Longitudinal Strategic Development Study Marketing Essay

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The assignment is focused on the study of an organization which has an excellent history of the understanding of the strategic performance. The study mainly focused on the importance of the strategic development of the organization. The study is divided in to three main parts which are the time lines of the organization. The past, current and the future are the three main time decades that we have to study about the organization.

We are taking in to consideration on the recent past history of the strategic development of the selected organization. And from there we have to discuss the current strategies and the future expansion strategies to e implemented.

We discussed the main strategic development stages in the recent past and expand it to the current strategies that work for the organization.

In this assignment we take the organization call SONY Organization. SONY is a giant organization in the world now a day.

SONY

Sony is a media and electronic giant in the world. Sony s one of the leading manufacture of electronic, communication, video gaming, and information technology products in the world. Sony has many variety of the production line it has small electronic equipment to professional electronic high tech products. And also they now switched to the worlds most popular LCD and LED TV's.

The first thing comes to mind of the people about Sony is the quality of the electronic items they have made. The quality made them in to top level of stand. The new innovation in the electronic goods is the Sony's secret f success.

Sony has got a new CEO in the 2005 and he has done lot of things which has changed the whole world of Sony. Any ay Son was started at the year 1946in Tokyo and now became the world class brand name.

They are the world leading quality electronic supplier. But they also have some problems when comparing the other competitors in the electronic world.

Strategies Deployed and Resulting Outcomes - Recent strategic Development History

Strategic planning is the top level planning process for an organization. The strategies are set by the Board of directors of an organization. The strategies are focus to achieve the goals and the objectives of the organization. Some times the strategic result may be not achieved by the organizations. So the organization may goes beyond the strategies set the op management.

The competition may help to make the strategies more strong in an organization. So the competition may lead us more innovative ad more quality oriented production.

Every organization is engaged with a game. Especially the game we call I not an easy one like we can win easily. The game needs Skills but not only the skills and the game need lucky chance not only the chance it needs the strategies to win all the time. The more strategies used to success the company the leaders must play a vital role in strategic planning.

Any way the strategies can be categorized in to two main parties. The strategic development and the strategy deployment are the parts we mention.

The strategy development is what we make the strategies according to achieve our objectives and goals. We have the following aspects when it comes to the strategy development of an organization.

Vision and mission statements

External and internal assets

Goals and Objectives

Strategy formulation

But when we take the strategic deployment it is the converter of strategic plans in to actions. It is the way we apply the plans in to actions and the results may get from this. Because the strategic plans may not apply within the organization in right time the plans may not have the validity.

Every strategic plan has its implementation mart and they need to get a feed back or the monitoring part must be there.

When we comes in to the recent history of Sony they have implemented many type of strategic plans and they have invented some of the planning will work for last log of the organization. The beauty of the strategic plans is when we apply those in the organization we get many challenges with in and out side of the organization. If the leader of the organization is strong his or her decision may help the people in the company will have extra power and they perform well rather than others. Sony has implemented many strategies accruing to change the environment of Sony.

We can identify some of the core elements that we can use for understand the strategic development in recent past.

Core competencies - this is very important when ever the company thinks to redevelopment or restructure. The core competencies must be taken in to consideration for the strategic planning or development is very crucial because simply we have to identify the capabilities we have in our organization. According to the article we have on SONY corporation they have clearly mention that in few times they have used to make some restructure processes that was taken places under a new CEO takes the leadership. But all the time they did restructure by downsizing the workforce. Each and every time there was some failure happens just because they have not identified the core competencies of the organization.

We ca take some best examples for the article, the "Transformational 60" is for major failure that happens under the leadership of CEO call Idei. This was happened in October 2003, the company planned to layoff 13% of the workface in 2006, they have reduced the cost b downsizing the cost of manufacturing, distribution and customer services. This was lead to a major failure for the SONY because they have fail to achieve the targets that the have set out.

Core Values- every organization must have values tat will lead the organization in to success. So the SONY also have some values those are unique to the organization.

Critical Selection of Success factors (Critical Businesses) - Sony had planned the critical business areas that they have to do for success but here also the same thing happens that when they have come up with major restructuring programs with variety of business division they were unable to understand the real scenarios of the social asking.

Leadership Competencies - one very crucial factor for any organization. The leader has to take the full responsibility of failing the strategic plan.

We are now looking in to the failures of the SONY in recent past. An also in here we can understand the areas which they have taken as the typical planning areas of strategic direction.

