Empire Technology Solutions Company: Principles of Management Presentation

Exclusively available on IvyPanda Available only on IvyPanda

Introduction

  • Empire is a United Arab Emirates (UAE) – based technology company that started its operations in 2011.
  • The company designs, develops and sells consumer electronics products, such as mobile phones and televisions.
  • It also offers networking solutions to small tech-based companies in the UAE and some parts of the Middle East.
  • Empire is four years old.
  • The company’s short-term plan is to have a market presence in selected South-East Asian countries, such as South Korea and Vietnam.
  • Its long-term plan is to have overseas operations in Eastern Europe.
  • Empire Technology Solutions has grown to be the UAE’s largest technology company, by revenue and assets. It is also among the UAE’s largest publicly traded technology companies.

This presentation is a strategic evaluation of Empire Technology Solutions. It uses two strategic evaluation tools to identify and solve problems facing the company. These tools are important in evaluating the company’s internal and external environments.

We will write a custom essay on your topic a custom Presentation on Empire Technology Solutions Company: Principles of Management
808 writers online

Introduction

Introduction

Affected Stakeholders

  • Customers;
  • Suppliers;
  • Employees;
  • The community from which the business draws its resources.

Empire’s strategic plan affects different groups of stakeholders. Porter’s five-force and the SWOT analysis outlined in the next slide shows how these stakeholders affect the company’s strategic direction.

Affected Stakeholders

SWOT Analysis

  • Strengths;
  • Weaknesses;
  • Opportunities;
  • Threats.

A SWOT analysis is a tool for understanding a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. We will use this tool to evaluate the strategic performance of Empire Tech Company. This analysis would provide us with information that the company would use to maximize its growth by leveraging on its competencies.

Strengths

  • Strong brand image;
  • High profit margins;
  • Effective innovation strategy.

Empire’s strong brand image stems from the company’s reputation for developing trusted technology products in the UAE. It allows the company to produce new products that would gain significant attention in the market, even during the first stages of product development, because of its trusted brand image. The company also has a flexible pricing strategy that allows it to cater to different market segments. For example, it gives room for the company to adjust its prices, depending on the market characteristics. Empire’s innovation is also another company strength, which stems from its growth strategy. The company’s rapid innovation helps it to keep abreast with the latest technology in the market.

1 hour!
The minimum time our certified writers need to deliver a 100% original paper

Weaknesses

  • Limited Distribution network;
  • Limited appeal to high-end markets.

Empire’s exclusivity policy underlies the creation of a limited distribution network as the first weakness of the company. In line with this policy, the company has a strong evaluation criterion for approving its dealers. While this strategy could improve its control over its business segments, it minimizes its potential to increase its market outreach. Furthermore, because of its variable pricing strategy, the company is unable to make huge profits from high-end markets, which are synonymously associated with exclusivity. In this regard, the company’s pricing and distribution strategies are unfavorable to support an expansion strategy beyond Empire’s primary markets.

Opportunities

  • Distribution network expansion;
  • Rising demand for technological gadgets;
  • Creation of new product lines.

This section of the paper highlights significant opportunities that Empire Tech Company could exploit while formulating its overall business strategy. A broad overview of Empire’s internal analysis reveals the following factors as its main opportunities – potential to increase its distribution network, increasing demand for network services, a rising regional demand for smart-phones and other technological gadgets, and the creation of new product lines. Factoring these opportunities in the company’s growth plan, Empire has an opportunity to expand its distribution network by changing its value chain processes and its overall distribution model. This opportunity stems from the company’s current distribution network, which has a closely guarded chain of command of all its dealers. Introducing more flexibility in the company’s distribution chain could help to improve its market outreach, beyond its primary markets. Furthermore, with the increased demand for technological gadgets, Empire has an opportunity to venture into new product lines. Currently, it has successfully promoted its existing product lines.

Threats

  • Aggressive competition;
  • Imitation;
  • Increasing labor costs.

The threats facing Empire Tech Solutions come from its external environment. They include competition from rivals, product imitation, and rising costs of production. These threats could influence the financial performance of the company. Tough competition emerges as the most significant threat because of competitor aggressiveness from rivals in the market. The threat of imitation is also a real threat for Empire because many companies could develop products that resemble the company’s flagship brands. The increased cost of labor is the least threat.

