Week 23: Jeff Bezos case study

1.In your own words and using referenced quotes describe what is meant by the term „strategic leadership‟.

> Strategic Leadership:

While there are many different definitions of strategic leadership, 'we define it as an ability to influence others in your organization to voluntarily make a day-today decisions that lead to the organization's long-term growth and survival, and maintain its short-term financial health.'( Rowe.G,Nejad.M,2009). 

Strategic leadership manages, motivates and persuades staff to share and work for the same vision of the organization and can be used as an important tool for creating and implementing change in the organizational structure within a business. Thus, strategic leaders of an organization are the ones who works effectively in the day-to-day operations of the organization so as to articulate and implement long-term vision.  

2.Identify two interesting similarities and two differences between the 5 Elements of Successful and Effective Strategic Leadership model and the Transcendent Leadership model

> 5 elements of successful and effective strategic leadership models are:

1. Developing and communicating the organisational purpose
2. Managing human resources and organisational behavior
3. Setting ethical standards
4. Defining and delivering to the stakeholders
5. Sustaining competitive advantage over time

The Transcendent Leadership model include:

1. Leadership of self
2. Leadership of others
3. Leadership of the organisation

Two similarities between 5 elements of successful and effective strategic leadership model (Lynch model) and Transcendent Leadership model are:

1. The stakeholder's are benefited by both the models as they get to have good inside and outside relationship from the organisation.
2.  Both the models helps the organisation to cope up with the changing environment.

Two differences between the models are:

1. Lynch model mainly focuses on the leadership of the organisation whereas the transcendent model focuses on both the leadership of the organisation and leadership of self.
2. The lynch model considers human resource as their top most priority where the customers are given a lot of attention. whereas the transcendent model focuses on organisational goals, rules, procedures, strategic etc that will help the organisation sustain for long term.

Jeff Bezo's Case Study:

In my opinion, Jeff Bezo's strategic leadership is more of a Lynch model. I have listed some of the reasons why I feel Jeff Bezo's case study as lynch model:

• It clearly communicates it's objective and vision.In the interview of Harvard Business Review Bezo stated that the reason behind his interviews was to give the customer an opportunity to understand the method of their operation and the principal. moreover, know who they are involved with.
• Human resources as well as organizational decisions are managed. It is human focus in nature.the first emphasis is given to the customers along with the employees well being
• Some price elasticity studies is done to set ethical standards. they somehow have the most possible least price rate.
• The stakeholders are defined and delivered, which means they satisfy the customers full by maintaining a strong and loyal customer base.

References:

Lynch, R., (2009) Strategic Management, 5^th Edition, Prentice Hall, Chapter 16, pp619

Glen Rowe and Mehdi Hossein Nejad (2009) http://iveybusinessjournal.com/topics/leadership/strategic-leadership-short-term-stability-and-long-term-viability#.UsJUbvQW2bM, accessed on December, 2013

Crossan, M., Vera, D and Nanjad, L. (2008) Transcedent Leadership: strategic leadership in dynamic environments, The Leadership Quarterly, Volume 19, Issue 5, October 2008, Pages 569-581

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/strategic-leadership.html#ixzz2p1n88brs

Week 22

The Balanced scorecard approach:

The balanced scoreboard approach was originated by Drs. Robert Kaplan and David Norton.The balanced scoreboard is a strategic planning and management system that is used extensively in business and industry, government, and nonprofit organisations worldwide. This approach helps the organisation or businesses to align their activities so as to achieve it's vision and mission. It also monitor organisation's performance against strategic goals and improves the internal and external communications.

The balanced scoreboard has now evolved as a strategic management system as whole. The balanced Scoreboard can be a great help used as a strategic tool, a management methodology or a measurement system (thebalancedscoreboard.com, 2010).

There are four perspective of the balanced scorecard approach so as to evaluate the company's activity:

1. Financial Perspective: It includes return on investment, shareholder value.

2. Internal business Perspective: It includes lead time, process efficiency.

3. Innovation and Learning Perspective: It includes

introduction of new products and basically helps to improve and change from the lessons learned.

