A business strategy usually defines how a company intends to compete in the market. Operational strategies focus on a company's employees and management team. Growth or expansion strategies can take a variety of forms, such as cost leadership, product differentiation, or vertical or horizontal integration. A company's strategy must be thoroughly planned before deciding on a course of action. In highly competitive markets, product differentiation has worked for both Apple and Lush.
Apple has dominated the market with its elegant and easy-to-use designs, while cosmetics company Lush is renowned for its ethical products and corporate social responsibility. Backward integration is a movement in the opposite direction to forward integration, which involves advancing the supply or value chain. A clothing company, for example, could try to start producing the raw materials it now buys from another company. A clothing company that wants to dedicate itself to the direct and retail distribution of its products by creating retail outlets could be the company that is trying advanced integration. Preventing the implementation of any other plan or strategy that could be detrimental to the company's healthy growth could help avoid counterproductive measures.
While often included within a functional strategy, an operational strategy refers to the way in which the components (operating divisions) of an organization effectively apply corporate, business, and functional strategies in terms of resources, processes, and people. Today, companies need a strategy to compete with online startups, which can underestimate their prices and steal customers. The strategic management process described above can be successfully used for a large number of business strategies. Often, the entire business model is altered by revolutionary strategies, which create value for current and potential stakeholders.
Another, much simpler definition of corporate strategy is that of a series of decisions in which a company would bet its future on them. When a company intends to reduce one or more business operations to save expenses and strengthen its financial position, it uses the personnel reduction strategy. To create a good strategy, consider all business units, parameters, scopes, redundancies, and correlations. However, rather than limiting the scope of products and services, organizations that implement a specific differentiation strategy will prioritize creating unique, specialized, and niche offerings, customized to meet the needs of a specific market segment or consumer demographic. A business strategy helps locate current or future problems that may hinder an organization's ability to achieve its objectives.
An organization that seeks a low-cost strategy seeks to become a leader in providing low-cost products to its customers. The execution of a functional strategy supports the competitive strategy of a business unit by maximizing resource productivity. Together, we'll analyze the advantages and disadvantages of your business to create a strategy to help you achieve your goals. The functional strategy will revolve around the key people in the functional area and will focus on key operational aspects of the value chain, such as productivity, pricing, logistics, profitability, efficiency, product design, product brand and image, product life cycle, etc.
