The Matching of Business Strategy and Corporate Culture

Business Strategy:

Customer value/satisfaction is a marketing term that measures how products or services supplied by a
company meet or surpass a customers expectation. Customer satisfaction is important because it provides
marketers and business owners with a metric that they can use to manage and improve their businesses (Kasi,
2011). For example, Customer value of Dell laptops and computers are high in view of its customers. Dell
products quality, efficiency, brand, delivery and after sale service are the benefits for buyers and definitely it
pays more than cost of the product and services.

Low-cost producer is a company that can provide goods or services at a low cost. In general, low-cost
producers utilize economies of scale in order to execute their strategy of low prices. For example, Wal-Mart
WMT is perhaps the most salient example of a company benefiting from economies of scale. Its size allows
Wal-Mart to do its own purchasing more efficiently since it has roughly 5,000 large stores worldwide. This
gives the company tremendous bargaining power with its suppliers (Analysts, 2012).

First to market / product development is a company that is the first to establish itself in a given market
or industry gain a sustainable competitive advantage by establishing themselves before any competitors enter
the market. Among other things, being first typically enables a company to establish strong brand recognition
and customer loyalty before other entrants to the market arise (Her, 2017). For example, Coca-Cola is the first
beverage company that produces cola eBay is the first online auction service in the world.

Increase shareholder value is prime importance for the management of a company. So, the
management must have the interests of shareholders in mind while making decisions. The higher the
shareholder value, the better it is for the company and management. Shareholder value is the value enjoyed
by a shareholder by possessing shares of a company. It is the value delivered by the company to the
shareholder.

Corporate growth is strategy aimed at winning larger market share, even at the expense of short-term
earnings. The objective for corporate growth is to maintaining strong market position, and increasing volume
of product. Four broad growth strategies are diversification, product development, market penetration, and
market development (Suttle, 2012). For example, in product development strategy, Coca-Cola launched diet
coke sweetened with Splenda.

Manufacturing capability/flexibility is could refer to the capacity of a manufacturing system to adapt

successfully to changing environmental conditions as well as changing product and process requirements
(Swamidass, 2000). It ensures that the manufacturing process is both cost-efficient and cost-effective in that
it can produce customized products without sacrificing either objective. For example, in 1981 Honda exploited
the benefits of flexibility in inducing customers to expect more frequent from motorcycle industry (Gupta &
Somers, 2009).
 Corporates value is the operating philosophies or principles that guide an organization's internal
conduct as well as its relationship with its customers, partners, and shareholders. Core values are usually
summarized in the mission statement or in the company's statement of core values.

Corporate Culture:

Culture is the set of beliefs that drive employee behaviors. These can be things everybody in the
company knows and shares, as well as unspoken rules. The range of acceptable employee behaviors is based
on these underlying beliefs. Sometimes these behaviors align well with the business strategy, but this isn't a
given (Essay, 2013). There are four types of organizational culture: Clan, Adhocracy, Market, and Hierarchy
(Cameron & Quinn, 1999).

Matching Business Strategy with Corporate Culture:

Clan oriented cultures are family-like, with a focus on mentoring, nurturing, and doing things
together. This quadrant is especially important from the perspective of building employee engagement,
development, sense of belonging & trust. For example, to build the brand of Toms of Maine, founder Tom
Chappell focused on building respectful relationships with employees, customers, suppliers and the
environment itself.

Adhocracy oriented cultures are dynamic and entrepreneurial, with a focus on risk-taking, innovation,
and doing things first which required for a product leadership strategy. For example, Facebook can be seen
as a prototypical adhocracy organization, based on CEO Mark Zuckerbergs famous admonition to, Move
fast and break things unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.

Market oriented cultures are results oriented, with a focus on competition, achievement, and getting
the job done. It needs to focus on creating a Market culture characterized by attributes like competitiveness,
achievement, market aggression & customer orientation. Example of the market culture is software giant
Oracle under hard-driving Executive Chairman Larry Ellison.

Hierarchy oriented cultures are structured and controlled, with a focus on efficiency, stability and
doing things right. This culture will help an organization in driving standardization, control and stability
required for building value for money offering. For example, McDonalds, KFC, Starbuck and so on.

There four levers that needed in order to matching the business strategy and corporate culture which
are organization structure, leadership skills, business process, and human resource and working environment.
Organization structure refers to the way companies organize themselves in terms of
business/functions/departments and reporting relationships. Leadership skills refers to someone who have
certain skills that needed in organization in order to help creating the competitive and entrepreneurial culture
that was required. Business process refers to the core of business process itself (clan, adhocracy, market,
hierarchy). HR system and working environment refers to mechanism like rewards and recognition, values,
performance management system and recruitment process and work environment (Chopra, 2015).
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