Strategic Management and Business Research

This assignment covers various aspects of strategic management, including the concept of strategy, strategic development process, intended and realized strategies, and more. It also touches upon specific business cases such as Sony's recovery strategies, health and safety management systems, and enterprise architecture management.

Strategic Management
in Action

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
PATCH 1 Strategy Development process-Case-Boardroom battles at Hewlett Packard................1
Introduction.................................................................................................................................1
Strategic development infirm and approach to Emergent and intended strategies.....................3
Proposed Policy for the development of HP process..................................................................5
PATCH 2 Organising for Success-Case-One Sony.........................................................................6
Introduction.................................................................................................................................6
Firm configuration: Strategy, structure and systems...................................................................6
Strategies into action- One Sony.................................................................................................8
Designing dilemma- One Sony...................................................................................................8
PATCH 3 Leadership & Strategic Change–Case–Sergio Marchionne: Leading Change in Fiat
and Chrysler.....................................................................................................................................9
Introduction.................................................................................................................................9
Changing management and challenges-Forcefield analysis.......................................................9
Changes made by Sergio Marchionne.......................................................................................10
Levers of change which were implemented by Sergio.............................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

Illustration Index
Illustration 1: Profit level of company from year 1999 to 2011......................................................3
Illustration 2: Intended and realized strategy...................................................................................4
Illustration 3: Intended strategic development.................................................................................5
Illustration 4: Sony loss year from profit to loss .............................................................................7
Illustration 5: Strategic development process................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Strategic management is required to manage everyone in the firm to the play the role they
are assign. It supports in the betterment of the organizational performance, helps to analysing the
dynamic situation, coordinating different divisions, role and companies activities. Strategies can
be defined as the goal-directed plans (Aguinis and et.al., 2016). These are the action which skew
with its capability along with opportunities of the resources and menace in its environment.
Strategic management for an organization can be defined as the process of making the future
strategies for the firm and assigning the role of every member. Moreover, it involves the
performance analysing and appeasing the progress. For the organization it is important to have
best strategic management to achieve business success. To understand more clearly about the
topic three case study have been taken which are mentioned below. Moreover, theories and
justification are provided for completion of coursework.
PATCH 1 Strategy Development process-Case-Boardroom battles at Hewlett
Packard
Introduction
In current market competition, firm politics and conflicts in the internal structure have
become as increasing component. It has become the increasing challenges and necessity for the
organization to make efficient and efficacious strategical development process ( Bromiley and
et.al., 2015). However, according to the following case study HP lack in this process of strategic
development.
Hewlett Packard is the international public industry which provides IT consulting and
services, computer hardware and software. It was founded in the year 1939 on January 1st, more
than 78 years ago and is an American Company. It was founded by two person David Dave
Packard and William Bill Redington Hewlett. There are more than 302,000 person employed in
the company and it has also won second place in manufacturing the personal computer in market.
In 2015, it has retained 18.2% market share. In year 1998, the company was listed among top 10
among the fortune list. People have high trust on the company but during the year 2002, there
was great fall of HP, which they were unable to gain until 2012. In the year 2002, Carly Fiona
was the first external female CEO of the company. The firm which was famously known as
'godfather of Silicon Valley' was having he high sales but was unable to maintain their profits.
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For the expansion of the business, Carly was suggesting the new ways to other members
of the company. Some of the board directors who were not interested in the way of her working
leaked the information in the press (Engert, Rauter and Baumgartner, 2016). Another issues was
that HP must not change the culture which they have adopted and continued till that period while
the executive vice president, Richard Hackborn believed that the new strategic approach is the
best way to deliver the values and services to their stakeholders expectation. According to other
members, adopting changes will affect the company progress and will generate more risk. There
was great discussion which made the two ultimate decision where 51.4% people who agreed and
48.6 were against. After the final decision, the entities combined but there was great fall in the
earnings which lead to resignation of Fiorina. The main issues started when members of board
started to cheat and lie with each other. The next CEO, Mark Hurd (2005-10) had to manage the
operation at the HP. During his time the company regained the level of profit and its revenue. He
was able to handle both the companies but his cost-cutting approach made benefits to only
shareholders of the HP. However, he to resign his post in the year 2010 as he has been accused
for the sexual harassment. His resignation made public criticism and it affected the board of
directives of HP.
Leo Apotheker was assign as next CEO in October, 2010. He adopted the strategies of
Hurds but failed and lead the company to disappointment. Soon the Board of Directives
terminated him (Fleischmann and et.al., 2014). As per the study, the next CEO was Meg
Whitman(2011-15) which made the success to the organization standards. Her strategical
approach handled the problems with more ease and seemed to be working for the company until
there was fall in share price which where worse to the company.
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Strategic development infirm and approach to Emergent and intended strategies.
Identifying the current market situation is the initial task and scenario of the firm. After
that focus on the development plan and its formulation must be made. For the firm, employee
involvement plays the most crucial factor. Moreover, before project formulation there must be
consultation among the Board of Directors. Other than this, economical and political factors
must also be considered while making the strategies. It is followed by the implementation of the
process which leads to carrying out of action. Policy development process have two main parts
which are Emergent and intended strategies which are evaluated below.
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Illustration 1: Profit level of company from year 1999 to 2011
Sources: Engert, Rauter and Baumgartner, 2016

