Strategic Management and Sustainability

Strategic Management
and Sustainability

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Company's background and its strategic directions.....................................................................1
External Business Environment...................................................................................................2
Industry Analysis.........................................................................................................................4
Strategic position.........................................................................................................................5
Internal Business Environment....................................................................................................6
Sustainable competitive advantages..........................................................................................10
Strategic Growth Choices..........................................................................................................11
Evaluating strategy.....................................................................................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................16
.......................................................................................................................................................17

INTRODUCTION
Strategic management in context of an organisation can be defined as using the resources
available within the organisation to attain goals and objectives. It is an important aspect within
an organisation because it helps the management in developing plans as well as policies and
implement plans effectively. Strategic management allows the management of a firm to make
informed decisions and formulate effective strategies (Alikhani, Torabi and Altay, 2019)
Organisation chosen for this report is AstraZeneca, which is a multinational pharmaceutical
company. The company is headquartered in Cambridge, England and was founded in the year
1999. The company is mainly focussed on developing and commercialising medicines for
healthcare. The health issues include cancer and respiratory disease, autoimmune diseases,
cardiovascular disease etc. The main aim of the company is to deliver the best medicines and
operates in nearly 100 countries.
The medicines manufactured by the company are used widely by patients worldwide. The
report evaluates the UK as well as global pharmaceutical industry with the help of related
frameworks like PESTEL analysis. An analysis of the industry is also included in the report
along with an evaluation of the chosen company's competitive environment. Models like Porter's
Five Forces model, strategic group analysis have been used for this. The report also includes the
key business strategies of the company and its capabilities over the last five years. An evaluation
of how can the company implement various environment sustainability theories like practising
corporate social responsibility, green strategy is also included in the report in order to facilitate a
better understanding.
MAIN BODY
Company's background and its strategic directions
AstraZeneca is a multinational pharmaceutical company that develops medicines for
different areas of healthcare. The company operates in two segments Clinical Trial and
Healthcare (Baumgartner and Rauter, 2017). The company was founded in the year 1999 and is
headquartered in Cambridge, England. The medicines offered by the company are both
innovative as well as effective and used by millions of patients across the world. The company
aims to become the first company that is most innovative and implements new ideas in their
products. The drugs that are manufactured by the company are basically focussed on seven areas
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(AstraZeneca PLC - Company Profile, Information, Business Description, History, Background
Information on AstraZeneca PLC, 2020). These include cardiovascular, anaesthesia and pain
control, central nervous system, oncology, infection, respiratory etc. The company started off as
in the year 1913 through an initiative by nearly 400 doctors who came together to become the
company's first shareholders.
Strategic direction can be referred to as all those actions that a company takes in order to
attain its goals and objectives. It includes plans and actions that the company has put in place in
order to achieve them. AstraZeneca is currently delivering medicines to patients across world
with the help of innovation. In order to be successful in the long-term, the company aims to
deliver its business strategy in a way that the products actually deliver value (Gianni, Gotzamani
and Tsiotras, 2017). The main focus of the respective company is on a biopharmaceutical
strategy that is based on innovation. The company strives to deliver the best possible medicines
to the patients.
External Business Environment
The external business environment comprises of various factors like economic, political,
social, technological, competitive etc. It is important for the managers of a company to
understand and analyse the impact of all these factors on the overall performance of the
company. An external business environment comprises of various factors that are outside the
company and can have an impact on the overall performance of the company. The different
factors in the external environment can either have a positive or a negative influence on the
company. Therefore, a PESTEL analysis helps in analysing all these factors and allows the firm
to make informed decisions. Different frameworks have been explained below to analyse the UK
and global pharmaceutical industry effectively.
PESTEL Analysis
It is a strategic framework that is used to identify the different macro environment factors
that can influence its overall performance. The results of this model can help in formulating
effective strategies. A PESTEL analysis allows a company to improve its overall effectiveness
by aligning the business processes with the strategies of the company. The PESTEL analysis of
UK is described below -
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