Business Strategy and Competitive Advantage at National Express Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of National Express's business strategy, examining its project strategy, purpose, and strategic alignment. It delves into the application of three competitive strategies, including PESTLE, Porter's Five Forces, and SWOT analyses, to understand how National Express gains an edge in the market. The report also explores project values and project portfolio management within the organization. Furthermore, it assesses the effectiveness of the youth promise project in serving various communities, offering valuable insights into National Express's operations and strategic decision-making processes.

Business strategy national
express

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
Concept of project strategy.........................................................................................................1
Purpose of business strategy.......................................................................................................2
Strategic alignment and its application in National Express.......................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
Three different strategy for gaining competitive advantage.......................................................4
Application of three strategy analyses in National Express........................................................7
Project values for National Express and how this supports it.....................................................7
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
Project purpose and significance of project portfolio management............................................8
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................12
Effectiveness of youth promise project in serving different communities...............................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................16

INTRODUCTION
Business strategy can be simply defined as a long term plan of action that is formulated to
attain a specific goal. Entrepreneurs used to apply these plans in their business so that they can
run the corporation easily. Here strategies defines which markets the business requires to
complete in or which activities would provide it a competitive edge and how its assets will be
utilised to achieve the complete plan. The present report is based on National Express. National
express is a largest organization which was founded in around 1974 and become one of the
leading player at international marketplace by employing almost 42000 people across the world
(Balakrishnan and Balakrishnan, 2012). Their main objective is to gain trust or loyalty of
domestic as well as foreign clients by satisfying their needs or demands in a defined time period.
In fact, selected firm was establishing number of different projects in order to facilitate millions
of customers. In this project, purpose of business strategies and how to assure a project strategy
is explained. In addition to this, three different strategies of National Express are also described
here that helps them in achieving competitive advantages.
TASK 1
Concept of project strategy
Project strategy is simply referred as a direction in a project that supports company in
achieving success by contributing in its accomplishment within its environment (Behera and et.
al., 2012). There are some important components of project strategy that are perspective, position
and plan. Perspective covers the background and objective of business along with strategic
concept. On the other hand, position covers definition of product, its competitive advantages and
criteria of getting succeeded or failed. Coming to the plan, it consists of project definition and
focus on strategy.
There are four types of project strategies which are listed as below:
1. Independent innovator: In this type, project joins with such parts of the generator firm
like sponsor or other stakeholders that assist in advancing the purposes of project. Here,
project at the same time competes or fights against that parts of the parent or other
business partners that may act as threat to the purpose of project.
2. Strong leader: In such strategy, leaders choose their direction by formulating a strong
independent culture (Leonidou, Katsikeas and Coudounaris, 2010). Here programme set
1

up its own aims and objectives in their shareholder network. Successfulness might be
evaluated by interior capability of generating new view of perceiving the globe and
setting meaningful aims and objectives for the project.
3. Obedient servant: This type of project strategy considers their parent organisation as the
main stakeholder in its business environment. Here project exists for its parent and the
aim of this project is to meet the desires of parent (Dickinson, Robbins and Lumsdon,
2010). This may result to the successfulness of project due to promotion of the parent
venture and it is measured by how well the project executes and contribute in business
strategy of parent.
4. Flexible mediator: They find its direction by describing its environment whereby they
are operating as that among the team of various strong business partners. Here project
follow the goal setted by its stakeholder and its success is determined by synergy that the
project can create among engagement of shareholders, level of practicable compromises
done with them, etc.
Purpose of business strategy
Strategy is nothing but the scope and direction of an enterprise over the long term, which
helps in attaining benefits for the venture via its configuration of resources within a alternating
surrounding and to meet demands of shareholders. The main purposes of making business
strategy are described as below:
1. It is the business scheme that defined the way to fulfil organisational objectives.
2. It also helps in defining approach of resource allocation so that goals can be achieved.
3. It assists in identifying viable strategic option in order to compete within market.
4. Apart from this, it also gives long term plan for developing the enterprise.
Strategic alignment and its application in National Express
Strategic alignment is the method and result of associating structure of corporation and
resources with its strategy and business environment (Ghazinoory, Abdi and Azadegan-Mehr,
2011). Strategic fit is nothing but corporate-level research with the core proposition that
performance of a venture is the consequence of fit among more than two factors like structure,
environment, strategy, technology,etc. This as a result provides some application in National
Express that are stated below :
2

