Strategic Management Assignment: Shareholder Engagement & Corporate Level Strategies Of Dicker Data

Question

Task: Your task:
In this strategic management assignment, you are required to explore the Australian company Dicker Data (ASX: DDR) and develop a stakeholder engagement plan. You must identify the business level strategy adopted by one of the business units/ product groups in the context of Porter’s Five Generic Strategy framework. You will analyze the corporate-level strategic initiatives undertaken byDicker Data.

Sections to be included in the assignment:
a. Introduction to Dicker Data
b. Stakeholder engagement plan
c. Business-level strategies adopted by Dicker Data
d. Corporate-level strategic initiatives Dicker Data
e. Recommendations

Answer

Introduction
In this corporate world, stakeholders are an important aspect of businesses. Individuals or group of people who are affected by the decisions or conflicts within the business are known as stakeholders. Engagement of stakeholders in the core operation of an organization enhances innovation and also helps in business model development (Wayne Gould, 2012). The aim of this report is to discuss stakeholder engagement and corporate-level strategies adopted by an Australian company named Dicker Data.

Company overview
Dicker Data is one of the most trusted companies in Australia, that is known to serve ICT hardware, cloud solutions and other software solutions to its partners who are re-sellers. The Primary mission of this organization is to inspire and educate its reseller partners with technologies that are un-paralleled. The organization also aims at providing value-added services for enhancing logistics operation of several companies (Dicker Data, 2021a). This organization is operating for 41 years and is also listed in the Australian Stock Exchange. Its ticker is DDR. The objective of the organizational members is to provide tailored solutions to the clients to meet their needs. The organization has also adopted customer-centric approach. The employees and other members of the organization focus on engaging the resellers in activities of the organization. This helps them to develop strategies that can further help the firm to cope up with the dynamic shift in the current business environment (Dicker Data, 2021b). The revenue incurred by the organization is almost $1 billion and there are more than 400 employees in the organization.

Stakeholder engagement plan
A continuous process that helps in describing a certain project and people associated with that project is known as stakeholder engagement. The objective of forming stakeholder engagement plan is to develop a constructive relationship with the external and internal stakeholders of the organization (Cundy, et.al., 2013). The purpose of this section of the report is to identify few stakeholders of Dicker Data and start creating a plan that can enhance engagement of stakeholders.

Dicker Data has a large number of stakeholders. Employees, shareholders, investors, managers are the internal stakeholders of the organisation. Moreover, reseller partners like Lenovo, Samsung and vendors like Acceltex, AMD and Governments and Local community are the external stakeholders of the organization (Dicker Data, 2021c). The objective of the following section of the report is to discuss about the importance of engagement of three stakeholders by using a stakeholder engagement plan template.

Employees
Employees are one of the most important internal stakeholders of a firm. Engagement of employees in the core activities of the organization has become one of the mainstream responsibility of managers (Guest, 2014). There is no exception in case of Dicker Data. Employees within the organization are responsible for providing software solutions and selling them to the reselling partners. Thus, they have high influence or power on the core activities of the organization. According to the engagement plan, employees are engaged to accomplish the internal objectives of Dicker Data but they might not be able to reduce conflicts with the shareholders of the organization. Productivity of the employees are important for enhancing the performance of the organization and it has a close relationship with employee satisfaction. Thus, rewards and career advancement are the major satisfaction for the employees.

Reseller partner
Reseller partners are the primary customers of Dicker Data. In the above section, it has been found that the company is focused on following customer-centric approach. Profitability of organizations increase with the help of this approach (Bonacchi and Perego, 2011). According to the stakeholder engagement plan, the customers are highly interested on the services of Dicker Data because they are investing a huge amount of money while purchasing their solution. Moreover, the purchasing pattern of the customers have high influence on Dicker Data. Engagement of customers can enhance their level of satisfaction but it can directly help the firm to accomplish internal goals. Furthermore, reseller partners demand unique and innovative software solutions from Dicker Data this can be done by engaging the customers with the help of their feedbacks. Finally, engagement of reseller partners can enhance the sales of the firm.