As per the case study the employee must also be consulted and their opinion must also be
considered as during the management decision. Strategic development process is necessary to
understand the economical and political which might affect or increase the efficiency of the firm.
The strategies which were implemented by the CEO of the company was their own thought
without consultation of others. They wanted to show best of themselves which affected the
company. For example, the strategies made by Leo was more focused towards the B-2-B sales
which included PC and printers. Moreover, they focused on the tablet and software business
which affected their selling of personal computers. All the methods adopted by the company was
for the betterment of the management but had impacted on their progress. Along with this, when
scheme related to acquiring the autonomy came in front of the investors it also affected the
company. Their share prices went down. Further, stakeholder were in oppose to change in
culture of HP which lead to dismissal of all CEO (Fynn and et.al., 2016). At last, the board
members continued their strategical plan, CEO's were blamed for the making changes. To
achieve the objectives of the company they must use the two strategic development process
which will lead to effective outcomes. Though, HP being known as 'Godfather of Silicon Valley',
but they too had experienced misfortune for 9 years. There was lack in the decision-making
process, strategic development and planning process due to which HP has to face many
challenges.
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Illustration 2: Intended and realized strategy
Sources: Fynn and et.al., 2016

As per the case study, the decision were taken without consideration of others such as
board of directors. For instance, they wanted the changes but were affected by CFO and COO of
the company. Action taken by Apotheker's strategic plans shows that he did not trust some of the
directors which also affected the employees and other stakeholder of the company.
Proposed Policy for the development of HP process
Implementation of the quality function deployment can be best strategy for them. For this
purpose, plans are identified and are designed as per customer preference. Also, identifying the
ways the competitors are making progress must be implemented. This will help HP to build the
projects and products which are satisfy customers as well as useful for their majority buyers.
Such things will cost the company lower price in production and will help several customers to
buy them (Galliers and Leidner, 2014).
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Illustration 3: Intended strategic development
Sources: Galliers and Leidner, 2014