The Sony had many leadership problems over decades. They have to make sure the problems they have is the leadership issues. The success can be taken in to consideration of the leadership quality of some one.

Most of the CEO's came to Sony were overconfidence of their organization, ad they have made some unwanted changes that made the company in to troubles.

Current Strategic Situation

We have discussed the recent strategic development factors in above. And here we are going to discuss the current strategies ha are supportive and important to maintain for successive business. For understand this better we need to take the core business areas that SONY is currently engaging in accordance of the article given in.

The Area Responsibility

Home Network Company Networked electronic devices centered with TV

Broad Band network Company Generate next generation electronic devices

IT and Mobile network Solutions B2B solution for Mobile and PC

Micro systems network Company Enhance key devices and products

Game Business and entertainment Promote Game business in broad band

Entertainment Business Develop entertainment, Pictures, Videos etc

Personal Solutions Business group integrate various business groups and unites with customers.

These are the core business areas that the SONY is currently engaged in. we have to consider the strategies that need to develop these areas.

For analysis this we need to do a SWOT Analysis to find out how the SONY behaving in currently. We can also fin out the current strategies on SONY as follows as well.

Weaknesses and the threats that SONY is currently having can be list down as follows.

Currently they are facing a problem of sales it has slowed down significantly since the beginning of the 80s. In the common household market, sales actually decreased by 7.22%. For this concern the market in overseas expanded both to increase the total and real time sales, but anyhow t has some slow around 10% a year.

This can be understood as the blankness period between one popular product, the Walkman, and its progression. As Ibuka's view any business can be changed n every ten year. However, in the eighties, the product might still get a few years to develop, but the time we get the results and profits might be very mush less. We can take the VTR example both the VHS and Beta was developed by Sony. In a short time, Matsushita could arise with a competitive product based on Sony's technology.

Accordingly it is reasonable to say that other electronic firms would be able to imitate Sony's technology in a very little time while contribution more competitive prices.

We can take in to consideration with innovation in their capital expenditure cost and return on investment ratio. All the time the capital expenditure has risen severely, especially in 1981, because of the automation of plants. The SONY's return on investment has decreased. Spending 10% of sales for capital investment is extremely high figure. The question is that does this high rate of investment characterize corresponding growth in profitability?

With its great freedom, research and development are divided into small teams which are free to pursue their interest with little reference to "how it will fit into a market, what the product can do, how well it will function or how it could be used by customers." Secret projects without management knowing about them until "secret reports" are submitted are of common practice. With this kind of practice, there is lack of communication between management and R&D and threat of duplication of resources among the small groups. There is also a lack of general direction. This would be especially prominent when Ibuka and Morita, the symbolic leaders and founders retire. This is because the two in many ways act as the main guidance and bridge between management and the engineers. Therefore, there is also a succession problem.

Sony is the world leader in technological goods. So they have no threat of having such competitor who has the high technology. Te mind share o the consumers are won by the only so they have no problem of having such scenario. However, new products such as VTR, the Walk-in and the Mavica engage in both hardware and software. Sony can no longer just produce superb quality machines and look forward to them to sell. They need the software al to be present. For the Walkman, cassette tapes were traditional but for the Beta system and Mavica, benchmarks have yet to be set. For example, the descriptions of Mavica would be held on a high density magnetic disk but Kodak, 3M and Sony all have diverse systems and are not compatible.

The Sony has always a competition with maverick, alone creating markets. With Sony inflowing markets such as the VTR with no standards, it might be advantageous to both Sony and other vendors if they cooperated instead of competing on conflicting software those wires with Sony.

Last but not least, Sony lacks strategy. Product development, manufacturing and marketing are all well established but the firm lacks any formal long term direction.

In the article the New CEO stringer has identify five challengers that the Sony as to face in currently.

Getting rid of "Silo" culture in Sony

Obtaining profitability across business

Making product inline with the industry standard technology

Improving the competencies in software and services

Divesting non strategic assets

the market they have currently engaging in. The technology of the Sony will be newly improved and the modern technology must be introduces in to Sony accordance to the objectives that son has. In year 2008 they have made some planes accordance to the three sections that they have improve more. Electronic, games and entertainments are the areas that they have focused more.

Strategic methods and organization future

In an organization like SONY, it needs to have a powerful technology that goes with the new generation. In regard to thisr, they have to focus in the Future plan in the accordance to the Research and development. Based on the research it has the need to focus on product development as well as marketing improwment according to customer requirement. Result we can got an idea of the ways we have to improve in the operations as well.

