MBA Managing Strategy You have been approached by the board of directors of your own organisation or an organisation of your own choosing to advise them on the possibility of Participating more actively in the global market. Required: (a) Research this organisation and use particular critical incidents in the life of the organisation to illustrate the strategy paradoxes or debates raised by leading commentators such as Mintzberg, Whittington and others. (b) Explore the key strategic decisions the company will have to make in order to achieve their global aspirations drawing on relevant concepts and models. (©) Consider the implementation challenges they are likely to face in-the global market using models and concepts that you think fit to illustrate your analysis. Note: you must engage with the relevant academic theory and recent literature concemed with your chosen strategy debate — you will be assessed on this. You are required to provide clear evidence of critical analysis Students are expected to identify their sources in written assessments and to follow the Harvard style for citations and referencing.Contents 1. Introduction 2. School of Strategies overview.. 2.1. The Planning School 24.4. Definition, 212. 213. 22. ‘The Culture school Definition. 2.22. Discussion. 2.2.3. ‘Limitation. 2.3. The Positioning School. 23.1. Definition 2.3.2 Discussion .. Limitation. 3. Whittington ~ school of strategies.. 4, Global Retail Strategic Decision. 41, Tesco Strategy overview. 42. Porter's Five Force 42.1. —_Discussion.. 4.2.2. Challenges. 43. Porter Diamond strategy. 43.1. Discussion... 43.2. Challenges. 4.4. Porter's Generic Strategies 4.4.1. — Discussion.. 4A2. Challenges inne 45. Product Life Cycle (PLC) 45.1. Discussion.. 45.2. Challenges 5. Conclusion. References veneer Bibliography,1. Introduction Strategies are one of the most important fundamental of an organisation in order to achieving their goal and objectives. According to Mintzberg H Quin B (1997, p39) “Strategy is the pattern plan that integrates an organisational goal, policies and action sequences as a whole.” Therefore, managers or the top level of an organisation need to be very careful when selecting the strategy for them to implement in the market, to survive and to win their competitors. In this assignment, the schoo! of strategies which include planning school, culture school and positioning school of Minztberg will be analysed to show these strategies were put into action to help organisation be more participating in the global market. This assignment also illustrates some international theories which are Porter’s diamond, five forces, generic strategies and product life cycle of an organisation by analysing Tesco Ple ‘ case. 2. School of Strategies overview It is undeniable that strategic development is the key factor for the survival and success of every business. Obviously, each organisation should have suitable strategies and adapt it to the circumstances that arise in a competitive market. Turner (2003) stated that “in an attempt to guide those whose job it is to put strategy into practice, Henry Mintzberg, el at (1998) described the process of a ‘strategy safari’ and has identified ten schools of thought in respect of strategy development. These schools have varied in popularity overtime”. The ten different schools were divided into the groups of prescriptive, descriptive and synthesis. The difference point between the prescriptive schools and the descriptive ones is that the former focus on strategy formulation while the latter emphasize strategy development. The three prescriptive schools are considered the efficiency and stability foundations which create directions as well as objectives for the development of organisations. According to Stacey (2007), the three prescriptive schools are “the design school, the planning school, the positioning school These three schools become both fundamental and preconditioned elements of strategic development for each organisation. Added to these schools, the different descriptive schools which are entrepreneurial school, the cognitive school, the leaming school, the power school, the cultural school and the environmental school give deep insights in strategy formulation. All strategy perspectives recognize the relevance of entrepreneurship. The last group is synthesis that consists of the configuration school, “which integrates the views of all the other schools in terms of configurations or in term of transformations” (Stacey, 2007). This school represents an attempt at integration which definitively recognizes the complexity of strategy. This assignment will take three schools which are the planning school, the culture schoo! and the positioning school to analysis and apply to Tesco to show these models work and how an organisation apply these models to achieve their aims, objectives and be successful in global market.2.4. The Planning School 2. Definition ‘The planning school is a member of the prescriptive school which is generally more concem with how the strategy should be formulated rather than how they should be comprised. This model deals with issues such as budgeting, scheduling and programming. Every business needs to have plan for them in order to growth and development, thus this model can be applied in many firms such as Tesco to help them be the global organisation, 