Strategic Management and Corporate Social Responsibility

1: Evaluate a range of strategic planning theories and models.

(Using research sources explain a variety of strategic planning theories and models, then relate your identified theorists and models to a business/organisation clarifying their pros and cons). Unit 2074: 1.1

Answer:

Strategic management is important for the organisations to handle the operations and fulfil the organisational aim and objective. There are different theories and models of strategic planning. As per the theories, there are effective steps through which the strategic planning can be developed, which are identifying the mission of the organisation, determining the needs of the company, prioritising the objectives, arranging the resources of the organisation, hiring the right and experienced employees, developing strategic choices, implementing the planning and evaluation and monitoring. the theories also includes the ethical practices of the organisation to develop effective strategic planning, where the major ethical code of conduct includes employees values creation, value maximisation of all the stakeholders, harmony and freedom at the workplace, equality and diversity management, resect and integrity as well as transparency and accountability maintenance (Anon, 2009). These are the major practices through which the organisations can improve ethical standard and run the business sustainably. On the other hand, for developing good strategic planning, it is essential to run the business sustainability and in this regard the theory of corporate social responsibility is beneficial for the corporate firms to provide green environmental footprint and run the business strategically (James McGrath& Bob Bates, 2013). For this, the organisations try to create values for the social communities, maintain environmental protection and mitigating the negative impacts of the organisational activities on environment, as well as maximising profitability to fulfil the economic responsibility are the major practices of corporate social responsibility, through which the corporate firms are able to secure future sustainable development (Bowie and Beaucham, 2001). Business dissertation help provide the most valuable insights into these theories and practices, assisting students in understanding and evaluating strategic management concepts effectively.

On the other hand, strategic planning models are effective to follow a systematic process and develop creative solutions for the business. The strategic business models are such as SWOT analysis, PESTLE analysis, Porter’s Value chain model, Porter’s five forces as well as 7P marketing mix model. These are major strategic planning models to run the business strategically and develop creative solutions for fulfilling the aim and objective of the corporate firms. For market analysis, the SWOT analysis, PESTLE analysis, Porter’s five forces are effective (Cao & Mann, 2008). SWOT analysis is helpful to identify the strengths and weakness of the firms as well as analyse the upcoming market opportunities and threats (Tom Rath et al., 2008). On addition to this, the PESTLE analysis Porter’s five forces model are effective to analyse external business environment. In addition to this, Porter’s Value chain model is effective to analyse the organisational resources and capabilities to run their operations proficiently. Additionally, the Blue ocean model is helpful for the firm to increase creativity and utilise resources for developing innovative solutions of the business (Ries, 2001). The 7P marketing mix model is also an effective strategic model, which includes product, pricing, placing, promotion, people, process and physical evidence, through which it is possible to suggest suitable recommendation to the organisations to promote the brand and establish it successfully by human resource management, process design, improving physical evidence, as well as product and pricing strategy. Hence, the theories and models are different in the business environment and both are important to develop creative solutions to the business.

2: Analyse the principles of resource management

(Research and explain what resource management is about and its principles, then make a case on your thoughts about them, your preferences and why an organisation/ business need them). Unit 2074: 1.2.

Answer

Resource management is the recruitment, management and training of the staff in an organisation. The staff have to be drawn to the company through polices and incentives. At times the organisation may need external help when they cannot fill in the post in eternally. At times it is better when the company capitalises on human capital and “incentive motivation” (Ziglar, 1986). With the changing drivers for people it is great to look at what has been working and what the team is taking up.

For principles like Collaboration in the team, Knowing what it is that motivates and drives the time ie Visibility, Utilising and valuing team members as the machines will need human beings to run operate and service them, Transparency in the team, develop the best talent through training and lead the organisation through serving (Maxwell, 2008)

At times it is very easy to overlook the input that goes into the people. At times organisations do not put in as much effort into making sure that the team is developed to its fullest. Once the team is secured and they are working it is key to follow up and make sure that they get their reviews, supervision and training no matter what the cost implication is. Once the HR department is in tune with the workers this will make sure that the team knows they are valued as they are the most important asset every organisation has. With that the human capital is increased well as the knowledge base among the team.

The recruitment process takes a long time but the organisation leaders must also keep an eye on the requirements of the law. Now in this day of trade unions it is good to advise the team on how best their need are met and the compensation they will be getting. If a team member is not pulling their weight they have to go. This will safeguard the rest of the team. The attitude of each team member has an impact on the rest of the team. It is better to have a team with very good attitude and can grow rather that an intelligent team that won’t have a good Emotional Intelligence too. Teams have to be motivated and be clear on what they are doing (McGath & Bates, 2013).

