Sample BUSM4738 Strategy Assignment

BUSM4738 Strategy Assignment Sample

Word Limit – 2250
Due date – Sunday of week 5
Weighting – 30%

Overview

This case study assessment task is designed to expose you to a strategic perspective on issues that concern the organisation. You will be required to understand the strategy problems and opportunities for the organisation at the network, corporate, business and functional levels. You will develop a strategy for the organisation in the case study.

Case study analysis solution development is a classic strategy course assessment task in business schools. Case study assessment allows students to gain insight by understanding and experiencing a variety of businesses across industries in a range of countries.

Assessment criteria and weighting

• Overall impact of your executive summary, writing quality and referencing(15%)

• External environment analysis, industry analysis and critical success factor identification and prioritization (20%)

• Company analysis (20%)

• SWOT analysis (15%)

• Recommendations on how you will take this forward into the short, medium and long term(30%)

Learning Outcomes for Assignment Help

After completion of this assessment you should be able to:

Apply business concepts to construct a strategic plan for a business (CLO1)

Create a sustainable competitive strategy for an ongoing business entity (CLO2)

Develop strategies alternatives using design thinking to facilitate organisational decision-making and problem solving (CLO3)

Demonstrate an understanding of legal, ethical social, economic and environmental implications of business processes (CLO4).

Solution

External environment, Industry analysis and critical success factors

Strategic management is all about increasing the performance of any organization in the country. According to Tafti et al. (2017), a company that adopts strategic management as a process of a company can provide a better performance instead of others. It is the approach that is used to specify the objectives of the company, develop the policies and help the company to implement all of these. In other words, strategic management is a process that is made by the completion of strategy creation, implementation and evaluation. But the strategic management can be affected by many external and internal factors of the company which is discussed below.

1. External environment analysis

External environment factors are dependent upon the many factors of the strategic management like- political, economic and social, competitors, customers etc. These all factors are uncontrollable that can affect the performance and the operations of the organisation. There is an alignment between the structure of the company and the external environment. According to Shtal et al. (2018), the external environment is changing day by day that can affect the strategies of the company and may create a problem. Therefore, the strategy of any company should be like that it can be performed in any situation. Adani Group created a very effective strategy to handle the external environment factor in the COVID-19 situation all over the world.

The company uses the PESTEL analysis technique to identifying the problem areas in the External environment which are as follows-

PESTEL ANALYSIS

? POLITICAL(P): the government of any country has been changed after an interval of time. In this way, the policies of the company or any organization can change according to the new government.

? ECONOMICAL(E): As stated by Matovic (2020, p.96), the company can suffer from the Financial problems which can be caused by the inflation rate, market growth and recession of the country. In this pandemic situation the economy of Adani Group also affected but after that they resolved the problem.

? SOCIAL: Increment in the working employees and the latest fashion of the environment may create a problem in the social environment of the company. The social effect of the Adani group plays the same role in pandemic too because they are always aware about the latest trends.

? TECHNOLOGICAL: The older version of the technology of the company can go down in front of rapidly changing technologies.

? LEGAL: The different new rules and regulations of the government can affect the working of the company. The new regulations like the lockdowns in the pandemic affected many areas of the Adani group too.

? ENVIRONMENTAL: Increment in the population and global warming can affect the production of the company.

2. Industry Analysis

Industry analysis is increasing the development of the company’s strategy to compete with the other external forces and the competitions which can affect the business of the company. As stated by Chase et al. (2018, p.13), the company can highlight the strengths and the weaknesses of the company to understand the development of the competitive forces industry analysis uses a tool named Porter’s Five Force analysis which is used to make the business strategies of the company. This tool is used to analyze the profit margins between the different companies, which can be evaluated by the structure of the company. As stated by Bruijl(2018), in the pandemic situation of Covid -19, there were very high competition in the current market. But Adani group created the effective strategy with the help of Porter’s Five Force Analysis and able to give a high competition to its competitors.

Porter’s Five Force Analysis:

There are the following five forces that are used to analyze the competitive forces.