PATCH 2 Organising for Success-Case-One Sony
Introduction
Sony is the international company which provides services in financials, insurance,
banking and advertising company. It is leading electronics Japanese manufacturing company.
Following report is about the 'One Sony' which is the new strategic structure development
implemented by the top management of the firm. They are adopting the changes to 'drive
improvement and development' (Gans and Ryall, 2017). Further, there is discussion regarding
the external challenges faced by the company through adopting the new strategies to achieve
their objectives. At last, implementation of strategies into action are discussed.
The new strategical approach which Sony wants to make was to reorganize all their
manufacturing at one place. This means that they wanted to combine their cellphone, computers
and tablets under same union with respect to research and development and design. For this
purpose they wanted to combine their all the hardware manufacturing in Japan. This strategy will
help them to compete the provocative market. According to case study, after joining all the
businesses they will be known as United Sony.
Firm configuration: Strategy, structure and systems.
Their major objectives is to earn profit. As per the case study, there was decline in the
level of profit of the company since 2008. Though, their competitors were getting profit and
development, the firm was still in loss (Greve, 2013). Sony was getting loss for continuous 6
years. To regain their profitability they have adopted such changes. The company decided to
appoint new CEO. Every CEO has different way of working and structure for bring off the firm.
However, their approaches failed together with them as they don not prepare it strategically. The
methods to operate an organization depends on processes, relationship and structure. There must
be co-relation and co-ordination among these operational activities. It is mostly related to
stakeholders of the organization, internally and externally. There must be connection among all.
Company's chairman and former CEO Sir H. Stinger and their relation with other foreign CEO
and local employees can be easily seen. As given in the case study that the CEO was unable to
understand the Japanese and was mostly using English for communication. This has affected him
and company progress as employees were unable to understand him and ultimately ignored his
instruction. According to result this was the partly impact which was responsible for the failure
of CEO.
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The next impact was due to the structural design. It is used for reporting, responsibilities
and assigning roles. As the complete structure was disturbed and inappropriate, implementation
of the strategies will always fail. Such activities happened in the case of Sony. The next CEO of
the company, Kazuo Hirai, they wanted to change the management structure. Under him
financials management, business strategies, technology and product strategy would be overseen.
The idea of "One Sony' was built on three structure which are digital imaging, gaming and
mobile. They replaced their consumer products and service group as well as professional device
and solution Group. This was the new structure which they wanted to implement to make
business transformation. He also wanted to divide the complete big group into 12 developing
businesses which can stand alone and run independently (Guerras-Martín, Madhok and Montoro-
Sánchez, 2014). This has resulted in the communication gap as decision in different groups were
taking long time for the agreements. Such adaptation are known as multi-divisional which are
used to operate business. To some areas they have divided the structural into 5 functional, where
every segment will perform special tasks.
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Illustration 4: Sony loss year from profit to loss
Sources: Secundo and et.al., 2015