3: Evaluate the principles of capital investment appraisal.

(Here, research and explain the principles you identified, then explain how they are likely to work or not, within organisations/ businesses and ways you think they can be improved on to get the best out of them. Unit 2074: 1.3.

Answer:

There are different things that are needed in order for a business to start. Before any thing can happen research needs to be conducted depending on the company, it may have capital laid aside for the project or it will need to rise funding through a funding circle or a loan. The investment appraisal that is required for a start-up, company expansion or getting new machinery for the company. At the end of all this, the investor need to be aware of the scope of the project and the ways that cash will be utilised to get high return on the investment. Hence, the basic principle of capital appraisal is to maximise the return on investment on a specified period of time, so that the investors would get high return and be profitable in long run. As per the basic principle of capital investment appraisal, the investors try to calculate NPV or Net Present Value, on a specific data and specific interest rate. It is hereby mandatory for the investors to calculate NPV and the principle of capital investment appraisal is to maximise NPV to generate high return.

Internal Rate of Return (IRR) is also necessary factor as per the principle of capital investment appraisal, where IRR is a discounted rate of interest when NPV is considered to be zero. This is also necessary for the investors to calculate IRR to analyse the rate of return on the investment. The advantage is that this method does not take into account the capital that was invested in the first place. Whatever they were promised at the end of the period the organisation gets their return. The question of where the funds are obtained has an impact on the organisation because the rate of return of the investment will be set according to where the funds are secured. At times, the lender is only interested in getting a favourable rate of return on investment. The other principles of capital investment appraisal are the cash flows are conducted on the basis of the opportunity cost as well as it is measured through net income, not the accounting flows. The investors can measure the opportunity cost and the net income while investing on an asset. Hence, calculating the net income and opportunity cost are mandatory for considering investment decision. The financing cost is ignored and the cash flows are conducted after the tax calculation to get the net income (Arnold & Hatzopoulos, 2000). As per the principles, discounted pay back period is also necessary to be counted as well as it is necessary to calculate profitability index for making the investment decision (Browmich and Bhimami, 1991).

4: Evaluate the influence of strategic choice on the structure, culture, leadership and direction of an organisation and, the role strategic leadership and direction play when operating in turbulent markets and periods of significant change. (Unit 2117: 1.2, 1.3.)

Answer:

Strategic choices are effective to reshape the organisational activities and arrange the organisational resources and capabilities for better performance. The strategic choices are helpful for developing good organisational structure, corporate culture and leadership for directing and guiding the employees to achieve the organisational aim and objectives. The strategic choices is helpful to create good culture with harmony and freedom, where the creative strategic planning influence the management team to develop the culture of high communication and partnership working practices (Brown, 1998). Through, managing employee’s values, ethical practices at the workplace, flexible working practices, harmony and freedom among the staff members and respecting each other are effective for creating good corporate culture (Harrison, 1993). Power oriented culture is run by leaders who want to absolute control of an organisation. Everything depends on their ability. These makes the people to fear giving feed back to the leader. On the other hand, the leader is able to give the organisation a sense of direction as everyone rallies behind the leader. It is important to develop good culture with cooperation and communication for better workplace management. The strategic choice of the organisation further provide a scope to the organisational leader to encourage the staff and manage change in long run so that it is possible to perform own roles and contribute efficiently in achieving the organisational strategic choice.

As per the organisational structure, the organisations mainly follow the hierarchical structure in order to work as a team and fulfil own roles and responsibilities. The strategic choice of the company further influences the organisational management team to develop good structure as per the functions. For example, the multinational corporations try to focus on the internal functions to develop the hierarchical structure, which is simple to follow and improve good bonding among the staff to perform as a team. As per the hierarchical structure, the major departments are operations, research and development, production, finance, customer’s service and marketing and sales. These departments are working under effective supervisions of the broad members and CEO of the company. In this regard, the leadership style is also playing an important role to manage the working culture, lead the employees and improve performance for fulfilling the strategic choices of the company. In the recent years, the transformational leadership style is adopted as it is the best suited leadership style to encourage the staff and maximise their performance and productivity through continuous guidance and support. The transformational leaders try to develop creative strategic choices and manage changes through employee empowerment and continuous motivation. The leaders also focus on providing monetary and non-momentary rewards and compensation to the staff for better employee’s management and lead them with effective support (Lary Bossidy & Ram Charan, 2002). Hence, the leadership style and organisational culture are fruitful to manage change and implement the strategic choices to perform efficiently in this highly competitive market.

