BUSM4306 Strategy and Sustainability Assignment Sample
Here’s the best sample of BUSM4306 Strategy and Sustainability Assignment, written by the expert.
Executive Summary
Different issues have been faced by the organization while working into a highly competitive market. This requires proper development and integration of strategies so that management of resources could take place. Different models and theories are incorporated for identifying the root cause of the problems so that proper measures could be taken up for solving the same. The role of strategies and its impact will be carried in the report.
Introduction
The key purpose of this study is to develop the report in order to represent the management board to reflect the strategic issues in the specific context. In this way, this report focuses on the selected organization, SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED; and identifies the major opportunities and the threats faced by the company in its home country with the help of micro and macro environmental analytical tools. Similarly, the evaluation of the organization’s threshold and the resources is also done by utilizing the VIRO analytical tool. Apart from this, some critical recommendations related to future international expansion are also included along with the well-organized conclusion in this report.
Background of the Company
SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED is known a fashionwear company which has its headquarters in India. The company is specialized in selling high-quality clothing and textiles with latest fashion in India. SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED was founded by Vijay Natlani in 2015. SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED offers its products in its domestic country and has made it be the largest producer in the textile industry. At the same time, the company also provides employment to 1501 employees. It earned around 5 million in revenue in the year 2015 (Annual report., 2017). While analyzing SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED, it is found that the company adopts eco-friendly practices and its labour policies are also quite good which helps it to make its big brand in the future because it claims that the company offers quits cheaper clothes with high quality and new fashion (Soch, 2019).
Along with this, the quality of SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED is better than anyone else within the Indian market. The range of products has been different in the organization which has made it have significant share in the domestic market. The investment into the retail business has made the SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED to earn high profits and has made it to contribute for having large number of customers while meeting with huge competition (Soch, 2019). .
Main Body
Analysis of major opportunities and threats
Macro Environmental Analysis of SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED
In concern of analyzing the macro-environment, there is a need to adopt PESTEL analysis and Porter’s Five Forces which are the strategic tools and effective to analyze the company’s macro-environment (Saleheen et al., 2014). Both these analyzing tools are described below in the context of SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED.
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PESTEL Analysis
With the help of the PESTEL analysis, the company is capable of getting great detail about the operating challenges by analyzing the market on the basis of Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal factors that can be faced by the company in the future other than the competitive forces. The details of the PESTEL analysis is given below:
- Political Factors: Political factors is a crucial factor as it creates a major impact on the long-term profitability of SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED. The political environment of India is quite unstable, and as per Peng (2014), the retail industry has greater importance in the country’s economy. Similarly, there are two major political factors that affect SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED in a more in-depth manner. These two factors, one is the high competition with latest fashion which is the positive aspect of concern of modern-day politics and secondly preference of customers. SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED mainly operates its operations in India (Khosla,2018). In this case, latest fashion and its adoption has made the organization to deliver the best quality products (Mudiyanselage and Herath, 2014).
- Economic Factors: The currency price is one of the major factors due to which conflict occurs between the company and its retailers in concern of the product price rise. Similarly, the firms provide the products at high discounts which have affected the customers base of the organization (Kulick, 2017). These discount competitors encourage the customers to enjoy similar products along with the much lower prices and steal the market share of SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED.
- Social Factors: In addition to the above, a social factor also includes some critical aspects. In which, initiatives are also included, which are adequate to support the surrounding communities due to which companies are capable of cutting down their internal costs (Doyran, 2014). Similarly, the chain of product recalls develops a negative social trend. Moreover, SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED is considered non-trendy because of their old brand image, which connects it with its past.
- Technological Factors: There are two technical factors which are also determined for SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED in order to affect it very profoundly. One of the essential technological factors is the self-checkout system which has been implemented by SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED at its whole stores to provide an unforgettable experience to its customers the same as other India food stores (Narayan and Chandra, 2015). In a similar manner, it is also identified that SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED have set up its strong e-Commerce presence by offering its all of the products including clothing and home products. It also adopts the traditional approach for online shopping among its product. It would have made the organization to grab the interest of the customers in an easy way.
- Environmental Factors: Some environmental factors are also found which affect SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED. In which, sustainable production is very important so that SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED can maintain its image in the way of the luxury brand and adopting latest fashion. This is the reason, SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED has become more sustainable retailer (Lamba, 2020). Apart from this, another factor is the fair trade that is the initiative that also has a more profound impact on the environment. Usually, the trader who get the huge benefits, they adopt sustainable business practices same like SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED, which makes the decision to sell its products under the fair-trade system and also get the environmental benefits.