4. Customer Perspective: It includes  customer satisfaction and company's image.

The uses of the balanced scorecard for the companies are as follows:

• It can be a great help used as a strategic tool, a measurement system by the companies.
• It can be useful to the companies to clarify their vision and strategy and translate them into action.
• It is used by the companies to gap the difference between the strategies of organisation with the performances measures.
• It can be used by the companies to overcome problems such as rise of intangible assets and performance lack down.
• It is used by the companies for improved decision making in less time.

 The 20 important KPIs of Balanced Score Card:

1. Cost reduction %
2. Sales growth %
3. ROCE (Return on capital employed) %
4. eps (earnings per share) %
5. Customer retention %
6. Customer 'churn' %
7. Customer loyalty %
8. Acquisitions of new customers 000s
9. Customer satisfaction %
10. Training and development %
11. Job turnover %
12. Product quality %
13. Stock turnover %
14. Quality circles-new ideas 000s
15. Projects in 'pipeline' 10
16. Time/speed to market (months)
17. Billing value
18. Average bill rate
19. Cost of services delivered
20. Certification

3. Present your thoughts and understanding on the article “The Strategic Management process”

The article ‘strategic management process’ explains in detail what strategic management process actually is. And also the phases involved in strategic management. The article included Ford’s strategic plan ‘The way forward’ and it also describes how the Ford’s manager has maintained its competitive advantage by matching internal strengths and weaknesses. 

According to the article, Strategic management process is an inclusion of both strategic planning, implementation and evaluation. It is the process of identifying and executing the organization’s action plan. 

There are 7 stages of strategic management process, in which the first five is included in the strategic planning and the other two are implementation and evaluation.

The seven steps of strategic management process identified by the article are as follow:

Step 1: Define the current business:

·         What business the firm should be in?

·         What are the vision and mission of the firm?

·         What are the firm’s strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities?

Step 2: Perform internal and external audit:

·         SWOT analysis

Step 3: Formulate new business and statements:

·         New vision, mission

·         Market analysis

·         Situation analysis

Step 4: Translate the mission into strategic goal:

·         Make your mission your goal

Step 5: Formulate strategies to achieve goals:

·         Clearly define your strategies

Step 6: Implement the strategy:

·         Make strategies work

·         Apply it in action

Step 7: Evaluate the implemented strategy

·         Imply strategic control

 References:

balanced scorecard. (n.d.). Retrieved December 14, 2013, from www.balancedscorecard.org: https://balancedscorecard.org/Resources/AbouttheBalancedScorecard/tabid/55/Default.aspx

cambridge mba. (n.d.). Retrieved December 14, 2013, from www.cambridgemba.files.wordpress.com: http://cambridgemba.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/balanced-scorecard-2010-1.pdf

Week 21: Honda's case study

Emergent strategy:

An emergent strategy is a kind of pattern that is unintended and comes across as a series of decisions in an organisation and is was not included in the planning phase or for the long term purpose. This kind of strategy happens in the organisation by chance or without any planning made and is a set of certain actions that are  unintended. We never know it may be a success or a failure.

Emergent strategies are characterized by patterns of actions within a business that occur without a clear relationship to, or even in spite of, the stated goals or mission of the business.( Dontigney.E, 2013) 

1.What are the benefits and drawbacks of taking an "emergent" approach to strategy making?

> The benefits of taking an emergent approach to strategy making are:

• It can be used to capitalize unexpected marketing benefits. The emergent strategy leads a business to provide what the market actually wants, rather than what the owner or executive thinks or believes the market wants.( Dontigney.E, 2013)
• This kind of strategy helps recognizing creativeness, initiation and innovation within an organisation.
• One of the advantages of latching on to an emergent strategy is that it could be something that your company has discovered before the competition does. (Anderson.A,2013)
• It encourages informal communication networks in an organisation and helps in the flow of creative thinking and ideas within an organisation.
• It acts as an experimentation and a pragmatic problem solving so as to develop a new strategy.

> The drawbacks of emergent strategy approach are:

• It can always be risky because this kind of strategy is not a planned one and comes across as a set of actions and decisions for a problem solving. The strategy applied carries an equal chance of being success or a failure.
• Emergent strategy does not offer a genuine alternative to more traditional deliberate strategy, especially for a new businesses operating on narrow margins.(Dontigney.E, 2013)
• It can be too costly.
• It only happens by chance and is kind of an evolutionary approach leading to uncertainty. 

