Strategic Management: Leadership and Strategy, Analysis Assignment

This document presents a comprehensive analysis of strategic management principles, addressing key concepts such as sustainable competitive advantage, competitive inertia, and strategic dissonance. It delves into situational analysis, including SWOT, Porter's five forces, and PESTEL analysis, to evaluate the external business environment. The assignment explores the BCG matrix for product portfolio development, grand strategies for organizational growth, and Porter's five forces for identifying external threats. It also examines positioning and adaptive strategies, including defending, prospectors, analyzers, and reactors. The document further discusses the importance of strategy implementation, change management, and corporate strategy for risk minimization. It concludes with a discussion on direct competition and strategies for maintaining market share, providing a well-rounded overview of strategic management concepts and their practical applications. The assignment is contributed by a student to be published on the website Desklib, a platform which provides all the necessary AI based study tools for students.

Running head: STRATEGY: THE BIG PICTURE
STRATEGY: THE BIG PICTURE
Name of the Student
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1STRATEGY: THE BIG PICTURE
Table of Contents
Answer 1:.........................................................................................................................................2
Answer 2:.........................................................................................................................................2
Answer 3:.........................................................................................................................................2
Answer 4:.........................................................................................................................................3
Answer 5:.........................................................................................................................................3
Answer 6..........................................................................................................................................4
Answer 7..........................................................................................................................................4
Answer 8:.........................................................................................................................................5
Answer 9..........................................................................................................................................5
Answer 10........................................................................................................................................6
Answer 11........................................................................................................................................6
Answer 12........................................................................................................................................6
Answer 13........................................................................................................................................7
Answer 14........................................................................................................................................7
Reference.........................................................................................................................................8

2STRATEGY: THE BIG PICTURE
Answer 1:
The main purpose of the implementation of the sustainable competitive advantage is to
ensure most use of the resources that are available with the same. Following are the four
conditions for sustainable competitive advantage:
1) Having high value for the products that is capable of providing effectiveness and
efficiency
2) The products also must be rare that will ensure no other rival will have the products.
3) The products also need to be 100% perfect and genuine so that it is not possible duplicate
the same. This can be achieved by ensuring the implementation of the patent laws.
4) The resource also needs to be non-substitutable so that it is not easily accessible to the
rival brands (Kadir et al., 2018).
Answer 2:
The idea of competitive inertia is based upon the principles that most of the successful
companies are not able change due to the internal resistance. The mangers of the companies are
not able to incorporate new ideas and develop the idea of sustainability. In order to implement
the strategy of competitive inertia, it is essential for the managers at the top level to implement
the ideas. On the other hand, the strategic dissonance is caused by the conflicts between the top
and bottom level of management. Its main purpose is to bring about change within the
organization.
Answer 3:
With the help of situational analysis, it is possible to analyze the external market
environment of an industry (Pike & Page, 2014). Marketing tools like SWOT can be used to

3STRATEGY: THE BIG PICTURE
analyze the internal strength and weakness of a company. There is also the tool of Porter’s five
force and PESTEL analysis that can be used to make most use of the external business
environment and use the same for making best types of business strategies.
Answer 4:
It is the duty of the strategic groups within an organization to make most use of the
external business organizations. It is their duty to collect proper evidence from the market in
order to implement the best marketing strategy. It is their duty to properly analyze the marketing
environment and make prediction about the future changes. It is also the duty make most use of
the competitive advantage environment to maximize the sales volume.
Answer 5:
The BCG matrix is used as a growth share matrix that is develop the portfolio for a
product. According to the matrix the business unit of a company can be divided four categories
(Palia et al., 2014).
 Dogs: Under this category a company has low market share and hence, it is challenging
to generate high cash flow.
 Question Marks: Here the company has the potential to develop rapidly and thereby
have the capability to make high level of market share.
 Stars: The company will now develop and gain significant competitive advantage. It is
also essential to maintain high level of market share.
 Cash cow: In this stage the organizational leaders becomes more mature. The company
can now expect high return on the assets that were being spent during the initial stage.