Summary of SWOT Analysis

Strengths
  • Strong brand image;
  • High profit margins;
  • Effective innovation strategy.
Weaknesses
  • Limited Distribution network;
  • Limited appeal to high-end markets.
Opportunities
  • Distribution network expansion;
  • Rising demand for technological gadgets;
  • Creation of new product lines.
Threats
  • Aggressive competition;
  • Imitation;
  • Increasing labor costs.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis

Remember! This is just a sample
You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers

SWOT Analysis

Summary of SWOT Analysis

Porter’s Five Force Analysis

  • Threat of new entrants;
  • Threat of substitute products;
  • Customer bargaining power;
  • Supplier bargaining power;
  • Intensity of competitive rivalry.

Porter’s five-force analysis is a strategic tool for assessing a company’s external environment. Researchers commonly use it to analyze an organization’s competitive environment and its business strategy development. Through this assessment, it is easy to understand the attractiveness of an industry and its relation to a company’s key internal competency.

Threat of new entrants

  • The threat of new entrants is moderate.
  • High capital requirements, high cost of brand development, and the capacity of new entrants to venture into Empire’s primary markets are responsible for the moderate threat.
  • High capital requirements and the high cost of brand development have a weak force in Empire’s overall strategic direction.
  • There is a strong capacity for new entrants to venture into this industry.

A combination of the strong and weak forces in Empire’s strategic outlook is responsible for the moderate threat of new entrants.

Threat of substitute products

  • Empire experiences a weak influence from the threat of substitute products in its primary business segment.
  • The weak force of substitute products stems from two factors – the high availability of substitutes (moderate force) and the low performance of substitutes (weak force).

Empire experiences a weak threat of substitute products because the substitutes do not have advanced features, such as those that are present in its products.

Customer bargaining power

  • An analysis of customer bargaining power reflects the influence of company demands on a company’s strategic decision.
  • The bargaining power of customers who buy Empire’s products is strong.
  • The strong bargaining power stems from two factors – low product switching costs and the small size of individual buyers.

The low product switching cost has a strong influence on customer bargaining power, while the small size of individual bargaining power has a weak force on the customer’s bargaining power. A combination of these forces would lead to a moderate effect of customer bargaining power; however, since some of the company’s business segments are service-oriented, the company would experience an overall strong customer bargaining power.

Supplier bargaining power

  • The bargaining power of suppliers refers to the influence that a company’s supplier would have on the strategic direction of a business.
  • The bargaining power of Empire’s suppliers is low because of two factors – a high number of suppliers and a high overall supply of product components.
  • Both of these factors exert a weak force on the company’s strategic direction.

Although Empire has less than 100 support businesses, the large number of suppliers in the global market reduces the power of existing suppliers in the UAE. Furthermore, the high number of suppliers for Empire’s product components makes it difficult for them to impose their demands on the company.

Intensity of competitive rivalry

  • An understanding of the intensity of competitive rivalry for Empire stems from comprehending the influence of competitive actions on the firm’s business processes.
  • The intensity of competition is strong.
  • The strong intensity of competitive rivalry stems from the competitive aggressiveness of rival firms and the cost of switching products.

Empire faces a strong competition from its rivals in the technology sector. The aggressiveness of competitor actions emerges from rapid innovation and aggressive advertising that most rival firms display in the market. Characterizing this fierce competition is the low switching costs for customers because they could swop one Smartphone brand for another. This characteristic increases the level of competition that Empire experiences.

We will write
a custom essay
specifically for you
Get your first paper with
15% OFF

Summary of Porter’s Five-Forces

Strong ForceModerate ForceWeak Force
  • Competitive rivalry;
  • Customer bargaining power.
Threat of new entry.
  • Supplier bargaining power;
  • Threat of substitute products.

Porter’s Five Force Analysis

Porter’s Five Force Analysis

Porter’s Five Force Analysis

Porter’s Five Force Analysis

Porter’s Five Force Analysis

Porter’s Five Force Analysis

Summary of Porter’s Five-Forces

Competition Analysis

  • In the microcomputer industry, Empire’s main competitors are HP, Dell, Apple, Toshiba, and Compact.
  • Apple, Blackberry and Samsung are competitors in the smart-phone industry.
  • Relative to the competition in the market, Empire Solutions has relatively new products in the market because it is a new company.
  • Its products are likely to benefit from consumer market curiosity (Böhm, 2009).

The Porter’s five-force analysis has shown that Empire’s main area of specialization is in the computer networking solutions sector, smart phone market and the microcomputer industry. In the microcomputer industry, Empire’s main competitors are HP, Dell, Apple, Toshiba, and Compact. Apple, Blackberry and Samsung are competitors in the smart-phone industry. However, relative to the competition in the market, Empire has relatively new products in the market because it is a new company. Nonetheless, the intensity of competitive rivalry is strong in the Smartphone market because other mobile phone companies such as Apple, Blackberry, and Samsung command a strong market share in the Middle East.

