MOD000978 - Decision Making & Problem Solving: Business Development

This report provides an analysis of decision-making and problem-solving within a sportswear-retailing company operating across Spain, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The company aims to enhance profitability through business development, considering three potential ideas: expanding into the Indian market, developing celebrity-endorsed product lines, and pursuing product diversification and expansion. The report delves into the issues associated with each development plan, including political, economic, cultural, and technological challenges for entering India; costs, competition, and celebrity credibility for endorsement deals; and market knowledge and management complexities for product diversification. Factors such as cost, wealth maximization, risk, long-term advantage, and management are considered to justify investment decisions. Ultimately, the report favors international expansion as the most viable option, emphasizing strategic implementation through communication, structural organization, policy development, resource allocation, and performance control, while also addressing potential implementation issues like resistance to change and legal concerns. Desklib offers more solved assignments and past papers for students.

DECISION MAKING AND
PROBLEM SOLVING
(STUDENT NAME)
DATE: 11/21/18

INTRODUCTION
• The sportswear-retailing company with multi cultural human capital
from three countries that are Spain, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
• The company is selling their 50 percent production through the store
and remaining fifty percent through online
• The company main objective is to grow and enhance its profitability. For
which two business development ideas were there
• Another third suitable business development idea is also included
• The best option among the three development plans will be selected

TWO AVAILABLE BUSINESS
DEVELOPMENT IDEAS
DEVELOPMENT 1
• Expanding company by entering into
new international market
• The chosen market to enter is India
• One of the major reason for steady
growth is Saturation of existing market
• Targeting new market will increase
growth opportunity for the company
DEVELOPMENT 2
• Development of celebrity endorsed
lines of clothing or footwear
• These will be traded through online
or retail outlets
• To influence new customer, and
brand awareness, this could be
result into growth of the company

DEVELOPMENT 1 ISSUES
• While entering into a new country, there are various
aspects and issue that need to considered and need to
face by a company
• To enter into India, the issue could be the issues related to
environmental factors of India like political issues,
economic issues, cultural difference, and technological
issues(howandwhat.net, 2018)
• These issues would be discussed further in detail

POLITICAL ISSUE
Political factors while investing in India include:
• Political environment of country is largely affected by policies
of government, ideologies of various political parties, interests
of politician
• Stable political environment
• High level of corruption
• Corruption is the major issue to be considered under this aspect
• As corruption increases, operating cost of the company
increases(export.gov, 2018)

ECONOMIC ISSUES
• Economic factors of country
are:
• GDP of India was $2.4 trillion
and its expected to grow to
7.4% by 2020 according to
world bank group
• Tax – corporate tax in the
country is thirty percent, it
could be one of the issue for
company to invest.
(Source: (tradingeconomics, 2018)

ECONOMIC ISSUES
• Unemployment rate –
this is another major
issue, as unemployment
rate of India is very high
• From the figure it can be
said that the
unemployment rate has
drastically increased
(Source: (tradingeconomics, 2018)

CULTURAL DIFFERENCE
• The culture of India is one of the
major factor that influence
investment decision for a country
• Residents of India are very
influence towards religion,
believes, and values and are very
particular about them.
• Harming or influencing their
culture is one of the major concern
for company to trade into India
• Multicultural country, different religion
are having different cultural values
• Language- the first main language is
Hindi, and second language is English.
• Nevertheless, there are around 1652
languages used in country based of
individual religion
• For example, cow meat is believed like
crime in the country. Due to which
McDonalds failed in the country
(commisceo-global, 2018)

CULTURAL DIFFERENCE
• A real life example in sportswear
company is convers, it fails because
pictures of god were printed on the shoes
• In 2010, the company launches a range
of products with god pictures in India
• As per the culture of the country, god or
goddess picture cannot be touched by
foot
• Religion are center of life for residents of
country (indiatvnews, 2018) (Source: indiatvnews, 2018)

TECHNOLOGICAL ISSUES
• Technological aspect is another issue
that affect the investment decision.
• This include factors like,
transportation industry,
infrastructure, technological disrupts,
rate of technological
diffusion(transformingindia.mygov.in,
2018)
• For product offering and reaching out
to the customer, technology plays an
important role
• In India, the transportation has been
improved since many years, like taxi
industry is also improved.
• One of the issue is, infrastructure
majorly in rural areas. The road
connectivity is still an issue in
Country’s rural area
• Technological acceptance, it is
another issue, people are not
quickly adaptable to new technology
in the country

DEVELOPMENT 2 ISSUES
The issues or factors considered while
introducing product line of celebrity
endorsing:
Cost to the company
Competition
Long term commitment
Creditability of celebrity
Constant monitoring
Brand over endorser