In here we have to discuss the future needs of the strategic planning. The strategic plans that we need to understand for the development of the future of the SONY.

They lack in Strategy: this means the lack of strategy in making the organization operations like, sully chain strategy in the market requirement level. Because in the Electronic world some durations of the marketing trend is going higher with the year (Ex: in Year End) according to this they need to build a supply chain well.

The production is in high standards: I f the product standard is maintained in the organization properly but need to considering the way of these standards to be continuing in market place. EX: if the Some Brand has an ISO Standard should need to mention in the External environment in the organization this is this standard we are maintained. Other wise Product will be of good standard, but couldn't get a benefit of using in this opportunity. And need to consider in the strategically way to control to the product cost. Because if the SONY going to make and maintain their standards, but need to be covered without increasing in the cost of the Production. Other wise market price should be going to high .this is effective in the marketing to product in the low level market.

Not focusing on the right product in the right quantity: in the Product quality need to be maintaining in the proper manner. If the based on CMM level standard like a capability maturity model provide and standard way to production to sell. And also need to consider the Reliability of product. Test in the product is in the different scenario which needs to make a quality standard. Opportunity comes via maintain quality is marketing in the product.

Market competitors: If the SONY focus on this mainly in the to development of the products according to the competition. They have to be more innovative than the competitors. But need to be considering the use of their own research out come and knowledge to use to defence to other competitors.

(Ex:New implement technology product market using focus in low cost and more functionality. The can become a other than of competitors.)

Lacking is the marketing on their product in to the customer mind. Need to make a marketing team based on the customer mind. This should be a very systematic way. In the marketing team need to do a survey on the market and get a idea of the market trend in the technology as customer mind based and the main consideration of usability and cost of the Product should be taken in customers.

Research and development: They firstly need to have the research and development professional team to form new strategies for their software and other electronic products.

Ex: In the new world all the electronic items based on the Micro SD chip. This is software programmable unit. In this software industry is firstly grooving. The Day to day update, Need to build a strong Software engineering team to do an Embedded software Research. After their research output should be combined in easily in the international market in SONY.

Marketing Strategy in Future: And also they have to conduct a market research on the new trends an how the have impact to the market structure and leadership of Sony. They have to greater concern on the market share. And other important part is market very technological items in market need to consider in to the customer its Usability and reliability. Because in the users always think to gain an easy task do achieve, it's a market product should be a difficult ho handle defiantly they are reject it. But in the marketers can give the idea of using in the way of Smart.Some time they shall like it.

EX: high technical Phone sending to market in the Nigeria. They are not a technically strong country. Defiantly its going to fail but the marketing team can promote in the technical way of how to use this phone which can be achieved this easily.

Conclusion of the Future Strategic plan

(Figure 1.0 should be showing Summary of Plan)

Wear are we now? (Current situation)

Mission Assessment (internal /External)

Mission Purpose and Values

Wear we want to go?(Expectation)

Vision

Directions of wear we go?

Out comes /Achievement/Goals?

How do we get the Achievement?

Way of Achieving?

What is the Activity we do?

Measuring and Evaluation?

Measure the Achievement?

Evaluate and Tracking and Control

Evaluate Pros & Cons

As Above we identified drowback and the actions we have to take in is above decribe. In the Focusing area in the organization in the Marketing, Supply Chain,Reserch and Development,

And Manifacturing Team wise needs to separatly impliment in above commen plan. Then in a Administration team need to be prepare the plan to in fallowing in Mesuring and evaluation on the all plans. In administration/ management team plan is basedon the following aspects when it comes to the strategy development of an organization.

Vision and mission statements

External and internal assets

Goals and Objectives

Strategy formulation

Finally we can achieve the above organizations goals and market than the other competitors.

Conclusion

In the assignment we have to discuss the past, current and the future of an organizational directional plan. So in this regard we have selected the organization well-known as SONY. The Sony had many obstacles in there strategic formulation in the past and the already have many problems in the current scenario as well. And they have to improve the strategic direction. There are many problems with leadership of the company itself. So to overcome these problems they need to have a good solid leader for their CEO.

Sony must have new research and development strategies so they can be more successful of acquiring the market share very easily. The graph speaks clearly on the strategic plan that should be implemented. Also this speaks on what takes place when the right quantity is not focused on.Also the marketing team should go with the thoughts of the customers mind frame.