HONDA CASE STUDY:

2.Did Honda‟s entry strategy demonstrate the characteristics of "logical incrementalism"? (slide 12 will be helpful)

> Logical incrementalism is a management philosophy which states that strategies do not come into excistence based on a one time decision but rather, it exists through making small decisions that is evaluated periodically. ( businessdictionary.com,2013). Logical incrementalism allows strategy to be synthesised and coordinated into a single coherent direction by using as many known multi-dimensional inputs as possible in the conceptualization process to shape the overarching goals (Kippenberger,1998). 

Yes, I believe Honda's entry strategy demonstrate the characteristics of logical incrementalism because they certainly analysed the US environment, made up the marketing strategies and followed a policy of developing the US market region by region. Honda experimented with the US market and basically did not work out for a certain specific goal, rather it made general goals step by step and tried to achieve it slowly. US already had a bunch of good motorcycle brands serving in the market, however Honda being a first timer in the international market worked with certain strategies and were able to beat other's market share in a short span of time by providing low cost and light weight bikes to the customers. They took risk and faced the challenges in a good way and were able to influence the people who once already had bad image about motorcycles. Their marketing skills worked superbly in attracting thousands of people. They even faced several failures such as oil leakages, clutch failure but they tested the bikes and redesigned it in Japan and were able to satisfy the customers. Adding up, they came up with 50cc Supercubs which I would consider a emergent strategy because Honda by then knew the American environment and experimented. 

Questions

1. Was Honda's entry strategy in the US more deliberate or emergent?

> I think Honda's entry strategy in the US was more of a deliberate one because as per perspective one, because they analysed the market share of it's competitors beforehand and basically differentiated themselves from the others. Japanese manufacturer had a basic philosophy that high volumes per model provide the potential for high productivity as a result of using capital intensive and highly automated techniques which makes it a deliberate strategy practice r. After the world war two, motorbikes attracted very limited group other than police and army personnel who used motorcycle on the job. Motorcycle was called as Hell's angels, Satan's slaves and eventually had a bad image. Honda however, expanded the market by redefining a leisure class ('Nicest people') segment and exploiting its comparative advantage via aggressive pricing and advertising and were able to attract many local people as well. Honda is dedicated to being the low price producer, utilizing its dominant market position in Japan to entry into the US market. Likely,Honda's marketing strategy as described in the 1963 annual report started its push in the US market with the smallest, lightweight motorcycles with many functions. 

As per the second perspective, we see the company faced several problems such as oil leakages and clutch failure in their bikes eventually damaging Honda's image but they went up with several strategies right away and were able to overcome. Honda's main entry in the US market was when they saw a market while visiting US and wanted to test if Honda motorbikes will be accepted there. They did certain experiments with strategies i.e. they practiced emergent strategy. They did not had any future vision or goal they just moved along and adapted with the environment Eventually, in 1963, a student did a Honda advertisement assignment and from then the brand has been inseparable.

2. Which of the accounts seem more accurate and why? Why do you think the two accounts differ so much?

> According to me, The second account seems more accurate because it is based on interviews by Pascale with Honda Executives. In the second account, they have clearly mentioned all the things from the roots of their establishment in US. They explains starting from their visit to America and then ending up opening a market there. They expresses their experiences emotionally and in a detailed way which seems convincing. They clearly explained the language problem they had at that time, the hurdle to obtain a currency allocation from ministry of Finance, their days of sleeping on the floor e.t.c. which makes it pretty realistic. Entering into Us market was a challenging task full of risk with a new frontier for Honda. The second perspective clearly shows Honda's entry in the US as an emergent strategy because they did not have any specific planned out goal however worked step by step adapting to the environment and making suitable changes.

The two accounts differ so much because the way of explanation differs drastically. The first perspective makes Honda seems like had a planned vision of entering the US market with certain philosophies implemented. Whereas, the second perspective is far more different and explains that Honda happened to have entered the US market coincidentally.

4. Do you think Honda would have been more or less successful if they had adopted a more formalized strategic planning approach to the launch?