Local community
Local communities are the external stakeholders of Dicker Data. Their interests on the activities of the firm is low and they have medium influence on the core activities of the organization. According to the stakeholder engagement plan the primary objectives of Local communities who belong to the Australian region is to influence the organizational members to develop the local communities where they are operating.

Business level strategies
This strategy has become one of the milestones in the field of strategic management. The objective of this strategy is to enhance the competitive advantage of the firm (Salavou, 2015). As mentioned earlier, Dicker Data is known to be the wholesaler of software and hardware products to renowned tech companies. The organization has a wide range of product groups. Among this cloud distributor has gained popularity in recent times. This product group or service group offered by Dicker Data can be aligned with differentiation strategy. Differentiation strategy is an important part of Five Generic strategies. The objective of this strategy is to meet the diverse and evolving needs of the customers across the world. Organisations adopt differentiation strategy to launch unique and high-quality products or services in the market (Semuel, Siagian and Octavia, 2017). If cloud solutions of product group and its purpose is analysed then it can be found that Dicker Data is constantly focusing on providing unique and innovative cloud solutions to the company. The objective of this product group is to help tech companies use this cloud computing network to accelerate their performance and focus on innovation within the organization. For example, VMware cloud solutions provided by Dicker Data has the ability to help partners build market knowledge and they can also understand the needs and desires of the local community. This cloud solution is so flexible that it can have the ability to migrate any types of cloud and can access almost 100 services that are cloud-native. Furthermore, the business environment has become very competitive in nature. This has increased challenges in the corporate environment. It has been found that VMware has the ability to enhance business resilience and it can also initiate digital transformation (Dicker Data, 2021d). This is how VMWare cloud infrastructure is providing unique solutions to its partners. Another major product that belongs to the selected product group is Veeam Distributor. This is provided to Microsoft and is responsible for protecting the data from any kind of theft or loss. From the above examples, it is clear that differentiation strategy is adopted by Dicker Data to serve its partners uniquely and enhance their rate of satisfaction.

Corporate level strategies
Dicker Data undertakes various corporate level strategies including mergers and acquisitions, greenfield investments, strategic alliances, joint ventures and others for expanding its business growth. These corporate strategies of growth and development have been beneficial for the company in operating successfully in the global market.

In July 2021, Dicker Data acquired Exceed in the landmark deal of A$68 million. This strategy was undertaken for gaining the second spot in the increasingly competitive and consolidated Kiwi supply chain for competing with the largest distributor in the market (Henderson, 2021). It has gained the ownership of a portfolio consisting of Apple, HP, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Microsoft alongside various other local distributors like Ruckus, Motorola and Webroot. Dicker Data will gain the competitive advantage in the local market of New Zealand through acquisition of this local distributor. Along with similar lines of businesses, both these companies also possess cultural alignments that would make the integration process more effective for serving the solid customer base (Henderson, 2021). The acquisition has provided Dicker Data to offer clients with the range of technology and services under one umbrella through its acquisition of the NZ distributor. This shows the use of acquisition as the corporate level strategy for expanding its business.

Furthermore, Dicker Data has also been involved in various strategic partnerships in the industry for its business growth and development. For example, the company expanded its partnership with Microsoft in October 2020 for the launch of a new Microsoft Cloud business unit that is a partner-to-partner portal and dedicated marketing service named Amplify (Channel Life, 2020). This move was undertaken as the company incurred around A$100 million annual revenues for the Microsoft Cloud business with a 25% year-on-year growth rate. Dicker Data has been able to extend its software and cloud technologies solution offerings to increasing number of customers through this strategic partnership with Microsoft. The corporate strategy of the company is aligned with its mission of delivering rapid business value using specialist cloud technologies and ongoing partner management services (Channel Life, 2020). Alongside providing a directory to resellers for connecting with others, this strategy has been useful for Microsoft as well to provide marketing assistance through Amplify. Thus, this was a move for building strategic partnerships along with tangible business benefits for both partners.

Besides, Dicker Data has also undertaken a new investment strategy for opening up distribution center in Kurnell. This is a $74 million landmark investment for establishing the distribution facility in south Sydney. The construction of this facility started in November 2019 with around 39,550m2 of warehouse space and 6,345m2 of office space (Dicker Data, 2021e). This shows that the center has been increased by 80% in capacity and 50% in warehouse space. This investment strategy has been another significant move for its expansion and growth that would now allow the company to accommodate more people and inventory for arriving at the next phase of its growth. This corporate strategy has also been aligned with its vision of creating a unique facility for ensuring an ambitious and prosperous future for the company.

