Strategic Report: MiC World Corporation in the UK Consumer Market

This report provides a strategic analysis of MiC World Corporation, focusing on its operations within the UK consumer goods market. It begins with an executive summary and an introduction that outlines the company's background and the report's objectives. The report then delves into an external environment analysis using PESTLE analysis and Porter's Five Forces to assess the macro and micro environmental factors impacting MiC World. An internal environment analysis, utilizing a value chain approach, evaluates the company's primary and support activities. The strategic analysis section examines MiC World's business-level strategies, specifically cost leadership and differentiation, evaluating their effectiveness. The evaluation of strategy incorporates the SAF model (Suitability, Acceptability, and Feasibility), and discusses the ethical implications of the implemented strategies. The report concludes with recommendations for MiC World to sustain and enhance its revenue, emphasizing the importance of promotional techniques. The report is based on the provided assignment brief that requires a report format with analytical headings and sub-headings, suitable for both academics and business professionals.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Management
Name of the University
Name of the Student
Author Note

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Executive summary
The purpose of this report is to identify the managerial strategies implemented by the MiC Word
Corporation in order to sustain as well enhance its revenue in the consumer goods industry of
UK. In order assess the external environment of the organization, crucial factors of both macro
and micro environment of the mentioned market in UK has been identified with the help of the
PESTLE analysis and the Porters five forces framework. It has been found that the political,
economic and the technological factors are highly supportive for growth of the consumer goods
industry in the nation. When it comes to micro analyse, high competition in the mentioned
industry and high witching power of the consumers are considered to be the chief factors that has
the potential to affect the growth of the organization. For obtaining the competitive advantage in
the industry, MiC World has implemented two major strategies, namely the cost leadership and
the differentiation strategy. While the former helps the organization to offer product to the
consumer at a price lower than its competitors, the later helps the company to enhance the
quality of its products in an effective way. It has been recommended that apart from continuing
with the two mentioned strategies, the organization is also recommended to incorporate both
online and offline promotional techniques in order to enhance its success rate in near future.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
External environment analysis.....................................................................................................3
Internal environment analysis......................................................................................................4
The Strategic Analysis.................................................................................................................5
Analysis of the Business Level Strategy.................................................................................5
Evaluation of strategy and its ethical implications..................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
Reference List................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The Societe BIC S.A, populary known as the BiC World is referred to a corporation
based in Clinchy, France. The organization is locally popular for its disposable consumer
products like razors, lighters, mechanical pencils as well as printed paper products (Wheelen et
al., 2017). The organization was founded by Baron Marcel Bich in the year 1945. The mentioned
organization went public in the year 1958 with a reverse merger into the older Waterman Pen
Company of Seymour, Connecticut, in the United States, and later sold off the older operation. In
this report, an external as well as internal market analysis of the mentioned company will be
discussed. In order to understand the macro environment of BiC, PESTLE analysis will be
conducted and for micro environmental analysis, Porters five forces analysis will be performed.
In order to assess the internal environment of the organization, Value chain analysis will be
performed. For strategic analysis of the Business Level Strategy and evaluation of strategy and
its ethical implications of the BiC world will be conducted in this report.
Discussion
External environment analysis
The PESTLE analysis of an organization is defined as the framework that is used by the
organization for obtaining a clear understanding the macro environmental factors like economic,
political, ecological, socio-cultural, and technological forces of the nation in which the business
is established or will be established. In order to understand the macro environment of MiC, in the
following paragraph, the most important factors of the PESTLE framework that impose impact
on the business of Mic, has been conducted.

