STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP

Task 1: Individual Report

Introduction

This part of the report deals with self personality test to acknowledge about leadership styles in managing an organisation. In this regard, it gave deeper insight on the overall area and prospects of developing oneself in managing skills and leadership abilities for future growth prospects before working in a MNC. This has shown personality test results below in the form of print screen attached. Further, it has also provided with some future opportunities of improvement, including HRM dissertation help. At the same time, it also gives some glance over own area of quality culture and leadership approaches that can be grown with time with integrity and actions and procedures.

a.Reflection on my own personality leadership preferences and style according to the Big Five Personality Test

Personality style

As per the result given above, the different personality traits show the distinctive psychological features about me. At first, the extroversion trait is shown. It is ranked at 37 Score Percentile. Thus, it can be deduced from the description that, I am not much outgoing or social, rather medium at that rate. Next, the emotional stability is scored 22 percentiles. It states that I am intended more towards Negative Emotionality. After that comes the agreeability trait. My score is 76 percentiles in that. It indicates that I am more optimistic and friendly in nature. The next factor is conscientiousness, in which my score is 12 percentiles. So, it informs me that I am impulsive and disorganized in nature. The last trait is the intellect or imagination. I obtained 70 percentiles in it. It remarks that I have a tendency to explore and experience new things.

Accuracy of the traits

The personality style which is described here defines most of my personality accurately. However, it seems not to the point appropriate at some traits. Firstly, it is not true that I am so moved towards extroversion. This is because; I am mostly ambivert with slight inclination towards introversion only. Secondly, I would like to opine on the second trait, that is, emotional stability. It is said that I am leaned towards negative emotions more. I do not think this matches my personality. In my opinion, I am comparatively at the middle rank in this trait. Apart from this, all other traits are seemingly equivalent to my character.

Main struggles that I face

There are some struggles that I face because of my personality. Firstly, being an ambivert, I encounter some embarrassing situations without being able to pronounce in support of myself. Apart from this, having the habit of disorganization, makes me misplace my important staff. These are the basic problems that I can relate to my personality.

b. Characteristics that require to be developed

The three most important characteristic that I want to develop are stated as follows:

Being more outspoken

Ambivert personality describes the state of being neither introvert nor extrovert. However, I feel being ambient with slight tend towards introversion. It is problematic at times when I face any troubles in public places. Since I have some traits of extroversion, I can deal with people and be socially active (Teo, 2019). On the other hand, if I fail at any point or be embarrassed, I lose all my strength of being outspoken, because of which I remain unable to defend myself. It is the most problematic trait of my personality. So, I want to improve the characteristic of being more outspoken.

Habit of organising

I have the habit of disorganising my own staff. It creates several issues. Mainly, I lose the important things at significant moments. I keep my things at such places that I forget later (Ortiz Torres, 2020). Apart from this, I have a practice of not keeping things at places from where I took them. This causes the misplacement of the staff. In fact, I am quite impulsive and emotional. Such incidents cause tension. That is why, I want to develop the characteristic of getting more organised.

Being more practical

The personality test shows that I have a habit of being imaginative. It indicates how I prefer daydreaming to being practical. Imaginative nature is good at times(Cheung et al., 2017). However, it seems very harmful when I have a lot of works to accomplish and I waste my time daydreaming. It is a vital characteristic that I want to develop.

c. Developing new skills

The procedures that I would accomplish to develop the skills are stated below:

