Strategic Management Literature Review

This assignment involves a comprehensive review of selected academic papers focused on strategic management. You are required to analyze and synthesize the main arguments, findings, and implications from each paper, covering topics such as strategic issue identification, strategic management of innovation, project portfolio management, airline efficiency, mixed methods research, and more. The aim is to develop a deep understanding of current trends and debates in strategic management.

Strategic management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1
M.E. Porter’s (1985) model .......................................................................................................1
Swot analysis...............................................................................................................................2
Pestle Analysis............................................................................................................................4
Strategic issues............................................................................................................................5
Solution to issues.........................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
The strategic management can be simply defined as the process of identifying and
implementing various strategies that is used by managers of an organization in order to perform
better and aids in gaining a competitive advantage for their corporation (Vogel and Güttel,
2013). An industry is reflected as having the competitive advantage when its profitability is more
than average profitability of all other industries offering the same product. The present report is
based on strategic management of Sainsbury's which is located in London and comes under the
largest chain of the super market by effectively contributing with 16.9% of share in the UK
supermarket regions. The present report is explaining the Various strategies of the business and
the methods of managing this in order make more profit. The analysis of strategies are related to
several policies of business and the philosophical underpinning of certain methodology for the
strategic management of the private or public sector.
TASK
M.E. Porter’s (1985) model
Micheal Porter has given five forces of competing position model. It provides the simple
appearance for assessing as well as identifying the agonistic strength and perspective of
organization or an industry. The Sainsbury's follow the porter model in managing its business
strategies. The company hasa large number of activities (approx.. hundred or thousand) in order
to convert input into outcomes. Those activities are grouped into general category like in the
form of primary or secondary tasks that are undertaken by corporation in their businesses. As per
the view point of Porters, the primary activities are :
1. Inbound Logistics: It is nothing but the involvement of firm and its suppliers. These
includes the overall activities that is required to acquire, store and distribute inputs
(Travis and Rekhtman, 2011).
2. Operations: This is defined as all the process that is used to transform or alter the inputs
into required outputs that is nothing but goods and services.
3. Outbound logistics: It involves the complete activities that is required to gather, store
and disseminate the outputs.
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4. Marketing and sales: These are nothing but the activities that is used to inform the
consumers about products and services, attract them to purchase their generated goods as
well as assist their acquisition.
5. Service: This is the process of making correct knowledge about their product features
and reflects the services that is done by employees of corporation after selling or
delivering goods. It also includes activity to keep or store products effectively so that
there might not be occurrence of loss.
The secondary activities are following:
1. Procurement: It is nothing but the acquisition of raw materials that is used in venture.
2. Human Resource Management: It includes all the activities like recruitment, hiring,
training and development of new comers. It maintains the talent in order to increase
productivity and profitability of corporation (Swayne and et. al., 2012).
3. Technological development: It consists of all the equipment, hardware and software
elements that are used in firm to make the improvement in work quality. It also includes
procedures and knowledge related to technology so that the inputs are transformed into
output very easily in ventures.
4. Infrastructure: It gives services to company in order to fulfil the basic requirements.
Also it ties up all the parts of corporation together. It involves various departments like
accounting, financing, planning, public transaction, relationship with government, the
assurance of quality and general management of strategies included in company.
The Sainsbury's does the policy analysis by the help of swot and pestle analysis that is
discussed below:
Swot analysis
It can be defined as a technique to identify the strength, weakness, threats and future
opportunities of enterprise. The swot analysis of the Sainsbury's is listed below:
 Strength: The corporation is famous for their branding as they offer the best products in
retail market. The business of this company is mainly done in United Kingdom only so
they easily focus on their development in a single country. On the contrary, the
corporation like Tesco, Asda, etc. has their stores in several other countries (Priem and et.
al., 2012). Hence, they are not able to give their proper focus as they have to manage all
their production in other nations. This is an advantage for Sainsbury as it increases its
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profit by 9%. This shows that they are giving their best in selling and developing their
productivities. The company has a large number of employees so the working of
manufacturer is performed at faster rate than other competitors.
They out performed in developing their own brand in relation to other and as a fruitful
result they are rewarded by the Own Labour Brand of the Year in the awards of grocer gold. The
company has very loyal relationship with their clients as they make their delivery at the allocated
time. Also it offers the best quality products at valid prices so their selling increases. They
effectively perform their partnership with the Nectar in the form of nectar card schemes. This
aids in addressing loyalty and shopkeepers acquire credit from their customers. There are approx
12 million users in Nectar card scheme. These all are the strength of the company.
 Weakness: While the Sainsbury's plays a vital role in giving the competition in retail
marketing, Tesco dominates the marketing of retailer sector consisting the 30% share of
the market. It earns closely twice the turnover of this corporation. So, the company
remain at the second position (Molina-Azorin, 2012). This is due to several reasons like
lack of advertisement, Tesco deals with other schemes of distribution. The company have
to invest more on doing its advertisement so that its product will be known not only by
people of UK but also the population of other nations of world. This impacts positively
on the turnover of the corporation.
