Strategic Management Report: Strategic Planning and Analysis

This report delves into the realm of strategic management, providing a comprehensive analysis of the processes, models, and tools employed by organizations to achieve their objectives. The report uses the Arcadia Group, a prominent fashion retailer, as a case study to illustrate the practical application of these concepts. It begins by critically assessing the strategic planning processes utilized by organizations, including how they determine their strategic position, prioritize objectives, develop strategic plans, and execute and manage those plans. The report then evaluates the effectiveness of critical strategic management models and tools, such as SWOT and PESTLE analyses, and applies them to the Arcadia Group to assess its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The report also examines the significance of change management within the context of strategic transformation, considering factors like complexity, cost, risks, and sustainability. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the importance of strategic management in achieving competitive advantage and long-term organizational success.

Strategic
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Critical assessment of the process used by organisation to determine their strategy..................1
Evaluation of critical models and tools used by organisations to determine their strategy.........3
Application of the tools to a real organisations...........................................................................4
Importance of change management which is based upon the complexity of transformation
process, cost, risks and sustainability..........................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Strategic management can be defined as the process of setting long term business
objectives and formulating strategies to attain them so that competitive advantage within the
industry could be acquired. While carrying out operational activities it is very important for the
top level managers to make sure that they are paying attention towards it as it can help them to
accomplish all the tough tasks properly (Heath, 2018). Main aim of this report is to enhance
understanding of models and tools which are used for strategic management. The organisation
which is selected for this report is Arcadia Group. It is one of the largest fashion retailers of
United Kingdom. It headquarter is in London and it was founded in year 1903. This assignment
covers various topics such as process focused by companies to determine strategy, evaluation
and application of models which are used for the purpose of strategic management. Apart from
this, importance of change management based on the complexity of transformation process, cost
and risks is also covered in this project.
MAIN BODY
Critical assessment of the process used by organisation to determine their strategy
Strategic management is an essential element which is required to be focused by all the
business entities for the purpose of carrying out all the operations in systematic manner. By
paying attention towards it long term business goals could be accomplished as it provides
direction to formulate effective strategies. Arcadia Group is a successful entity which is
executing its business all around the world due to which it is essential for manager to determine
the processes in terms to articulate the organisational processing systematically. Explanation of
some of the processes associated in building strategies is listed down below:
Determine strategic position: This is the preparation stage under which an organisation
determine the process as well as activities by which work needs to be determined and carried out
by staff. It involve the role of both internal and external stakeholders which are considered by
Arcadia Group in terms to commence their processes and gain detail insight by maintaining
significant positions of an organisational unit (Konovalova and et. al., 2018). Basically team
member need to review the mission, vision and gain detain insights about customer by exploring
external opportunity and threat successfully. The representative of Arcadia company uses
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frameworks like Swot and Pestle analyses to overview internal and external operations which
further demonstrate actual position by signifying better procedure to conduct responsibilities.
Prioritise organisational objective: Once organisation formulate their vision or mission
and analyse existing position within market then focus is given to build the objective in terms to
attain short and long term purpose. SMART objectives are established by Arcadia company
based on which resources are optimum utilised as well as key performance indicator are set to
achieve the objective within preferable time limit (Makadok, Burton and Barney, 2018). Further,
to attain objective the website content are updated in terms to appeal the interest of customer and
generate immense amount of leads. Probably this improve the process of an organisation and
help in building competitive strategy.
Develop strategic plan: To successfully reach out goals the manager of an organisation
focuses to develop the innovative tactics that helps to attain the objective within desirable time
frame. Mapping out strategies takes place in order to visualise entire plan and improve the
operations by overcoming performance gaps successfully. Viable strategies are planned out by
Arcadia organisation in order to differentiate its offerings from other competitors and support the
internal organisational process to gain long term strategic position.
Execute and manage plan: After planning the manager of an organisation needs to
implement the actions by maintaining systemic communication between different functional unit.
Certain performance measuring indicators like KPI and benchmarking method is used to
overview the performance and reduce the chances of deviation. Regular reviewing helps to attain
the objective by completing organisational performance and carry out responsibilities effectively.
Review and revise the plan: It is the responsibility of Arcadia organisation to constantly
review as well as revise their plan in order to mitigate the chances of performance gap.