 It describes the objectives, mission, vision, values, guiding principles and success
measures of the firm.
 Offers strategic focus to establish change initiatives.
There are normally three strategic alignment approach which is stated below : Top down approach : In this approach, decision regarding allocation of scheme and
implementation of task is done by senior managers. There is an advantage of this
approach that is here executives are having the responsibility for extending the
assignment from to the bottom of firm. Project tends to be more strategic and long term
in nature. Bottom up approach : The beauty of this approach is that each and every sector submits
a list of the projects that it requires to be completed in the next year. All of the proposals
of task are collected by executive board and is channelled via scoring matrix (Richter,
2012).
 Top Down Bottom up approach : In this also executives only explains the strategy of
firm, the wished portfolio balance and scoring model. Submission of project proposal is
done to the executive board (Rodriguez, Peterson and Krishnan, 2012). Work are scored
and segmented to the significant project types until all of the types of assignment are full.
TASK 2
Three different strategy for gaining competitive advantage
Strategic analysis is the process of developing strategy for a business by doing
investigation on business and the surroundings in which it is operating. It helps in analysing the
market and the corporation to search different ways of gaining competitive advantages. This
process of analysis uses a set of well known tools and techniques that are described below : PESTLE analysis : This tool aids in finding out impact of external factors on operation
of organisation. National Express can also use this and determines the influence of
various macro factors which is stated below :
◦ Political factor : It assist in finding out effect of government policies on functioning
of venture (Storbacka, 2011). National Express should concentrate on risk of military
invasion, intellectual property protection, trade norms and traffic linked to customer
services, etc.
3

◦ Economical factor : This involves business cycle, value of money, investment
policies, inflation trends, employment, demand and supply factors, etc. This as a
result aids in finding out impact of all of these on performance of company.
◦ Social factors : It describes trends existing in society , lifestyles and group
behaviours of customer, etc. that effect on working of National express. They should
provide services as per the demands of users. If they will not do so then no one prefer
their services and use that.
◦ Technological factor : By taking help of modern technology, cited firm has been
transformed rapidly from the last four years. They are not even providing opportunity
to other players from coping with their changes (Stark, 2015). This factor also
impacts on the value chain structure in sector of customer services.
◦ Legal factors : New norms and legislations are made by legal bodies also affects on
working mode of National Express. For example, Anti – trust law in Travel and
leisure sector is greatly impacting all ventures. This law is a set of federal and state
government norms that is also famous as competition law that provide protection to
consumers from predatory business practices by assuring that fair competition exists
in an open market economy. Other policies like discrimination act, copy rights, health
and safety laws, etc. are several other norms imposed by government that have to be
followed by National Express.
◦ Environmental or ecological factor : Before entering into new market place or prior
to start a new business in existing market, the organisation have to cautiously analyse
the environmental standardisation that is needed for operating in such market
location. Some of the elements that can impact on National Express are weather,
waste management, sudden changes in climate, etc. Porter's Five Forces : This strategy aids National Express and concentrates on how they
can create sustainable competitive benefits in Travel and Leisure industry. This scheme
covers five forces which discussed below :
◦ Threats of New Entrants : New entrants in this travel sector can bring innovation,
new techniques of performing work and also put pressure on given venture via lower
pricing strategy, minimising costs and offers new value suggestion to the users.
National Express should control all such challenges and generate effectual barriers for
4

