Strategic Agility: Evaluating Business Strategies for Oak Tree Inn

This strategic agility report analyzes Oak Tree Inn, a small hospitality business in Scotland, established in 1998. It begins with an overview of the organization, highlighting its location in Balmaha and its offerings, including accommodation, restaurants, bars, and a coffee shop known for locally sourced ingredients. The report then delves into macro and micro environment analysis using PESTLE (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental) and Porter’s Five Forces, examining external factors influencing the business. A SWOT analysis identifies internal strengths and weaknesses, along with external opportunities and threats. Two potential strategic options are proposed: leveraging the company's location and natural beauty with technology for marketing and capitalizing on the demand for healthy, hygienic food with locally sourced ingredients. These options are evaluated using the SAFe model, assessing their suitability and accessibility in achieving organizational goals and gaining a competitive advantage. The report concludes by emphasizing the potential of these strategies to enhance market share and attract customers.

Strategic Agility

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Overview of organisation............................................................................................................1
Macro and Micro Environment analysis.....................................................................................2
Two potential strategic options...................................................................................................5
Evaluate two strategic choices using SAFe model.....................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
References:.......................................................................................................................................8
Books and Journals.....................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Strategic agility is it term that defines the ability of an organisation to think prior of the market in
order to rapidly mobilize itself there by adapting market sheds captain new revenue ahead of the
competitors thereby fill the capability gaps and also has a potential to create new markets.
Basically it is a playground for the innovation (Shams and et. al., 2021). The strategic report of
an organisation is to determine the prospects for the concentrated measurement of presentation of
an organisation that helps the company in providing the long-term forecast them recognising the
worth of performance. Present strategic agility report with the study of Oak Tree Inn
organisation a small business established in 1998 and has been operating in the leisure and
hospitality industry. The management strategy report will analyse the business situation of Oak
Tree Inn's which will cover internal and external analysis and the competitive factors. At last
there is a critical evaluation of strategic choices using the safe analysis.
MAIN BODY
Overview of organisation
Oak Tree Inn is a small business organisation based in Scotland and established in 1998 in
leisure and hospitality industry. The company provides accommodation services to the guest and
also have some restaurants, bars and coffee shop. Oak Tree Inn is situated in the beautiful village
of UK, Balmaha. The company is famous for its food and drink as most of the ingredients of the
company are made on site and sold locally therefore the customer's enjoy the dine. The oak tree
is a beautiful load side restaurant and bar that also contains coffee shop and ice cream parlour
and with village shop. Company has segmented menu for drinks, main course, breakfast, and
desert and also for the children's and take away menus. Coffee shop of the oak tree serve the
Loch Lomond coffee which is the one of the most famous service as the beans of coffee and
roasted on the premises and also the cream of the Loch Lomond is homemade.
The company has great service in the bar, coffee shop, in the restaurant which is a small business
enterprise in the hospitality and leisure sector the director of the company has a chance to grow.
There are many other successful hospitality and travel forms in that small village on the east
Bank of the Loch Lomond as it is one of the most beautiful and natural location of the Scotland
this is the first national park named Trossachs. The oak tree in is considered as the heart of the

beautiful village of Balmaha as restaurant situated on the east side of Loch Lomond which is on
the route of iconic West highland way walk. The company is an award winning bar and
restaurant as it is just as a sitting next to the 500 year old tree therefore named as the Oak Tree
Inn. The companies of the traditional Scottish food and its popular menu also offers locally
brewed beer an extensive Cider plus whiskey bar. The ice cream and the coffee both are home-
made therefore has highest number of customers. Also this cell the range of packed lunches
groceries and gift.
Macro and Micro Environment analysis
PESTLE ANALYSIS
Pestle analysis is a strategic tool to analyse the macro environment of an organisation that
contains the various external factors that directly impact operations and performance of business
organisation. Key factors of pestle analysis of Oak Tree Inn are discussed below:
Political factors: The political factors play a strong role and directly impacting the business of
hospitality and leisure industry factors like political stability trading restrictions rules and
regulations for highly influential for the business of being a part of such a small village therefore
the policies and procedures generated by government impact the business of Oak Tree Inn (Xing
and et. al., 2020).
Economic factors: the village is very small place in the United Kingdom there for the economic
stability of United Kingdom is highly beneficial for hotel business as the head disposable income
of the customer increases the business and the sales of the hotel services like Oak Tree Inn.
Social factors: there are different factors considered in the social background of the oak tree inn
therefore analysing the force of demand and supply the company customer taste and preference
and their changing behaviour towards healthy and fresh food therefore company also has best
serving Scottish food and drink as per the customer demand.
Technological factors: UK technology is growing rapidly specially in the hospitality and leisure
sector for the comfort of accommodation techniques of Food technology is playing the major
role the popular bar and restaurant in the village. The new technology and digitalization the
social media channels like Facebook platforms are really helpful for the oak tree to develop the
customer attraction (Phan, 2021).

