Build Your Personal Brand: September 2018

Thursday, 20 September 2018

Cant Miss this Interview with Jeff Bezos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv_vkA0jsyo&feature=youtu.be

Monday, 3 September 2018

Fit , Leverage and Stretch- Strategic Intent

Stretch , Fit and Leverage – Strategic Intent

Global competition is not just product versus product or company versus company. It is mind-set versus mind-set. Driven to understand the dynamics of competition, we have learned a lot about what makes one company more successful than another. But to find the root of competitiveness--to understand why some companies create new forms of competitive advantage while others watch and follow--we must look at strategic mind-sets. For many managers, "being strategic" means pursuing opportunities that fit the company's resources. This approach is not wrong, Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad contend, but it obscures an approach in which "stretch" supplements fit and being strategic means creating a chasm between ambition and resources. Toyota, CNN, British Airways, Sony, and others all displaced competitors with stronger reputations and deeper pockets. Their secret? In each case, the winner had greater ambition than its well-endowed rivals. Winners also find less resource-intensive ways of achieving their ambitious goals. This is where leverage complements the strategic allocation of resources. Managers at competitive companies can get a bigger bang for their buck in five basic ways: by concentrating resources around strategic goals; by accumulating resources more efficiently; by complementing one kind of resource with another; by conserving resources whenever they can; and by recovering resources from the market-place as quickly as possible. As recent competitive battles have demonstrated, abundant resources can't guarantee continued industry leadership.

Strategic Intent is seen as going beyond Business as Usual Seen as Core Competency in Practice Apple and Honda's strategic intent was global dominance. Compare with Strategic Fit which doesn't have a long term component. Basically they used their core competences to achieve Strategic Intent. The difference between Intent and Resources is call Strategic Stretch.

Examples:

§ Apple beat Microsoft in mobile apps market

§ Google beat Microsoft is search and categorization of networked information

§ CNN beat CBS is news and current affairs presentation

Firms first need to understand the competitive environment - e.g. those companies winning and losing market share. The next step is to diagnose the competitive environment. e.g. Its market segments, potential for profitability and growth.

Managers require their frame of reference from the culture of the company, business school education, peers, consultants and their own experience. They therefore frame their competitive stratagems from these managerial frames.

From Fit to Stretch

A good place to start to break these managerial frames is to ask the question What is strategy? The answers normally center around;

§ The concept of fit or the reparations between the company and its competitive environment.

§ The allocation of resources among competing investment opportunities

§ A long-term perspective towards building a company.

This perspective is not wrong just imbalanced. It has obscured the merits of alternative frames in which the concept of scratch supplements the idea of fit; leveraging resources is as important as allocating them. Take two companies. Company A is big, dominant on the market and can outspend its competition on R&D, marketing and other resources. Company B is an upstart, with fewer resources, employees and financing etc. Strategically, Co A can preempt Beta by building new plant, increasing production and introducing new products at a lower cost. But B can retaliate by adopting guerrilla tactics, searching for undefended niches, etc. What distinguishes Co B from Co A is not B's limited resources but the greater gap between its current resources and its aspiration or stretch Alpha's problem is insufficient stretch. The products of stretch i.e. Encirclement not confrontation, accelerated product development, focus on a few core competences, strategic alliances.

From Allocation to Leverage

Perhaps GM was too strategic. It had the resources to employ new technology but the employees were unable or unwilling to adopt new practices and absorb new technologies. At one time Canon had 10% of the market share that Xerox had but eventually displaced Xerox. Upstart CNN became the first place to go for breaking news instead of tuning in to CBS, ABC or NBC. There are two approaches to increasing productivity. One is by downsizing and maintaining the same output with fewer resources. Or, take the Ikea approach, can do more with the existing resources and stretch the organization.

The Arenas of Resource Leverage

Management can leverage its resources, both financial and non-financial in five basic ways. By

§ Concentrating them strategically

§ Accumulating them efficiently

§ Complementing one resource with another

§ Conserving them

§ Recovering them from the market place in the shortest possible time

Saturday, 1 September 2018

Strategic Advantage Profile

STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE PROFILE.

