The CEO Regarding a Personal Analysis of an Organization's Strategy (Other (Not Listed) Sample)

Organizational Strategy
Authors’ Name
Institutional Affiliation
EXECUTIVE MEMORANDUM
DATE: October 15, 2015
TO: Terri Bell
FROM:
SUBJECT: Findings from the Analysis of Organization’s Strategy
Executive Summary
This memo presents the findings of a preliminary personal analysis of the organization’s strategy of my project firm. The goal of the analysis entailed identifying and evaluating the general business and corporate strategies of the firm based on the review of “How Do We Describe a Firm’s Strategy?” discussed by Grant and Jordan (2015). The memorandum reports the findings of the analysis of the firm’s application of three particular generic business strategies in meeting customers’ needs and sustaining a competitive edge. It also includes the analysis outcomes relating to three specific corporate business strategies. Other items analyzed included the firm’s articulated strategy and how it helps in attaining a competitive advantage, the firm’s business model and its dynamics, and the firm’s specific corporate strategy.
The Generic Business Strategies
Among the three generic business strategies, that is, cost, differentiation, and hybrid, my project firm has concentrated mostly on the establishment and implementation of the product differentiation strategy. It is its core avenue to supply consumers’ needs and overcome the competition in the industry. The firm adopts the product differentiation strategy because of its size. My project firm is a small entrepreneurial association operating in a market and industry dominated by larger corporations dealing with similar offerings. In that regard, the firm deems product differentiation as an effective strategy in distinguishing its products from the similar products in the market, thereby meeting customers’ needs and maintaining a competitive edge. The firm bears on demographic market segmentation, and in implementing the differentiation strategy, it focuses on age, occupation, and gender as the core demographic aspects of its market segment. Focusing on these aspects helps the firm to be specific in articulating the message of how positively and uniquely its product is different from the similar products available on the market. In this manner, it attains a favorable competitive positioning. The firm avoids implementing the cost strategy because of its small size, and thus, it cannot afford to offer products at lower costs than the larger competing companies. Since the firm does not apply the cost strategy, it correspondingly shirks employing the hybrid strategy. The reason is the hybrid competitive advantage strategy entails implementing cost and differentiation strategies simultaneously.
The Corporate Business Strategies
Apart from the generic business strategy of product differentiation, my project firm employs two corporate strategies. The first corporate strategy that the firm implements as an ongoing process includes vertical integration. My project firm owns its supply chain in the local market in which it operates. Additionally, its business units affiliated with this supply chain deal with market-specific products, which get combined to form a brand mix geared towards customers’ common needs. For these reasons, the firm uses vertical integration as one of its corporate strategies. Diversification is the second corporate strategy that the firm has applied. The firm applies this strategy occasionally, that is, every time it develops initiatives to venture into new markets with new products in its locally offered brand. Regarding globalization, the firm’s geographical scope does not cover international markets at the moment. Hence, it does not consider globalization as a strategy for achieving and sustaining a competitive edge.
The Firm’s Articulated Strategy
My project firm has the poise to remain competitive in the market in the present and the future by establishing a comprehensive competitive game plan that aligns with its business model. In particular, its articulated strategy incorporates the aspects of vertical integration, brand diversification, and strategic product differentiation. As part of its vertical integration initiatives, the firm adopts forward vertical integration in that it controls the retail outlets and distribution centers in which its product get sold. As discovered from the firm-based search, forward vertical integration has been attributed to transportation cost reduction and improvement in turnaround time efficiency in this firm. Unique packaging and product innovation have been the principal differentiation techniques that the firm employs. The firm applies the concentric method of product diversification that enables the firm to create new products related to its existing products, thereby reaching more clients. A combination of these initiatives helps the firm to offer unique products that customers always want to search for in the market. In this sense, this articulated strategy, which applies to all its business units, strengthens the firm’...