Figure 1 - Types of Stragegy
Generic Strategies
There are two generic strategies that a firm may adopt- Both have pluses and minuses.
A firm may either enhance its image in the market place and as a result obtain premium price.
- Such as Apple Computers Systems
- Lower market share so more vulnerable to changes in market.
Or, it offers a low cost no frills product or service.
- Lower profit margins, so needs to ship more items to maintain profit levels.
Analysing Strategic Capability
Figure 2 - Analysing Strategic Capability
The Five Forces
So far the concern has been with understanding broad aspects of the environment. However, inherent within the notion of strategy is the search for the opportunity to identify bases of advantage. In business, this might be advantage over competitors; in the public sector, it might be advantage in procurement of resources. The aim is to identify if there are factors in the environment, which influence the capability of an organisation to position itself to such advantage. Figure 3 shows the Porter’s Five Forces Model [4] that have a direct effect upon the functioning of an organisation.
Figure 3 – The Five Forces Model
The Value Chain
Value chain analysis has been widely used as a means for describing the activities within and around an organisation, and relating them to an assessment of the competitive strength of an organisation. Value chain analysis [4] was originally introduced as an analysis tool that was designed to shed light on the “value added” of separate steps in complex manufacturing processes, in order to determine where costs improvements could be made and/or value creation improved.
One of the key aspects of value chain analysis is the recognition that organisations are much more than a random collection of machines, money and people. These resources are of no value unless deployed into activities and organised into routines and systems which ensure that products or services are produced which are valued by the finer customer/user. In other words, it is these competencies to perform particular activities and the ability to manage linkages between activities, which are the source of competitive advantage for organisations.
Figure 4 - The value Chain
An understanding of strategic capability must start with an identification of the value activities that an organisation performs. Figure 4 is a schematic representation of value chain within an organisation. Value chains target competitive advantage. They are a way of modelling the organisation in order to answer question activity by activity. Once an organisation has modelled its value chain it can ask:
• Can we enhance the value added by that activity ?
• Is there an opportunity to reduce the cost of that activity ?
• Is there an opportunity to eliminate that activity ?
• Can we use that activity to differentiate the organisation ?
In order to answer these questions the organisation must study the primary activities that get the product, or service, to the customer and the support activities that facilitate that. In addition, there are linkages between these activity processes. Increasingly it is with improvements to these linkages that information systems can offer the most support and help an organisation achieve a competitive advantage.
The primary activities of the organisation are grouped into five main areas: inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and service. Each of primary activities is linked to support activities. The support activities can be divided into four areas: Procurement, Technology Development, Human Resource Management, and Infrastructure.
Primary Activities
• Inbound Logistics are the activities concerned with receiving, storing and distributing the inputs to the product/service. These include materials handling, stock control, transport, etc.
• Operations transform these various inputs into the final product or service: for example, matching, packaging, assembly, testing, etc.
• Outbound Logistics collect, store and distribute the product to the customers. For tangible products this would involve warehousing, materials handling, transport etc. In the case of services it may be more concerned with bringing customers to the service if it is at a fixed location.
• Marketing and Sales provide the means whereby consumers/users are made aware of product/service and are able to purchase it. This would include sales administration, advertising, selling etc.
• Service covers all those activities which enhance or maintain the value of a product/service, such as installation, repair, training, spares, etc.
Support Activities
• Infrastructure. The systems of planning, finance, quality control, etc. are crucially important to an organisation’s strategic capabilities in all primary activities. Infrastructure also consists of the structures and routines of the organisation which sustain its culture.
• Human Resource Management. This is a particularly important area which transcends all primary activities. It is concerned with those activities involved in recruiting, training, developing, and rewarding people within the organisation.
• Technology Development. All value activities have a technology, even if it is simply “know-how”. The key technologies may be concerned directly with the product, a process, or with a particular resource.
• Procurement. This refers to the process for acquiring the various resource inputs to the primary activities.
A Typical Supplier - Buyer Example
Figure 5 is a typical examples of a supplier - buyer value chain.
Figure 5 - A Typical Supplier
Industry Value Chain Showing Strategic Alliances Between Organisations
One of the key features of most organisations is that very rarely does a single organisation undertake all of the value activities from the product design through to the delivery of the final product or service to the final consumer.
There is usually specialisation of the role and any one organisation is part of the wider value system. which creates a product or service (See Figure 6).
Figure 6 - Strategic Alliances Between Organisation
In understanding the basis of an organisations strategic capability, it is not sufficient to look at the organisation’s internal position alone. Much of the value creation will occur in the supply and distribution chains, and this whole process needs to be analysed and understood.
For example, the quality of an automobile when it reaches the final purchaser is not only influenced by the activities, which are undertaken within the manufacturing company itself. The quality of components and the performance of the distributors also determine it.
The ability of an organisation to influence the performance of other organisations in the value chain may be a crucially important competence and a course of competitive advantage.
This kind of analysis can lead organisations to creating new supply and servicing methods with each other. For example:
• Just in Time - In this method of supply goods arrive at an organisation when they are needs. Thus the organisation that is consuming the goods does not have to keep large amounts of materials in stock. Just-in-Time is used by companies such as Rover and Honda [5].
Strategic Options Generator
Figure 7 - Strategic Options Generator
References
[1] H I Ansoff, Corporate Strategy, McGraw-Hill, 1965.
[2] C R Christensen et al, Business Policy: Test and Cases, Irwin, 1973.
[3] H. Mintzberg, The Structuring of Organisations, Management Science, Vol 24, 1979, pp 937 - 948.
[4] M. E. Porter, Competitive Strategy, MacMillian, 1980.
[5] G. Johnson & K Scholes, Exploring Corporate Strategy: Text and Cases, Fifth Edition, Prentice-Hall, 1999, ISBN 0-13-080740-0.
