maturity stage then this strategy is adopted. Conclusion The report focuses on the different types of strategic implementation within the different types of companies. From the assignment it is clear that the strategies should be adopted by the companies based on the resource availability and the capability of the company. Moreover the report also shows the success of different organizations with adoption of grand, generic and basic growth strategies. Finally, it may be concluded that for successful implementation of the strategies the companies should evaluate the external market conditions and the internal capabilities along with the organizational structure and the types of control available. References Burns, P. (2013). Corporate entrepreneurship. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hill, C. and Jones, G. (2012). Strategic management essentials. [Mason, Ohio]: South-Western. Hughes, J. (2012). IPhone and iPad apps marketing. Indianapolis, Ind.: Que Pub. Ishikawa, A. and Saisho, T. (2013). Corporate strategy for dramatic productivity surge. Hackensack, NJ: WORLD SCIENTIFIC. Lasserre, P. (2012). Global strategic management. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Lazonick, W. and Teece, D. (2012). Management Innovation. Oxford: OUP Oxford. Lynch, R. (2012). Strategic management. Harlow, England: Pearson. Pitt, M. and Koufopoulos, D. (2012). Essentials of strategic management. London: SAGE. Rieger, F. (2013). Corporate strategy. Cape Town: Edge Learning Media. YouTube, (2015). Introduction to Strategic Management. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ2tmqRkiCM [Accessed 14 May 2015]. YouTube, (2015). What is Corporate Level Strategy. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aku1HUmJzDY [Accessed 14 May 2015]. YouTube, (2015). What is Good Corporate Strategy?. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43kZDnyDXOc [Accessed 14 May 2015].