Competitive Strategy Assignment Exploring Contemporary Business Cases

Question

Task: The questions to be answered are;

Question 1- Global and socio-cultural elements of the general environment are significant to the future of Starbucks’ retail coffee and snacks store industry. Discuss how and why they are significant.

Question 2- Describe Googles’ level of diversification strategies.

Question 3- What has been the rationale for LVMH acquisitions?

Question 4-Discuss effective approaches that Samsung Electric can implement to gain and manage a successful strategic alliance.

Question 5 -Identify the competitive behavior responses of Zara to build or defend its competitive advantages and to improve its market position.

Question 6 -The current CEO of QANTAS Alan Joyce is considered a strategic leader. Identify, and discuss the actions and characteristics of effective leadership.

Answer

Answer 1- Week 2
The changing family pattern in countries like Europe and the USA has been the major socio-cultural threat that is the business like Starbucks has to face in the coming futures. Moreover, the customer's preferences are changing largely; they are willing to adopt healthy living. This has been the outcome of poor health that the people have to face due to their hectic work schedule. The changes in the lifestyle of the people are identified to be the constraints to the business growth in times to come. The values among the population are changing, leading to the shift in the preferences regarding the product and services. As mentioned by Alwaleed et al., (2019), the attitude of the people towards the quality of life has been identifying to be profound reason acting as a barrier in the smooth flow of the services as proper by the business of Starbucks. The business has been a start-up and thus has been failing to satisfy the older generation. The stores have been focusing on generation X and thus have limited target audiences. As mentioned by Yuliati and Purnomo (2019), the social, cultural factors play a vital role in creating an idea about the possibility of future success to the company. The business is having numerous local competitors having the ability to understand the needs of customers and deserve them accordingly. The product's ability at Starbucks is not as per the taste of local residents, and thus the business might create difficulties for Starbucks in the futures.

Question 2- Week 6
The core business strategy of Google is diversification. It allows the company to develop new market and regain the existences of customers with the creation of the pool of dependent Google internet users. The growth in the area of video advertisement, broadband internet, as well as the digital content with e-commerce strategies has been implemented within the business, ensuring diversification within the company (Strzelecki, 2017). The use of the Potters generic strategies has been implicated within the company to maintain the product and service differentiation. The generic strategies of the company have a well-aligned with the intensive strategic growth measures.

As mentioned by Platanakis et al., (2018), the reason for the Google diversification remains the corporate culture that is executed by the company. The business identified that the diversification has the potentiality to grow and increase the income. The business is focusing on research and development. Around 30% of the work time of each employee is utilized for the research and development purpose. The strategy of acquisition with Motorola Mobility for the amount of 12.5 billion has been the outcome of the diverse business attitude of the company. The company is having aground 29% share in the aneroid device market. Business diversification being the vision of the company has boosted the business of Google to grow within the condition of the competitive market ahs thus is having the ability to elevate its level of profitability in the long run. The customer’s engagement is developed, and the business is able to satisfy the customers as well.

Question 3 - Week 7.
What is the issue?
The business of Tiffany has high investment values even during the COVID 19 situation. The business planned for a financial acquisition and get holds of the company. LVHM being one of the luxurious brands in USA strategies to acquire the smallest business that has been the home to Tag Heuer as well as Bulgari the business has facing stagnate growth recently (Donzé and Wubs, 2020).

Why it is an issue?
As mentioned by Donzé (2018), the expansion of the business and attracting more customers is key to success. The small business like Tiffany has been executing the efficiency of their services and thus is attracting the customers leading to the loss of the luxurious company like LVHM. With the reduction in the sales rate by 12.5% in the recent year, the company has been in the urgent need of acquisition.

Why is an issue now?
It is an issue now as the customer's preferences are changing. The brands name is not enough to attract the customers, but they are in needs of quality products as well (Donzé and Wubs, 2020). The rapid reduction in the sales rate and the poor customer’s enjoyment has been the recent reason that has pushed the business for acquisition.

How will the acquisition address the issue?
The deal has been executed to boost the jewellery and watch division of the business LVMH. It will be helpful in regaining the market position in the market of USA and at the same time allow the company to get hold of the fastest growing areas in the global market.

