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.

(c) 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 concerned 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

2. School of Strategies overview ....................•.............••.............................................•....................... 2

2.1.

2.1.1.

2.1.2. 2.1.3. 2.2. 2.2.1. 2.2.2. 2.2.3. 2.3. 2.3.1. 2.3.2. 2.3.3.

The Planning School ....................•....................................................................................... 3 Definition ................................................................................•....•...•..•.............•...•.......... 3

Discussion ; 3

Limitation 4

The Culture school 4

Definition 4

Discussion 4

Limitation 4

The Positioning School 5

Definition 5

Discussion 5

Limitation 5

3. Whittington - school of strategies 6

4. Global Retail Strategic Decision 7

4.1. 4.2. 4.2.1. 4.2.2. 4.3.

4.3.1.

4.3.2. 4.4. 4.4.1. 4.4.2. 4.5. 4.5.1.

4.5.2.

Tesco Strategy overview 7

Porter's Five Force 8

Discussion ...............................................•...................................•..•................................. 8

Challenges 9

Porter Diamond strategy 9

Discussion ..............................................................................•...................•..................... 9

Challenges •...................................................................................................................... 9

Porter's Generic Strategies 10

Discussion .........................•.........•..........................................•.................................•..... 10

Challenges 10

Product Life Cycle (PlC) 11

Discussion 11

Challenges 11

5. Conclusion .............•...................•................................................................................................... 12

References 13

Bibliography 14

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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 school 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 Pic' 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 ofa '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 learning 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 school 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.

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2.1. The Planning School

2.1.1. Definition

The planning school is a member of the prescriptive school which is generally more concern 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 internal 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 fmd the way to fix it and to change it in near future. They realised the external opportunities ofTesco can be overseas developing market in Eastern Europe and Asia and fmancial 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 oflocal 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.

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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 school 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 ofTesco plays a vital part in the company; this is very much concerned 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

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status-quo. Therefore, each organisation's attention has also been directed at how to overcome the strategy limitation of organisational culture.

2.3. The Positioning School

2.3.1. Definition

The Positioning school is where the organisation can develop its strategic position within the industry. In other words positioning is oneself in competitive strategy. This model sees strategy structure as an analytical development. Porter (1980) was the founder of the positioning school; he focused on the constitution of industries and their effect on strategies. The positioning approach looks at the company's situation in the economic market lay whose goal is to distinguish the organisation from others within the equivalent field. (Steward C, el at ,2005)

2.3.2. Discussion

This model has been applied in many firms such as Tesco to help them to positioning itself in the market so that they will situate out among the rest, and how to attain high revenue than other firms through market position. Tesco use Porter's five force analysis to understand the competition. Porter's Five Forces Model implies that business are being influenced by five forces that is supplier power, threat of substitutes, buyer power, barriers to entry and rivalry. This model also implies that business necessity be able to be aware of the industry circumstance in which they operate.

For TESCO, their main competitor is ASDA. The competition is firm between the two food retail companies as healthy as with others like Sainsbury. ASDA is owned by Wal-Mart which is the leading grocery succession in the United States. They are notorious for low priced items. This is one of the reasons why people tend to go to their stores for their shopping needs. When they expanded in the United Kingdom, they brought by way of them their cost leadership strategy. This resulted to the similar success that they have in the United States. However, TESCO was competent to prevent ASDA last year. How Tesco conquer ASDA using Porter strategy is explained as follows

According to Porter (1985), a business position is based on its strength and strength is classified into two - cost advantage and differentiation. When these strengths are applied, it wills consequence to three generic strategies - focus, differentiation and cost leadership strategy. Out of these three generic strategies, cost leadership strategy plays a significant task in the accomplishment ofTESCO's competitive benefit over ASDA. Cost leadership strategy means that the business is the low cost manufacturer or supplier of a definite quality item in a specified industry.

2.3.3. Limitation

When looking at the positioning school, manager or an organisation must aware of some limitation and taking into concern regarding it. Firstly, the top level in hierarchy of an organisation will be the one who formulate the strategies whilst implementation will be done

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by the lower level. This may cause the problem such as inconsistency. Managers might have sets of the ideal but they fail to translate these ideal to lower levels and due to the unsuccessful implementation. It also creates the de-motivation for their employees. (Susanne, R2005)

The other problem of this model is its focus. It is too much narrow in that it is only interested in the data that is either economic or quantifiable. The social, teclmological or political which is very important data have not taken into account. This model also based on the prediction of future trend by extrapolating the present trend which changes rapidly in the period of time for variety of reason. If the past and present trends are the only source used to predict the future trends, the strategies are very risky to fail in implementation.