Legal factors: the company is highly determined with the health and the safety of their
customers in terms of food and accommodation therefore company completely comply with
health and safety rules of UK for the hospitality industry. Also company has most of its
manufacturing production of the food in the local region for company also have a good term with
unions to maintain the legal compliance stable.
Environmental factors: the Oak Tree Inn is situated in most environment friendly and beautiful
village Balmaha. Therefore, environmental factors play a very important role for the business of
the company as company has all its food and raw materials from the environment also the beauty
of place is a key factor for the customer attraction therefore it is very necessary to maintain the
beauty of nature and to keep the food drinks and place environmental friendly for the sustainable
development (Do, 2020).
Porter's five fo Balmaha rce model
The porter's five force model is the frame used to analyse the extent of competition for the
company within the market. The five forces that are useful to determine the competitive intensity
are discussed below:
Threat to new entrants: when new competitors enter the market they affect the other business in
terms of revenue and productivity. For Oak Tree Inn there is less threat of entry as currently the
leisure and hospitality industry is low in growth and also in terms of revenue due to Covid-19.
Bargaining power of suppliers: In hospitality and leisure sector in which Oak Tree Inn operates
has high power as all the items to produce food and wine, drinks are sourced locally because of
the quality, freshness and hygiene (Tribe, 2020).
Bargaining power of Buyers: Recently the buyers of the leisure and hospitality industry has low
power. As in the Oak Tree the coffee shop and ice cream parlour serves the handmade locally
roasted coffee and fresh cream which is priority of customer for hygiene and healthy food. Also
the as the the restaurant and the bar also serves best drinks and Scottish foods as per the customer
taste.
Threats of substitutes: The company has many substitutes in Balmaha village in terms of food
and drinks that are locally sourced. But the Oak tree is situated at the heart of the village and also
the sitting is under the 50 years old tree which means there is no substitute threat in terms of
view and ambience.

Rivalry among competitor's: The Oak Tree Inn has multiple competitor's in the industry in the
village also. As the village is the most beautiful location at the side of highway therefore the
visitor's are high and the competition (Aladag and et. al., 2020).
SWOT Analysis
SWOT analysis is the tool to analyse the strengths and weaknesses company has internally and
the threats and opportunities exist in market. From the macro and micro environment analyse the
SWOT analysis is conducted below:
Strengths Weaknesses
 The Oak tree has the outstanding
service and also the the location of the
company at the route of iconic West
highland way walk and sitting under
500 year old Oak tree.
 The fresh handmade cream for ice
cream parlour and self roasted coffee
bean in premises for coffee shop
(Fernando, 2021).
 The accommodation service of the Oak
Tree Inn has high tax rate for the
overnight stay that's customer's doesn't
easily prefer and choose substitutes at
low price.
Opportunities Threats
 The technology factor which include
digital and social media marketing is
the major opportunity to promote the
services, food and other factors of the
company all across the globe.
 The environment concern and love for
nature among consumers as the part of
social and environmental factors are the
opportunity of to have more customers.
 The competitor's and their low price
service in accommodation is the threat
for the company.
 The high power of supliers for raw
materials and natural food resources is
also threat as this increases company's
extra cost.

