In order for Liverpool Council to effectively and efficiently organise and deliver the 2018 Commonwealth Games it is important to first ascertain what organisational model of strategic management is best suited

by msm999 (student)

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

Question: Management Report (V2) You work for Liverpool Council as an event manager. Liverpool has been successful in bidding to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games and will shortly begin detailed planning for the event. To assist in this the council’s Chief Executive has asked you to prepare a report evaluating the classical approach to strategic management to help ascertain how appropriate this will be as a planning framework. You have been asked to set this in the context of other theoretical approaches to strategy and to draw on lessons learned from comparable events. Your report should be of no more than 3,000 words ( /- 10%) and should include: 1. An introduction (250 words); 2. An analysis of the classical strategic management process (1,750 words); 3. A critical evaluation of other theoretical approaches to strategy (750 words); 4. A conclusion which justifies your recommended choice of strategic approach (250 words).

Report:

Word Count: 3064

Introduction

In order for Liverpool Council to effectively and efficiently organise and deliver the 2018 Commonwealth Games it is important to first ascertain what organisational model of strategic management is best suited to plan, manage and deliver the most rational and efficient allocation of resources, the most thorough and extensive utilisation of the fullest range of available expertise, the best and most accommodating organisational approach to the full dynamic range of potentially shifting circumstance; and thereby overall fulfil to the highest possible standard the full range of Liverpool Council’s overriding vision and objectives, with regard to the complete 2018 Commonwealth Games.

To this end I shall, in my capacity as an events manager to Liverpool Council, endeavor to extensively yet concisely evaluate the classical approach to strategic management to ascertain how appropriate this model is likely to be as a planning framework for the execution of the 2018 Commonwealth Games. I shall achieve this through recourse not only to the appropriate historical and contemporary examples of large scale planned events but also through detailed examination of a range of theoretical approaches to strategic management. I shall begin therefore by laying out a detailed critical explanation of what can broadly be termed the classical strategic management process, from here I shall evaluate a range of other theoretical approaches to strategy before finally delivering a succinct conclusion that lays forth a justified set of recommendations with regard to my choices over strategic approach to the successful planning and execution of the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Taken as a whole this approach is deigned to deliver an overall satisfactory answer to the question: How can the effective application of strategic management help Liverpool deliver the Commonwealth Games in 2018 in a manner that will be most successful for the city?

An Analysis of the Classical Strategic Management Process:

The essential basis of the classical strategic management process is the establishment of a carefully prepared outline of the core visions and objectives with regard to a proposed event. This outline of core visions of objectives should, according to this process, be established by a management team encompassing the Board of Directors (in this case the appointees of Liverpool City Council) as well as the range of other stakeholders in the organisation (including private companies and corporations, state departments and potentially incorporated local interest groups). Based on these remits the classical strategic management process aims to outline initiatives and controls designed to accommodate and accomplish this range of goals. To this end the process proposes identification of the events audience, the assessment of available resources, funding and expertise, the clarification of an overall event concept and the coordination of specific technical aspects for the successful management of the proposed event. Such an approach aims at the greatest return in terms of event outcome success in line with the particulars of the events core vision and objectives through the efficient coordination and deployment of resources, expertise and funding.

The foundation of the application of such an approach must be based on the following of a detailed process. The event manager must, through close collaboration and cooperation with the event board of directors and stakeholders, establish a clarified brief on the aims, directives and overall vision of the proposed event. The event manager must begin with the performance of a detailed analysis of the situation. The event manager must carry out a detailed site survey through the incorporation of a range of skilled technical surveyors and advisors, this site survey must take into close consideration the micro-environmental and macro-environmental nature of the sire as well as the potential micro-environmental and macro-environmental impact of any proposed work on the site in the creation of the project. The events manager must incorporate into this survey a full analysis of health and safety protocol with regard to the successful execution of the final event, including the potential and particular problems that might arise through questions pertaining to crowd management. Based on this the event manager must then work alongside the architects and board of directors to clarify the proposed site design whilst taking into consideration all of the above material. With this established the event manager must draft a detailed budget organising all the particulars with regard to the use and deployment of the budget to accomplish the core directives of the overall vision. This budget must take into close consideration the means of procurement of materials, the staffing of the event (including the staffing of security) the identification of the supply chain, the incorporation of a full range of technical expertise in the successful execution of the project (electricians, plumbers etc) and must draw up a detailed schedule for the successful completion of the full range of different respective elements of the project.