Every firm has strategic advantages and disadvantages. For example, large firms have financial strength but they tend to move slowly, compared to smaller firms, and often cannot react to changes quickly. No firm is equally strong in all its functions. In other words, every firm has strengths as well as weaknesses Strategists must be aware of the strategic advantages or strengths of the firm to be able to choose the best opportunity for the firm. On the other hand they must regularly analyse their strategic disadvantages or weaknesses in order to face environmental threats effectively. In this session, we shall examine the strategic advantage factors that management analyses and diagnoses to determine the internal strengths and weaknesses with which it must face the opportunities and threats from the environment. In the discussion of these factors, it is not possible to consider in detail, subject matter which are covered by courses on Marketing, Human Resources, Finance Management etc. Only a listing of these factors will be presented. Students should refer to books and courses that they have attended for details. The order of discussion does not indicate importance of the subjects. It is just a convenient ordering of line and staff factors. These factors will be covered under the following broad headings:

1 Marketing and Distribution

2 R & D and Engineering

3 Production and Operations Management.

4 Corporate Resources and Personnel

5 Finance and Accounting

Examples: The Strategist should look to see if the firm is stronger in these factors than its competitors. When a firm is strong in the market, it has a strategic advantage in launching new products or services and increasing market share of present products and services.

Strategic Advantage Factors: Marketing and Distribution

1. Competitive structure and market share: To what extent has the firm established a strong mark share in the total market or its key sub markets?

2. Efficient and effective market research system.

3. The product-service mix: quality of products and services.

4. Product-service line: completeness of product-service line and product-service mix; phase of life-cycle the main products and services are in.

5. Strong new-product and new-service leadership.

6Patent protection (or equivalent legal protection for services).

7. Positive feelings about the firm and its products and services on the part of the ultimate consumer.

8. Efficient and effective packaging of products (or the equivalent for services).

9. Effective pricing strategy for products and services.

10. Efficient and effective sales force: close ties with key customers. How vulnerable are we in terms of concentrating on sales to a few customers?

11. Effective advertising: Has it established the company's product or brand image to develop loyal customers?

12. Efficient and effective marketing promotion activities other than advertising.

13. Efficient and effective service after purchase.

14. Efficient and effective channels of distribution andgeographic coverage, including internal efforts

R & D (Research and Development) and Engineering function can be a strategic advantage for two reasons:

1. It can lead to new or improved products for marketing 2. It can lead to the development of improved manufacturing or material processes to gain cost advantages through efficiency.

Strategic Advantage Factors: R&D and Engineering

1. Basic research capabilities within the firm2. Development capability for product engineering3. Excellence in product design4. Excellence in process design and improvements5. Superior packaging developments being created6. Improvements in the use of old or new materials7. Ability to meet design goals and customer requirements8. Well-equipped laboratories and testing facilities9. Trained and experienced technicians and scientists10. Work environment suited to creativity and innovation11. Managers who can explain goals to researchers and research results to higher managers12. Ability of unit to perform effective technological forecasting.

Organizational Capability Profile with TOWS matrix

ORGANISATINAL CAPABILITY PROFILE (OCP):

ORGANISATINAL CAPABILITY PROFILE (OCP)

CAPABILITIES:

CAPABILITIES “ In order to take full advantage of its assets the organization needs to develop skills, as experience suggests that with similar assets two different firms may add value of different amount for themselves. This difference can only be explained by the differences these organizations carry their capabilities in utilizing these assets.”

EXAMPLE:

EXAMPLE “In a sector like management education, in a typical segment you will find institutions more or less with similar resources and infrastructure, however, the quality of their output in terms of new professionals for business may be starkly different for different institutions. This is greatly reflected in the type of Organizations that pick them up for employment and the kind of job responsibilities they are offered. This difference in output can be explained on account of the skills which these institutions carry with themselves. This position has been found true in case of many Indian companies as well as the multinational corporations.”