The major weakness of the Sainsbury's is that it only perform its marketing in UK , On
the other hand their main competitors are spreading their business in all over globe and
effectively achieving success in their business as they have a large number of customers.
Because of this venture do not understand the current trends of market as well the environment in
which they have to operate their businesses and remains back in the queue of giving successful
performance. The continuously rise in prices of food in all over world negatively influences the
firm as they have also to sell their goods at higher prices so that they do not suffers from loss.
But consumers do not get satisfied from that prices and they will not purchase those food items
as some of the poor section of society do not afford this.
 Opportunities: As the corporation establishes their relationship from large number of
customers, they can take advantage of this by selling more goods on the occasion of
certain festivals like Christmas, new year party, etc. (Merkert and Hensher, 2011). In
these months the selling automatically increases and as a result it positively impacts the
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overall turnover or gross income of enterprise. The Sainsbury's had recently launched a
long hour film that makes it more popular among the people. The visitors watch this film
in a large number as well as different famous celebrities has given their comments on the
social media like twitter and spread or make viral the important part of video. The
corporation has another chance to make another film and gaining the popularity among
society in the upcoming days. Recently, organisations have received award of Brand of
the year. This strengthen potential of business and as a result their successful story is
recognised by not only their old clients but it also attracts a large amount of new
customers.
 Threats: The enterprise faces a major problem related to competitors as Tesco has twice
share in the market and this causes a reduction in profit of Sainsbury. There are certain
other companies that plays role of competitors against the corporation and negatively
impacts somehow the selling of enterprise. Hence, the company ought to take some
innovative steps and producer something unique so that consumers prefer their products
more in relation to their competitors. As venture is offering online selling of products,
this creates other problems like cyber-crime or attacks. The useful data present on
network get leaked causes a loss for firm.
Pestle Analysis
The pestle analysis of the Sainsbury is listed below:
 Political factors: The political factors have been greatly influence the marketing policies
of enterprise. The government reduces the tax range from 30% to 28% that is proved to
be very beneficial for this industry to save a large amount of revenue (Keupp and et. al.,
2012.). The corporation invests this money on advertisement and customer care services.
While sometimes government changes and the new one imposes a greater amount of
taxation like income tax. This negatively affects profitability of firm as most of money
goes only in paying taxes.
 Economical factor: Global crises of food results in rise of food prices. It influences
badly the profitability of organisations as due to this corporation has to increase their
prices of their product. Their purchasing as well as cost of production got enhanced.
 Social factor: The venture should introduce new recipes so that the food gets cooked
easily in less time. The consumer now focuses to eat fresh and healthy foods as they
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become more conscious bout their health (Killen and et. al., 2012). According to survey
of health department, rate of obesity has been increasing day by day. Because of this
government of UK concentrates more on eating healthy food items rather than junk
foods. This provides an opportunity to Sainbury's to do manufacturing of healthier foods
at cheat rates in comparison to their competitors.
 Technological factor: The company uses new methodologies that are based on internet
in doing the advertising more effectively. Also, online shopping is provided by
corporation which is done with the help of modern technology.
 Environmental factor: The environment affects negatively as well as positively the
business trend of firm. It is major goal of corporation to reduce carbon foot print and they
are doing so. The raw materials are easily provided by environment like food grains, oils,
spices, vegetables, fruits, etc. at lower prices benefits the company.
 Legal factor: As per law of food and drinks are changes by time, enterprise has to focus
on improving their packaging and labelling. Due to this large of budget invest on this
only.
Strategic issues
Strategic issues are defined as those issues that are faced by company in process of
manufacturing goods and following the schemes of strategies. This should be resolved by taking
care of goal of organisation. The issues related to strategies of the Sainsbury's are discussed
below:
 Risk: The corporation has a major issue of risks generation. As they launchs their
innovative product without testing it. The some of the food items are not packed properly
because of this the goods present under those packets are not remain in a such a condition
that can be used (Hitt and et. al., 2012). Sometimes, salt or sugar present in access
amount in the foot items causing a bad taste of them and because of this selling will
gradually decreases after one sell only. So, the test and risk handing group of enterprise
should check their manufacturing so that all goods consist of good quality.
 Taxes: Several taxes imposed by the government body causes a big problem for
company as it have to invest more only on paying these taxes (Hodgkinson and Healey,
2011).
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 Technological risk: As the company is doing its certain activities like advertisement,
selling their goods, etc. on the network, the cyber roam crimes has been increases causes
leaking of relevant information of the company profile. The important data and
sometimes theft of money is also done. This causes a major loss of revenue as well as it
creates negative image he brand.
