WEEK 23

Week: 23 

Strategic leadership            

To deal successfully with change in organization, all executive must need skills and tools for both strategy formulation and implementation. Strategic leader are required to manage change and ambiguity that will not only provide a sense of direction, but also build ownership and alignment within the work group to implement change. The leader must have capabilities to interpret the strategic vision of organization and make other executive to get it. He can make decision for value creation and create culture, persuade employees, resources allocation and work under uncertain situation to give best possible result to meet organizational vision. (J.H.Paul, (2012),

Similarity

a. Both model focus on competitive advantage for long term and changing environment.

b. Needed to give high priority for stakeholder’s need. Leader needs to guide and motivate employees for effective and efficient management and to implement strategy for sustainability of the organization.

Difference

a. Transcendent leadership styles focus on structure, infrastructure and rules whereas other focuses on relationship and people.

b. Transcendent leadership style focus on self leadership while 5 element of successful and effective strategic leadership style focus only on organization purpose and benefit. ( Aldon, L.J. (2004),)

(Case Study)

From the interview of Harvard Business Review and Jeff Bezo we can easily identify that he is a Lynch model strategic leadership because he gives more attention to customer with respect to the employees of an organization. For further evidence I have highlighted some of the points from his interview.

a.       Proper advertising for target customer

b.      His strategy is base on long term oriented by putting customer in first rank. And after customer other stakeholders like employees and vendor etc lies on second.

c.       Customer oriented plan like Kindle, Amazon Web Services, Amazon prime did

d.      Give importance to shareowner and believe in long term share price

e.       Make customer easier to purchase product (Kindle device) by selling at near breakeven

f.       Try to win customer trust by offering product in low price despite the increase price recommend by price elasticity,. Instead focus on customer preference

g.       He encourage employee to think on behalf of customer by providing intensely fun working environment and exploring mentality. And make them focus for long term periods by having persistence and patience

h.      He face interview to convey principle and objectives of organization which is customer oriented.

Reference           

1. Aldon, L.J. (2004), Transcendent Leadership and the evolution of consciousness. London: Lightening Source UK Ltd

2. J.H.Paul, (2012), Strategic Leadership: The Essential Skills, (online), http://hbr.org/2013/01/strategic-leadership-the-esssential-skills/ar/1   (accessed on 8/1/2014)  

WEEK 22

Balanced scorecard              

It is a strategy planning and management system that is widely used in industry and organization, government, profit and non- profit organization globally to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization. It improves internal and external communication and monitor organization against strategic objectives. It was originated by David Nortan and Drs. Robert Kaplan (Harvard Business School). It gives manager and executive a more balanced view of organizational performance through measuring performance framework that added strategic no financial performance measure to traditional financial metrics. It evolved from early use as a simple performance measurement framework to a full strategic planning and measurement system. The new balanced scorecard approach transform an organization’s strategy plan from an attractive but passive document into the marching orders for the organization on a regular basis. It not only provides performance measurement but also helps manager truly execute their strategies. Eliminating the previous management error the new balanced scorecard provides clear prescription for company to measure and balance the financial perspective. It’s a management system that helps organization to clarify their vision and strategy and implement into action.

For companies balance scorecard can be useful from different perspective

a.       From business perspective

It refers to internal business process. It allows manager and executive to monitor how their business id operating and whether their product and service are able to conform to customer requirement. It’s all viewed by the help of metrics and it is designed only by those who know the process most familiarly.

b.      From customer perspective

According to management philosophy, the organization should satisfy the customer with their product and services in not the customer will find other supplier that will meet their needs. As a result it lead organization in critical stage. So, in developing metrics for satisfaction, customer should be analyzed in terms of kinds of customer and the kinds of process for which we are providing a product or service to those customer groups.

c.       From financial perspective

With implementation of a corporate database, it is hoped that more of the processing can be centralized and automated. But the fact that emphasis on current financial situation leads to the unbalanced stage with regard to other perspective. So additional financial related data, such as risk assessment and cost benefit data should be include in this category.  (Balance Score Card Institution, 2013)

The 20 important KPIs of balanced scorecard are listed follow.

a.       clients value

b.      billing values

c.       contribution to profit

d.      contribution to revenue

e.       average bill rate

f.       labor multiplier

g.       consultancy projects manage

h.      cost of service deliver

i.        percentage chargeable ratio

j.         certification

k.      Clients handle

l.        Billable hours

m.    Idea for new services

n.      New client inquires received

o.      Percentage attained objectives rate

p.      Percentage professional development requirement met

q.      Percentage customer retention rate

r.        Percentage clients satisfaction

s.       Length of tenure of clients

t.        Percentage rate of potential prospects to clients (smartpis, 2011)

(Case Study)

Present your thought and understand on the article “the strategic management process”?

