Volkswagen's Business Strategy Analysis

This assignment delves into Volkswagen's business strategies, examining how they have shaped the company's success and performance. It analyzes key strategic decisions, including marketing, production, and international expansion. Furthermore, it discusses the significant impact of the 2015 emissions scandal on Volkswagen's reputation, legal standing, and future strategies.

BUSINESS STRATEGY

Table of Content
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................3
Business Missions, Visions, Objectives and Goals.........................................................................3
Analyze the Factors while Formulating Strategic Plan...................................................................4
Techniques used while Developing Strategic Business Plans.........................................................5
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................6
Strategic Positioning of VW AG and creating an Organizational Audit.........................................6
Environment audit for VW AG.......................................................................................................7
Stakeholder Analysis when Formulating New Strategy for VW AG..............................................7
Present a New Strategy for VW AG................................................................................................8
Alternative Strategies related to Market Entry, Substantive Growth of VW AG...........................9
Selection of a Strategy for VW AG.................................................................................................9
The Roles and Responsibilities of Personnel at VW AG..............................................................10
Resource Required for Implementing a New Strategy for VW AG..............................................11
SMART targets of VW AG...........................................................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................13
Page 2 of 14

Introduction
The aim of this assignment is to produce a strategic plan which can be helpful for an
organization. In this assignment as business plan has to be made and that pan has to be produced
to different companies like Dragons Den and BBC. It is important to pitch for investment to the
den from the Dragon and other five capitalist are willing to their capital in exchange of equity.
The regent college academic staff has offered a opportunity to pitch before the staffs and there
the business plan has to be presented before it is being pitch to den from the Dragon. This
assignment thus will help to gain a clear knowledge about business strategy and how can
strategic planning help in reaching the business missions and visions. The factors considered
while creating a strategic plan will be described as well as the effectiveness techniques used
while making business strategic plans. In the second part of the assignment the process of
strategic planning and the key elements of strategic position and choices will be applied to
Volkswagen and all the strategic tools will be implemented. The assignment explains how
effectiveness of the tools and how brands and the presence of VW AG can remain in the
international market.
Task 1
Business Missions, Visions, Objectives and Goals
Business plan can be described as the plans that a company makes and a clear mental image of
something which the person wants from its business. It is important to have plans because this
will help the person to see where his/her business will go in the future. There can be different
types of plans in different people's mind. There should be a clear vision of the business which
will help the person to grow and develop the business he/she is into. The need for having a clear
vision is important as it can help the person to go in the right way rather putting someone in the
wrong line. This will also help the person to have a clear focus which will in return help the
person to achieve the goals (Scholes, 2015). It can be said that clear vision is important for a
good future. Business missions have to be achieved by any person to make a profit out of the
business. It has been seen that every person has their goals and all try to achieve them. There are
also people who fail to achieve their goals. There is a big reason behind the failure and that can
be the absence of a strategic plan and clear vision of the organizations. Every year there are
Page 3 of 14

hundreds of people who come in the field of business and very less succeeds and others fails.
This happens because of the absence of strategic plans, goals and objectives. The objectives of a
organization has to be very clear otherwise the organization will never be able to understand
what should be done. Every organization sets different goals and some goals are even same. The
most common goal of any organization can be making profits. Business objectives can be
defined as the steps which have to be taken in order to achieve organization goals. It might be
hard to achieve goals but with the help of good vision and the hunger for achieving success can
help any organization to succeed. Invitation is an important factor during the path of achieving
success in any business (Bharadwaj, et al, 2013). In this whole cycle to achieving success, clear
vision and organizational objectives, financial support can be marked as an important factor
without which any of these plans will not succeed. This is the reason why all of these points have
to be kept in mind while setting business objectives. Thus business missions, vision and
objectives are important to help achieving business goals in any organization.
Analyze the Factors while Formulating Strategic Plan
There are several factors that a company should keep in notice before initiating any strategic
plan. Some of the factors are:
● Strategic plan timeframe: while initiating any strategic plan the time frame for that plan
should be covered. Making a time frame brings a sense of urgency to the objectives to the
plan that requires focus and implementation approach.
● Selection of the committee: selection of a task force or strategic planning committee is
very important for an organization before implementing any strategic plan. The member
of this committee were been selected on behalf of their ability to think strategically, their
willingness to form a consensus plan and proactive approach to the strategic plan.
● Develop the strategic plan: the whole process of initiating and implementing a strategic
plan needs time and resources of the organization (Leonidou, et al, 2015). So before
initiating a strategic plan the plan needs to be discussed among the committee and should
be approved by the selected body.
● Board approval: the board should approve the plan and should formally task the
planning committee with all requirements. After the approval the board will step back
and let the selected body to initiate the task which in result builds a confidence in the
Page 4 of 14