Opportunity are set out to re-evaluate the priorities of an organisation and successively gain
immense amount of success (Marinov, 2018). Representatives of Arcadia organisation regularly
analyse their progress because their exist huge competition within fashion industry due to
constant up-gradation in fashion and style. Therefore, this gives complete overview about the
progressive functioning in terms to overview comprehensive understanding about strategic goals.
Therefore, all these organisation process helps in developing desirable strategy in terms
to carry out the objective of an organisation successfully. Description of detail information helps
in producing desirable result successfully. Thus, proper assessment and implication of all the
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stages of processes associated in building strategies by Arcadia organisation ensures preparation
of more effect strategies and better decision making. The stage of discrimination of strategic
position ensures evolution of current market position of Arcadia organisation together with better
information about business environment. Further, prioritisation of organisational objective
facilitates a better direction and guidance to formulate strategies for betterment of Arcadia
organisation which ensure development of strategic plan. Apart from this, the process off
execution and management of plan ensures better implantation of strategies and also lead to
effective control. Finally the stage of review and revise the plan helps the Arcadia organisation to
maintain timely changes and modification to ensure better viability and success of strategies to
cope with dynamic nature of business environment.
Evaluation of critical models and tools used by organisations to determine their strategy
Establishing effective strategy helps an organisation to carry out smooth processes and
gain competitive positioning by carrying out detail strategic planning. Focus is given to
determine internal and external models as well as tools to ascertain favourable position and build
out desirable strategy significantly. The explanation of different tools in context to Arcadia
organisation is represented below:
SWOT Analysis: This is the part of internal and external analysis which comprises of
elements like strength, weakness, opportunity and threat that helps to develop significant plan
and gain competitive positioning. Based on this technique organisation access their existing
performance, evaluate the chances of competition, mitigate existence of risk as well as gain
competitive positioning by developing strategic plan (June.Menon, 2018). It helps in making
effective decision by taking favourable actions successfully.
Strength: It represent the capabilities, resources as well as attributes of an organisation
that support the internal operations and help to produce successful outcome.
Weakness: It refer to the shortcomings that needs to be focused by particular entity in
order to improve their operations and gain explicit advantage to successfully generate favourable
outcome.
Opportunity: Unlike strength and weakness, opportunity exist within external market that
help to capitalise the operations of business entity by tapping untapped opportunity and areas
successfully. This opportunity acts as an innovative solution for the consumer.
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Threat: It is again the part of external environment that acts as a challenge which affect
the chances of organisational success (Swot analysis, 2020). This basically acts as a hurdle for
which strategies needs to be implemented in order to gain success.
PESTLE analysis: It is the macro environment forces which exist in the external
environment and can directly affect the operations faced by an organisation. It involve elements
like Political, Economical, Social, Technology, Legal and Environment factor that needs to be
effectively studied by an organisation before diversifying their operations (Marketing theories –
Pestel analysis, 2018). This framework basically help an organisation to respond towards the
changes and monitor functioning by differentiating its functioning from other business entity
(Novikov, 2018). For instance, organisation basically prefer to expand their business to those
places where the political condition are quite stable and legislation are favourable to follow. This
led them to develop the effective strategy and execute it without facing any negative
complications. Hence, it preferable led the organisation to gain deep insights and incorporate
their detail functioning effectively.
Evaluation of merits and demerits of models and tools used by organisations to determine their
strategy
Models and tools Merits Demerits
SWOT analysis It facilitates better source of
information for strategic planning
and strategy formulation through
yielding a review of all strengths
and weakness of an organisation.
SWOT analysis can might
overlook certain key strategic
contact as it is mainly based
subjective method so hamper
viability of strategy.
PESTEL analysis It facilitates a most cost effective
method to evaluate the external
environment of an organisation also
yield deeper understanding in
limited time duration.
This analysis is completely based
on external factors thus, the data
collected through PESTEL are not
complete for formulation of a
strategy.
Application of the tools to a real organisations
SWOT analysis of Arcadia company
Strength Opportunity
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Arcadia is well known company amongst local
residence of UK for its wide collection and
innovative design which appeal the interest of
consumer. It keep the latest collection of
apparel, foot ware and accessories due to
which it gain the advantage of high footfall.