4STRATEGY: THE BIG PICTURE
Answer 6
The main purpose of grand strategy is to fulfill and define the path for long-term
organizational growth. There are three kinds of grand strategy that includes:
 Growth: Here the purpose of the business strategy to increase the sales volume and
thereby increase the level of profit margin.
 Stability: Here the main purpose of the strategy is to maintain the level of sales and
market share.
 Recovery: In this case the aim of the strategy is to recover from any financial loss,
where the company is able to make best use of the available resources and opportunity
Answer 7
The porter’s five force can be used to identify all forms of external threats in business
environment:
1) Threat from supplier
2) Threat from the bargaining power of the supplier
3) Threat from the substitute products
4) Threat from Competitive Rivalry
5) Threat from new entrants

5STRATEGY: THE BIG PICTURE
Answer 8:
The main purpose of the positioning strategy is to ensure that a company is able to
maintain their market share in an industry. It is also possible to implement sustainable
competitive market environment. On the other hand, the main purpose of the adaptive strategy is
to implement strategy for the development of sustainable growth and development. This is aimed
to deal with all types of adverse situations that are faced by the organization.
Answer 9
The different types of adaptive strategy include:
 Defending: This strategy aims to have a sustainable growth and provide offer for limited
period.
 Prospectors: The aim is to develop fast progress and high level of profit in the business.
It also aims to capture new market share within the industry. It is also essential to
implement innovative style of marketing.
 Analyzers: Here the aim is to develop new style of marketing that can maintain a balance
between the product’s prospect and defending strategy.
 Reactors: Here consistent strategy are not being followed. The rectors believe that profit
can be made by implementing change within the business market environment (Ahearne
et al., 2014). Nevertheless, the major issues in this case is due to the high levels of risks
that are involved in the given matter.

6STRATEGY: THE BIG PICTURE
Answer 10
It is essential for all business firms to ensure about the fact that strategy for competitive
advantage are being implicated. It is also essential for organizations to procure their resources.
This was not done in the case of videocassette recorders as they were not able to meet the
demand of the customers, thereby losing competitive advantage. It is also essential for the
business firms to provide products at cheaper rate without compromising the quality of the
products.
Answer 11
In the process of strategy making, competitive inertia and dissonance can be maintained
by the process change management. This change can be implemented by modifying the style of
leadership by the managers. It is also essential to deal with all types of resistance that prevents
change within the organization. It is the duty of the top managers to deal with the take initiate
and implement the change within the organization (Chen & Miller, 2015).
Answer 12
The main purpose of the corporate strategy is to minimize all forms of risks that are
involved in the business. Hence, the strategy will help in the matters of dealing with the risk
identification. It can also suggest business plan that will help to reduce the business risks. It also
involves the process of cash flow and aim to reduce the risks margin involved in the business.

7STRATEGY: THE BIG PICTURE
Answer 13
The five force of competition analysis initiated by the Michael Porter will help in the
matters of identifying all types of business environment. This can help to identify all forms of
barriers that are involved in the business. As there are five major types of threats that can hamper
the business, it is essential to identify the main source of risks.
Answer 14
The mode of direct competition can be defined as a situation, where two or more business
firms can offer same types of products or service (Mirrahimi et al., 2014). The main strategy for
the direct competition is to deliver a message to the public about superior quality compared to
that of their rivals. Companies directly compare their products by detail analysis of the product
features.

8STRATEGY: THE BIG PICTURE
Reference
Ahearne, M., Lam, S.K. and Kraus, F., 2014. Performance impact of middle managers' adaptive
strategy implementation: The role of social capital. Strategic Management Journal,
35(1), pp.68-87.
Chen, M. J., & Miller, D. (2015). Reconceptualizing competitive dynamics: A multidimensional
framework. Strategic Management Journal, 36(5), 758-775.
Kadir, A. R. A., Aminallah, A., Ibrahim, A., Sulaiman, J., Yusoff, M. F. M., Idris, M. M., ... &
Malek, Z. A. (2018). The Influence of Intellectual Capital and Corporate
Entrepreneurship Towards Small and Medium Enterprises’(SMEs) Sustainable
Competitive Advantage: Building a Conceptual Framework. In Proceedings of the 2nd
Advances in Business Research International Conference (pp. 67-77). Springer,
Singapore.
Mirrahimi, S., Perthame, B., & Wakano, J. Y. (2014). Direct competition results from strong
competition for limited resource. Journal of mathematical biology, 68(4), 931-949.
Palia, A. P., De Ryck, J., & Mak, W. K. (2014). Interactive Online Strategic Market Planning
With the Web-based Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix Graphics Package.
Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, 29.
Pike, S., & Page, S. J. (2014). Destination Marketing Organizations and destination marketing: A
narrative analysis of the literature. Tourism management, 41, 202-227.