committee to perform the task after the final approval with some changes made by the
board.
● Focus on the strategic plan: focus is all about prioritizing the desired changes in the
plan and selection of those changes that could be implemented with the skill set and
available time of the body keeping in mind about the financial resources of the
organization (Armstrong, et al, 2015). It is also necessary for the body members and the
people in the organization to be focused on the plan in order to achieve the goals.
● Address implementation of the plan: the plan needs to be implemented in a very refined
manner. The strategic objective of the plan included responsibility, resources, and
timeline. For successful implementation of the plan ownership and support are the key
factors.
● Monitoring and discussion of the plan: the strategic planning committee should discuss
about how best it would be for regular monitoring of the plan. The body would discuss
about the changes to be done if any needed on the plan during implementation in order to
get a successful outcome from the plan.
These are certain factors which an organization or company should keep in notice in order to
achieve the goals by implementation of any strategic plan.
Techniques used while Developing Strategic Business Plans
It can be said that creating a business strategic plan is very important for any organization. It is a
very important activity which has to be carried out by the organization. There are different types
of business plans which can be used to achieve a proper strategic plan. The different techniques
which can help to form an effective business plan are:
● SWOT Analysis- SWOT Analysis can be considered as a very important point in making
business plans (Gamble and Thompson, 2014). This is a process which helps to
understand a company's Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and threats. It can be sued for
both external and internal factors. It creates a complete analysis of a selected company
and the outcomes are being recorded and the organizations objectives and goals are being
set (Verbeke, A., 2013). The SWOT has been identified as a very important component
which can be sued in any type of business organizations.
Page 5 of 14

● Facilitation- Team Facilitation helps to ensuring the process can be conducted correctly
from the starting till the end. These types of techniques involve different forms of
activities which can be useful such as positive attitude, Reflection of any constructive
feedback. Every team has to go through some training steps which can be like storming
and forming which can require different facilitation skills. These skills are basically faced
by different teams which are being formed in all organization so that they can perform
well during their job. Team Facilitation can be a very effective process to develop new
teams which can help to bring profits to an organization.
● Ranking Process- There are a long list of things which has to be done which can help
any organization to grow such as SWOT Analysis. This whole idea of rank is to make a
vote process where different items will be shown inside a chart. All the participants has to
put sticky dots against the items. The item with the most votes wins and the selected item
will be tailed and will be identified.
Task 2
Strategic Positioning of VW AG and creating an Organizational Audit
There are different management reports and issues which have been created for Volkswagen
group can the entire audit reports can be reported in all cases. Volkswagen has build up different
strategies which it keeps to detect the faults when the organizational audit is being done. It can
be said that different strategic directions can help to clearly understand to bring out the following
benefits:
● Achievements are the core support to strategy development.
● Chances of VW to excel in its business depend completely on the business and the sector
it is in.
● There is a high chance that revenue will be added to start business process which is based
on different business process to bring proper contribution advantages and also the
importance.
The purpose of Organizational audit can be to support managers with tools and information
which will help them to find out the problems which are there inside the organization and has to
be solved (Blackburn, et al, 2013). Strategic developments involve different steps to finding
issues actively and solving it. The auditing is mainly done by Pricewaterhousecoopers and it
Page 6 of 14