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The two most crucial factors that impose impact on the consumer goods industry of UK
is the political environment, Economic environment and technological environment of the
nation. In spite of the fact that one of the major strength of UK is its political strength, the issue
of Brexit has deteriorated the political stability if the nation (Ginter, Duncan and Swayne, 2018).
For long, UK has been popular destination for foreign direct investment and in spite of the
current political instability, several business tycoons are investing on the consumer goods
industry of the nation. Moreover, the government is also supportive towards the mentioned
industry (Psomas and Antony 2017). The UK is the 5th largest economy in the world by nominal
GDP and this also impose positive impact on the mentioned industry. When it comes to
technological environment, the nation is highly advanced technologically. The two chief forces
that impose major impact on UK’s consumer goods industry are the rivalry amongst
competitors and bargaining power of the consumers. Both the mentioned forces are high.
Excessive saturation in the UK consumer good market has led to high revelry amongst the
organizations.
Internal environment analysis
In order to analyze the internal environment of BiC, value chain analysis has been
conducted. Value chain analysis can be defined as the process by which an organization primary
and support activities that adds value to its final service or product. The primary activities of a
value chain analysis are inbound and outbound logistics, operations, market and sales and service
(Masudin and Kamara 2018). The support activities of the mentioned framework include firm
infrastructure, human resource management, procurement and technology. When it comes to the
shaving range of BiCs, both the inbound and outbound logistics of the company is responsible
for the manufacturing of high quality pens (Banker et al., 2014). The two mentioned primary

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activity is directly related to strong firm infrastructure. However, lack of HRM has resulted in
workforce issues which in turn are affecting the marketing and sales of the organization. While
the superior quality of the shaver line is enhancing the competitive advantage of the company,
lack of efficient marketing is hampering its revenue increment.
The Strategic Analysis
Analysis of the Business Level Strategy
The competitive level strategy is defined as the strategy adopted by an organization in
order to gain competitive advantage in a specific market. Considering the fact that MiC while
manufacturing its Cristal up pen range chiefly concentrates on the quality of its products and
innovation, the strategy taken by the company is the Differentiation and Cost leadership. The
differentiation strategy refers to the strategy that aims to distinguish a product or a service from
similar products offered to the consumers by its competitors in an industry. A company
implements differentiation strategy in order to offer the consumers with a unique product in
terms of product features, product design, quality, image and consumer service. Considering the
fact that the Cristal Up pens are oil-based ink writes well on many surfaces, is smooth, and dries
quickly, the company has chiefly focused on the quality of the product in order to gain
competitive advantage (Block et al. 2015). Not only this, the water resistant property of the
product line signifies its cost leadership strategy. Cost leadership strategy is defined as the
strategy that enables the company to gain competitive advantage over its competitors by
providing the consumers with superior quality products at a lower price range (Eva et al., 2018).
Considering the fact that the company is offering the Crystal up ball pens at a cost of .20 cents
per pen, the chef purpose of the company is ensuring that consumers will buy the mentioned
office stationary line in bulk which in turn will enhance its yearly revenue and profit level

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(Sfakianaki et al. 2018). Moreover, in order to enhance the awareness of the consumers of the
features of the mentioned product line, the management of the company has also invested in both
online a well as offline promotional techniques. While online promotional techniques of its
differentiation features are done through social media, offline promotional technique includes
featuring the same in the Museum of Modern Art. According to Noe et al., (2017), the
technological advancement of UK plays a major role in helping organization for developing
superior quality of products (Porter and Heppelmann, 2017). This is true for BiCs since the
availability of high tech machines has helped the manufacturer to ensure the superior quality.
Not only this, excellent transportation system in the nation has ensured effective inbound and
outbound logistics that helped the organization to ensure consumer satisfaction and effective
distribution of the products in the market. When it comes to the competition between the existing
competitors, the two major competitors of the mentioned organization includes Uni-ball
Jetstream and pilot Acroball (Su, Guo and Sun 2017). The cost of the products offered by both of
the competitors is much lower than its competitors. The chief reason behind this is the cost
leadership strategy implemented by the organization.
In a nutshell, while the cost leadership strategy helps the organization to enhance it consumer
base by offering superior quality products at a cheaper price than the consumers, the
differentiation strategy helps the same to deliver the consumer superior quality and innovative
products.
Evaluation of strategy and its ethical implications
The MiC world company has experienced an eminent growth in its yearly revenue though
decades. However, with increment in the competition with emerging time, it is highly crucial for
the mentioned organization to implement further strategies for both sustaining the already

