Lunch & learn presentation Essay

The relevance of international strategy to businesspeople

Successful business strategies keep focus on certain market niche, contributory points and operational elements to compete in any chosen selling region. The international business strategies are in various formats such as the differentiation strategy, which call for uniqueness in creation, implementation and maintenance of products especially in the same market segment.

In line with Strategy for Business Company on business strategy development (n.d), the approach stresses on the charges where the cost ought to be fair for quality services or goods.

The second strategy is the overall cost leadership strategy, which stress that competitiveness in the market has its basis on quality and price of goods. By maintaining quality goods or services at the lowest possible prices, a business is in a position of increasing competitiveness. The policy may cause the unit profitability to be in lower volumes due to the low pricing, but eventually there is high total profitability due to increase in volumes of sales.

Lastly is the focus on strategy that is concern with specific business products that fits the need for specific location. It is important for the business to have a plan on the type of goods to produce based on the regional needs, population ethnicity, purchasing power of the residents, fashion preferences and other possible factors influencing purchasing patterns of various international markets and locality.

The global strategic planning process

Today the business environments are highly competitive. The large corporations survive through strategic planning when the objectives have a clear definition as opposed to the budget oriented or business forecasting planning (Albrecht, 2008). The assessment involved before the planning process engages both the external and internal business characteristics of formulating, evaluating, adjusting and, implementing strategies.

The strategic planning process involves various steps. It begins with the procedure of finding and setting the business mission and objectives. A mission statement needs to place a brief overview of the business’s vision. These are the constant values showing the purpose of the firm and any visionary showing the future expectations or anticipations of the firm. This stage indicates the visionary goals that guide the pursuit for prospective opportunities.

The business mission or vision serves as a guide for the leaders to define the financial goals and other strategic objectives. These business financial objectives include the measures of sales targets, business earnings and indicate the business growth. The strategic objectives also form a close link to business performance with certain measures of functionality such as the share of market and financial dealings or reputation.

The second stage involves scanning of the environment, including the internal analysis of the firm, its industries and the external macro environments through PEST (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological) analysis.

The strategic plan can engage the internal analysis through SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis. Lastly perform the industrial analysis through the Porter’s five forces (supplier power, buyer of power, barrier of entry, threat of substitutes and degree of rivalry) analysis.

The third stage involves formulation of strategy where the firm owners do the environmental scan to find and match strengths to opportunities with the aim of addressing the weaknesses or threats. The firm ought to aim at developing a competitive advantage over other rival firms based on cost of performance and differentiation.

The forth stage is implementation of business strategies. This occurs through programs as per the budget and stated procedures. The implementation process involves the resources of the firm and the employee’s motivational policies to assist them in the achievement. The success of a business strategy depends on the procedure for implementing it.

In line with (Harris, n.d), for a large enterprise, those who formulate the strategies are not the ones who implement them. One must be in a position to communicate clearly the reasons behind the strategies for the procedure to be successful. Misunderstanding or resistant by lower managers or other employees may cause the strategy to fail because of resistant or failure to support it.

Lastly, it is crucial to monitor and control the implementation process to make the necessary adjustments. At this stage, the process entails defining and measuring of the used parameters, defining the target values of the parameters, performing measurements, comparing the output to the pre-defined standards and, lastly is adjusting to fit the requirements.

Prediction of changes in the business environment affecting strategic planning

The business environment is continuously dynamic and a revolutionary that continue to enhance the business changes and way of practicing smaller but more competitive business as a way of enhancing more competitive business environments. According to Autrey (1996), the business environmental changes are predictable through the analysis of the pace of business transactions.

This means that regularly monitoring the technology and strategy development enhances competitive advantage. Strategic plans need to be dynamic, competitive and flexible. The plan assists in predicting possible changes in the work environment for future adjustments. The current technological changes assist in customizing the business transactions thus the need for an updated strategic plan.

There is need to consider certain business factors when predicting changes in the business environment, The factors include that need consideration include, the customer’s, competitors’, economic, social, political, geophysical, legal and, technological environments. Any unpredicted changes on these factors may lead to business malfunction and thus affects its success.

The relationship between strategic planning and organizational design

There is a significant relationship between the strategic plan and organization design. Outcome of a coherent strategic plan is the foundation that defines all other organization activities. The plan also helps to establish and define the resource allocation such as cash, resources or personnel required to complete the business objectives.

The strategic plan for various organizations produces and elucidates the vision, mission, guides and goals of the organization. It is a guide to resource allocation with emphasis over priority, strengths and weaknesses analysis.

The plan also defines economic position of a firm and assists in finding the future expectations. A firm is therefore in a position to identify with and positively or effectively respond to the effective and appropriate responses to internal and external factors. The strategic plan is therefore an effective and powerful tool for effective business strategic management and organizational design.

The types of controls in an international company

The plans made for the organizational control determines the efficiency of a firm. These controls require flexible planning. There are diverse and regional measures regarding the type of control over flow of capital across the border for an international company. The restrictions over capital movement are either administrative or “market-based.”

The administrative are direct controls, which give management considerations that prohibit or approve the cross boarder transactions. On the other hand, the market-based are indirect and discourage particular monetary movements across the globe by fostering heavy sanctions that amplify costs of the transactions. These controls are implicit or explicit taxes imposed on the financial flows across the boarders and equally the dual or multiple international trade systems

In line with McNamarra (n.d), “Strategic control involves critical evaluation of plans, activities, and results, therefore providing information for future action of the company. “ Various governments of countries involved in transactions have control and ability to enforce protection measures over investors through taxation, exports and imports controls.

These controls are for preventing, deterring and enforcing applicable laws and regulations especially in accounting and auditing procedures. The controls help in detecting and preventing fraud as a measure to protect organization’s resources. The targets, tolerance and tests used to deliver the products and services to international markets. Accuracy and ability to track changes is equally important.

References

Albrecht K. (2008). Eight “super-trends” you must master to succeed in business. Web.

Autrey R. (1996). What is organizational design? Web.

Harris H. Business plan or strategic plan: what is the difference? Web.

McNamarra C. Key concepts in the design of an organization. Web.

Strategy development. Web.