Answer 4 - Week 9
Samsung is one of the largest businesses in the tech industry and is the seventh most valuable brand in recent times. The marketing strategies applied by them are something that makes the brand unique in its own type. The implication of the network corporation strategies is helpful in creating a stable alliance network and creating social responsibility and proposing innovation within their business (Shin and Cho, 2020). The identification of the risk is also very much essential. As the business of Samsungs is a reputable company, and thus the poor management of the upcoming risk in forming alliances might hamper the business position. As mentioned by Chan (2019), Risk and asset management approaches need are helpful in analyzing the risk and thus ensuring the company is able to gain profit with the successful and strategic alliances. The use of the measures like explicit collusion is helpful in minimizing the cost, and thus the business of Samsung has the ability to strategically address the uncertain in forming alliances and thus serve the business in the competitive market competition. In recent times, the condition of the market is changing to a great extent. Thus, the Samsung is in needs of implicating tactical measures to deal with the alliances and gain profitability in the long run (Shin and Cho, 2020). As the strategic alliance's approaches are expansive in operation, thus creating a good personal engagement is needed so that Samsung is able to deal with the strategies to gain profitability without any kind of barrier.

Answer 5- Week 5
Zara’s Low-cost high-quality strategies have been used by the business of Zara in developing competitive advantages, the company has been offering stylish clothes low prices, and this has been helpful in attracting customers. The business has been engaged in the product diversification. The wide range of stylish clothes has been helpful in attracting the customers and thus satisfies them without any difficulties (Gravier et al., 2018). The strategy of fast fashion model as adopted by Zara has been an essential component in attracting the customer's satisfaction as the competitive advantages; the creativity of the designers has been acting in customers towards the stores.

The push-based model used by Zara is helpful in customization o of the products that order. The initiatives have been helpful in attracting the customers and thus executing huge competitive advantages. The brand name o Zara is enough to attack the customers towards the stores. The company has been famous worldwide and has been successful in establishing a reasonable mane for its brands (Wang, 2018). The excellent marketing strategies that are adopted by Zara are effective. The company can use measures to build customer engagement by involving them in fun activities. The interest of the customers towards the product is essential with more organized awareness strategies. The use of a social media platform can be done for developing buzz among customers.

Answer 6 - Week 11
The CEO of Qantas Alan Joyce is the members of Safety, environment, health and security committee. The leading network of planning, Joyce has been excellent in executing his leadership skills. The execution of proper network strategy as well as developing a planning schedule has been helpful in implicating measures in ensuring business sustainability. The employee enhanced has been the major areas that Joyce paid attention to. In the process of executing the business in effective manners, the proper training measures have also been implicated. As mentioned by Al (2018), the trait of a leader is essential in developing efficient leadership quality among an individual. In a similar context, Joyce is having an excellent charismatic charm. It is helpful in reducing the level of confusion among the staffs, and they are able to follow the instruction given by the leaders in an effective manner. In order to become an efficient leader, Joyce took the measures in understanding the behavioural approaches of the employees (Harmsen et al., 2020). This is helpful in fetching an insight into the actions that are taken upon by the company. In the process of executing the strategies within the working domain of Qantas, Joyce has been able to lead the team as per the predetermined objectives. In orders to be an efficient leaders needs to behold ability to influence others, create transparency, develop values and ethics, act in a decisive manner and most importantly create a balance of trust and optimism with the employee.

Reference list
Al Khajeh, E.H., 2018. Impact of leadership styles on organizational performance. Journal of Human Resources Management Research, 2018, pp.1-10.

Alwaleed, N., Al Huwail, N.H., Singh, S. and AlMejhem, A., 2019. A Case Study on STARBUCKS. Journal of the Community Development in Asia, 2(2).

Chan Kim, S., 2019. Innovation through Inter-organizational Cooperation: How to Manage Organizational Challenges in Cooperation with Partner Companies in Open innovation? A Case Study of Samsung Electronics.

Donzé, P.Y. and Wubs, B., 2020. LVMH: Storytelling and organizing creativity in luxury and fashion. In European fashion. Manchester University Press.

Donzé, P.Y., 2018. The birth of luxury big business: LVMH, Richemont and Kering. In Global Luxury (pp. 19-38). Palgrave, Singapore.

Gravier, M., Roethlein, C. and Visich, J.O.H.N., 2018. The competitive advantages of the digital economy require a digital mentality. European Business Review, 1, pp.50-53.

Harmsen, J., Robertson, A., Joyce, A., McGowan, M. and Palaszczuk, A., 2020. COVID-19 pandemic: Border turbulence: Qantas Boss Alan Joyce has taken a swing at state premiers over border closures, saying decisions appear to be driven by politics and not medical evidence.

Platanakis, E., Sutcliffe, C. and Urquhart, A., 2018. Optimal vs naïve diversification in cryptocurrencies. Economics Letters, 171, pp.93-96.

Shin, B.Y. and Cho, K.T., 2020. The Evolutionary Model of Corporate Entrepreneurship: A Case Study of Samsung Creative-Lab. Sustainability, 12(21), p.9042.

Strzelecki, A., 2017. IP Address and autonomous system diversification as an important factor for building Google ranking. Economics and Management in Information Technology Context: International Week, University of Economics in Katowice, Katowice, pp.176-185.