> I do not think Honda would have been successful if it had adopted a more formalized strategic planning approach. When everything is planned out, it happens that when certain failure arises there is a high chance of falling down drastically and Honda would possibly be out of the market when they had the leakage and clutch failure problem. A formalized planing strategy wouldn't help Honda to cope up and work accordingly with the circumstances and the environment.

References:

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/emergent-strategy.html#ixzz2oJXcrZ5y, Accessed on, December, 2013 

E Dontigney, http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/advantage-disadvantage-emergent-strategy-15781.html, Accessed on December, 2013

http://www.rapid-business-intelligence-success.com/emergent-strategy.html, Accessed on December 2013

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/logical-incrementalism.html, Accessed on, December, 2013

Pascale, R. (1984) „Perspectives on Strategy: The Real Story Behind Honda's Success‟, California Management Review , Vol. XXVI, No. 3, Spring 1984

Rumelt, R. (1996) „The Honda Effect: Revisited‟, California Management Review , Vol. 38, No. 4, Summer, pp103-111

Week 20: Bhat-Bhateni Supermarket and Departmental Store (Poster)

Week 18: Case Study Hewlett-Packard

How can using the Change Kaleidoscope and Force-field analysis help an organisation to deliver its intended strategy?

> Change Kaleidoscope :

The concept of change kaleidoscope was first defined by Balogun and Hope Hailey in 2002. It can be used to analyse the change in context of the organisation. In order to implement any kind of strategy in the organisation, several factors of an organisation needs to be considered such as resources, power, competitive advantage e.t.c. and change kaleidoscope analysis helps in dealing with such factors of an organisation. It is always beneficial for the company and for the change leaders to investigate unique capabilities of the organisation specifically relating to the culture, stakeholders, time constrains, readiness and forces of power. (artuspoint.com, 2013). 

It helps to know several factors of an organisation. It also helps to take control over and eventually monitor and fix the transition or change happening in the organisation.

The following diagram shows the change kaleidoscope in action:

                 image source: www.marketinginsight.ch/diverse/change-mba-and-change-             kaleidoscope/&docid=xu3fkquNchvB6M&imgurl=http://www.marketinginsight.ch/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Change_Kaleidoskop.jpg

some of the questions that might come across for the factors of change kaleidoscope:

TIME	How quickly is change needed?
SCOPE	How much change is needed?
PRESERVATION	What organisational resources and characteristics need to be maintained?
DIVERSITY	How homogeneous are the staffs in the organisation?
CAPABILITY	What is the managerial and personal capability to implement change?
CAPACITY	What is the degree of change resources available?
READINESS	How ready are the people for the change?
POWER	Do staffs have the power to resist or ignore change in need?

Force-Field Analysis:

Force-Field Analysis was created by Kurt Lewin in the 1940s. It is a useful decision-making technique. This analysis helps an organisation to make a right decision by analyzing the forces for and against the change. 

As said by Kurt Lewin “an issue is held in balance by interaction of two opposing sets of forces- those seeking to promote change (driving forces) and those attempting to maintain the status quo (restraining forces).
This analysis can be used for two purposes: to decide whwther to go ahead with the change and lead towards success or by strengthening the forces supporting change and weakening those against it. We can use the Force-field analysis tool by listing all the forces for and against the decision of change.

                           

             image source: http://www.google.com.np/imgres?biw=1366&bih=623&tbm=isch&tbnid=Ntd5vAs3TYII3M:&imgrefurl=http://identityandtype.wordpress.com/tag/force-field-analysis/&docid=P5lcOH6eGqoGlM&imgurl=http://identityandtype.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/forcefieldanalysis3.gif&w=431&h=294&ei=uLOZUovPIIj_rAeXhYHADg&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:24,s:0,i:158&iact=rc&page=2&tbnh=180&tbnw=249&start=17&ndsp=23&tx=140&ty=50, accessed on November, 2013      

             

Add your Change Kaleidoscope diagram for Hewlett Packard (Exercise 1 – slide 21) to your Learning Journal 

>       
  Change Kaleidoscope for Hewlett Packard:

References:

http://artuspoint.com/change-kaleidoscope/, accessed on November, 2013

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_06.htm,accessed on November, 2013

http://www.kenyaplex.com/resources/7361-strategic-change-context-using-a-change-kaleidoscope-and-force-field-analysis.aspx,accessed on November, 2013

Johnson, Whittington and Scholes (2011) Exploring Strategy, 9th Edition, Pearson Education, Chapter 14

J. Balogun and V. Hope Hailey, Exploring Strategic Change, 3rd edition, Prentice Hall, 2009

Week 17

Can you think of an organisation that has implemented a ‘high risk strategy’ that has resulted in success (why was it high risk at the time and why was it a success – was it good luck or good judgement)?