3. Whittington - school of strategies

However, in opinion of Whittington, schools of strategies are four-types and it will be inadequate if we talk about the strategic management without mentioning the theories of Whittington. Each theory expresses the differences about human capacity to think reasonably and act more effectively. Once each manager directly faces with these differences, s/he will be better able to test their own action and finally decide which basic theory is most suitable with their demands. Therefore, these four perspectives are regarded as the important tools for strategic management of each business. Let look at the figure below, we will see the summary about the four basic theories:

Outcomes Profit-maximizing

Anal and co

yse, plan Keep you
low and
mmand options 0
Classical Evolutionary
ess
rate
Systemic Processual
y the local Stay close
ground a
rules with the rcots your pen

Proc Oelibe

Emergent

Playb

to the ndgo flow

Plural

Whittington (2003) 6

It can be easily to see that Tesco stay in evolutionary part because their strategy is to keep cost low, do promotion and their option open which can attract more and more customer come to them. Comparing the price of Asda, Sainbury with Tesco , it always show that the price in Tesco is much lower and they also do more promotion than their competitor. Moreover, people who come to Tesco to buy something cheaper not only buy those items but they also buy the other things which they need. Thus, even do more promotion and the price is cheaper, Tesco still remain their sales and budget. Therefore, using this strategy is the right way for Tesco and they can be more and more successful in the future.

However, from a systemic perspective, there is no one best way of strategy: just play by the local rules". It is obvious that the four approaches to strategy widely differ in their advice to management. Understanding and know how to apply each approach in the business system are the key factors which motivate each organisation to take part more actively in the global market.

The next part will be some strategies which Tesco applied or can be applied to achieve their goal and objectives.

4. Global Retail Strategic Decision

One of the most problematic trends in today's retail industry is globalization. The global arena has proved extremely difficult for many retailers over the past two decades. Retailer's performance in local market is highly influenced by variation in consumer behaviour. Entrants in market such as Brazil, Indonesia and Thailand find pronounced differences in consumer testes, buying behaviour and spending. Many retailers have tried and failed to establish themselves into Global markets. This part of essay will assist in understanding and the formulation of global strategy for Tesco PIc. The essay will use Porter 5 force, Porter Diamond strategy, porter generic and PLC model analysis to provide an .insight into Tesco's situation in the international market. This will help management in making to correct strategic choices in terms of corporate and global strategy to avoid the problem which may come from unfamiliar of new environment of each country that Tesco expand into it, such as new customer, new supplier and new -competitor.

4.1. Tesco Strategy overview

The way Tesco grow profits is by trying to make Tesco more attractive to customers, so that . more people choose to shop with them. They are doing well for one simple reason: globally, millions more customers have chosen Teseo - with 10 million more visits a week to their stores around. the world. In 1997, when Tesco first presented their four-part strategy; a strong UK business, non-food, retailing services and international .Now they are a truly international retailer, with growing . strength in non-food.and retailing services.

It seem like Tesco have chosen a very good strategy for international market, In fact Tesco still have problem when they expand business into some countries , for example in 2002

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;Tesco had experienced difficulties with expansion in Poland, Tesco faced with the economic problem and that make their cost higher to market presences. Another example in Taiwan (2000), Tesco was facing competition from the French giant Carrefour. These days, there are speculations about Tesco's withdrawal from Taiwan. From these unsuccessful experience, Tesco realized that expanding into new international markets is more difficult, Hence Tesco should be aware more about market competitive environment. Porter's analysis is still useful in assessing the competitive environment of firms these days.

4.2. Porter's Five Force

4.2.1. Discussion

According to Porter (1980), this framework can be applied to many organisations. It involves the external environment examining and focusing on the structure of the industry. The aim of this type of analysis is to develop a strategy that will enable firms to build up opportunities and protect them from threats. By doing so, can lead firms competitive positioning. This concept is dividing by 5 force call Porter's 5 force.