- Legal Factors: In concern of the legal factors, it is identified that there are several laws have been introduced by the Indian government in order to prevent any kind of fraud, enhance the fair trading and increase the presence of regulations at everywhere. In this manner, some of the important laws are anti-trust law, discrimination law, copyright, and patent law and employment law, etc. which are also followed by SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED very strictly to maintain its brand image (Narayan and Chandra, 2015). Along with the above, health and safety law and the data protection law are also introduced for the retail industry.
- Porter’s Five Forces Analysis
Threats of New Entrants: There is a high threat of entry in the retail industry of India, new businesses huge investment because of the low cost of entry as well as maintenance which needed while entering into the clothing market in India. Similarly, the confidence of the customer also reflects a significant barrier for the new entrants (Goldstein and Shaffer, 2017). Bargaining Power of Suppliers: In a similar manner to above, the bargaining power of the supplier is also low in India’s retail industry because of SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED directly buy raw material from its few Indian suppliers and manufacture itself. Bargaining Power of Buyers: The bargaining power of the buyer in India is quite high because the customers either find traditional clothing which makes them price-sensitive or find the high image, which makes them fashion sensitive. That is why SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED misunderstood its target market as its target customers do not want to pay a premium price to support the products; instead, they need low prices with high-quality products. In this case, SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED needs to be more customer-oriented strategies apart from its product-oriented strategy. Threats of Substitute Products: It is usually identified that the substitute products decrease the demand of customers within the particular class of the products and it happens because customers have the option to switch to other alternatives (Declerck et al., 2016). Similarly, there is a number of retailers who are operating with foreign imports and provide low price products due to which, it can be said that the threat of substitute for SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED is very high in India (Annual report, 2017). Rivalry among Existing Competitors: The competitive rivalry is also high because the threat of substitute products is high that is why buyers and suppliers tried to control the market. Similarly, SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED also has been facing the threat of competitive rivalry because of other companies that have entered into the market along with similar products and affordable prices including up-to-date fashion (Witkowski et al., 2017). Micro-Environment Analysis of SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED
It is the internal environmental analysis under which the company’s internal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are discussed in order to understand its capability to deal with the competitors (Kravchenko et al., 2015). In this way, SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED has developed a strong and long-term relationship with its suppliers and customers. In this manner, the SWOT analytical tool is quite effective for SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED, and it is given below:
- SWOT Analysis
Strengths 
SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED is one of the largest manufacturing company engaged in the textile business all over India. It also provides the highest quality products by encouraging its suppliers to adopt modern and more efficient production strategies (Narayan and Chandra, 2015). It also maintains an excellent relationship with its employees. It is also found as a more profitable company compared to others.
Weaknesses The company relies on its employees and suppliers particularly, and it offers old and classical fashion in its clothing segment. Similarly, the company does not have clear marketing strategies (Business Standard, 2020). Moreover, SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED provides poor customer services along with inferior technologies. It also does not segregate the range of clothes and does not display appropriately.
Opportunities The company has the opportunity to keep in line with its competitors and adopt continuous changes in technology. Similarly, SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED can focus on its clothing business in terms of customer’s age and it can also offer the products as per the diversity in India.
Threats One of the major threats for SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED is an intense competition which is harder for the company. Similarly, the target market of India is not saturated, whereas the clothing industry is completely matured (Goldstein and Shaffer, 2017). One more threat is the expansion into the global market due to the intense competition.
Evaluate the company’s threshold and the distinctive resources by utilizing the VIRO analytical tool
While concerning Barney’s VIRO framework of SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED, it is determined that this analysis focuses on the company’s internal resources one by one with respect to measuring whether these identified resources are capable to provide the company sustained competitive advantages or not. These sustainable resources are also effective to analyze the strategic capability of the company (Pike and Page, 2014). In this manner, to determine the strategic capabilities through adopting the VIRO framework, the company needs to keep in mind that the wealth within the organization should be valuable, rare, inimitable and organized. In this way, the VIRO framework of SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED reflects:
- Valuable: The VIRO analysis shows that SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED have a high-value resource that is used to invest in external opportunities and combating external threats. Similarly, a company’s products are also valuable resources because these are highly differentiated. Along with this, SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED’s employees are its valuable resources because it has a highly trained workforce which leads the more productive outcomes (Meehan et al., 2017). The company’s valuable resource is its patents which allow the company to sell out its products without having any competitive interference. Apart from this, its distribution network and its cost structure are also considered as valuable resources (Meehan et al., 2017).