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Concurrent with the overall form of assessment outlined above a range of core objectives necessary for the successful execution of the project must be proposed. These core objectives can be separated into short-term and long-term objectives. Long term objectives can be organised through the drafting of a long-term vision statement as well as the drafting of financial and strategic objective statements, strategic objectives with regard to various operational units and broad tactical objectives. These two key elements i.e. a detailed situation analysis and range of statements of objectives can thereby be used concurrently to suggest and propose an overall strategic plan as to the wholesale management of an event. Such a plan should provide in its details detailed proposals as to how the event is to be managed and how through the execution of said proposals this range of objectives is to be achieved. In the creation of this strategic management plan each strategic option ought to be evaluated against three important success criteria, namely: suitability, feasibility and acceptability. That is whether a proposal is suitable for the achievement of the projects overall objectives i.e. would it work if put into action, whether a proposal is desirable for the achievement of the projects overall objectives i.e. can the proposal be made to actually work, whether a proposal is acceptable i.e. whether respective parties involved in the project will accept said proposals and carry them through in an effective, efficient and overall satisfactory manner. When considering the suitability of a proposal one must carefully consider each proposed part of the overall management plan and consider carefully the rationale of the strategy. As such one must consider whether a proposal is suitable in terms of making economic sense, one must consider whether the organisation of the proposal successfully fulfil economies of scope and economies of scale and one must also consider whether a proposal is suitable with regard to the site environment and the capabilities of this site and the capabilities of those involved in the execution of the project. With regard to feasibility one must consider the sort of resources and expertise that are necessary for the satisfactory fulfilment of the overall strategic management strategy. This range of resources and expertise include, though are not limited to information, individual experts, man power, appropriate companies, funding and so forth. Following from this one must consider whether the said resources and expertise are available and whether and from whence they can be acquired. Necessary for sufficiently assessing the feasibility of such a project is the utilisation of close analysis with regard to resource deployment, and cash flow. Finally with regard to acceptability one must consider the expectations held by major stake-holders in terms of their hoped for performance outcomes from the final event (Freeman). This range of stake-holders are primarily the shareholders in the project but the term can also be opened out into include employees and other participants. The factors one must take into consideration when assessing the overall acceptability of a strategic management plan are the risks for the stake holders, the reactions of the stake-holders and the potential returns the stake-holders can expect to receive. An assessment of potential and likely stake-holder reactions involves the anticipation of those reactions which are likely to be had by the stake-holders. This can include a whole range of factors, including opposition by major shareholders to the particulars of the financing of the project, the selling of new shares in the venture, the marketing strategy of the event and so forth. Other potential factors influencing stake-holder reactions include local or international opposition to elements of the project. A good recent example of extensive and damaging opposition to a major project is the wide spread disruption caused by the opposition of indigenous and activist groups to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games (Boykoff). Another example of potential stake-holder reactions involve the workforce; employees and trade unions could potentially oppose practice seen as disadvantageous to their interests/their members interests, thereby giving rise to potentially disruptive industrial disputes. These potential factors must therefore be properly assessed through practices such as stakeholder mapping and the exploration and analysis of a full range of potential ‘what if’ scenarios.

A key appropriate example of the practical and real life application of the strategic management process as well a range of relevant lessons with regard to the proposed Liverpool 2018 Commonwealth Games can be garnered through examination and analysis of Sheffield’s 1991 World Student Games. The games highlight the difficulties of event management and the development and application of a strategic management process. The 1991 Sheffield World Student Games (or more correctly 1991 Summer Universiade) which ran between the 14th and 25th of July 1991 is a prime example in which despite a seemingly thorough strategic management approach the overall event vision and many of its key objectives failed to be properly achieved. The event was orchestrated by a the city council working in partnership with trade unions, higher education institutions and local business leaders and was directed by Sheffield City Council. The overall vision of the short and long term objectives of the Games were laid out very clearly by the council, namely to serve as the show piece of a broad range of large-scale regenerative policies and facilitate the urban socio-economic regeneration of the city, a once wealthy and important steel producing town reduced by the end of the nineteen eighties to an economically deprived post-industrial city. The projects vision statement outlined high expectations to halt the economic decline of the city through the use of the Games alongside other development to improve the infrastructure of the city, establish the provision of world class leisure and sports facilities and thereby significant lower unemployment through construction and management jobs, tourism, international investment and so forth. The project did fundamentally fulfil some important elements of this overall project vision, the World Student Games did leave the city with world standard sport and leisure facilities, facilities nonetheless, that will serve to aid future investment and provide the opportunity for future international sporting events. Added to this the World Student Games did help facilitate a transition in the self-image of the town, from failed centre of the British steel industry to a modern post-industrial Northern British city. Finally it did provide a boost to employment. However over and above all of these positive discernible factors the project can broadly be said to have failed to successfully fulfil its major objectives and overall vision. The Games were found to dramatically outstrip any predicted upper limit of financial expense with staggering runaway overall. This dramatic financial miscalculation combined with both considerably lower employment generation and investment levels amounted to a systemic failure of events management and the strategic management process (Critcher, 1992). As a city of comparable size and comparable post-industrial legacy the appreciation of the lessons learnt from Sheffield’s hosting of the 1991 World Student Games is paramount in the creation of an informed strategic approach to the development of a plan for the Liverpool Commonwealth Games. Similarly one can learn a great deal of lessons to aid an informed strategic approach to the planning of the Liverpool Commonwealth Games through analysis of the example of the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games. Here again one finds the example of an international sporting event being used by a city authority explicitly as a means to generate international investment, directly and indirectly stimulate employment and broadly aid in the regeneration of the city both materially and in terms of international status. Here, unlike in Sheffield the major sporting event was able through the application of rigorous strategic management to largely fulfil the over riding vision of the City authorities; with the Games working as a catalyst to facilitate the widespread regeneration of Manchester stimulated by rapid and dynamic economic development which has remained sustained through to today. The 2002 Manchester Commonwealth games enabled the building of a range of purpose built world class sporting facilitates and the Games overall aided the bolstering of the cities international reputation; as Sebastian Coe, Chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games has put it: “East Manchester provides a template of excellence in regeneration terms, and has catapulted the area forward twenty-five years in a period closer to five... Both the Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games, and Liverpool Capital of Culture 2008 are key milestones” (Coe, 2006).