• The threat of entry of new competitors (New Entrants); In supermarket retailing, barriers to entry are high. High initial investment and fixed costs are likely to prevent many potential newcomers. Another barrier to entry is economies of scale. Tesco and other large supermarket are able to purchase large volumes of goods in a lower price. In contrast, smaller new entry companies are more likely to buy smaller volumes at higher prices. New firms also have to be aware that Tesco already have loyalty customers.

• The threat of substitutes; Which, Tesco threat of substitutes is high because product that Tesco sell same with to the other retailing shop. which is Tesco should analyse to what extent it is possible for customers to switch to the substitute. In such cases, Tesco should make sure that customers Satisfied on their products or services. On the other hand, other companies in the same industry may choose to compete on price, which will reduce profit margins.

• The bargaining power of suppliers; In general, most people have a choice between different supermarket chains, who compete on price and various promotions. This can make supplier have high bargaining power. However, Tesco is controlling the situation by not just order from one big supplier but by having a number of smaller ones. In contrast, the bargaining power of Tesco is increased. If a particular supplier is charging too much, Tesco can switch to another supplier.

• The degree of rivalry between existing competitors; As we seen in the market in nowadays that all major players in Global market as Carfoure and Wal-mart trying so hard for increase their market share. Consequently, the grocery market is particularly competitive.

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4.2.2. Challenges

Tesco's strategy, structure and rivalry are based on the model. It's strategy is clear, with growth being pursued from four areas-the core UK grocery business, non-food, international expansion and retailing services such as financial services, the dotcom business and telecommunication packages. Basically, Tesco is using its strong stable core to keep the business ticking over while it forges new riskier areas growth.

4.3. Porter Diamond strategy

4.3.1. Discussion

With this strategy, the objective is to become the lowest-cost producer in the industry. Tesco's segments in the industry are supplied with the emphasis placed minimizing costs. If the achieved selling price can at least equal (or near) the average for the market, then the lowest-cost producer will enjoy the best profits. This strategy is usually associated with largescale businesses offering "standard" products with relatively little differentiation that are perfectly acceptable to the majority of customers. Occasionally, a low-cost leader will also discount its product to maximize sales, particularly if it has a significant cost advantage over the competition and, in doing so, it can further increase its market share. (www.bizcovering.com). Tesco has launched a new low-cost food line in its supermarkets as it gears. up to take on discounters Aldi and LidL http (www.retail-week.com). Tesco have to launch its own versions of the discounters' products within its existing stores. This way it hopes it can keep its existing customers happy while hopefully attracting new ones.

4.3.2. Challenges

As the company faces novel situations and makes small mistakes through trial-and-error expanding, management form more realistic perceptions of the foreign market. The need for learning-by-doing at the local spatial level indicates that learning from the internationalisation process will often be a gradual, reiterative process .( Fernie J. 2005) Tesco experienced that the opportunity to develop a large scale business in France was unlikely to be realised under the current environment where planning permission is difficult and acquisition valuations are high. Therefore, Catteau was becoming less strategically important. Tesco have learned that advisors can only advise but that's all. Do not trust any investment bank (www.prnewswire.co.uk)

Nowadays, when new decreasing, especially in EU or UK markets demand is bigger and bigger, overall oil price and credit crunch will deepen and that will pull demand back. Tesco is grocery retailer, so in general food and agriculture industry faces cost increase and even peoples continuing to feed their natural necessity. Maybe Tesco need to invest more to future food supplements. The other challenge for them is about technology as all major technology today is base oil or gas or coal. Tesco like companies will close their door like last winter another UK retailer. Even could be E-commerce focus for Tesco.

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4.4. Porter's Generic Strategies

4.4.1. Discussion

Tesco's pricing strategy, though, is considered to be among the most effective versus WalMart and holds out hope for U.S. food retailers. According to Daniels (2007) because of very rapid innovation, have extremely short life cycles, a factor that makes it difficult to achieve cost reductions by moving production from one county to another. Many U.S. supermarkets are making efforts to close price gaps with Wal-Mart, convinced that there is a golden price range. The expression refers to pricing that even if Wal-Mart is cheaper, It is sufficiently attractive that other benefits, whether convenience, service or assortment, will compel many consumers to shop the supermarket despite the availability of a supercenter. One of the model that Tesco can use to analyses and position itself in purpose to achieve high profitability is Generic strategies framework. Which has been present in Competitive Strategic by Michael Porter ,he presents three basic strategic to improving competitive power in environment force to achieve a competitive adge in which a company can achieve the most advantageous; The three basic strategies are cost leadership, differentiation and focusing. According to Porter (1985) "Each of the generic strategic involves different route to competitive advantage, the cost leadership and differentiation strategies seek competitive advantage in a broad range of industry segment, while focus strategic aim at cost advantage (cost focus) or differentiation (differentiationfocus) in a narrow segment."