5: Evaluate the choice of tools, processes and the use of project management techniques that, can be used to monitor performance of strategic business plans and performance of your business/ organisation, and those of its people. (Unit 2117: 3.1: Unit 2077: 1.5, 1.6)

Answer:

Project management is good as it sets the goals of the organisation as well as deadlines for getting the projects done within effective time. Once the goals are set, there is a need to make a note and record the plans, appointments that will be coming up. A work plan needs to be implemented efficiently by arranging the organisational resources and capabilities. There is the classical organisation theory (Henry Fayol, 1841-1925) used the six groups: technical support, commercial (buying, selling, exchange), Financial (use of capital), Security (protecting the property of the employee) Accounting and managerial, which mainly develops the organisational corporate structure, under which the organisational stakeholders can work as a team and contribute efficiently to fulfil the business aim. With these theories the leaders of an organisation are able to scale, come up with different objectives for the development of the organisation. In all the things that the organisation do planning brings out the best outcomes as each individual can focus and plan as to where they would like to be at any given time. Hence, Gantt chart is one of the major ways of project management to run the project activities and complete the organisational tasks within effective time. For monitoring the performance and implementing the business plans, it is possible to follow the Gantt chart and perform proficiently. It is always are great thing to come up with specific objectives and develop procedures for the growth of the company, where the board members set up the plans and the objectives and lead the employees towards achieving the organisational success through continuous guidance and support.

There are other project management techniques, through which it is possible to identify he organisational plans and monitoring the activities of the organisation successfully. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is one of them, where it is possible to develop working activities and share the actual roles and responsibilities of the staff at the workplace. The employees can follow the working practices and own responsibilities for working efficiently. It is also helpful to develop good corporate structure, where the staff members are encouraged to fulfil own roles and responsibilities strategically by utilising the organisational resources. Critical path method (CPM) in project management is also another major strategy to review the performance and as per the strategic business plans, where the management team and corporate leader can analyse the critical path and create creative tactics for leading the staff members towards achieving the future success. The process of project management including task estimation, resource allocation and arranging funding, quality monitoring process and continuous improvement are the major activities through which it is possible for the management team to monitor the performance and support the staff members to perform better by utilising the organisational technological infrastructure and resources. There are other tools of performance monitoring which includes customer’s feedback management, analysing the complaints of the clients, interview and survey at the workplace, observation and reports analysis as well as arranging general meeting. The employees are also empowered to share the information about working progress as well as customer feedback handling provide a scope to monitor the performance of the staff and maximise their contribution through continuous support and guidance.

6: Analyse the characteristics and suitability of a range of leadership styles used to provide strategic direction. Explain the impact (positively, negatively) of leadership styles on strategic decisions, objectives on operational, financial strategies as well as internal and external stakeholders, and how you deal with those impacts in your role. (Unit 2117: 1.4, 2.1, 2.3.)

Answer

The transactional and transformational leaders are the leadership styles that are commonly used (Judge and Piccolo, 2004: Wu et al, 2006). Transactional leaders monitor the performance of the staff and give rewards and incentives. The transformation leader on the other hand use tasks and social exchanges to keep the teams that they manage motivated. The leaders will have a full understanding of the needs of their teams (Eval and Ruth, 2010). The workers are encouraged to use creative thinking in their decision making. The team is supported by their leaders as they work towards their goals and outcomes. These teams benefit from interactions with the leadership which greatly reduces the stress that comes with the job (Gil et al, 2010). One the other hand transactional leadership uses monetary incentives according to how the staffs are performing in their job.

Servant leadership leads through meeting the set out comes plans and what the team needs. This is more of democratic style of leadership that involves everyone. Laissez faire leadership is the leader who will not control their teams but will leave them to work on their own without any input from the leader. Autocratic leadership the leaders have all the powers. The team members do not get a chance to have their say in the operations of the company. Bureaucratic leadership is when the leader outlines the rules and the team must follow them to the later. Charismatic leaders will get the followers or the team to follow through charm. These leaders will make sure they know how each person in the team is.