COST TO THE COMPANY
• Collaboration with celebrity will
increase the cost to the
company
• Cost includes payment to
celebrity, and marketing cost,
which will eventually increase
the price for customers
• The return to the investment
must be considered before
investing in such a
collaboration, otherwise it can
be issue to the investing brand
COMPETITION
• Now a days, this marketing strategy
has become common. Many
companies are using this strategy for
growth
• The completion has increased within
this strategy as well, the real life
example ion sportswear industry is
Nike.
• Nike and Michal Jordan collaboration
was one of the successful collaboration
in 2017(martinroll, 2018)
• For gaining this opportunity, this factor
must be kept in mind

LONG TERM
COMMITMENT
• Collaboration with celebrity
needs consistency and
commitment for a long period of
time
• This could be one of the issue
while investing in the
development opportunity
• In case company and brand
endorser are not able to maintain
consistency, the loss had to be
bared by both the parties,
especially to the company
CREDITABILITY OF
CELEBRITY
• Another issue is celebrity’s
creditability, while collaborating
with a specific celebrity.
• The company is dependable on
the image and creditability of the
endorser for trading of the goods
• The success and failure of the
product depends of endorser
attractiveness
• Therefore, to gain advantage of
this opportunity, the selection of
celebrity must be careful

CONSTANT MONITORING
• Collaboration with celebrity needs
a constant monitoring over the
endorses image in public
• Since the company’s product line is
majorly depend upon the celebrity
and its attractiveness, the behavior
of the celebrity is to be monitored
• Moreover, the negative publicity
potential has to be monitored and
minimized timely, otherwise it will
influence the product line sale, and
eventually result into loss to the
company
BRAND OVER ENDORSER
• Another issue is brand over
endorser, when there is a
collaboration and endorser is
celebrity, the chances of
overshadowing increases
• The companies need to ensure
that celebrity is not
overshadowing the company
name
• This can be prevented through
advertising collaterals.

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITY
3: PRODUCT DIVERSIFICATION AND
EXPANSION
• The third opportunity that can be considered by the company to grow and
overcome steady growth is “ product diversification, innovation and
expansion”
• Through this a product line, or completely new categories of product can
be introduced
• For example, for this sportswear company, the new product launch could
be strengthening powders like protein.
• The company can introduce with fitness centers, as the brand image is
already build up, the target audience could be high income group people

NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
• Developing a new product and attracting
new segment of customers within the
existing market is possible growth
opportunity and company can gain
competitive advantage
• Introducing fitness center in three
existing market, providing best service
among the witness center
• Moreover, this is linked and connected to
the image of the company as sports and
fitness are inter connected. Therefore, it
will be accepted by the customers
(Source: PSWC, 2018)

DEVELOPMENT 3 ISSUES
• While introducing new product, or
completely new product line
various factors need to be
considered that can become
challenge while introducing brand
into new industry
• Entering into completely new
industry can be beneficial to the
company to increase customer
base and retain existing customer,
but it can be challenging as well
Issues :
1.Competition
2.Market knowledge
3.Management
4.Threat of new entrant
5.Bargaining power of
suppliers

MARKET KNOWLEDGE
• The research and development team has to work effectively and
reach to the idea generation of new product, but the lack of
knowledge of that industry can be risky for the company
• Since the company is working in a particular industry, the chances of
lack of experience and knowledge of new industry is more.
• While implementation of this
development opportunity, and entering
into new industry while offering
existing customers, market knowledge
is major issue (Source: PSWC, 2018)

MANAGEMENT
• While implementation of this development opportunity,
another issue is managing the operations
• Management is an important aspect for running any
business, this could be the issue for the company
because managing two differently departments
becomes difficult
• Separate teams, premise, resources would be required.
In the case of introducing fitness center, human
resource is most important, and can be challenging for

COMPETITION
• With the new business opportunity that is fitness center,
the industry analysis of entering industry becomes an
issue
• The competitors change when a company enters into
new industry, this could be another issue for this
opportunity
• The detail know how of the competitors become
essential, as the company has to exist and sustain and
to gain competitive advantage, it is important to gain

INVESTMENT DECISION
While making an investment decision among the three
discussed opportunities the factors that will justify the
decision are:
• Cost to the company
• Wealth maximization
• Risk involved
• Long term advantage
• Management
(Source: money matters, 2018)

INVESTMENT DECISION
• After analyzing all the issues and factors, the best business development
opportunity considered is development opportunity one, that going international ,
and targeting new market.
• If all the previous factors are concerned, this opportunity seems to be better
because the cost to the company would be large for all the three options, but the
long term gain can be achieved through this opportunity.
• Implementing this strategy successfully can lead to other opportunities as well, that
is more countries can be targeted
• The management of this strategy could be better than the other two option,
considering the return to the investment. A new international team can be establish
in host and home country for better management (Nair & Bromiley, 2015)

