Different Levels of Strategy

STRATEGY

Michael Porter defines "strategy" in terms of competitive strategy which is 'about being different.' He argues that strategy is being in a competitive position, being different in the eyes of the customer, and adding value through a combination of activities that are different from those of competitors.

BUSINESS STRATEGY

In these days strategy is become the art of controlling and utilizing the resources of a company. "Strategy is all these" it is perspective, position, plan, and pattern. Strategy is the bridge between policy or high-order goals on the one hand and tactics or concrete actions on the other. How to run the business, possible threats or opportunities are in business strategy.

Different Levels of strategy

There are three different levels of strategy which are corporate, business, operational strategy. Corporate Strategy - is concerned with the overall purpose and scope of the business to meet stakeholder expectations. This is a crucial level since it is heavily influenced by investors in the business and acts to guide strategic decision-making throughout the business. Corporate strategy is often stated explicitly in a "mission statement". Business Unit Strategy - is concerned more with how a business competes successfully in a particular market. It concerns strategic decisions about choice of products, meeting needs of customers, gaining advantage over competitors, exploiting or creating new opportunities etc. Operational Strategy - is concerned with how each part of the business is organised to deliver the corporate and business-unit level strategic direction. Operational strategy therefore focuses on issues of resources, processes, people etc I am chairman of Sainsbury. This is in Birmingham. This is retailing store where we sell all things like grocery, fresh food, clothes etc.

Internal and external scan

SWOT analysis

Strength

Strength of the business is considered such as its resources and how they are performing in particular market. Some company has good marketing and some has good productivity. So all these are strength of the company.

Weakness

Every business has got weakness. Weakness mean at what point business is not doing good called their weakness. Some business got problem in their productivity etc and these are their weakness. We have got marketing problem. We are not getting customers which we were supposed to.

Opportunities

Opportunities are always in market for the business. For example we have got opportunity that in future we may improve our market because our economy is recovering from recession.

Threats

Opportunities and threats for the company are always in market. Threats may be in the type of inflation or current legislation issues. When company make strategies they have to care about possible threats in future.

PEST analysis

Political

All business depends on the nature of local politicians. Policies of business always effect local business. Some government support not only local trade but also international trade as well. Policies of UK government are always very supportive for retiling market. We got lower taxes at our trade.

Economic

Economic factors always affect the business. If the economy situation of the company will be good then business will be more expanded and more investors will like to invest money in that economy. Sainsbury is retailing store and in UK people tend to buy all things under one roof quite beneficial for us.

Social

Social factors play a vital role in any business. What type of business should be open and how we are going to run according to local society always a major factor.

Technological

How business will be in particular market always depend on latest technology. We have got latest technology like super fast computer etc to reduce time.

Strategic initiatives

Strategic initiatives are first planning of organization. When an organization identify problem then they make strategy to solve them. Strategic initiatives are something like main goal which organization wants to achieve. In my company I have found that we have very poor marketing. So our strategy is to improve our marketing by taking different approaches.

Objectives of the strategy

Objectives are goals of the organization. When organization make strategy means they are planning to achieve one target. To achieve this target there are so many objectives. After achieving these objectives we can make our strategy successful. We have got many objectives like Advertise our products Make the price lower than other competitors Introduce new policies to attract customers Improve our customer care department Improve the quality of products in store

Required actions for strategy

After analysing our problem in organization through internal and external scan we make strategy and to make this strategy successful we have to ach9eve some objectives and to achieve the objectives we need to take actions and these actions are called required actions. In first to advertise us we need to give our advertisement in internet and in newspapers. In this way more people will come to know about us. We need to analyse our market very carefully and need to make the prices of our products lower than competitors in order to attract more customers. We need to bring new policies where customers should be given first place in company. We need to issue Sainsbury cards and on these cards customers should give discount and if they want to pay after some time, this facility should be given on card. If customer dissatisfy we should have flexible our policy and should give total refund to customer to make him happy.

Resources required

To make the strategy successful and achieve cadmic goals we need resources which may be in form of money etc. In my company we have got good resources like Money, Building, Broad Parking Space, Employees, Latest technology

Assessment of the strategy

After imposing strategy we analyse that how far our strategy will be successful. In other words we predict the success of strategy. I predict that we will be able to improve our market by 33%. Before this was only 12% but we hope that we will be able to improve our market by 33%.

Outcomes of the strategy

Outcomes are result of the strategy. What will be conclusion of the strategy is very important for any organization. Outcome of our strategy was 30%. We able to improve our market by 30% and this were ok for us.

Continuous improvement in strategy

In this section we analyse our strategy and see whether we have got results which we were accepting or not. We see where we got problems in our strategy and take further actions to solve them.

Recommendation

Sainsbury is retailing store and in recent years its market has been down. I personally went in public and ask then what they think about our company and I was surprised that half of them think that we are more expensive than our competitors and we don't have good customer's policies like refund etc. I recommend that first of all we should make our prices low. This may be very difficult process because it has direct effect on our profit but in order to improve our market and attract more customers we definitely need this. We need to issue new Sainsbury cards which will be more improved than previous one and need to provide more facilities on cards. We need to advertise our new and modified company with lower prices and good customer policies. We can advertise through TV, internet, newspaper etc. In this way more people will come to know about our company and will be attracted. We need to analyse our competitors in market and see how well they are doing in market and what net policies they are bringing and how they will affect us. So in this way will not only improve our marketing but also will also increase our productivity.

Conclusion

Strategy

Strategy is the direction and scope over long period which get benefit for the company by its managing of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfil stakeholder expectations There are three different levels of strategy which are corporate, business, operational strategy. In Internal and external scan we analyse PEST and SWOT. Strategic initiatives are first planning of organization. When an organization identify problem then they make strategy to solve them. Objectives are goals of the organization. When organization make strategy means they are planning to achieve one target. After analysing our problem in organization through internal and external scan we make strategy and to make this strategy successful we have to ach9eve some objectives and to achieve the objectives we need to take actions and these actions are called required actions. To make the strategy successful and achieve cadmic goals we need resources which may be in form of money etc. After imposing strategy we analyse that how far our strategy will be successful. In other words we predict the success of strategy. Outcomes are result of the strategy. What will be conclusion of the strategy is very important for any organization. In continues improvement we analyse our strategy and see whether we have got results which we were accepting or not. We see where we got problems in our strategy and take further actions to solve them In last I would like to say that any company can be successful only when it has smooth relation with government and local society. By taking this strategy we were able to improve our marketing.

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