Strategies into action- One Sony
For any organization before implementation of the strategies the company must be able
their culture, leadership and management structure. McKinsey has developed the 7s model which
helps to identify different elements related to culture of the firm. As stated by Larrañeta and et.al.
(2014) these are the non-human kind of factors which create impact on culture. Starting with the
strategies which are made to achieve goals and objectives of the company. They are also required
to gain competitive advantages and to compete the rivals. Though the firm had good structure but
they are unable to get result according to it (Reynolds, 2017). Both the CEO were failed to
produce the necessary outputs. To compete their rivals they must have changed their policies.
Along with this, the new strategics might have protected the company product from the cheap
Asian electronics product. Talking about the structure, making the 12 independent units of the
company has increased the organizational work.
Next is the shared values which is mostly accepted by the people as their belief. The
belief of organization and customers must remain the same. Sony employee's were unable to
understand their CEO and there was no communication which affected the structure. Next comes
the skills, as per the given case study the CEO's were not related to technology. Then also they
were working which was unfit for the Sony. Further, they were implementing the strategies
without considering any factors. For instance, the former CEO wants to centralized the firm, the
later one wants to makes separate position in the management (Schrettle and et.al., 2014).
Designing dilemma- One Sony
As per the case study, The formar CEO Howard Stringer wants to combine all the units,
the new CEO Hirai adopted horizontal methods. To increase their profit they should have
adopted the equilibrium between hierarchies and holistic approach.
Hierarchies vs. Network: Adopting the formal hierarchies lead to maintain action and control
them. Adopting the informal network will lead to innovation and new ideas developments. This
would lead to more revenue and profit of the company which might not be achieved by
Hierarchies model (Secundo and et.al., 2015).
Centralizing vs. decentralizing: For the product and process standardization there is need of
centralization. However, there is more flexibility in being decentralized. Due to One Sony,
everything got centralized. If they are more decentralized and flexible they could take better
decision.
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The CEO's must manage the sub-division for the firm, further they must implement the
new combination which are actually based on their belief, principles and knowledge.
PATCH 3 Leadership & Strategic Change–Case–Sergio Marchionne: Leading
Change in Fiat and Chrysler
Introduction
The automotive industries have to face major crises during the period of recession. Many
of these companies are even bailed out by the government. These companies may have to face
chaos if they are not bailout. Chrysler have adopted the management changes due to which they
do not have to bailout form the government. This might have resulted in closing of their
operation. However, for this companies the approach of Sergio Marchionne has been proved to
be new hope (Shi, Connelly and Sanders, 2016). Due to his support Fiat was able to rescue
himself and made profit within 2-years. Their support had created the management which helped
the Chrysler to nearly escape from bankruptcy and to flourish in market. Followings case study
was about the Fiat and Chrysler and changes made by Sergio Marchionne in their management to
protect them from bankruptcy. The person who supported the automotive companies during the
time of rescission in US. At first he saved Fiat from losses them Chrysler and become its CEO.
He made the company to profitability after repaying all their loans.
Changing management and challenges-Forcefield analysis.
Forcefield analysis is a decision-making skills which helps to think during the period of
pressure in for or against the decision (Shields and et.al., 2015). For example, it helps in making
the choices during the management decision or any opportunities and identifying the pros and
cons of that thing. This helps the firm to continue or adopt changes for firm development. Along
with this, it helps in analysing the challenges which are upcoming and could lead to overcome
those issues. According to this analysis in the followings case study, he had faced various
challenges while finding the solution for both the companies. For example, the CEO had to
referral the senior management which has affected the performance and operation so he laid
them off. Besides, when he joined as CEO of Chrysler, the firm had loan of more then 6B
Dollars from the government. He had effectively repaid the loan and and brought many changes
to the company. Fiat stake in Chrysler was 53.5%. Due to rescission and poor economic
conditions in EU there was fall in Fiat sales while Chrysler was having profit and its spending
rose. According to case study, Fiat was operating at 50% and in the US it was having the least
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rating. However, he intervened the US government so that the company may close-down non-
profitable and remove some of its employees (Simon, Fischbach and Schoder, 2014).
Changes made by Sergio Marchionne
He focused on the management changes which made transformation in two business. He
uplifted those companies from loss to profit. Initial changes was revolution which happened for
very short time in the firm. To complete that, various changes were made by him. For example,
he selected the multi-management styles. For the Chrysler, he selected 26 leaders who were
below the top level but they were managing the second and third level of management. These
leaders have to report directly to him which made the organisational structure flat.
Further, he adopted the changes in culture (Weiss, 2016). For this, he engaged himself
with existing factors at the company. Moreover, he adopted the methods which was used by the
previous management so that they can make changes in their product and improve them.
Besides all of this, he knew that monitoring was changes is necessary. He allotted the
clear goals and target for the staff. The major changes involved finance. There was reduction in
the prices and employment. The next changes he made was strategic direction. For this purpose
he proposed the action plan which was more strategical and precise for the company. Lastly, top
management level was changed. There was much need to referral to top management, for this he
laid them off.
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Levers of change which were implemented by Sergio
These are the action and judgement made by him which involve the employee
engagement in changing process. It requires knowledge and enthusiasm which are required
during the time of changes. It also help to remain engaged and motivated. There is great need to
modification for the development and for preventing from bailed out. This was used by him in
different ways which made his process more easier (Yorio, Willmer and Moore, 2015).
As per the case study postulates, he had underestimated the challenges. This can be
understood as it took him 4 years to develop new plan for Fiat. The next changes were in the
political and power. Due to his strategical approach, he removed all those who were against the
changes made by him. The next changes made were in operational and workaday. He made
different section and management level for better operation. Next changes was tactics. This can
be seen when he become the CEO of both the company and when he gained turn down the
performance. The last lever of change made by him are he appointed the monitoring of the
performance. He also built garden for children and grocery store outside the company. Further,
he played major role in communication and management. He was responsible for the major
changes in the company. He made the changes which are necessary for the development of the
company and protected them from being going to bankruptcy.
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Illustration 5: Strategic development process
Sources: Yorio, Willmer and Moore, 2015

CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that strategic management is very necessary while taking any action
in the organization. Without this, action taken by the company may rise or downfall the
company. Following report contains details regarding the strategic development process, ways
for organisational success, leadership and strategic changes and practise of strategies.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Engert, S., Rauter, R. and Baumgartner, R. J., 2016. Exploring the integration of corporate
sustainability into strategic management: a literature review. Journal of cleaner
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Fleischmann, A. and et. al., 2014. Subject-oriented business process management. Springer
Publishing Company, Incorporated.
Fynn, R. W. and et. al., 2016. Strategic management of livestock to improve biodiversity
conservation in African savannahs: A conceptual basis for wildlife–livestock
coexistence. Journal of Applied Ecology. 53(2). pp.388-397.
Galliers, R. D. and Leidner, D. E. eds., 2014. Strategic information management: challenges and
strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.
Gans, J. and Ryall, M. D., 2017. Value capture theory: A strategic management review. Strategic
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Greve, H. R., 2013. Microfoundations of management: Behavioral strategies and levels of
rationality in organizational action. The Academy of Management Perspectives. 27(2).
pp.103-119.
Guerras-Martín, L. Á., Madhok, A. and Montoro-Sánchez, Á., 2014. The evolution of strategic
management research: Recent trends and current directions. BRQ Business Research
Quarterly. 17(2). pp.69-76.
Larrañeta, B. and et. al., 2014. Strategic repertoire variety and new venture growth: The
moderating effects of origin and industry dynamism. Strategic Management
Journal. 35(5). pp.761-772.
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Reynolds, M., 2017. Organizing reflection. Routledge.
Schrettle, S. and et. al., 2014. Turning sustainability into action: Explaining firms' sustainability
efforts and their impact on firm performance. International Journal of Production
Economics. 147. pp.73-84.
Secundo, G. and et. al., 2015. An intellectual capital maturity model (ICMM) to improve
strategic management in European universities: A dynamic approach. Journal of
Intellectual Capital. 16(2). pp.419-442.
Shi, W., Connelly, B. L. and Sanders, W., 2016. Buying bad behavior: tournament incentives and
securities class action lawsuits. Strategic Management Journal. 37(7). pp.1354-1378.
Shields, J. and et. al., 2015. Managing Employee Performance & Reward: Concepts, Practices,
Strategies. Cambridge University Press.
Simon, D., Fischbach, K. and Schoder, D., 2014. Enterprise architecture management and its role
in corporate strategic management. Information Systems and e-Business
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Weiss, J., 2016. Trust as a key for strategic management? The relevance of council–
administration relations for NPM-related reforms in German local governments. Public
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Yorio, P. L., Willmer, D. R. and Moore, S. M., 2015. Health and safety management systems
through a multilevel and strategic management perspective: Theoretical and empirical
considerations. Safety science.72. pp.221-228.
Online
Blagdon, 2012. One Sony: Kaz Hirai presents his strategies for recovery. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/12/2943015/sony-strategy-meeting>.
[Accessed on 19th July, 2017]
Force Field Analysis-Analyzing the Pressures For and Against Change, 2017. [Online].
Available through:<https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_06.htm>.
[Accessed on 19th July, 2017]
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