The retail industry is highly competitive. The Tesco Group competes with a wide variety of retailers of varying sizes and faces increased competition from other major retailers in the UK. and overseas. According to Tesco annual report (2008) "Failure to compete with competitors ofTesco is on areas including price, product range.

4.4.2. Challenges

In generic model, Porter suggests that if want to be successful, a company needs to pursue one of the strategies and must not be 'stuck in the middle'. There are two areas of competitive advantage, differentiation and low prices which, Tesco does not seem to fall in any single category. They do pursue both differentiation and low-cost strategies at the same time. Tesco does not offer discount shopping and is not even the cheapest among the main supermarkets,

Instead, offers Tesco basic foodstuffs as well as Tesco Finest. Tesco, being one such company, uses low costs to provide greater differentiation. Another part of Tesco's strategy that could be seen as differentiating is its building of community. As far as Tesco's customers are concerned; again; they cannot be ranked as belonging to a certain social group. By providing both cheap and expensive groceries, it offers products for people with limited budgets as well as those who are better off.

Retailers have variety of product, which available on the market continues to increase significantly each year, In virtually all sectors, from the food industry to home building

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products, retailers have to make decision over which products to stock. Retailers must deal with seasonal changes that affect number and types of products they carry. If the company has retail outlets in difference country, its product offering must reflect any difference in style, weather, income and culture.

4.5. Product Life Cycle (PLC)

4.5.1. Discussion

The PLC model is useful in explaining production patterns for some types of products, such as standardized consumer goods, but is less useful in predicting future patterns, especially in industries dominated by a few global players. (Morrison J., 2003) The model demonstrates dynamic comparative advantage. The country that has the comparative advantage in the production of the product changes from the innovating (developed) country to the developing countries. (Hill & Charles, 2007)

Tesco is ever expanding its business in order to keep up the competition to a very high level, so therefore, it is vital that Tesco invest in new services and products so that customer's demands are met. Tesco is an example of a large supermarket chain can use their customer loyalty to diversify and extend their product range. Groceries are always going to be the core product for Tesco but in their website or in their stores, it can be seen to fmd information on a range of other products completely unrelated to groceries.

Tesco is developing these new products and selling to their existing customer base to be able to enter these new markets. There is Tesco Finance and Insurance where access to apply for the Tesco credit card and savings account, products that in the past you would have approached the bank for.

Tesco Direct is a catalogue shopping service and is seen as taking on established catalogue brands like Argos. By understanding the product life cycle, Tesco is able to identify new areas to move in (www.accaglobal.com)

Currently Tesco has an electronic range of goods and services that they offer, but one thing they lack is affordable laptops. So far, Dell and PC World are the leading retailers of affordable laptops. Tesco needs to buy quality laptops at a competitive price to maximize sales and increase productivity (www.bizcovering.com).

4.5.2. Challenges

According to Daniels (2007) because of very rapid innovation, have extremely short life cycles, a factor that makes it impossible to achieve cost reductions by moving production from one county to another. As it has been told Tesco is a global retail market and still being globalized around the world. Therefore, Tesco needs to move some products to a new market and an environment. In this case Tesco challenges it rivals by reducing its cost and removing products. There are plenty of difficulties in this competition such as making good research

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about environment to make a perfect prediction about the best products which can be used to beat the competitors in the global market.

5. Conclusion

Strictly speaking, all strategy schools and models are regarded as a tool for strategic information from an organic perspective and as a process for perceiving a number of different futures for an organisation. Strategy is created at the topmost level of an organisation. This level sets the organisation's goals and decides on its investments and the deployment of its resources. Thanks to applying strategic models in performance, Tesco has participated more actively in the global market. It has proved through the success and development ofTesco in many countries in the world.

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References

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