> 'High risk strategy' as the name suggests is the strategy that may put an organisation in a risky situation which might subject to potential danger or hazard but may sometimes work as a success. Various companies implement high risk strategy and some turns out to be a great success and some to be an epic fail. 

According to me an organisation that has implemented a 'high risk strategy' that has resulted in success would be Apple Inc.

Apple was founded in the year 1976 in partnership by three people: Steven Gary Wozniac, Steven Paul Jobs and Ronald Gerald Wayne. By the time it incorporated on January 3rd, 1977, Wayne wrote the apple 1 manual, drifted the partnership agreement, and drew the first apple logo.(facts.randomhistory.com, 2013) Once after Apple's incorporation, it started expanding and growing at like anything. I believe it is the one company that has gained massive success in such a short period of time, making it an unbeatable company and setting a benchmark worldwide at present.

Apple has also faced series of failures over the years. After Steve Jobs was ousted from the company in the year 1985 as he lost a power struggle with board of directors, Apple was in the brink of bankruptcy.It's computers struggled to survive declining market shares and inefficient leadership. In fact, Apple was named the worst run company of 1996 by investment giant CalPERS (California Public Employees' Retirement System). However, after all this Apple brought Steve Jobs back and again things started working right.

Apple always focused on innovations and I think it's strategy of innovating new ideas was a high risk strategy in the market place but nevertheless, it's strategy extensively has proved to be a success. When Apple established itself as a company over 30 years back, it was a high risk strategy at that moment, there were no such company established similar to Apple. That was a brand new start of a brand new idea and innovation Apple did and no one  knew how the response would be at the end, making it a very high risk taker.And look at it now, the High risk strategy proved to be a great success for Apple.

'Apple's success is due to significant skill and a healthy portion of good luck.'(Don Reisinger, technology columinist at CNET)    

     The most expensive Apple Store, 5th Avenue, Manhattan, NYC

 Now, do the same for an organisation who embarked on a high risk strategy that resulted in some sort of failure (why was it high risk and why did it fail – bad luck or poor judgement?)

> The organisation who embarked on a high risk strategy that resulted in some sort of failure for me would be Halifax Bank Of Scotland plc (HBOS)

HBOS plc is the banking and insurance company in the UK, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Lloyds banking group. HBOS plc was formed in the year 2001 when Halifax plc and Bank of Scotland merged. 

The bank was running quite smoothly until when they started taking high risks. In 2008, it suffered from short selling and credit crunch, soon after they were indulged in controversies like links to the arms trade, Mortgage Fraud, HBOS bad loans e.t.c.

According to the Financial Services Authority (FSI), HBOS corporate division ran out an aggressive high risk growth strategy prioritized optimism over prudence and sanctioned too many big loans to a small number of borrowers. It is said the bank was too optimistic over bad debts and did not take 'reasonable care' to control its affairs. (the guardian, 9 march, 2012). HBOS set business plans that had ever increasing profit growth in the corporate arm. Thus, by the first half of 2001, the targets increased to an exceptional level as they looked up to the corporate division to make up for the under performance of the retail arm.

The main problems the bank faced were:

• They failed to take reasonable action to control and organize its affairs.
• The lending division of the corporate focused on revenues rather than on minimizing risks.
• The corporate was not able to re-evaluate its lending when the market started to deteriorate in the 2007.
• They failed to manage high value transactions.

The reasons behind HBOS plc's failure was clearly because of the poor judgement taken by them and the implementation of the high risk strategy time and again.

