Business Essay Sample: Strategy Formulation and Processes

Business policy and strategies is a course that equips the learner with knowledge on making strategic decisions on business, and the vital steps that a company/business undertakes to improve its performance. This paper outlines the compelling issues that were discussed throughout the Strategy Formulation and Processes (U5 DB) course.

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Strategy for Competitive Advantage

This is a business strategy that is used by businesses to make their products or services better than those of their competitors. This way, the company has an advantage over their competitors and hence, stand a higher chance in better performances. There are three determinants of the competitive advantage of products and services that are offered by businesses. First, is the benefits that the customers and the company will realise. Secondly, is the target market for the goods or services and finally, are the competitors in the market.

SWOTT analysis

SWOTT analysis is an in-depth evaluation of the strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and trends in business. It is essential for any business to have a good SWOTT analysis since this dramatically determines the operations of the business and the formulation of strategies for the organisation. Having an excellent SWOTT analysis ensures that the resources of the business are allocated efficiently. SWOTT analysis is similar to technical analysis, or the environmental scan of a particular business. However, the industrial analysis focuses solely on the external factors that influence a business.

Corporate Strategy

Corporate Strategy is the policy that organisations employ to determine which activities they will be involved in. The resolutions may involve propelling the business, to decline or to keep the business at its current level or state. Growth strategies may be implemented through internal development, mergers, and acquisitions and by partnering strategically. Renewal strategies involve reversing the organisation's decline and putting it back on the right track to achieve its goals. This will include a retrenchment strategy that is used to correct different weaknesses in the company that has caused the performance to decline. Turnaround strategy is used in cases where the damage is too significant to be fixed.

The knowledge and the skills advanced my consideration for these topics that the issues imparted. Discussing the SWOTT analysis enabled to know the importance of understanding the business that a person is operating. The discussion on the strategy for competitive advantage gave me knowledge on the ways that one may use to improve the products and services that they are offering. Cooperate strategy, on the other hand, helps a person with the knowledge on how to maintain the success of a business or how to expand it.

Other approaches to strategising a business and its policies that could have given additional information are environmental scan and industry evaluation. Environmental scan or the industrial analysis involves than analysis of the external factors that affect the business. Industry evaluation involves evaluating the level of industrial growth that an organisation is competing enables the organisation to employ the right strategies to use for the industry level. There are four industry levels. These are industry emergence, industry growth, industry maturity and industrial decline. Each of these levels will require a different strategy for the business to be successful.

Conclusively, business policies and strategies can be formulated and addressed in many ways. Approaches such as corporate strategy, SWOTT analysis and strategy for competitive advantage have been discussed above. The aforementioned are significant ways how a business may use relevant information to develop and employ various strategies in its operation for guaranteed success.