Two potential strategic options
SWOT analysis is the strategic planning framework by which an organisation or person can
recognise the internal strengths and weaknesses and the external threats and opportunities. The
way to analyse the two strategic options for the Oak tree that will help the company to rearrange
and enhance the business operations is TOWS matrix (Hossain and Khanal, 2020). The TOWS
matrix is useful tool for the firms to combine the the opportunities that exist in macro and micro
environment with the internal strengths in order to develop the strategies that can help the form
in mitigation of weaknesses and the threats. The exploitation the opportunities with the strength
of the Oak tree will give strategies that will help the company in sustainable development and
also to gain competitive advantage to increase supply and demand of certain products and
services.
Strategic option 1: Using the company's location and beauty of nature which is strengths with the
opportunity of technology the company has marketing strategy to increase its presence among
customers and it will also in gaining competitive advantage by building brand equity.
Strategic option 2: there is huge opportunity for the Oak Tree that is the customer's change
towards the healthy, hygienic and vegan food that can be combined with the company's strength
of naturally sourced vegetables and raw food items and handmade food. This is the competitive
strategy that company has to target new customer base and also to increase the sales an supply
and demand of food.
Both the strategic options are highly capable in mitigating the threat of competitor's and also the
threat of supplier's as more supply and demand of food will reduce the cost. Through this
company also has potential to mitigate the weaknesses of high cost as when the sales is high
company can reduce their profit margin and provide customers more affordable services (Liu and
Yang, 2021).
Evaluate two strategic choices using SAFe model
From the above research and analysis two strategic options are generated for the business of Oak
Tree Inn. The strategic options generated are the competitive ability of the company that will
provide the company a market to gain market shares and also attract potential customers
(Hossain and et. al., 2021). To critically evaluate the strategic options SAFe analysis is used:

Suitability: the strategic option one is highly suitable as the through this company can increase
brand presence and also the brand recognition will be increased. This strategy will also exploit
the Oak tree opportunity to use technology and also mitigate the threat of competitor's. The
second option is also suitable in terms of meeting organisation goals of increasing sales and the
supply and demand of resources. The option is also has competence to build competitive
advantage.
Accessibility: the strategy one contains less risk and also where the world is all over digital
medium the reactions and return of this strategy is powerful. The strategic options focus over the
stakeholders like customers, suppliers etc. Also the area of risk associated with this is low and
return will be expectedly good in terms of revenue and sales.
Feasibility: The strategic option one is useful for company to adapt social media and other
technology tools for marketing and the strategic plan is feasible to execute in guidance of experts
and marketing team (Hossain and Khanal, 2020). The strategic option 2 is highly feasible as Oak
Tree Inn has skills, resources, market change and funds to execute the plan.
SAFe Matrix score table
SFA Matrix Strategic options
Option 1 Option 2
Suitability 2 3
Accessibility 3 4
Feasibility 3 5
Total 8 12
From the above table and analysis it is analysed that both the strategy has its own positive areas
and potential to provide Oak Tree Inn a strength and opportunity to exploit to gain competitive
advantage and to mitigate threats. But from the score it is recommended that company should use
the second strategic option is best for the company in terms of profitability and productivity.

CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded that strategic agility report is effective way to analyse the
several micro and macro environment factors and their impact on business operations. It is
understood that company can utilize the external opportunities and internal strengths to develop
strategic options that are useful for the organisation's in increasing the ability of the operations
and also to gain competitive advantage (Liu and Yang, 2021).

References:
Books and Journals
Aladag, O.F and et. al., 2020. Strategy implementation research in hospitality and tourism:
Current status and future potential. International journal of hospitality management. 88.
p.102556.
Do, N.D., 2020. Integrating Sustainability Into Strategic Management To Gain Competitive
Advantage.
Fernando, I., 2021. Tourism in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Perspective with Swot
Analysis. Available at SSRN 3772537.
Hossain, M.I. and Khanal, B.P., 2020. SWOT analysis of forest protected area based sustainable
tourism development: A case study in the Lawachara National Park,
Bangladesh. Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Education. 10. pp.71-89.
Hossain, M.S and et. al., 2021. Determinants of sustainable competitive advantage from
resource-based view: implications for hotel industry. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism
Insights.
Liu, C. and Yang, J., 2021. How hotels adjust technology-based strategy to respond to COVID-
19 and gain competitive productivity (CP): strategic management process and dynamic
capabilities. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Phan, S., 2021. The effect of PESTLE factors on development of e-commerce. International
Journal of Data and Network Science. 5(1). pp.37-42.
Shams, R and et. al., 2021. Strategic agility in international business: A conceptual framework
for “agile” multinationals. Journal of International Management. 27(1). p.100737.
Tribe, J., 2020. The economics of recreation, leisure and tourism. Routledge.
Xing, Y and et. al., 2020. Entrepreneurial team and strategic agility: A conceptual framework
and research agenda. Human Resource Management Review. 30(1). p.100696.