- Rare: SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED’s financial resources are considered to be rare because strong financial resources are held by very few companies in the industry. Similarly, the company’s workforce is also considered as rare for it because they are highly trained and skilled in their areas (Varley et al., 2018). The patents of the company and its distribution network are also found rare because patents are not available for the competitors very easily and its distribution channel cannot be afforded by the competitors because it requires a lot of investment along with the time for the better distribution.
- Inimitable: To imitate the financial resources of SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED is quite costly for its competitors. Similarly, the company’s patent is also difficult to imitate because it is not allowed legally to any other company to imitate the patents of another company. At the same time, the distribution network of SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED is not very difficult as it’s cost structure is high for the competitors to imitate (Mkansi and Nsakanda, 2019).
- Organization: In concern of the organization, the VIRO framework reflects that the financial resources of SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED are well organized so that they can capture the value (Burugo and Owour, 2017). Moreover, its distribution network area also found organized because it is effective for the company to reach its customers by making sure that the company’s products are available at its all outlets (Burugo and Owour, 2017). Thus, these identified resources confirm to be a source related to the sustained competitive advantages in concern of the SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED Group.
- In this manner, from the findings of SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED, it is defined that the financial resources and the distribution network are capable to provide the sustained competitive advantages whereas the patents are considered as the unused competitive advantages (Varley et al., 2018). Similarly, there are two temporary competitive advantages such as employees and customers. Apart from this, the cost structure and the R &D are also the competitive advantages of SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED, which can be used to compete within the market.
Distinctive Resources and Distinctive Competencies
While concerning SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED, it is analyzed that the company is one of the leading retailers in India, and it contains a long history along with the brand. Similarly, the stores of SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED always appear at different local places such as high street, airports, high streets, retail parks, stations and out of town (Pike and Page, 2014).
Apart from this, in concern of the competencies, SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED offers outstanding quality in its products and also have the capability to develop more innovative products. Similarly, the company has launched various shopping channels for making the customers easier to purchase segment products.
Critical recommendations for future international expansion
The organization should make the use of digital technology so that it could spread its business at a global level without bearing high cost, which would help in meeting with the requirement of the customers. It would make the organization to promote its products and reach to the customers withing large areas. The expansion of the organization at the global context is required so that it could grab a position into the market and strong grab position. The use of digital technology would assist in attracting customers and make them know about the products and services.
- The company van move to international market by understanding the culture of people and designing its products and services accordingly. For example, culture of UK is different from India. Thus, for having its stake in the market of UK, it is required by the firm to ensure that difference in culture could eb made. It will help in accommodating with the culture and values of different nations and easily have its global expansion. This makes the organization to meet with the expectations of society, environment and economy.
- The price of the products and services should be accurate and affordable for the customers so that they could reach to different customers. The pricing strategy needs to be made as per the expectations of the consumers with the estimation of profits which take place in the firm. In addition to this merger with small firm in the international market of UK, china, Australia etc. would made the firm to have lower investment with high customers. The manufacturing of products should be made with domestic labor so that expenses of having labor from other countries will automatically reduce.
- Employees are to be provided with training so that manufacturing of products could be made as per the requirement of customers. The changed drawn into the world has made them to oblige with different trends so that competition could be made. The training and support will make the employees to work under flexible hours and meet with needs of the customers. Effective training will make them to work as virtual team and lead to adjust with other employees working at global level. Employees having knowledge of different cultures will help in dealing with needs of customers at international level.
- Investment should be made into the required areas such as employees training, education, cultural management, team work etc. which could help in having profits and meet with obligation of the organization. This is required for effective management of resources and could help in dealing with requirement of the firm. The allocation of resources could help in having stability into competitive market and expand at global level.
The above recommendations will help the organization to deal with changes in a required manager and have large number of customers. This will help in managing with issues and grabbing a position into competitive market.
Conclusion
After accomplishing the discussion about SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED, it is concluded that SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED is one of the leading retailers in India and it has more profitability along with the revenue as compared to its competitors (Umarji, 2018.). In a similar manner, it is also depicted that the company’s external environment is quite favorable for it as the company gets support from the different external factors and due to which, it became one of the famous brands in India. At the same time, the company’s microenvironment is also effective for it as the company has a number of strengths that make it more competent while dealing within the highly competitive environment. However, SOCH APPARELS PRIVATE LIMITED needs to focus on its technical aspects as the company has poor technology (Goldstein and Shaffer, 2017) in this highly advanced technological world. Apart from this, as per the VIRO framework, the company has sustainable resources including distinctive competencies.
References
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