safeguarding its competitive edge (Marschan-Piekkari and Welch, 2011). The cited
organisation can tackle with this threat by providing innovation based services to their
clients as it not only helps in making new purchasers but also provide reasons to old
one so that they can purchase their goods and services. They should also invest
money on research and development.
◦ Bargaining power of suppliers : Suppliers are occupying dominant position and due
to this they are decreasing the margins of National Express that they can earn easily.
They can utilise their negotiation ability for extracting high prices from firm. Thus, in
turn suppliers are reducing the overall profitability of venture. National Express can
tackle with this risk by making effective supply chain with multiple suppliers. In
addition to this, they can also use different materials so that if cost of one raw
material increases, then they can utilise other.
◦ Bargaining power of buyers : Buyers demands best quality goods and services at
minimum prices. This as result put pressure on cited company's profitability in long
term. By forming large consumers base, they can minimise bargaining power of
purchasers and can also a chance to venture for streamlining its process of production
and sales.
◦ Threats of substitute products or services : This states a threat of new goods or
services as if they satisfy needs of users in several ways then profit level of National
Express suffers a lot (Zhou and Du, 2015). For tackling with this risk, they have
become service oriented instead of being product oriented. They have to understand
the requirement of buyers in spite of what they are buying.
◦ Rivalry among existing competitors : If the competition among current players in
industries is high then it would surely decreases the prices and in turn reduces the
total profitability of corporation. In order to minimise its impact, they should
manufacture different products and services and seek attention of large number of
customers towards them. SWOT analysis : This is very important strategy that highlights the internal factors of any
enterprise by exploring its strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This in turn
helps National Express in deciding about what they needed to modify in order to
minimise their weaknesses. This audit is described below :
5

◦ Strengths : It has been noticed that company posses high growth rate as they are
expanding their business in more and more nation. In addition to this, National
Express is an international brand and has strong global existence (QIN, XU and BAI,
2012). They are famous for their continual innovation and capabilities of adapting
changing socio economical trends. They are also acting as barriers of market.
◦ Weaknesses : Loan rates can be high in future which act as weakness for venture.
They have lack of managerial as well as leadership skill and due to this they are not
able to manage their workers and this impacts negatively on their performance.
◦ Threats : High level of competition act as weakness for the venture as they are facing
loss from this. Prices of raw materials are constantly changing.
◦ Opportunities : There are lots of opportunities for National Express as they are
providing buses, coaches, etc. to students. They can expand their business in
international market and increase their number of consumers world wide.
Application of three strategy analyses in National Express
The above described three strategies are proved to be very advantageous for National
Express which is stated below : PESTLE analysis : This strategy acts as beneficial for venture as it aids in knowing
about various external factors such as political factor, technological factor, social factor,
etc. By exploring about these things, they can examine the impacts of those elements and
make their strategy as per that in order to minimise that. SWOT analysis : This is a strategical approach of exploring about internal factors of
National Express like their weaknesses, strength or capabilities, threats and opportunities
as well (Roza,Van den Bosch and Volberda, 2011). After knowing about their weak
factors they can work on them and convert those into strength. Apart from this they can
also make strategy about tackling with their threats so that less affects can be experienced
by them.
 Porter's five forces : This is an eminent scheme that assists in knowing as well as dealing
from several factors like bargaining power of buyers and suppliers, threats of substitute
products, rivalry among challengers and new entrants. By this way they can easily make
specific strategies from tacking with all of them in effective manner.
6

Project values for National Express and how this supports it
National Express requires a core vision that do not changes while its business strategies
and activities regularly follow to a changing world. Firm's vision is to put consumers, a key
stakeholder at the main point of their business as this helps them in earning lifespan trust by
delivering best performing public transport facilities to the young students. Their mission is to
focus on youths that involves 8 to 14 years olds students and also targets youth organisations like
Prince's Trust, the Skills show and the Scouts Association (Gang, 2010). They are thinking as
well as finding innovative solutions for that. The mission of this company is a broad statement
that determines the long term direction of business. The main part of their mission is to manage
the impact of environment on the cited corporation. In addition to this, they also desire to offer
services at lower costs to youngsters and also making strategies on emitting very less amount of
carbon dioxide.
This can be said that their vision and mission are supporting them a lot as they contribute
or supports them in building a impressive image in front of their customers. By doing this they
cam also attract large number of youngsters towards their services and can make opportunities of
earning high income.
TASK 3
Project purpose and significance of project portfolio management
The main reason or purpose behind introducing various successful assignment is to gain
maximum benefits by fulfilling the essential requirement of different users. Moreover, they are
trying to build their goodwill at marketplace in order to continue their business for longer period
of time.
Maximising value:- According to given case study value is signifies in a monetary term
which shows the expenses that is incurred while managing a project with the help of various
costs. (Weixia, 2010). It aids an association while managing or handling a business project in an
appropriate manner. Therefore, as per scenario, an organization is going to implement around 10
assignments by having almost 200 persons in their resources pool. Thus, nearly 20 individuals
are working together for single year consist of holidays and sick allowances. Mainly, their main
objective is to gain maximum return on their investment by performing assigned work in an
7