IMPLEMENTING STRATEGIES
• Strategy implementation is a
action stage, where it is been
ensured that the strategy plan
is implemented successfully.
• This step is also crucial, as the
energy on planning strategies
will go into veins if not
executed properly
• The figure includes the
Strategic plan
communicati
on
Implementati
on structure
Policies and
programs
Allocation of
resources
Actual
performance
Controlling
activity

IMPLEMENTING STRATEGIES
PROCESS
Strategic plan
communication
• At this first step of
implementation, the plan is
communicated within the
organization to all the
employees
• Effective communication is
one of the issue that needs
Implementation structure
• The next step is framing a
structure of implementation
within the organization.
• A structure will provide a
direction in which the
implementation will take
place

IMPLEMENTING STRATEGIC PROCESS
Policies and programs
• At this stage of the strategic
implementation, the best
policies and programs are
established
• The policies are according
to the implementation plan,
and are communicated and
explained to the employees
Allocation of resources
• The next step is allocating
resources according to the
requirement at each department
• It is an important step, as
optimum utilization of resources
is depend on this step
• It includes human resource,
assets, raw materials, and all
other aspects

IMPLEMENTING STRATEGIC PROCESS
Actual performance
• Them comes the actual
execution of the plan, that is
initiation of work
• This step involves the actual
performance of the teams,
and collaboration of work
Controlling activity
• The last step is controlling, this
involves monitoring of actual
performance, observing the
difference between actual and
planed performance, and finally
bringing change to the
strategies of plan as per the
variations (Alves & Sousa,
2018)

ISSUES WHILE IMPLEMENTING
STRATEGIES
The focus here is on developed opportunity one, and
issue while implementing this strategy is:
• Resistance to change
• Adaptability to new environment
• Legal issues
• Controlling

ISSUES WHILE IMPLEMENTING
STRATEGIES
Resistance to change
• This is a common issue in an
organization, that the
employees resist to change
• Employees are not ready for
change in any new strategy,
or plan due to which they
oppose to the strategy and
refuse to corporate
Legal issues
• For going international, one of the
major concern is legal formalities
• This opportunity implementation
require a long documentation
procedure
• This is one of the common issue
while investing in another country
(Luo & Chi, 2014)

ISSUES WHILE IMPLEMENTING
STRATEGIES
Adaptability to new environment
• This is another issue while
going international, that is
adapting in new environment
• A team which is responsible
for international trading, after
the implementation needs
time to adapt new work
environment and method
Controlling
• Controlling is last stage of
implementation process, as
discussed before
• This could be an issue as
monitoring the performance,
considering all the factors
responsible for the performance,
and evaluating the
variations(managers.org.uk, 2018)

REFERENCES
Alves, A. & Sousa, P., 2018. Implementation of project management and lean production practices in a SME Portuguese innovation company. Procedia
computer science, Volume 138, p. 867.
commisceo-global, 2018. India Guide. [Online]
Available at: https://www.commisceo-global.com/resources/country-guides/india-guide
export.gov, 2018. India - Political Environment. [Online]
Available at: https://www.export.gov/article?id=India-Political-Environment
howandwhat.net, 2018. PESTEL analysis of India. [Online]
Available at: https://www.howandwhat.net/pestel-analysis-india/
indiatvnews, 2018. Indian Gods! An easy target of western mockery. [Online]
Available at: https://www.indiatvnews.com/buzz/mouthful/controversy-over-indian-god-photos-used-on-liquor-bottle-sandals-63.html
[Accessed 2015].
Johanson, J., 2014. Managing networks in international business. London: Routledge.
Luo, Y. & Chi, T., 2014. International business.. London: Routledge.
managers.org.uk, 2018. Implementing Strategy. [Online]
Available at: https://www.managers.org.uk/knowledge-bank/implementing-strategy
martinroll, 2018. Branding and Celebrity Endorsements. [Online]
Available at: https://martinroll.com/resources/articles/marketing/branding-and-celebrity-endorsements/
Nair, A. & Bromiley, P., 2015. Enterprise risk management: Review, critique, and research directions. Long range planning, 48(4), p. 265.
tradingeconomics, 2018. India Corporate Tax Rate. [Online]
Available at: https://tradingeconomics.com/india/corporate-tax-rate
tradingeconomics, 2018. Unemployement rate. [Online]
Available at: https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/unemployment-rate
transformingindia.mygov.in, 2018. Science & Technology. [Online]
Available at: https://transformingindia.mygov.in/category/technology/science-technology/

ANY
QUESTIONS?

Thank You