Growing use of E-commerce platform acts as
an opportunity for Arcadia company as it helps
to cover wide range of customer and their
different pattern of choices. The manager of
company make immense use of digital media
in terms to advertise their brand, increase
conversion rate and gain result at real time.
Weakness
Wide dependency of company on the third
party supplier or vendor for its merchandise
acts as a weakness as any breakage of chain
directly affects the sales of company (Ronda-
Pupo and Pham, 2018). Further, the recent
Covid-19 has also enhanced the issue of
ineffective supply network and higher level of
employee absenteeism and turnover that has
negatively affected the productivity and
profitability.
Threat
Intense competition from global rivalries like
H&M, Marks and Spenser acts as a threat of
company in terms to remain ahead of other
competitors. Beside this, more stricter trade
policy and restriction on international
movement and transaction through government
due to Covid -19 has also created a threat.
PESTLE analysis of Arcadia company
Political: It represent the taxation policies, rules as well as regulation that is formulated
by the local residence of UK and needs to be effectively followed by all organisations. As
Arcadia company operates its business within developed country where in comparison to
emerging economies the political conditions are stable. This positively influence the company to
effectively incorporate the strategy and carry out their organisational processes by expanding
their operations successfully.
Economical: Economic factor involve the disposable income of consumer, inflation rate,
interest rate as well as different economic conditions based on which company accordingly plan
out their functioning. The existence of Brexit has negatively influenced the functioning of all
large size organisation like Arcadia which led to the imposition of various tax reform within
European Union. This decreases the circulation of funds within an economy that immensely
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dropped down the sales of Arcadia organisation. Thus, on the basis of external environment an
organisation needs to incorporate out performance. Further, the issue of Covid-19 has also
disturbed and hamper the economy growth and stability of UK thus, created many new
challenges associated with employees turnover ad reduction in productivity for Arcadia
organisation.
Social: This factor focuses on the taste and preference of customer on the basis of which
an organisation needs to maintain their offerings within prevailing market. Retail sector involves
rapid changes in the design and trend that needs to be match up by the Arcadia organisation in
terms to gain immense success. gaining deep insights about the consumer behaviours and
simultaneously brining out the changes can positively influence an organisation to upgrade the
designer and fashionable stuffs.
Technology: It is necessary for an organisation to invest in certain types of technology as
it improves the process to create and deliver the products to customer. The manger of Arcadia
organisation has made investment in the digital media due to which it promote online shopping
and constantly works to upgrade online catalogue and make user friendly website. Along with
that software like manage database of customer immensely assist the company in terms to
analyse the demand of customer (Samba, Van Knippenberg and Miller, 2018).
Legal: This involve employment legislation which include different laws like fair
remuneration, health and safety act that needs to be followed by manager in terms to maintain
significant relationship between employer and employee. In context to Arcadia organisation
implement diverse employment legislation in terms to maintain the relationship with internal as
well as external stakeholders.
Environment: It is necessary for almost all organisation to safeguard the interest of
environment, society as well as their employees due to which initiatives are taken to invest into
CSR activities. Herein, Arcadia company eliminates the use of plastics by replacing it with
biodegradable bag and constantly participate to conduct the charity. Along with tahta the
managers promote online business in order to to save the fuel and lower doen carbon emisiion.
Importance of change management which is based upon the complexity of transformation
process, cost, risks and sustainability
Change management simply refers to the process of transforming the procedure in terms
to carry out suitable activities of an organisation. It involve the use of necessary tool, process and
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techniques based on which transition is bought out amongst working pattern in order to carry out
the smooth operations within dynamic environment. In relation to the Arcadia company which is
into fashion retail so it is essential for manager to understand the latest trend or fashion and
accordingly bring revolution in the existing functioning of an organisation. The requirement of
customer constantly changes which makes it vital for an organisation to gain market insights and
accordingly adopt signification amount of changes (Serafimova and Petrevska, 2018). Some of
the importance of change management in relation to transformational process, cost, risk as well
as sustainable is illustrated below:
 Efforts made by an organisation in terms to bring out transformational involve certain
amount of cost which needs to be beard by internal manager. This cost or expenditure can
be in form to adopt the technology, change existing patterns, provide training as well as
development programs. After making viable amount of investment in terms of cost, effort
and time of employees the competitive team get the opportunity to bring transformation
and incorporate the change management process successfully.