monitors all the activities of the organization and the performance of the organization. Auditing
helps to boost the performance of any organization. Thus organisational audits help to find out
the gaps which are present in the organisation and also help to create ways to resolve the
problems.
Environment audit for VW AG
Environmental audit helps to provide tools to quantify organizational environmental
performances in all ways. There are different types of environmental audits such as :
● Environmental Compliance Audits.
● Environmental Management Audits.
● Functional Environmental Audits.
An Environmental audits also include:
● Meet specific statutory reports
● Implementing ISO 14001 EMS.
● Identification of Environmental risks.
The duty of the environmental auditor is to conduct the audit to understand the subject matter
and the ways to solve the issues. The auditor must have all the skills to manage the problems and
skills to perform the task. It is important to have personal ethics and open mindedness to work in
different working conditions (Klettner, Clarke and Boersma, 2014). There are different ways of
auditing and it all depends on the subject matter and also the organization. In any case the auditor
fails to obtain the level of work expected the auditor must start again to complete the task. There
is high level of expectations from these auditors as they are trained and has a high amount of
skill set. The outline skills of the auditors can be presented to complete their auditing which can
take place easily and can also be conducted easily. Thus environmental audits have to be
conducted with high skills and concentration to carry out a successful audit.
Stakeholder Analysis when Formulating New Strategy for VW AG
The review and consideration of the impact stakeholders on the business is known as stakeholder
analysis. On today's world it is very much important for an stakeholder analysis as the non-
stakeholder entities such as customers, employees and business partners are becoming the key to
success. Volkswagen also implements certain strategies:
Page 7 of 14

Marketing strategies- during the marketing strategy, a careful analysis is been done to the critical
customer stakeholder group (Woerner and Wixom, 2015). The basic expectation is to be honest
and be good in the communication and interaction with the customers. Market analysis helps the
organization to know the needs and expectation of the customer which helps the company to
deliver the best from their end.
Employee motivation- for maximizing the production and satisfaction of the employee
Volkswagen analyze the role of the employee for the specific work according to his expertise
(Mundial, et al, 2015). They also provide a good work environment by understanding the needs
and interest of the employee. Employee empowerment is also been maintained by the company
to make a better workplace.
Partnership forming: collaboration among distributors, manufacturers and retailer is maintained
by Volkswagen in order to deliver the best value to end customers. The main component of
business is chain management. Maintaining partners expectation by proving best service and
commitment helps in benefit for the organization.
Present a New Strategy for VW AG
VW AG aims to deliver high ends products to its customers and they try to work through
different strategies to find out ways to deliver products which can be effective on the market.
The company aims the policy of togetherness between customers and the company. These
strategies will help to present new ways of creating effective strategies for the company is as
follows:
● Employers- The employers try to bring out their skills to deliver best service as possible
so that the company becomes one of the top brands to deliver cars to the public. They
tend to build up a relation with the customers which would help them to grow as the
customers tend to share their experience with others. This leads to the growth of the
company (Schweimer and Levin, 2015). In this process different measures are being
taken to ensure the growth of the company and the employees to become one of the
greatest suppliers of cars in the existing country and all across the globe.
● Customer Management- There are different effective ways of developing methods of
evaluating with the help of customers. Effective moves are being taken to ensure the
growth and develop a big customer base. There are different customers who come with
Page 8 of 14