References:

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/mar/09/bank-of-scotland-fsa-serious-misconduct, accessed on  November, 2013

http://facts.randomhistory.com/interesting-facts-about-apple-and-mac.html, accessed on November, 2013

http://passioncapitalists.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/69/?gclid=COu8x7Tii7sCFQcB4godZkQA0g, accessed on November, 2013

Image sources:

https://www.google.com.np/search?q=apple+inc&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=g6KZUoHZOseHrQfL9IHgCQ&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=666#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=3w7hyMvs1fYh3M%3A%3BI_OwI_osgO3oEM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fidsgn.org%252Fimages%252Fapple-switches-to-verdana%252Fapple_before_after__full.png%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fidsgn.org%252Fposts%252Fapple-switches-to-verdana%252F%3B980%3B336

www.google.com.np/search?q=apple+store+5th+ave&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=vqKZUondOdCqrAf65oGYDw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=666

www.google.com.np/search?q=halifax+bank+of+scotland&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=ZKOZUornKsWXrgeH_4CYDw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=666#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=tE3Z1lwLNgoGmM%3A%3Bj7LAWBUGiQTS6M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.empireclaims.co.uk%252Fblog%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2012%252F10%252FHalifax-Bank-of-Scotland.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.empireclaims.co.uk%252Fblog%252Findex.php%252Fdi

Week 16: Case- Britvic Bar Merger

1.In your own words and using referenced quotes describe the difference between organic growth, merger & acquisition and strategic alliance.

> Organic Growth: 

When a company expands it's operations with the help of the resources that they have generated internally without borrowing from other firms. This could be the day to day business of the firm or a division of the firm starting a new business from scratch.( financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com,2013). It is essentially a 'do it yourself' method. It is much time consuming but it has relatively low up-front costs. this kind of strategy or method is more attractive to small business owners who wants to expand their company but do not have high capital.

Merger and Acquisition: 

When two companies come together and one of the corporation fully acquires the other corporation, it is called merger and acquisition. This kind of strategy is usually applied when one company is in the verge of losing its identity, they then merge with another more important company retaining it's identity eventually. Acquisition refers to the process in which a company acquires and takes a full control over another company.

Strategic Alliance:  

Agreement for corporation among two or more independent firms to work together towards common objectives. (businessdictionary.com,2013). When two companies decide to work together having a same predetermined goals and using same resources for a project that is temporary, it refers to strategic alliance.

2.Give an example of a company that has grown through a) organic growth, b) merger or acquisition and c) strategic alliance

> a) Organic growth: Lego Toy Brand 

                                                                           

b) Merger and acquisition: Sony and Ericsson(Merger) SPSS acquisition by IBM (Acquisition)                                         

                            

c) Strategic alliance: Nokia and Microsoft

                                                                

          

Case Study:

3.Briefly discuss the merger between Britvic and AG Barr. What advice would you give to the new Board?

>Britvic and AG Barr, the two u.k based company merge together to form a one company. Britvic holds 63% of the share whereas AG Barr holds only 37% of the share.

1) Evaluate the case for the merger

What are the positives and benefits? What should work well?

> The positives and benefits from the merger are:

• Both AG Barr and Britvic have its own loyal customers from before when they were an individual company, now that they are combined, the customers base is also combined resulting in huge number of customer following at market place.
• The debts are distributed and the risks are diversified.
• As both belongs from the same kind of industry (soft drink), resources and technology can be shared.
• The new company will have a benefit of economy of scales.
• Both companies combined together can give strong competition to coke.

What are the negatives and potential risks? What problems might occur?

> The negatives and potential risks are:

•  Britvic’s debt of £600 will be shared with AG Barr, due to which Barr may get less profit.
• When companies merge, Authority issues for top management always occurs.
• When two companies become one they need less man power resulting in loss of jobs.
• Any negative experience faced by customers from one company may hamper in the new merged company's customer because the customers might wanna shift their choice. 
• If in case a company is bankrupted, another company will also be affected.

2) What advice would you give the newly formed Board?

>My advice to the newly formed board:

• Both the companies once merged should have same mission and vision plans.
• They should cut off on unnecessary expenses.
• They should have good communication flow among the staffs and work coordinating with each other.
• They should invest more to gain a good market share.
• Emphasizing on advertisements of the products may help.