 Vision of success: The goal of Sainsbury's is not being achieved as it not at first position
in market. This is because the company performs its business in only UK. They do not
expand their businesses in other countries. Hence, the aims of this corporation is not
acquired.
 Competitors: The company faces a great problem in dealing from their competitors like
Tsco, Asda, etc. These corporations are offering the same products as they are producing.
This divides or minimizes their users and as a result their selling rates decreases. Other
firms are doing business in more than one places so their profitability increases
effectively. The other ventures are offering healthy and cheap goods than Sainsbury's.
This creates a negative business environment for enterprise.
 Environmental issues: Sometimes, environment plays a negative role by lowering the
turnover of company. The random change in weather like too hot temperatures causes a
loss of consumers as they visit in very less number to the shops. The goods also get
wasted due to this and company suffers a great loss. As after this weather, firm has to
create those products again. This causes an investment more money on the same
production.
 Strategic focus: The employees of the company are not focussed towards their strategies
of business so that their productivities increases. The workers are only developing the
products but not concentrates on the objective that have to be achieved.
 Culture modifications: The alteration in the culture and ethics of society badly impacts
this firm. The people sometimes focus only on dairy products as they are proved to be
healthier than other food items. Some of the society do not prefer meat or eggs due to too
hot in the city. Because of this these type of products gets wasted and a loss of money is
created. The junk food causes problems of obesity in most part of country, due to this
society stop using those fatty or oily products and now purchase more light diets like
cereals, pulses, milk, etc.(Hitt, 2011).
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 Resource limitations: As there are many companies that are producing same food items
because of this the raw materials are going diminished from the market. This causes a
major problem for venture as they face problems in purchasing good quality raw
materials. This crises of materials enhances the prices of them and now corporation has to
pay more on only purchasing raw foods (Hill and et. al., 2014). Then, the left money is
used in manufacturing and giving wages to their employees. The company has now no
money for their advertisement and doing customer care services.
 Lack of advertisement: The Sainsbury shows its poor performance in field of
advertisement. They invest a little on this, due to this less number of people recognises
their new products. And as a result selling of company lowers and causing a decrease in
overall turnover of enterprise. There are so many complaints of their customers but are
not addresses by employees and no improvement in their product is done. This creates a
dis -satisfaction in the users. And if consumers do not receive perceived value then they
do not purchase again their products.
 Joint ventures: The company has many partners because of this they do not get total
profit of their products. Their money gets divided in different shareholders as they invest
in this production. Other issue created when the partners become not loyal towards
corporation. They consume most of money produced by enterprise alone. This is very
large problem of business.
Solution to those issues
The solutions of the above listed issues are described below:
 Firewalls: In order to control cyber-crime, Sainbury's have to use firewalls around their
website. This restricts the unauthorized persons or intruders to hack relevant information
of company. This uses the method of encryption and decryption where the private keys
are provided to senders as well as receiver so that no unknown users may receive the
important messages (Hair and et. al., 2012). The threats like worms, viruses, etc. can also
be avoided by using certain anti viruses in systems or software of employees.
 Expanding business: The company ought to spread their businesses in other countries or
approx all over globe so that the number of consumers increases but corporation have to
identify different choices as their customers are of different nature (David, 2011). For
example, some users like south Indian foods while others like western food. So, to avoid
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these conflicts they have to focus separately on different demands of their clients. The
enterprise should make partnership from abroad countries so that their task of
manufacturing is performed easily and quality products are created.
 Focus on advertisement: The firm ought to focus more on advertisement. This can be
done by taking help of social media, television channels, street plays, posters, etc. (Boyd
and et. al., 2012) The actors and actresses are used to advertise their products by saying
positive things. This attracts a large of people towards their product. This effectively
increase their selling and improves their profitability. The enterprise should also give
importance to customer acre services by solving issues of their users. These problems can
be solved on phone calls only but sometimes physical meeting or face to face interaction
should perform so that issues can be resolved.
 Focus on strategy: The head of the Corporation should give training to their employees
by explaining their aims and objectives (Ackermann and Eden, 2011). It should be smart
and real so that can be achieved practically. The workers should provide training to
manufacture the products as per the view of their consumers. Hence, by this productivity
of corporation increases.
CONCLUSION
From the above based report, it has been concluded that strategic management are those
schemes that are used in a corporation in order to improve their profitability as well as their
productivity. The pestle and swot analysis of Sainbury's are examined and indicates that there are
certain factors like political, environmental, technological, economical, social and legal that
influences positively as well as negatively the business aspects of enterprise. Some of the
solution are provided regarding this such as use of firewalls, expanding the business in other
countries, focusing on aims and objectives of corporation, doing more advertisement process and
also taking care of customer services by resolving their issues. Porters five model are explained
where the primary and secondary activities are discussed.
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REFERENCES
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