? Rivalry in the Industry [low]-: As stated by Adani.com (2021), it is used to define the competition among the existing firms and also decreases the profit potential of the different countries.

? Substitution Threat [low]-: The substitute of any product of the company can reduce the sale of the particular product.

? Buyer’s Bargain[low] -: The powerful buyer has the power or the potential to purchase the item at a low price.

? Supplier’s Bargain[low]-: The suppliers can ask for premium prices which can also decrease the profit of the company.

? New Competition [low] If there are new competitors entered in the market that it can also decrease the sale of the company.

3. Critical success factor identification and prioritisation

Sometimes, it is very difficult to identify the real matter of the team which creates problems in the team, therefore the Critical Success Factor is used to identify the real problem and also provides the solution to the particular problem. According to Moeyuf et al. (2020, p.1384), the critical success factor is created by the strategic mission and the goals of the company. There are six steps to identity and develop the critical success factor which are-

? Create the strategies and set the goals of the organization.
? In each strategy, find out the areas which can help to achieve the goal
? Create a list of the persons who are able to achieve that goal.
? Spend time in monitoring and measurement of the Critical Success Factors.
? Communicate continuously with those persons who are appointed for work.
? Take monitoring in each work of Critical Success Factor and take surety that everything is on track.

Section 3: Company analysis

1. Explain case study organisation strategy, businesses, key stakeholders and their values

Strategy

According to Cappa, Cetrini&Oriani (2020, p.379), corporate-level strategy is the way through which a firm can add value with proper configuration and organizing multi-market activities. This consists of three aspects such as the addition of values, configuration and organization. Value addition is helpful in generating superior financial performance from multi-market activities further creating competitive advantage.

On further company analysis, it has been discovered that Adani Group took the help of Porter’s Generic strategy for defining its strategies. The cost leadership strategy of the Adani group involves integration. With the help of this strategy, the concerned organization successfully synchronized information technology and cultures and objectives of the business. As a result, integration led to greater efficiency, reduction of costs and a better environment to work (Adani.com, 2021). Adani group believes in high capital-intensive projects and this is involved in the product differentiation strategy. This strategy of Adani Group in Australia has resulted in delivering the products efficiently within the specified parameters like cost, quality and time as this utilizes more capital, technology and skilled manpower. Taking the help of such a strategy, it is possible for the company to reduce human error, increasing efficiency and there is no problem with the shortage of labour. Lastly, the company focuses (Focus) on developing infrastructure (Mungai &Ogot, 2017, p.148).

Businesses

Adani Group involves diverse businesses consisting of resources, energy, logistics, agribusiness, real estate, defence, aerospace and financial services. The annual revenue of the concerned company is over US$13 billion as it is operating at 70 locations in 50 different nations (Adani.com, 2021). In a country like Australia, this group has resorted to self-financing of rail haulage works for the Queensland rail project and Carmichael coal mine with the port units.

Key stakeholders and values

Table 1: Stakeholder register
(Source: Influenced by Gornitzka&Krick, 2018, p.51)

2. Prepare an analysis into the functions of the business

Adani Group has functional organizational structure. Here, the COO (Chief Operating Officer) is responsible for making major decisions. The COO is then delegating the job to EO, then, EO assigns the job to different departments such as marketing, HR, finance and so on.

Figure 4: Organizational structure of Adani Group
(Source: Adani.com, 2021)

Marketing department of Adani Group has AGM and Sr. Officer. AGM is responsible for coordinating, planning and making decisions for the business operations, and then asks the Sr, Officer to carry out further tasks. Sr. Officer ensures that all the tasks are done properly and hence manages the marketing team.

Figure 5: Marketing Department
(Source: Adani.com, 2021)

Then, comes the finance department which is responsible for managing the cash flow of Adani Group and hence makes sure that enough funds are available for meeting daily requirements and payments. Thus, the Finance department is mainly run by Finance manager assisted by Assistant manager, Accounts and Clerk and Peon.