1. It is very important to be confident on my own works. The confidence will help me be outspoken on particular topics (Best et al., 2018). If I fail to make the point clear, I should not be ashamed or embarrassed; rather, I should put my own opinions with full confidence. This would enhance my mental strength in order to overcome shyness.
2. Apart from that, I require preparing the backup opinions. The backup opinions help to combat and support the main topic that I am debating on (Teo, 2019). It deals with the extra knowledge on the matter other than the debated one.
3. Most significantly, I require making clear goals to achieve what I need.I require to be more focused on the things that I am doing (How to become a Practical Person from Emotional Person, 2020). Meditation helps a lot to develop concentration. It can help me to be more organised and practical. If I concentrate on the thing I am actually doing, then I would not be deviated from my focus and thus be able to complete my tasks easily.
4. Another method is scheduling my tasks. It always helpful to be organised. If I schedule the times to complete the works by making deadlines, I would be able to focus on it.
5. Since I have a habit of forgetting and thus creating mess, I should stop multi-tasking. Multi-tasking requires more attention and preparation, which lacks in my personality trait (McDougall, 2016). So, if I cease doing all the works at a time, and focus on one task only, I would be able to accomplish it better.
6. Lastly, I would have to shatter all the negativities to achieve the positive reward. The negative mindedness can prepare one’s aim at negative sides only even without the knowledge of doing so. Thus, negativity requires to be abolished and focus only on the positive aims.

Conclusion

From the above, I have learned that how individuals can be able to learn and improve themselves with respect of own personality and finding own drawbacks of nature. In other words, it has also given a view on the process making self development process through planning and execution as well. In other words, it gave some multiple aspects of people how managing self is possible through self observation and learning as well. Hence, it gave all-round development aspects in a single form.

Task 2: Report

a. Introduction

Strategic management of an organisation make sure that it work in accordance with the strategic direction of the senior administration as well as in terms of own developed policies and decision-making process (Van Rijmenam et al. 2017). The current paper throws light on the key concerned area of the chosen industry of Technology Communication sector and drawing attention on telecommunication that is based in UK.

In other words, UK’s communication and technology has grown with time and age developing its technological services through enhanced network services (Statista, 2020). The present market survey says that it has revenue of 3.32 billion pounds, which includes all types’ technology communications like mobile, devices like ipods, digital platforms like broadband as well as cloud services.

The major focus is on Vodafone brand among them that is rapidly growing with its 5G network services in the market so far. In fact, Vodafone has driven its growth platform in many prospective areas like £ 1 billion shared rural network as well as working in IoT applications for its superfast network services to its consumers (TechRadar, 2020). This kind of market study gives an idea that how it is operating in the entire UK-based market as well.

The purpose of the report is to acknowledge the strategic management of the chosen industry and its impact on the company in a wider aspect that is responsible for its growth prospects in future. Further, it will also throw some overview on the particular areas of threats and opportunities that the industry and the working firm is facing at present with future strategic dimension.

b. Main Body

1. Examination on Porters Five Forces and its evaluation and impact on the industry related to micro environmental factors

Evaluation and its Impact on the environmental factors

According to Rajeswari et al. (2017), bargaining power of a customer dominates upon an organisation, if there is ineffective ways of managing its services. For evidence, by analysing the five competitive forces, it can be notified that strategists can gain a complete picture of what impacts the profitability of the organization in Wireless Communications industry (Assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, 2020).

On the contrary, Kargas, and Tsokos (2020), argued that suppliers’ power goes higher when there are least resources in the industry. In this case, the technology and communication options are of variety that has possibility of multiple suppliers are less here where the competition goes higher. At the same time, it gives majority of security risks in terms of diversity and core network functionality (Assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, 2020). This makes an idea that the industry is being somehow facing troubles in respect to its major attributes and specification area of prospects like security concerns.

Apart from this, as per Corfe, and Gicheva (2017), threat of substitute products can only create a threat for the industry if there is a lack of innovation or service and cost control. Besides, it has also been observed that new entrants are often remaining away if there is no possibility of variation (Valaskova et al. 2019). In this respect, it has been numerously concentrated that moving on to the switching cost is a key area that the industry may have benefit and quality areas. Hence, it would automatically impact on the competitive rivalry. The industry may have better position in a competition level of its existing sector.

Strength of Five Forces

The strengths of each of the five forces are defined below:

Success Factors to operate in the industry

The key success factors are mainly the

• Driving Innovation
• Customer Services
• Cost Reduction
• Quality enhancement of network
• Variation and Diversity
• Risk control and Resilience of Suppliers

Q2.1. Identification of threshold and core resources and capabilities using the VRIO Framework

These are mainly the financial assets, HRM, Networking team, marketing team and Supply chain management that are capable of managing total quality services (Vodafone.com, 2020).