 Adoption of effective change management practices helps to maintain the consistent and
efficient performance amongst the diverse competition. It improve the internal
capabilities of the organisation in terms to maintain the standard performance within
rapidly changing surrounding. Along with that the internal capabilities of an Arcadia
company is maintained due to which manpower gets the opportunity to improvise their
skill, knowledge and talent successfully.
 There are certain process such as continuous improvement plan that on the basis of
external environment rapidly improve the existing functioning of an organisation. This
help the firm to gain competitive advantage by taking significant efforts in comparisons
of other competitors. Also efforts are taken to reduce eth chances of human error by
processing the functioning of an organisation successfully.
 Although it is not easy for an organisation to rapid adopt the innovation due to which the
research team of Arcadia organisation gain deep insights based on which they bring
changes in their working patten. Like, the staff of Arcadia company are taught to use the
latest technology and software in order to simply their tasks and gain explicit knowledge.
This often mitigate the changes of future risk in terms to loose the market share or loyal
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customer base as significant efforts are made to perserve the requirements of external
stakeholders.
 The successfully organisation widely focus on their employees or manpower and
constantly train them in order to promote the desirable changes on constant basis (Wenzel
and Koch, 2018). The strong culture of an organisation positively influences the
employees behaviour to bring transition and focus to perform challenging tasks in order
to mitigate the chances of hurdles. Hence, it promote the overall organisation to pursuit
better performance and gain long term sustainable performance.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been determined that strategic management helps in setting
out desirable objective by taking preferable initiatives and ensure the responsibilities of different
working staff. There are various processes on the basis of which strategies are build out to
execute the predetermined plan by reducing the chances of deviation. Along with that to evaluate
the strategies and roll out objective both internal and external environment are analysed to take
favours actions and enhance the performance of business. Therefore, changes needs to be
adequately managed in terms to bring transition within working pattern and mitigate the chances
of risk by maintaining sustainable performance effectively.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Heath, R. L., 2018. Issues management. The International Encyclopedia of Strategic
Communication, pp.1-15.
Konovalova, E. E. and et. al., 2018. Forming approaches to strategic management and
development of tourism and hospitality industry in the regions. Journal of
Environmental Management & Tourism. 9(2 (26)). pp.241-247.
Makadok, R., Burton, R. and Barney, J., 2018. A practical guide for making theory contributions
in strategic management. Strategic Management Journal. 39(6). pp.1530-1545.
Marinov, R., 2018, June. Dynamics in the theory and practice of the strategic management. In
2018 International Conference on High Technology for Sustainable Development
(HiTech) (pp. 1-2). IEEE.
Menon, A., 2018. Bringing cognition into strategic interactions: S trategic mental models and
open questions. Strategic Management Journal. 39(1). pp.168-192.
Novikov, S. V., 2018. Strategic analysis of the development of high-technology manufacturing
facilities. Russian Engineering Research. 38(3). pp.198-200.
Ronda-Pupo, G. A. and Pham, T., 2018. The evolutions of the rich get richer and the fit get
richer phenomena in scholarly networks: the case of the strategic management journal.
Scientometrics. 116(1). pp.363-383.
Samba, C., Van Knippenberg, D. and Miller, C. C., 2018. The impact of strategic dissent on
organizational outcomes: A meta‐analytic integration. Strategic Management Journal.
39(2). pp.379-402.
Serafimova, M. and Petrevska, B., 2018. Female entrepreneurship in tourism: A strategic
management perspective in Macedonia. Journal of Applied Economics and Business.
6(1). pp.21-32.
Wenzel, M. and Koch, J., 2018. Strategy as staged performance: A critical discursive perspective
on keynote speeches as a genre of strategic communication. Strategic Management
Journal. 39(3). pp.639-663.
Online
Marketing theories – Pestel analysis. 2018. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.professionalacademy.com/blogs-and-advice/marketing-
theories---pestel-analysis>
Swot analysis. 2020. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/swot.asp>
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