When it comes to management it takes more than the managers to make the work place a good working place. Whereas according to Koontz and Weihrich the managers are the ones that make work area conductive to work in. Taylors Theory of management looks at increasing the workers performance by optimising production (Koontz and Weihrich, 1990) Taylor’s method needed the organisation to study many ways of doing a task to find the best way to perform a task. This standardization is changed many times, in the process it looks to replace craftsmanship (Clark, 1918).

The different organisations call for different managerial styles. Most employees enjoy working with charismatic leaders. The transformational leader’s mentor their employees. The management style comes down to organisational culture and the type of organisation, so one theory may be good match for an organisation in another area but does not mean it will work everywhere it is applied.

My role is to provide a foundation that the staff can relay and follow. As time passes I have to grow and make sure that my team has the financial stability they need. Stay focused on both the present and the future, always support my team to think out side the box, be decisive and reward the individuals that show innovation in the things they do. In this case my role is to mentor and supervise my staff.

7: Explain the nature, and influence of each of the concepts below individually, and their implications, (positives and negatives) for different types of organisational structures. (Unit 2077: 1.1: Unit 2117: 1.5)

a. Empowerment

b. Authority

c. Responsibility

d. Accountability

e. Delegation

Answer:

When looking at a team, it is about getting the “right people in the right place” Maxwell, 2001” them building them up so that they can work as a unit to active the goals of the company. This is done through have clear responsibilities, boundaries and key to this commitment from everyone to take up the company’s goals or mission.

The nature of empowerment is that each team needs to develop people to make decisions about their work on how best to meet the needs of the customers. The implication is that the environment as well as the principles used has a knock on effect as to the outcome. This can be done through the principles of empowerment.

How the team then carries out the task depends on the fact that they have been given the instruction to carry out the required task. Depending on the structure be it a cross functional team which comes together to work on different projects or it could be just in the area that they specialise in only called intact teams. The advantage of bringing teams together from different parts of the company pools ideas and helps with bigger projects.

Responsibility the team have to know what is required of them. This makes it easier to find out what is needed as they come in and what areas need to be developed thus taking away the obstacles in terms of ambiguity. The teams have to be natured ( Maxwell, 1995).

Accountability have to take into consideration the standards, communication, purpose, each member needs to know their role and responsibilities, analysing how the organisation is performing and look what the business plan and strategies are, so that the company remains focused. At times the organisation focus a lot on individual accountability that they do not look at what the whole team is working as a whole. Once the organisation is clear of what each member of the team should do. And has clearly defined the roles and each member agrees to the expectations of the team this will make it easier to share the company vision on an individual bases. For the team needs to be able to be influence how the work runs and this is where authority comes in together sources of influence (Patterson et al, 2008).

Delegation in order for the work to go well the person in charge needs to be able to share amongst the competent subordinates. This will multiply the work. Rather than the work being done by one individual the leader seek “maximum productivity” (Rath T and Conchie, 2008).

When the team is able to participate in the decision making this helps in making the organisation work well it is important to also make sure that each member as well as the teams are accountable for the decisions that they make. Communicate clearly with the team so that the work is not duplicated.

8: Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages/limitations of (a) centralised and decentralised structures (b) a range of evaluation techniques. (Unit 2077: 1.2, 1.7)

Answer

(a) The advantages of centralised structures is that when goods are bought there is one centralised location or decision maker and the quality of good is the same there is no duplicates bought. When it is centralised the transportation, cost is lower in most cases as there is bulk buying. Decentralised better when comes to decision making and buying as it is personalised and quick response from suppliers it is great as companies can rely on the close contacts built with time. Also, there is a small gap in communication as people are close to each other. (Belay & Taylor 1994)

When it comes to technology is more of an advantage to have a centralised system held in one location and staff can access it. This even helps with the way the organisation can plan or share company resources. The biggest downside to this is the time that is needed to bring the needed information together (Wolfe 1999) from decentralised location to come up with the centralised decision.

Whereas on the other hand when an organisation is Centralised (koontz,1988) in terms of how the decisions are centralised this gives the organisation a great advantage over decentralised as the organisation gets very specialised.

Decentralisation brings down the organisation when it is hard to delegate (Louis, 1958) so depending on where and what stage the organisation an organisation can have both the centralised and decentralised in the operations (Mervin Kohn).

When it comes to running an organisation and there is a need for the same action then centralised helps. Also, it is good with policy as the clash of cultures, or just politics will not be seen as when there is a decentralised decision making. Also, when it comes to learning centralised decision making highly reduces duplication and reduces costs and control is there.