Figure 6: Finance Department
(Source: Adani.com, 2021)

The HR department at Adani is continuously working to manage the life cycle of employees efficiently by hiring, recruiting, training, onboarding and also firing the employees. It can be observed that this department at Adani is decomposed functionally. HR is decomposed into HR operations, IR & Compensation operations and T&D employee engagement. HR operations are mainly carried out by the manager, IR by Senior manager and T&D by Deputy manager (Joseph & Gaba, 2020, p.267). So, it can be inferred from the company’s situation that each of these departments are working collaboratively to meet the organizational goals.

Figure 7: HRM Department
(Source: Adani.com, 2021)
Section 4: SWOT analysis

Table 2: SWOT Analysis of Adani Group
(Source: Marketing91.com, 2021)

Presence of this company into diverse core industries has resulted in strong presence in major areas of industrial development. Ethical issues are the major one due to which the company also faced charges under the law court. Moreover, the shareholders are also not satisfied and this is evident by the fact that the group lost 14 to 24% of wealth in this pandemic situation. Moreover, risky investments in the mines of Australia are also a weakness. The government has provided lots of impetus to renewable and sustainable energy so the company has opportunity in this area. Due to Covid 19, massive disruptions to the flow of foreign investments have been observed. The rate of trading with other countries gradually slowed down due to such a threat.

Section 5: Recommendation

1. Recommendations for shareholder and stakeholder value added overall

The shareholder value is just a financial term which is used to describe the owner of the company about the shares owned by the company. The shareholder value can be increased when the company gets the earning of return on the invested capital of the company. The company should increase the sales price of their product and the services after an interval of time. According to Chase et al. (2018, p.18), a business can increase the revenue with the combination of high volume and high price in the products of the company.

2. Impact of individual recommendations on shareholder and/or stakeholder value

The impact of the individual recommendations on shareholders and the value of the stakeholders are very high. The individuals are recommended in many ways and the strategies which are used to generate the value of the stakeholders. They also work for creating the values for the multiple groups of stakeholders. There is impact of each recommendations which are as follows-

Recommendation 1: High Revenue growth

References

Adani.com 2021 Company Overview, Adani Group, viewed 8th April 2021, <https://www.adani.com/>
Cappa, F., Cetrini, G. &Oriani, R., 2020. The impact of corporate strategy on capital structure: evidence from Italian listed firms. The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, 76, pp.379-385.

Chase, L.C., Stewart, M., Schilling, B., Smith, B. and Walk, M., 2018. Agritourism: Toward a conceptual framework for industry analysis. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, 8(1), pp.13-19.

Gornitzka, Å. &Krick, E., 2018. The expertisation of stakeholder involvement in EU policymaking. Expertisation and democracy in Europe, pp.51-70.

Joseph, J. & Gaba, V., 2020. Organizational structure, information processing, and decision-making: a retrospective and road map for research. Academy of Management Annals, 14(1), pp.267-302.
Linkedin.com 2021 About Us. LinkedIn, viewed 8th April 2021, <https://au.linkedin.com/company/adani-australia>

Marketing91.com, 2021 SWOT ANALYSIS. Marketing, viewed 8th April 2021, <https://www.marketing91.com/swot-analysis-adani-group/>
Matovic, I.M., 2020. PESTEL Analysis of External Environment as a Success Factor of Startup Business. ConScienS, p.96.

Moeuf, A., Lamouri, S., Pellerin, R., Tamayo-Giraldo, S., Tobon-Valencia, E. and Eburdy, R., 2020. Identification of critical success factors, risks and opportunities of Industry 4.0 in SMEs. International Journal of Production Research, 58(5), pp.1384-1400.

Mungai, E. &Ogot, M., 2017. Generic strategies and firm performance: An investigation of informal sector micro-enterprises in Kenya. International Journal of Business and Management, 12(3), p.148.

Shtal, T., Buriak, M., Ukubassova, G., Amirbekuly, Y., Toiboldinova, Z. and Tlegen, T., 2018. Methods of analysis of the external environment of business activities.

Tafti, M.M., Mahmoudsalehi, M. and Amiri, M., 2017. Critical success factors, challenges and obstacles in talent management. Industrial and Commercial Training.