different expectations and those expectations have to be fulfilled. New exciting offers
have to be offered to the customers to lure customers towards the company.
● Profitability- There are some expected profits which the company has on every day to
day work. These expectations are being offered by the customers who are attracted to the
offers given by the company. Volkswagen has a firm balance and it also guarantees a
alluring venture alternative. These profits would help the organization to strengthen its
presence in the market.
● Role Model for environmental safety- The new effective car models helps in bringing
profits to the company. It helps to understand the nature of the organization and the safety
that an organization must take to grow in the society. All the safety guidelines has to be
considered to ensure the safety of the environment.
Alternative Strategies related to Market Entry, Substantive Growth of VW
AG
There are different alternative strategies which have to be considered to make a direct market
entry and to make substantial growth in the market. They are different market entry strategies
which help to break the shackles of VW AG. Direct exporting can be a very effective strategy to
get involved in market entry (Oldenkamp, et al, 2016). Partnership can be an effective way of
entering directly in the market. The entry in the market can also include joint venturing projects
which can help the company to grow and might also help to make a stable market in the country.
Buying companies can also be a effective ways of creating a presence in the market of
competition. These strategies also make substantial growth in the society. The reasons can be a
powerful brand trying to make its ways in the market (Volkswagen, 2013). The community has a
fair share in substantial growth of VW and the repeatable sales which it faces during the entire
process of marketing. In the whole process limited growth strategies of VW is also involved and
has been explained to find out the ways of having such stable market and effective ways of
creating solutions to the problems.
Selection of a Strategy for VW AG
Although there are different strategies but by adapting the above strategies discussed it might
bring profit to the company and resolving the issues that they face. The practice of the strategies
that has been discussed would help the company's financial growth and would be effective to
Page 9 of 14

handle. By analyzing the market it could be seen that by adapting this strategies many
automobile companies could bring development and profit. According to the analysis it could be
notices that auditing is one of the critical factor which has to be maximized in order to minimize
the issues related to the company that they face. This strategy could help the company in the total
work flow (Holland, et al, 2016). Thus by initiating these strategies it could be noticed that
Volkswagen has developed a lot in order to manage the company's issues and also to focus on
their goals. Employee satisfaction is one of most important factor for every automobile company
to maximize their production. All the strategies that were discussed above are very effective and
will help the company in many ways and at the end will profit the company by exploration and
manufacturing of new products.
The Roles and Responsibilities of Personnel at VW AG
There are different roles and responsibilities that a personnel at VW AG has to do while working
with the company. The company always provides the employees with tools which would help the
personnel to do their job in ease. There are different responsibilities which the employees have to
take in order to secure a good future for the company. To achieve such growth the company's
takes different steps to ensure the growth amount is sufficient for the organization. To implement
successful business strategies the roles of the personnel should be observed and then judged. The
company's higher officials always keeps a look on the process which always goes through and
the CEO of VW AG always have to ensure that the employees who are working under that
person must be knowledge about the job given and must perform their duties as given. The
personnel must take the right business strategies to help develop the company. The business
owners must have the responsibility to arrange and maintain the business in a particular manner.
The CEO must be responsible for making all the guidelines of the company and must ensure that
the strategic plan which has been made is beneficial for the company (Tse, et al, 2017). The main
reason for maintaining strategic planning is to maintain ethical standards and also avoid legal
problems. These companies always keep their stake high and set high goals for the company so
the employees working in the company has a higher outlook. These employees then will be able
to think in that level which can bring profits for the company in developing new cars which can
have high sale in the market. Thus it is important that all the employees must do their jobs
Page 10 of 14

responsibly and must perform their role correctly in order to help the company achieve their
goals and also secure the future of the company.
Resource Required for Implementing a New Strategy for VW AG
To make a new strategy plan there many requirements for implementing it, different sources
helps bring competitive advantages in the existing market. There are three types of resources
which are required to create new strategies are:
● Human Resources
● Financial Support
● Physical Resources
These resources will help to create the new strategy plan. VW AG has both of them and thus
they can use those resources to create ideas of building a strategy plan. This plan may consist of
the growth of financial market and the growth of building a new market where the sale of the
cars can grow to double. Employees are needed to make all these dreams come true. Thus having
a big employee base can be profitable for the company. The company looks forward to create
new strategies in the market. Financial support has to be there which is a important to help the
growth of the company. In the end the Physical resources is something that a company must have
in order to develop itself in the ever growing market.
SMART targets of VW AG
SMART also known as simple measurable achievable realistic time scaled. Volkswagen has
many goals and to achieve those goals they have implemented certain strategies. Volkswagen has
set their goals with value which reflect their belief and reputation. To achieve the goals
Volkswagen has gone through lot of difficulties but as their goals have value now they have
completely different outcome in relation with their competitors and partners. They have very
transparent image with their employees and customers and also shared their goals with their
employees in order to achieve them Volkswagen always been an employee centric company as
they know that employee are the key to success and bring positivity. All these objectives that
Volkswagen implemented are the key SMART targets which help them to reach their goals.
Thus SMART targets have helped the organization to understand its weakness, strengths and the
other important factors which a company should know about.
Page 11 of 14