In is day of computers the systems are rolled out and there is no different systems being used where one organisation is on the latest and the rest are using different or inferior system. The demands of the different commodities that are offered have an impact as well (Hayward 1994). Is the organisation scaling is there inflation, what is the economy like booming is there recession? When the organisation makes decisions are they transparent, how capitalisation is affecting the organisation

b) There are several evaluation techniques, through which the organisations can measure the performance of the business firm as a whole by continuous monitoring and reviewing the productivity of the staff at the corporate firms (Joseph Heagney, 2016). The organisational leader and the management team try to evaluate the performance and productivity of the employees and continuous monitoring and reviewing the working progress of the staff are one of the major techniques for successful evaluation, where it is possible for the managers to review the productivity of each staff through continuous monitoring. The management team try to implement CCTV to review their day to day performance for further evaluation of employee’s productivity at the workplace. On the other hand, 360-degree feedback is effective evaluation process, and it is known as multi-rate feedback which is a system in which anonymous feedback is gathered about the staff members from various people. It further helps to engage the employees and other staff members at the workplace and gather a vast range of feedback from diverse stakeholders in the corporate firms. All the stakeholders including the managers, CEO, broad members, operational head and employees are enchased and thus it is called 360-degree feedback, which is effective for the organisational management team to evaluate the performance of the staff through collecting authentic information about the performance and productivity of the staff. These two major techniques are adopted by most of the corporate business firms to evaluate the performance of the employees and manage change in the workplace for achieving organisational objectives in a creative manner.

In addition to this, there are other evaluation techniques which are such as survey and interview, arranging general training and development program at the workplace, financial resort analysis performance monitoring (David Allen, 2001). Through interview and survey among the employees, it is possible to evaluate the performance and identify the creative solutions for managing change, so that the companies can lead their employees efficiently towards achieving the future success. Moreover, the training and development program is effective to enhance internal communication and cooperation and it further provides a scope to engage the staff members and share information and knowledge, which is also effective to evaluate each staff and lead them successfully towards achieving the future success. On the other hand, quantitative analysis and analysing the critical success factors of the organisation such as employee performance, efficacy to manage customers, sales volume and revenue generation of the organisation are reviewed and analysed for further evaluation of the performance of the staff in long run. These are the major evaluation techniques, through which it is possible for the organisational leader and management team to evaluate the whole process and working progress critically and develop further creative strategic planning to achieve higher.

9: Explain the principles of business process re-engineering, giving you views on how they support organisations. To what extent are strategies used within your organisation successful against your identified evaluation criteria. (Unit 2077: 1.4, 3.2)

Answer:

Business process re- engineering goes through 3 types of innovations that the company can make. 1st one is optional innovation decisions that the company will come up with on their own without the input from other parts of organization. The 2nd is collective innovation-decisions that is made after agreeing with the rest of the people in the organization. The 3rd is authority innovation decision which has very little input from the rest of the organisation but rather people with have a particular rank / class in the organisation.

This has been brought about by the constant need to meet the demand, expectations that the customers have. Now change is more than just changing one part of the business idea but completely changing the ideas that the company has (Hamon, p. 23). It is normally at the fore front of the business change, instead of concentrating on an Idea, to bring about change the whole system is put to the test.

This is where 2 sub process: Initiation and Implementation that was first explained by (Zaltman, Duncan et al., 1973) see fig. 1.

The greatest challenge with re-engineering is the challenge that one staff have towards the change. How does one adapt change? The business has to make sure that the service that is given that not reduce is efficient while at the same the quality of service is not compromised. This is where staff training helps. Then at times it takes re thinking and a radical re design of how the business run to get dramatic improvements in the most critical, like performance, cost, speed and the quality (Michael Hammer)

When these areas in Business Practice Re-engineering like team work, business process, customer satisfaction, performance improvement, involvement of all the team members in the decision making, infuse changes in value /belief of the team in the whole team rather that the key decision makers in the company. Then the whole of the company can take owner ship of the BPR. This also makes sure that the management is supported and the ideas and concepts are accepted in the organisation.

The biggest change for us with BPR was involving and getting the whole concepts embraced by the whole team. Not very one is keen on changing. The BPR approach meant that the whole company had to be restructured and the work force was reduced, so some of the members of the team that been there had to go. Going from paper based systems to electronic is not always the easiest of things to do. The push is the need to change whole of the management process by bringing an end to end management rather than the traditional management. Then with the customer in mind grow the business from the outside in, taking into account how to deliver value. In our case it was changing from waiting for the staff to come to us to creating a system that adds value for all.

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