VRIO Framework

From the VRIO analysis it is seen that Vodafone applied the most effective strategy which provides them the competitive advantage.

Discussion on the resources and capabilities for Competitive advantage of Vodafone

Emerging opportunities and challenges

The business atmosphere in the telecommunication industry has modified quickly throughout the recent years (Queder, 2020). This has revolutionized how people learn, share, and access several services together with education, financial services as well as care. With this level of progress, consumer and social expectations have additionally modified a heap (Vodafone.com, 2020). This has led to growth in opportunities for Vodafone.

Focusing on digitalization and customer engagement-

Customer experience is currently an integral part of Vodafone’s business and marketing strategy (Corfe, and Gicheva, 2017). Vodafone has started special campaigns that address this part of its selling strategy. The focus of its CXX campaign is to supply its clients with an excellent and differentiated customer expertise (TechRadar, 2020).

Q2.2. Identification and critical evaluation of the current strategy the company is following.

Considering the above discussion on the resources and capabilities acknowledged from the micro environment, it can be recognised that Vodafone seems to be implementing different strategy that is more applicable for its positive return. According to Stocker and Whalley (2018), working with differentiation strategy would enhance a business to offer valuable quality services to the customers. It determines on the infrastructure assets reducing cost and capital expenditures. It has also focused on the core concerning area of managing the business with higher scale with the implementation of initiating environmental impact as well (Vodafone.com, 2020).

Driving Loyalty through Rewards

Vodafone works positive towards with its existing differentiation strategy in the market, so as to make sure, it intends to grow loyalty programs and rewards in terms of gaining high competitive advantage (Vodafone.com, 2020).

On the contrary, Queder (2020), opposed on the other aspect of differentiation strategy where the market competition might effect on the cable network of FTTX. It may deploy in entire European nation, if telecommunication policies are not being able to meet by the concerned firms. Based on this, it has been notified that due to the existence of Huawei equipments in the UK market have led other telecom operators fall behind in some extent here. It has been mainly identified in antennas and mobile masts (Ft.com, 2020).

However, despite of this fact, the company has been trying on approaching with its service and cost differentiation strategy in making its efforts with strategic partnership and strengthening its economies scales for existence.

Recommended strategies with reasons and evidence that the company can pursue in the next few years to achieve its strategic objectives

To facilitate the product Development Strategy:

Vodafone may facilitate the organic development for their organisation. Organic development is one of the expansion strategies of the business that can increase the output, customer bases Electra (Mostafizi et al. 2017). In order to achieve the organic growth, they may implement Ansoff matrix that might be focusing on its product development at low pricing strategy. Therefore, offering lower price than their competitors can provide them certain competitive advantage.

Market penetration strategy:

To select any strategy, it is important for the Vodafone to analyse the suitability, acceptability and feasibility of the project. Along with that, they are currently suffering due to their high pricing strategy do they are also facing challenges in the domestic market so it will be effective for them to adapt the market penetration strategy (Asimakopoulos and Whalley, 2017). Therefore, some risks in this strategy that is it decrease the profit level, but the return is also acceptable because it increases the customer bases.

Conclusion

Therefore, it can be concluded from the above discussion that Vodafone can achieve a huge success if they can apply the effective strategy. It is seen from the discussion that Vodafone is effective to provide good quality services but, in this era, only quality is not effective lower pricing strategy is also required. Vodafone is pursuing a focused cost leadership business-level strategy through their exclusive focus on the mobile telephony industry. In this regard, the company did not have the distractions that faced their competitors (such as fixed-line telephony) they are able to save money and pass the savings to their customers or maintain a profit even when their closest competitor is only achieving average returns. However, Vodafone maintained a broad competitive scope and focused on cost for their competitive advantage. Hence, it must adapt the lower pricing strategy to provide effective services to the customers. However, there are several risks related to huge competition but carefully selection of marketing mix can provide enormous success in those markets.

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