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existing strategies as well as for developing new strategies. In order to evaluate the already
existing strategies in the following paragraph the SAF model has been performed.
The SAF model of strategy evaluation includes evaluation of suitability, acceptability and
feasibility of the strategy implemented by an organization. Sustainability determines whether the
strategy will do or is doing what the company wants it to do. Considering the fact that a huge
competition exist in the industry, MiC is established in, it is highly crucial for the organization to
ensure unique features in order to establish differentiation of their products from rest of the
product. Hence the strategy is differentiation is highly suitable for MiC (Soltanizadeh et al.
2016.). When it comes to the cost leadership strategy, the organization has adopted it in order to
enhance its consumer base as well as revenue in the long term. Since the mentioned strategy is
working effectively for the organization has increased in consumer base for more than 12 percent
in the last year, it can be said that both the above discussed strategies is suitable for the
organization.
When it comes to Acceptability, the concept of this factor of the SAF model is about
measuring the return, risk as well as stakeholder reactions resulting from a particular strategy.
The returns are calculated on the basis of the benefits of the stakeholders. During the initial days,
the organization had invested higher on its quality and as a result this, its competitive advantage
was getting affected (Kurt and Zehir 2016). However, since the organization has stated
implementing the cost leadership strategy, the acceptability of the stakeholders when it comes to
its products has got increased in a considerable rate. However in order to enhance the
acceptability of the consumers, it is crucial for the company to work on its promotional
techniques (Reid 2016). For instance, it is highly crucial for the organization to promote its
products through both online as well as offline promotional techniques. For online promotion,

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social media platforms as well as the official site of the company can be used as an effective
platform for communicating with the consumers. For offline promotion, campaigns should be
conducted in popular regions (Metcalf et al. 2018).
When it comes to feasibility, it is checked whether the option considered is in line with
the opportunities that the organisation has at its disposal. Since both the mentioned strategies,
that is the differentiation as well as the cost leadership strategies has resulted in increments in the
revenue of the organization, it can be understood that both the strategies are feasible (Ezugwu
and Agu 2016). The expectations of the company from the implementation of the strategies are
realistic. Considering the fact that the organization has effective brand equity, the resources
needed for enhancing the level of the tratagies re also present.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that the MiC Company has the potential
to enhance its market value further by sustaining the two strategies implemented and
incorporating promotional techniques to further enhance the awareness of the brand in the global
consumer goods market. From the external environmental analysis, it has been found that the
political, economic and the technological factors are highly supportive for growth of the
consumer goods industry in the nation. However, huge competition as well as easily switching
power of the consumers can be considered as the chief concern of the mentioned industry.
Considering the fact that competitive advantage is the most important factor to be focused on in a
competitive industry like UK’s Consumer goods industry, the chief focus of MiC World is on
gaining competitive advantage in the mentioned market. For obtaining the same, the organization
has implemented two major strategies, namely the cost leadership and the differentiation

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strategy. While the former helps the organization to offer product to the consumer at a price
lower than its competitors, the later helps the company to enhance the quality of its products in
an effective way. However, since the organization still lacks promotional techniques, with
implementation of both online and offline promotional techniques, it will be able to enhance is
consumer base in a considerable rate in near future.

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Reference List
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competitive strategy. Small Business Economics, 44(1), pp.37-54.
D. Banker, R., Mashruwala, R. and Tripathy, A., 2014. Does a differentiation strategy lead to
more sustainable financial performance than a cost leadership strategy?. Management
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Eva, N., Sendjaya, S., Prajogo, D., Cavanagh, A. and Robin, M., 2018. Creating strategic fit:
Aligning servant leadership with organizational structure and strategy. Personnel Review, 47(1),
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Teknik Industri, 19(1), pp.11-20.

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Metcalf, A.Y., Habermann, M., Fry, T.D. and Stoller, J.K., 2018. The impact of quality practices
and employee empowerment in the performance of hospital units. International Journal of
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