Detailed Strategic Management Analysis of Virgin Group Essay

This essay provides a comprehensive strategic management analysis of the Virgin Group, a diversified British multinational corporation. It examines the company's background, market position, and competitive strategies, including its use of STP (Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning) and SWOT analysis. The essay explores the company's strengths, such as its global presence and skilled IT professionals, while also addressing weaknesses like communication gaps and outdated machinery. It delves into the opportunities for expansion and innovation, as well as threats from competitors and changing market dynamics. The analysis covers Virgin Group's CSR initiatives, risk management strategies, and the role of innovation in its operations. The essay highlights the leadership of Richard Branson, the company's ethical considerations, and its approach to corporate governance, providing a holistic view of Virgin Group's strategic management practices and their impact on its business performance. The essay also offers a glimpse into the competitive landscape, including rivals like BT Group, Sky, and Vodafone.

Strategic management

ESSAY
Market is changing periodically giving rise to competition and challenges. In business
sector, it is important to focus on strategic management as because it helps in accomplishing of
goals as well objectives. Virgin Group, a British multinational corporation headquartered in UK.
The firms deal in diversified products such as banking, books, aviation, films, health care,
internet etc. This report comprises of company background, market position, SWOT Analysis,
country market size and scope, innovation & strategic innovation, CSR, governance and ethics.
Virgin Group is diversified company, headquartered in UK. It was founded by Sir
Richard Branson in 1970 (Ardley,Taylor and Hardwick, 2020). It is located globally with its
large portfolio which also leads to wider strong customer base of firm. The company have
complex structure because of its global accessed market that includes conglomerates & Kiretsu.
They are known for their high quality of goods and services with string competitive strategy.
Virgin Group analyse their market positioning with of carrying out STP which is a
marketing approach and is elaborated as segmentation, targeting and positioning. Segmentation
refers to process of segmenting the market on the basis of variables such as demographic, psycho
graphic etc. In relevance with chosen entity, they focus on perfect competition market and
segment their market on basis of all types of variables which makes them differentiate form their
competitors. In targeting this, market is targeted on the basis of factors like market which
provide better ROI, less competition etc. They target their market of customers of 12-45 age
people. Positioning refers to creating image in minds of customers. In relevance with chosen
entity, they have positioned their brand as premium brand in market.
Main strength of company is that it is globally located which makes it is easier for them
to access large number of customers. Further, they have high skilled IT professional which help
them in increasing their level of efficiency. Due to their global based business, it is difficult for
them to manage and maintain proper supervision. This affects the production level and work
environment this firm, there is wider communication gap between each branch which also slows
down working/ operational activities at larger scale. In many countries, they have poor
transportation facilities which negatively affect their goodwill (Denoncourt, 2020). Also, they
use outdates machinery as well as vehicles which leads to conflicts, errors. With stable business,
Virgin Group has opport6ubity to expand their activities at overseas through which they can
generate more profit. Another opportunity is that with improvement in their technology &

machines they will be able to access more new ideas for development. With rise of competition
in market, its competitors strategy of dominating market can leads to a big problem for business
of Virgin Group. Further, with changing government rules and regulation, company have to
keep updates their leadership style so top increase sustainability period.
When learning about competitors of Virgin group BT group stands to be one of the top rivals of
company. BT group is a telecommunications company and when comparing to that of Virgin
Group it is generating $7.4B more revenues than it. Sky and Vodafone are other competitors of
Virgin. Sky being its competitor in Movies and Entertainment and Vodafone again in
telecommunications services.
Richard Branson has successfully set up company to be on top position and is one of the
major resources for company. The leadership and business style of Sir Richard have led the
company to new heights. Also the human resource of company is trained in such a way that they
are providing success to company (Benjamin, 2018). The brand image that is created for Virgin
group is providing it with competitive advantages and the competitors find it difficult to copy the
business format this way. The policy applied by Richard Branson in his business under which
creativity is encouraged by managers make employees more responsible and dedicated towards
the organisation. The recruitment in organisation is paid focus to base on critical competitive
nature as well as team work abilities.
The company effectively uses strategies in which it focuses on attracting new customers.
The branding in company is allowing customers to effectively attract consumers and repeatedly
pursuing the products and services of company. It is also seen that due to a number of brands
under a similar group company requires huge investment in promotional activities. The name tag
of Virgin however makes it possible for the organisation to effectively advertise products at the
time of its launch. All the companies of Virgin group are basically divided into five pillars.
These five pillars stand for travel, leisure, entertainment retailing, personal finance as well as
mobile phones. Sir Richard is participating in all the marketing activities of company actively to
make it a success. This gesture of his is certainly earning profits for company.
When considering the external environment of company there are a number of factors
affecting company. There are a number of companies in which Virgin group deals due to which
it is important for company to follow the rules and regulations of each country it is dealing into.
There can also be political interference in functions of company especially in the financial