Competition Analysis

Possible Obstacles

  • Employees failing to support changes in the organization.
  • Possible use of anticompetitive business practices by rivals (McNeilly, 1996).

The threat of employees failing to support changes in the organization and the possible use of anticompetitive practices by rivals may impede the realization of Empire’s goals. Strategies for overcoming these challenges appear below.

Possible Obstacles

Proposed Solutions

  • Use a strong patent portfolio.
  • Continuously innovate (Lorette, & Dames, 2014).
  • Adopt a bottom-up management structure.
  • Advocate for the adoption of a stringent regulatory framework (Kim & Mauborgne, 2014).

To address the problem of product imitation, Empire should use a strong patent portfolio. Similarly, to address the problem of aggressive competition, the company should continuously innovate to make sure its competitors have a difficult time imitating the company’s product competencies. To overcome the challenge of a lack of employee buy-in and the possible use of anticompetitive business practices by its rivals, Empire should adopt a bottom-up management structure and advocate for the adoption of a stringent regulatory framework to curb both challenges respectively. These solutions would help the company realize its goals.

Proposed Solutions

Summary and Conclusion

  • Empire’s strategy partly focuses on managing external business forces.
  • The SWOT analysis showed that Empire’s strengths could compensate for its weaknesses.
  • Competitive rivalry and customer bargaining power both had strong influences on the company’s strategic plan.
  • Supplier bargaining power and the threat of substitute products had weak forces in the company’s strategic direction.
  • The threat of new entry had a moderate force in the company’s strategic direction.
  • Aggressive competitive practices from Empire’s rivals and the threat of product imitation could slow down the company’s progress.
  • Empire should focus on managing the competitive rivalry and the bargaining power of buyers.
  • Empire could leverage its strengths to catalyze its growth potential.
  • The company’s strong brand image could be instrumental in promoting new products (Kim, & Mauborgne, 2014).

Understanding the strategic direction of a company is an important step in helping it to achieve its goals. However, the process is subject to changing internal and external organizational dynamics. This is why it is important to understand how these forces affect a company’s strategic direction. From this background, this paper has undertaken a SWOT analysis and Porter’s five-force analysis of Empire Tech Company for purposes of understanding its internal and external environments respectively. The SWOT analysis showed that Empire had strengths that could compensate for its weaknesses. The company could also leverage the same strengths and catalyze its growth potential. For example, this paper has shown that its strong brand image could be instrumental in promoting new products that the organization wishes to introduce in the market. However, aggressive competitive practices from its rivals and the threat of product imitation could slow down the company’s progress in this regard. To address this problem, this paper has shown that the company should use a strong patent portfolio. Similarly, the company should continuously innovate to make sure its competitors have a difficult time imitating the company’s product competencies.

Summary and Conclusion

Summary and Conclusion

Summary and Conclusion

References

Böhm, A. (2009). The SWOT Analysis. New York, NY: GRIN Verlag.

Kim, C., & Mauborgne, R. (2014). Blue Ocean Strategy, Expanded Edition: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.

Lorette, K., & Dames, E. (2014). How to Open & Operate a Financially Successful Collection Agency Business: With Companion CD-ROM. New York, NY: Atlantic Publishing Company.

Magretta, J. (2012). Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Press.

McNeilly, M. (1996). Sun Tzu and the Art of Business: Six Strategic Principles for Managers. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Print
Need an custom research paper on Empire Technology Solutions Company: Principles of Management written from scratch by a professional specifically for you?
808 writers online
Cite This paper
Select a referencing style:

Reference

IvyPanda. (2022, October 2). Empire Technology Solutions Company: Principles of Management. https://ivypanda.com/essays/empire-technology-solutions-company-principles-of-management/

Work Cited

"Empire Technology Solutions Company: Principles of Management." IvyPanda, 2 Oct. 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/empire-technology-solutions-company-principles-of-management/.

References

IvyPanda. (2022) 'Empire Technology Solutions Company: Principles of Management'. 2 October.

References

IvyPanda. 2022. "Empire Technology Solutions Company: Principles of Management." October 2, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/empire-technology-solutions-company-principles-of-management/.

1. IvyPanda. "Empire Technology Solutions Company: Principles of Management." October 2, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/empire-technology-solutions-company-principles-of-management/.


Bibliography


IvyPanda. "Empire Technology Solutions Company: Principles of Management." October 2, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/empire-technology-solutions-company-principles-of-management/.

Powered by CiteTotal, referencing maker
If you are the copyright owner of this paper and no longer wish to have your work published on IvyPanda. Request the removal
More related papers
Cite
Print
1 / 1