Recommendations
The objective of the following section of the report is to help Dicker Data enhance the procedure of stakeholder engagement and strategy adoption.
• It is highly recommended to the management team of the organization to communicate frequently with the customers of the organization. Reseller partners who are the primary customers of Dicker Data can be communicated with the help of several social media platforms. The feedbacks of the customers can be collected seamlessly and frequently with the help of this platform. Frequent collection of feedback from customers can increase their level of engagement in the core activities of the organization that can further have a positive impact on their satisfaction.
• It is also recommended to the organizational leaders of the Dicker Data to focus on adopting Differentiation Focus strategy. This strategy will not only help the firm to provide unique or innovative solutions to the market but it can also help them to target the most profitable segment of customers. This strategy will also help in adding value to the customers who are being targeted by the members of Dicker Data.
• Finally, it is also recommended to the organizational members of Dicker Data to focus on systematic growth of the organization while adopting corporate level strategies. The modern-day business environment has become very volatile and there are several ups and downs in the business. Therefore, to eradicate these ups and downs, it is the responsibility of the senior team of the organization to focus on achieving long term goals that can further help the company grow and achieve long term success.

Conclusion
The aim of this report was to discuss stakeholder engagement plan, business and corporate level strategies adopted by an Australian based firm known as Dicker Data. The report concludes that Dicker Data has engaged customers, employees and other stakeholders of the organization with the help of proper communication mechanism. The organization has also adopted Differentiation strategies to provide unique cloud solutions to the organization. Finally, while analyzing the corporate level strategies of the firm it can be found that the organization has adopted strategic partnership, acquisition strategies and local investment for expanding its business in different parts of the world and also domestically. Finally, it can be found that adoption of effective strategies not only enhances the productivity of the organization but it also helps in enhancing satisfaction level of the external and the internal stakeholders.

Reference List
Bonacchi, M. and Perego, P., 2011. Improving profitability with customer centric strategies: the case of a mobile content provider. Strategic Change, 20(78), pp.253-267.
Channel Life, 2020. Dicker Data expands Microsoft partnership with new Cloud Division. [online] Available at: (Accessed 16 October 2021)
Cundy, A.B., Bardos, R.P., Church, A., Puschenreiter, M., Friesl-Hanl, W., Müller, I., Neu, S., Mench, M., Witters, N. and Vangronsveld, J., 2013. Developing principles of sustainability and stakeholder engagement for “gentle” remediation approaches: The European context. Journal of environmental management, 129, pp.283-291.
Dicker Data, 2021a. Enabling Remote Collaboration in the Hybrid Workplace.[online]. Available at (Accessed 16 October 2021).

Dicker Data, 2021b. About Dicker Data. [online]. Available at (Accessed 16 October 2021).
Dicker Data, 2021c. Our Vendors. [online]. Available at (Accessed 16 October 2021).
Dicker Data, 2021d. Dicker Data & VMware. [online]. Available at (Accessed 16 October 2021).
Dicker Data, 2021e. Dicker Data opens new headquarters and distribution centre in Kurnell. [online] Available at: (Accessed 16 October 2021) Guest, D., 2014. Employee engagement: a sceptical analysis. Strategic management assignmentJournal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance.
Henderson, J., 2021. Dicker Data acquires Exeed in landmark $68M deal. [online] Reseller News. Available at: (Accessed 16 October 2021) Salavou, H.E., 2015. Competitive strategies and their shift to the future. European Business Review, 27(1), pp.80-99. Semuel, H., Siagian, H. and Octavia, S., 2017. The effect of leadership and innovation on differentiation strategy and company performance. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 237, pp.1152-1159.

Wayne Gould, R., 2012. Open innovation and stakeholder engagement. Journal of technology management & innovation, 7(3), pp.1-11.

Appendix A – Stakeholder Engagement Plan Template

Appendix B – Corporate Level Strategies