The name of the student,
The name of the institution
Corporate strategy of a company is concerned with profit the company makes. In basic terms, a corporate strategy of the company can be defined as all the tools and planning on the part of leading managers directed to businesses in a concert. Its main goal is to meet the needs and expectations of shareholders’ clients and employees by generating the growth of a company and upgrading its service network.
In the present paper another economic concept – strategic management - must be introduced. By strategic management drafting and implementation of various initiatives and norms is meant. Put otherwise, it is through strategic management the company’s leadership is able to control and rule its supplementary branches of business, allocating funds and resources to them, providing exact guidelines and setting the most feasible objectives. Both managers and economists have contributed in developing some strategic management frameworks and models, which being very fluid demand personal skills and efforts of the whole company to successfully use them.
According to M. Porter (1996.), underlying principles of strategic management can be described within three points. The first point deals with the company’s unique market position, while the second and the third ones have to do with exact regulations concerning prohibitions (“what not to do”) and the company’s alignment with other companies. The latter principle seems to be critically important because the company can achieve its best productivity and/or service level only co-operating with other businesses in the field. However, even of more crucial importance is the ability of the company to incorporate and embrace its human, information and organization potential.
The company’s human capital includes all the workers of the company who can bring in new and fresh ideas as well as to accomplish the set objectives within the limited time. The company’s information capital involves all the valuable information the company possesses and uses in order to reach out to its shareholders and clients. In certain cases the former and the latter also the information of the company and it is necessary for the company’s leading managers to feel assured that the information will not be leaked under circumstances. Otherwise, confidentiality is a distinguishingly inherent peculiarity of the information capital. As for the organization capital, it is managing itself that we are dwelling on. The organization capital includes the practical ability on the part of managers to develop and implement a working strategy, so that the company flourishes and brings in maximum profit.
It must be well realized that to ensure success the company must combine all its potentials (human, information, organization) and make the most of each of them. However, organization is the first and the foremost link between the company and its institute affiliations. The rightly and timely executed organization serves as the most determining factor in the company’s success. Organization revolves around the notions of strategy and its implementation.
A number of academics have come up with different definitions of strategy. However, in its core strategy is a plan that needs to be realizable and convenient for the company. This plan can be a ploy, for example, to outwit and to outdo the competitors, it can be a pattern. Nevertheless, in the heart of strategy lies always planning, and planning determines the strategy.
Planning begins with some research in the field of business where the company works. Thorough planning involves analysis of the business and market environment, including taking into account various factors, such as political, economic, legal, social, technological and environmental ones. Rivals are competitors are paid attention to, and the possibility of product or service substitution is not overlooked. Last but not least the company’s internal environment is assessed, its strength and weakness from within is studied.
Thorough planning foresees and anticipates the next stage of strategic management – implementation – since in the final analysis it is goals and objectives that the company’s managers have in their mind.
There is a need to discriminate between long-term and short-term goals and to bring them both together in the final company’s decision on strategy policy. Short-term goals have to deal with the urgent and pressing issues of the company and are based on making profit in the nearest time, while long-term goals might presuppose eliminating of competitors, for instance. Sometimes a decision is taken to sacrifice short-term goals in favor of long-term ones. The classical example of such a decision is dumping, i.e the so called predatory or undercutting pricing. Anyway, prioritizing of goals is an inalienable component of any strategy.
It is worth noting that strategy should not only be planned but it should be formulated as well. By formulation of strategy, the answer to the questions that are directly linked to the company’s goals and objectives is presupposed.
Implementation is no less crucial than drafting and working out the strategy, and in certain respect it will be no exaggeration to claim that it is even of more importance than planning – it is a tactical realization of the company’s strategy. Implementation is very much about restructuring funds, alignment of the company’s capital resources with the company’s strategy.
On the stage of implementation the strategy might undergo the final corrections; it might be imparted with additional meaning. More goals might be perceived by the company’s managing personnel, new opportunities might be discovered within the particular business branch. On the other hand, difficulties and barriers might be encountered that might offset the initial plans, and in this case more often than not losses are sustained. The unplanned strategy, as in case of contingency, is referred to as emergent in the academic writing.
The above mentioned uncovers an inherent peculiarity of a business strategy – its fluidity that contributes to its complexity. Yet successful implementation of strategy is characterized by precision and resilience, by the company managers and workers’ patience and pertinacity.
It is more than obvious that for the company to succeed development of strategy, however essential, is not enough. Success in its finality is ensured by the alignment of all the company’s funds and resources – both monetary and mental.
So how should the company’s work organized? Firstly, the company frequently faces complex issues to resolve, and needs to put into force all of its human capital. That should be done, however, efficiently. Experts advise for managers to differentiate various tasks, to split them up into smaller chunks of work intended for a certain worker. In other words, one worker should not take on the whole burden of the challenge to put the company ahead of its competitors, but the burden should be shared by the worker’s colleagues. Thus, the appropriate integration of workers’ personnel is the key to the company’s thriving and flourishing.
Secondly, a proper hierarchy in the company should be thought out, implemented and maintained. The insight into healthy working environment clearly demonstrates that it is better, when hierarchies are separated from each other by intermediate link managers who supervise all the work done on the lower levels and simultaneously directly contribute to this work. Anyway, anger, envy and other negative emotions and feelings on the part of workers not only ruin the working process but the company itself.
Thirdly, the experience of other companies should not be totally disregarded. It is true that resort to somebody’s mistakes can not only be helpful in cases of contingency, but in day-to-day business environment as well. That is why perusing some companies’ data and history can be recommended to managers.
Fourthly, the stock of knowledge and initiatives that ordinary workers come up with should not be overlooked. In fact, workers’ creativity is one of those qualities that a good worker should possess. Among other qualities of the utmost importance talent, leadership, resilience, industriousness and decisiveness are worth mentioning. It will be not an exaggeration to say that it is the company managers’ task to help the worker to uncover his potential.
Reference
Porter, Michael E. (1996). "What is Strategy?” Harvard Business Review
.