2.1.2. Discussion Tesco was found 1924 by Jack Cohen. Over many years, nowadays, Tesco become one of the largest retailers in all over the world. (http://www.tesco.co.uk). How they become successful like they are now? They need to have a good plan which is base on forecasting how the ‘economic is going to be, what they want to be, what will be the market and so on. The answer for these questions should be the planning school. Furthermore, the planning school looks back the Ansoff Model which Tesco used to analyse their market and products. They want to be globalisation therefore they open Tesco in many countries of the world where they launch their products to develop new markets. For example, Tesco opened stores in Japan where people want to buy fresh food everyday , therefore, the existing hyper market formats do not meet the needs of local customer. Tesco also has invested big sum of money on product development. In following Ansoff marketing strategies, Tesco is seeking to increase number of customer and number of sales. This school also looks closely at the SWOT model, the intemal strength weakness as well as the external opportunities and threat as mention in Marko Makipaa (2004). Tesco applied ‘SWOT model which can tell them their strength such as branch name, national store network to develop and win their competitors. It also shows them their weakness such as lack of global scale or threat of takeover to help them find the way to fix it and to change it in near future. They realised the external opportunities of Tesco can be overseas developing market in Eastem Europe and Asia and financial service which might be a good opportunity to focus on and to become more and more participate in global market. Besides that, the threat of Tesco is the entry of Walt Mart, the developing of local Sainsbury, etc. So by using the planning school which relates to Ansoff Model and SWOT analysis, an organisation will know the possibilities , plan for their new product and market , manage their budgeting, schedule, programme, select the best choices and techniques to fit their aim and objectives. This model also priorities its strategies by hierarchy. The long- term strategies is the ones, which are at highest order, followed by the medium and then by short-term plan.2.1.3. Limitation However, when implementing this model, firm might be faced by some challenges as this ‘model contains some problem which can affect organisation. Firstly, planners may focus too ‘much on generating newer strategic concepts, therefore placing the current objectives at sub standard level, diverting the attention from the original purpose leading to fallacies. Risk is major issue in this model as people who implement these concepts may decide to try and compete against rival competitors and hence generate new strategies, which could be very risky as in Sadler P(2003). Secondly, planning schoo! is all out forecast and predicting future based on some strategies and current trend of economy, however, it will be very difficult and risky to make the decision and implement it before. Basing strategy and decision on assumption and uncertainties could due to the diverting the organisation’ original strategy and also neglect the organisations requirement of strategy. 2.2, The Culture school 2.2.1. Definition The cultural school is one of subclasses of descriptive schools. This school sees strategy formation as a collective process. “The approach of this school tries to involve the various ‘groups and departments within the company: strategy formation is viewed as a fundamentally collective and cooperative process. The strategy that is developed is a reflection of the corporate culture of the organisation”. (http://www.12manage.com). This model focuses on the essential role the social processes, beliefs and values are playing in decision making and in strategy formation. In addition to this, it not only explains resistance to strategic change but helps to deal with predominant values in organisations or in regions as well. 2.2.2. Discussion ‘The culture of Tesco plays a vital part in the company; this is very much concemed about the way in which people in the organisation interact with each other. If people did not interact, well with each other, this could be bad for decision making; this could also lead to poor decision being made. Tesco have a positive culture. The type of culture of Tesco is a customer driven culture. Customer driven culture is everywhere in the business and makes a real effort to improve customer service, market research, employing right people, and training. The business is trying to update the technology e- commerce. It also has a positive culture where staff and workers communicate well. They also regard change as opportunity than not a treat. Moreover, the culture of ‘Tesco is seen as a dynamic one. This is proved in the way a business is looking to change how they work better, and always looking for new ideas to appeal more customers. 2.2.3. Limitation A shared commitment to beliefS encourages consistency in an organisation’s behaviour, and therefore by discourages changes in strategy. It is culture that deeply held beliefs and tacit, assumptions that act as powerful internal barriers to fundamental change. Also, the vague of this model is main reason leading to resistance to change. It can be missed to justify the