Conclusion
Thus it can be concluded that this assignment is completely based on Strategic planning. The
different objectives and visions of any organization and also the ideas which strategic planning
can offer to any organization have been explained in this assignment. The different techniques of
developing strategic planning has been discussed so that it is understood how strategic planning
helps an organization to grow in its sector. Environmental audit is another factor which has to be
considered and must be done on every organization to ensure that the environment is not being
harmed. There are different resources which are required to implement new strategies in a
company. These strategies can be financial, human and physical resources. The assignment has
been done with the help of SMART targets of the company and how it can be achieved in
strategy implementation. These researches have been done to understand all the types of business
strategies based on Volkswagen and thus have helped to understand business strategy in whole.
New strategies have been implemented to achieve given targets of the company.
Page 12 of 14

References
Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015. Marketing: an introduction.
Pearson Education.
Bharadwaj, A., El Sawy, O.A., Pavlou, P.A. and Venkatraman, N.V., 2013. Digital business
strategy: toward a next generation of insights.
Blackburn, R.A., Hart, M. and Wainwright, T., 2013. Small business performance: business,
strategy and owner-manager characteristics. Journal of small business and enterprise
development, 20(1), pp.8-27.
Gamble, J.E. and Thompson, A.A., 2014. Essentials of strategic management. Irwin Mcgraw-
Hill.
Holland, S.P., Mansur, E.T., Muller, N.Z. and Yates, A.J., 2016. Response to Comment on
“Damages and expected deaths due to excess NO x emissions from 2009–2015 Volkswagen
diesel vehicles”. Environmental science & technology, 50(7), pp.4137-4138.
Klettner, A., Clarke, T. and Boersma, M., 2014. The governance of corporate sustainability:
Empirical insights into the development, leadership and implementation of responsible business
strategy. Journal of Business Ethics, 122(1), pp.145-165.
Leonidou, L.C., Fotiadis, T.A., Christodoulides, P., Spyropoulou, S. and Katsikeas, C.S., 2015.
Environmentally friendly export business strategy: Its determinants and effects on competitive
advantage and performance. International Business Review, 24(5), pp.798-811.
Mundial, S.G., Siemens, V. and Boss, H., 2015. 4. Datos.
Oldenkamp, R., van Zelm, R. and Huijbregts, M.A., 2016. Valuing the human health damage
caused by the fraud of Volkswagen. Environmental Pollution, 212, pp.121-127.
Scholes, M.S., 2015. Taxes and business strategy. Prentice Hall.
Schweimer, G.W. and Levin, M., 2015. Life cycle inventory for the Golf A4 Research,
Environment and Transport, Volkswagen AG, Wolfsburg.
Tse, Y.K., Zhang, M., Doherty, B., Chappell, P., Moore, S.R. and Keefe, T., 2017. Exploring the
hidden pattern from tweets: Investigation into Volkswagen emissions scandal. In Supply Chain
Management in the Big Data Era (pp. 172-198). IGI Global.
Verbeke, A., 2013. International business strategy. Cambridge University Press.
Volkswagen, A.G., 2013. Geschäftsbericht 2012. Vielfalt erfahren. Wolfsburg.
Page 13 of 14

Woerner, S.L. and Wixom, B.H., 2015. Big data: extending the business strategy
toolbox. Journal of Information Technology, 30(1), pp.60-62.
Page 14 of 14