matters due to unclear reports with a number of firms. The economic factors such as global
recession are also affecting company highly. Other than this various fluctuations in the market
can also affect the strategy of business due to which Virgin group is required to create a strategy
that is flexible enough. Company needs to focus upon social conditions of different countries and
situations in order to successfully operate in those regions (George and et. al., 2019). The
software up gradation of company is regularly needed in order to deal with the changing
technological environment. However there are huge investments required by company for
dealing with these up gradation.
When looking at competitive rivalry of company in market company have huge
competitors but the high fixed cost and the rate of market growth is effectively helping company
to deal with it. When considering the threat from substitutes the company have to face price wars
with a number of companies. Bargaining power of buyers for Virgin group is always high as
company is affectively working on various models in order to bring benefits to customer and
fulfil all their requirements. Due to this they have to agree upon terms of consumers. On the
other hand, the buying power of suppliers is low as there are a number of suppliers for virgin
group present in market. With the help of these company generates a power of bargaining over
their suppliers. The threat of new entrants in the market is not a concern for Virgin group as the
huge investment that company have made makes it difficult for new entrants to develop such
business.
In order to give back to society there are a number of efforts put in by Virgin Group and
Richard Branson. Virgin group is partnering with WHOLE EARTH Water. In this agreement
virgin group is affectively filtering and bottling water and donating it in order to reduce the
scarcity of water. The company is also effectively fulfilling four pillars of social responsibility
under this they are effectively fulfilling their economic, legal, ethical as well as philanthropic
responsibilities towards the society (Bruijl, 2018). The company is earning profits with the help
of which they can fulfil their responsibilities. In order to fulfil legal pillar they are paying taxes
and following all the rules and regulations set up by government. They are also providing fair
chances to employees and practising fair practices to obligate by their ethical responsibility. In
order to do so they are donating 500 plane tickets to NGO's, they donated £250,000 to various
travel foundations, they sent over 1200 ideas to Virgin Earth Challenge, provided 30000 hours of

volunteering for Virgin Mobile Festival. These are some of Corporate social responsibility
activities that have been undertaken by company.
Richard Branson pays major focus on developing an organisation where ethical norms are
given importance. He have agreed that at some point of time company was involved in some
unethical practices due to which company had to face repercussions ans now evading taxes or
giving bribes is not agreed upon by this businessman. In order to manage risks company are
taking a number of different approaches as well these includes, Long term planning for growth,
independent operations in company, looking for product growth & innovation, calculating risk
company wise, financing into new ventures etc. All these steps have effectively helped Virgin
group to manage the risks arriving for business. However, even after such strategies to manage
Risks Company had to face some problems as Virgin group have always been brand dependent
on Branson (Goedekes and Fogliasso, 2020). The sustainability of company is highly dependent
on him. Other than this company have also faced cash crunch which have brought attention
towards financial department of company. It is therefore important for company to now focus
upon its reserves which can be used at times of difficulties.
Innovation is an important part of the organisation because it helps the firm in developing
new and innovative methods which can be used for increasing the productivity as well as
satisfying and needs and requirements of the customer. Innovation is directly related to bringing
the productivity within the firm as well as minimising the wastage of resources by using
innovative methods and techniques in production of products and services of the firm as well as
improving its customer satisfaction. In relation to virgin group, the management staff of the
organisation always focused on bringing innovative ideas as well as fulfilling its responsibilities
towards the innovation and development within the organisation. for development of innovative
ideas for tools and techniques as well as production methods and customer relationships
organisation use separate research and development department which health in improving the
innovation level within the firm as well as bringing new and develop technology so that it can
perform at fuller efficiency by using resources in an efficient way.
Richard Branson always focuses on bringing Innovation and development within the
organisation where he follows the four components of success in relation to innovation. These
components are focus on customers have fun increase benefits of competition for everyone and
be optimistic. Grandson always believes that innovation can be derived within the organisation

by employing talented staff members who can easily focus on customers. Company always use a
strict recruitment program where different kind of test related to mental ability Innovation and
critical thinking of the individual will be identified so that the level of innovation can be
maintained within the firm by bringing talented employees on a particular job (Prieto, Phipps
and Kungu, 2020).
In the current business environment Branson has launched more than 400
entrepreneurship ventures in a particular sector of food and innovation where these are also
ranging from airlines to hotels from telephones to bank and even race outlets. Richard Branson
always invests in innovative organisations where the concept of the firm must be innovative as
well as transform the whole industry by its concept and operations. In the latest investment made
by branch soon he decided to invest within the food sectors where a vegetarian and
environmentalist has focus on start-ups who is famous for producing meat in the lab from the
cells collected from A selection of high-quality cattle and pigs (Duncan, 2020 ).
In the end, it can be concluded that virgin group is performing at a battery level within
the industry where it is trading this is because the contribution made by Richard Branson as well
as their effective decision making ability and other skills which helped the virgin group to reach
at the plane of the industry in which they are working. Organisation is using continuous
improvement process as well as various kinds of strategies which helped the group in
establishing a separate market image as well as fulfilment of corporate social responsibility is
and innovation concept had the organisation and attracting customers and maintaining the
position within the market to eliminate the competition from its direct competitors.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Bruijl, G.H.T., 2018. Sir Richard Branson: A Global Leader with a Difference. Available at
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George, E.S. and et. al., 2019. The effect of high-polyphenol extra virgin olive oil on
cardiovascular risk factors: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Critical reviews in
food science and nutrition, 59(17), pp.2772-2795.
Goedeke, M.J. and Fogliasso, C., 2020. Is CSR Becoming a Corporate Requirement?. Journal of
Managerial Issues, 32(2).
Prieto, L.C., Phipps, S.T. and Kungu, K., 2020. Facilitating a culture of intrapreneurship: an
employee involvement approach. Strategic HR Review.
Duncan, S., 2020. There is no planet B for business: environmentally conscious. HR
Future, 2020(Jan 2020), pp.20-21.
Denoncourt, J., 2020. Companies and UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 9 Industry,
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Ardley, B., Taylor, N. and Hardwick, J., 2020. Developing entrepreneurial marketing
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