A critical evaluation of other theoretical approaches to strategy:

There is of course a broad range of nuanced approaches to the strategy of strategic management but in broad terms one can divine two main approaches, namely the Sociological Approach, the Resource-Based Approach and the Industrial Organisational Approach.

The Industrial Organisational Approach to strategic management fundamentally builds on a basis of modern economic theory and deals with issues such as resource allocation, economies of scale and competitive rivalry. The Industrial Organisational Approach utilises economic theory in order to carefully map the objectives and directives of the stake holders in a project, building on assumptions of rationality, self disciplined behavior and profit maximisation, working in a manner akin to Game Theory and Rational Choice Theory assuming the business organisation and direction of stake holder groups will proceed in line with the predictable decision making of the rational selfish maximiser. As Michael E. Porter has been quick to point out industrial organisation theory and the broad insights of industrial economics was for a long time not fully integrated into the practice of strategic management (1981: 610). Indeed this long held antipathy between scholars in these different, yet clearly interconnected fields can be argued to, at least in part, arise from fundamental underlying differences in purpose, frame of reference, unit of analysis and essential research values, an antipathy derived from the original statist/public service emphasis of strategic management versus the business and market based emphasis of industrial organisation (Porter, 1981). This false dichotomy has since been fundamentally disrupted by the widespread marketisation of the public sector sphere and the integration not only of broader market mechanisms and private partnerships into public state funded projects but also the widespread application of market principles to all levels of public sector services (Criticher, 1992). Industrial organisation and modern micro-economic theory have thereby brought important new analytical techniques to the realm of strategic management as well as a new methodology “holds promise of contributing to the development of the policy field in a way quite distinct from the purely conceptual” (Porter, 1981: 609). As such the industrial organisational approach can be credited with aiding the careful planning and allocation of expertise and resources for the completion of a strategically managed event within the remit of often strict financial funding limitations; this has been achieved through the injection of a competitive business approach to strategic management thereby enabling strategic management to operate with greater ease within the increasingly marketed business environment. Furthermore through the influence of business logic this model has fundamentally enriched strategic managements ability to competitively map a full range of stake holders reactions. However such an approach is in essence vulnerable to miscalculation on the basis of use of broad simplifications; the rational selfish maximiser approach to business logic, though fundamentally useful is at its basis simplistic and often does not take into consideration irrational business practice, the unexpected fluctuation of the market place and so forth. Furthermore this essentially marketised micro-economics influenced approach can further be criticised on the basis that it unduly emphasises the stake holder interests of business groups and belies itself too closely to the profit mechanism thereby undermining potential gains and loses that might be incurred on a local, social or other more nuanced basis.

The second key general approach to strategic management is the sociological approach. The sociological approach to strategic management deals primarily with human interactions and thereby lays out assumptions on the basis of behavioral satisfaction, bounded rationality and profit sub-optimality. This approach provides a more nuanced framework than the industrial organisational approach, providing a more flexible behaviorialist analysis of decision making.

Finally, the research based approach to strategic management. This approach has its origins in the 1950’s studies of Edith Penrose, but was largely only fully integrated into the field of strategic management during the 1980’s before becoming the dominant framework within this practice during the 1990’s (Hoskisson, 1999: 417). This approach fundamentally draws on a resource-based view wherein research on strategic leadership, strategic decision theory, strategic resource allocation and so forth are statistically mapped through both quantitative and qualitative approaches.

A conclusion which justifies your recommended choice of strategic approach:

Therefore in the strategic management of the 2018 Liverpool Commonwealth Games it is paramount to learn the lessons from comparable events, events regarded both as successful and not so successful. Notable amongst such events must be the 1991 Sheffield World Student Games and the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games, also of relevant importance is a proper analysis of the strategic management of Liverpool's ‘Capital of Culture’ year. Therefore in order to best manage the 2018 Liverpool Commonwealth Games, it is important to take on a broadly synthetic approach, one that, whilst learning from past comparable successes and failures recognises the unique requirement of this particular project. I therefore recommend the combination of a research based approach with insights garnered both from industrial organisation and the sociological approach. This I feel will provide the best and most dynamic framework for the fulfilment of the vision criteria of the 2018 Liverpool Commonwealth Games.

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