References:

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/organic-growth.html, accessed on November, 2013

http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Organic+Growth, accessed on November, 2013

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/organic-growth-strategy-57130.html, accessed on November, 2013

Johnson, Whittington and Scholes (2011) Exploring Strategy, 9th Edition, Pearson Education, Chapter 10

·         Johnson, Whittington and Scholes (2011) Exploring Strategy, 9th Edition, Pearson Education, Chapter 6

Presentation on Bangladesh

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Week 15: Madonna Case Study

Image source:http://www.google.com.np/imgres?biw=1366&bih=666&tbm=isch&tbnid=5BNR1j5WURvbiM:&imgrefurl=http://www.wallarc.com/wallpaper/view/95472&docid=dclYyyYm9ij8DM&imgurl=http://www.wallarc.com/wallpaper/view/95472.jpg&w=1920&h=1080&ei=z82YUsa8PIaQrQfH9YG4CQ&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:91,s:0,i:380&iact=rc&page=5&tbnh=168&tbnw=253&start=75&ndsp=22&tx=149&ty=108

1. Why has this artist been so successful? What are her key sources of sustainable competitive advantage?

think about her unique resources and core competencies, think about how she has responded to changes in the external environment, why is she difficult to imitate?

> Madonna, the diva and a rock star who has ruled the music world for past few decades and is still rocking it is the highest ever paid female singer in the world. She has always been on the top list and has set a benchmark in the music world. I think she has been so successful because as the case mentioned her as a chameleon, she had the guts and courage to reshape herself up in every new album. She was always able to shock and surprise her huge fan following with every comeback she made which would display a new image of her. With this going she had her strategy well planned and implemented correctly. She used her sexuality and her attitude in every change she brought up which eventually was loved and adored by the public.

“I'm tough, I'm ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay.” 

― Madonna (goodreads.com,2013). Like this quote written by her explains how ambitious she is and it doesn't matter to her if others don't like her for doing what she wants to do. She has this attitude that people love and yet again Madonna pioneers and endures as one of the most influential celebrity women in the planet.

Madonna and her ever changing images has always been able to wow the crowd. From her very first album till now she has maintained the popularity meter by adopting into several genres of songs and her involvement in shocking activities. She was often called as 'the queen of controversy', she had a book featuring her sexual pictures,the music video for her legendary hit single 'like a prayer' was outrageous and universally banned, she adopted a Malawi child all this kind of shocking news she created rather was interesting for the public.

She has always changed and adopted herself with the change in time and era. Music industry is full of one hit wonders and brief careers but Madonna was one celebrity that remained at the top for decades. 

        Image source: http://shaunproulxmedia.com/himbo/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/madonna-20photo-202009-small.jpg

Her key sources of sustainable competitive advantage are:

• She is a chameleon as mentioned in the case. She changes and improves herself up with the time and era.
•  No one can imitate her because no one knows what surprise she is going to bring in her next come back.
• She eventually has a huge and loyal fan following, who has been supporting her for decades.
• She has her strategy well planned and uses it correctly.
• Her changing genres of songs, reshaping herself up time and again has build up respect for her talent among the people.
• She is focused and sets simple consistent and long term goals. (studymode.com)
• She is gutsy that is she is not afraid of taking chances.
• She is always ahead of others.

2.What strategy directions could the artist pursue over the next ten years to continue her commercial success?

 Consider each of the four boxes from the Ansoff matrix. What new products or markets could she enter? How might she diversify or continue to penetrate her existing market? Try to think logically but also creatively and innovatively.
> Over the next ten years the artist can pursue following strategy directions to continue her commercial success:
The Ansoff matrix for Madonna to continue her commercial success:

Market Penetration She being a brand in herself can easily join in new labels and sign deals. She can continue and give more focus on working as a director.	New Products and services She can endorse her own clothing line, makeup, accessories e.t.c. She can sign up some television shows so as to keep impressing her fans.
Market Development She should think of giving a concert tour in Asian countries as well so as to add up to her fan following numbers.	Diversification She can write a book on herself and her success story. She can establish a Music school.

References:

Madonna. (n.d.). Good reads. Retrieved October 21, 2013, from www.goodreads.com: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/104438.Madonna

Study mode. (n.d.). Retrieved October 22, 2013, from www.studymode.com: http://www.studymode.com/course-notes/Keys-To-Madonna's-Success-856935.html,