effective way. Moreover, by considering necessary terms and conditions an enterprise get aware
about their loss or profit.
National express is planning to expand their organization in various regions with the help
of various financial terms for acquiring maximum profit by estimating future demand or forecast.
Along with this, it has been analysed that number of methods are identified which will support
an enterprise while designing a new project such as: internal rate of return, pay back period,
average rate of return and so on (Healy and Palepu, 2012). Apart from this, in given case study
risk is also determined with the use of appropriate tools and makes final decision on the basis of
scoring model by analysing performance of each or very candidate working in a project.
Balanced portfolio:- According to given scenario National express is trying to implement
various projects in order to become leading market player by satisfying needs or demands of
billions of customers. Portfolio is a term which means cluster of various assets such as; bonds,
inventory and cash. In fact, it is managed or regulated by various professionals financial
investors and designed as per investors risk tolerating potentiality. Moreover, it helps in selecting
best project amongst various by determining various essential factors which affects the success
of an assignment.
(Source:- Rebalance portfolio, 2009)
8
Illustration 1: Rebalance portfolio

After understanding the meaning of portfolio its time to get aware the term balanced
portfolio which means balancing of return on investment and risk with the help of various
appropriate method. Moreover, stocks or assets are going to equally classified into equities and
fixed income securities for balancing the portfolio of different projects. Thus, suitable method of
balancing portfolio is described as follows:- Understand risk:- Initially, an association need to identify the uncertainty of portfolio
which includes equities, cash and fixed investments like bonds (Rebalance portfolio,
2009). It essential to distribute assets of national express by understanding the level of
risk which helps investors while decision making process. Need to update about type:- Secondly, its time to understand the type of investment an
association is going to do that is either for long run or short term. It helps them in
deciding which portfolio is appropriate and provides maximum return on their
investment. Diversify:- Investors need to diversified their money or assets into various projects for
safeguarding their money from losses. Selection of funds:- After deciding allocation of resource its time to select the mode of
capital. Monitoring of decisions:- In this process, selected enterprise need to review or monitor
their project in which investment was done by them for regular update.
 Alternative tool of portfolio designing:- Investing a company fund into various areas and
focussing on diversification for minimisation of risk (Klophaus, Conrady and Fichert,
2012).
Hence, portfolio management is very much indispensable for development of national
express because it assist the managerial team while investment process by suggesting towards
corrective path.
Apart from this, according to given contextual analysis various methods for balancing
project portfolio are identified which are highlighted further:-
1. Risk vs reward model:- According to this method an association come to know about the
expected return on their investment against the uncertainty of loss (Lee, Lin and Cheng,
2013). In fact, this technique is adopted by an enterprise for assessing risk as well as
feasibility of entire assignment.
9

2. Project portfolio matrix:- It consist of various assignments which is going to introduced
by national express for gaining maximum return on investment. In fact, projects falls
under large portfolio are vary from each other in terms of expenses, size, scope and so on.
Generally, it is used by an enterprise for identifying the most profitable projects amongst
larger pool.
3. BCG matrix:- According to this tool an association get aware about the method of
allocating resources, technique of managing products and assessment of portfolio in order
to make effective decision.
4. Non-numeric model:- This method is mainly segregated into two different parts such as;
profitability and scoring. Both the modes are fully different from each other like;
measuring of project benefits are falls under profitability whereas another one is vary
from it.
Strategic alignment:- According to this term an organization is going to connect the
programmes of project with their company strategies in order to assist entire staff members
towards corrective path. Along with this, it helps an enterprise in attaining their organization
goals or targets by making effective strategy ( Narayan Dash, 2016). Moreover, it highlights the
significance of selected assignment, its vision, mission, values and objectives for gaining
maximum benefits by satisfying needs or demand of overall society.
10