Strategic management means to identifying and executing the organization mission by matching its capabilities with the demands of its environment. According to the article Ford Motor Company was facing huge losses and hemorrhaging market share and compete with competition to Nissan and Toyota. The new strategic plans need to be done in order to acquire market share. Compare to its competitors Ford’s cost of production was high and unused plants capacity was draining profits. The Ford’s manager creates new strategic planning by closing several plants and terminating 20,000 employees. They also take into consideration that its internal strength and weakness match with external opportunities and threat for maintain competitive advantages.

The article is focus on seven steps of strategic management process which are explained below

Step: 1 Define the current business

a.       Vision of business

b.      Identify SWOT of business

c.       Market scenario of business

d.      Direction of business                                

Step: 2 Perform internal and external audit

a.       Analyzing SWOT of business

b.      Taking competitive advantage by matching internal with external analysis

Step: 3 Formulate new business and mission statement

a.       Finalizing the new business after proper research

b.      Identify market

c.       Identify customer

d.      Making mission and vision for business

Step: 4 translate the mission into strategic goal

a.       Proper strategic planning

b.      Communication from top to bottom level

Step: 5 Formulate strategies to achieve the strategic goals

a.       Review of strategic plan

Step: 6 Implement of strategy

a.       Put plan into action

b.      Proper control and monitor

c.       Update operation status

Step: 7 Evaluate performances

a.       Check whether objectives are meet or not

b.      Do correction if require

Reference

1.       Balance score institute,(2013) Balance Scorecard Basis, https://balancedscorecard.org/Resources/AbouttheBalancedScorecard/tabid/55/Default.aspx (Accessed on December 10 2013)

WEEK 21

Week: 21 

Emergent strategy              

The formation of result that was not initially accepted or planned is known as emergent strategy. It is outcome from constraint action taken by an organization in order to run smoothly and routinely. The organization should be ready for unintended outcomes so that it can easily adopt the constantly changing condition and can be more flexible.(k Dave 2011)

Benefit

a.       It is suitable when market is unpredictable.

b.      It directly response to market force in regards of customer taste and competitor business practice.

c.       The strategy reflects the real market.

d.      If implement successfully it reflect winning strategy.

e.       It has unforeseen benefit.

f.       Encourage to use informal communication network to increase creative thinking and innovation.

g.       Allows organization to develop logical solution and experiment to the problem that are not expected in long term plan.

Drawback

a.       The strategy has no plan less structure.

b.      Unexpected problem can be create

c.       If not analyzed properly it will create huge damage for business.

d.      Doesn’t provide genuine alternative.

(Case Study)

Answer a

Honda’s entry strategies in the US were both deliberate and emergent. In time in entering in US it was more deliberate strategy whereas to acquire a market share they adopt emergent strategy to get customer attention and trust. US market very new for Honda so having lots of trial and error they got lot of knowledge and experience of US’s customer taste. They knew the different season for motorcycle market. After failing in distribution channel they adopt emergent strategy to deal directly with retailers. At the time when there was misconception with motorcycle riders they introduce and promote the nicest people campaign which was a big hit. It all was due to emergent approach to introduce their larger motorcycle to US market but get lots of negative feedback. So they took emergent approach and change design and parts in motorcycle to deal with problem. And also huge success in supercubs proves Honda as an emergent strategy in US market.

Answer b

For Honda both accounts seem accurate. Deliberate approach shows fact and evidence for entering in US market. Whereas emergent approach helps to acquire a market share in US. Both failure and success create experience for Honda.

Answer c

Yes, Honda’s entry strategy demonstrates the characteristics of logical incrementalism. “Logical incrementalism is the development of strategy by experimentation and learning from commitment rather than through formulation of total strategies.” Honda was new in US market and through lots of fail and experiment. Honda was able know the customer taste. At the time there was misconception among people with bike riders so they change the concept with campaign “nice people”. Honda also get lots of negative feedback regarding the machines of the motorcycle. With lots of improvement they were able to satisfy their customer. And also their test of 50cc light bike in market was failure. All this trail and experiment make them a very good brand in whole world.

Answer d

If Honda adopt a formalized strategic planning approach than it wouldn’t be a success as it is now. Through the case, we know that Honda have lot of good and bad experience and had adopt it with situation. So formalized strategic planning needs more time and resources which would be wasted and that would backward the business from success

Reference

1.      K. Dave, (2011), Mastering Strategic Management, (online) http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/3085?e=ketchen_1.0-ch01_s02  (Accessed on March 15,2013)

BHAT BHATENI