Strategic Planning Is To How To Structure The Business?

Discussion

Strategic Planning Is To How to Structure the Business?

Cassidy (2016) depicts that for an organization it is important to sketch their priorities, vision, mission, focus energy and different agreement for attaining intended business outcomes. This approach of detailed analysis is known as strategic planning. Strategic planning also ensures effective competencies of an organization regarding the fact that they can survive any adversity by marinating their business objectives. Thus, Smith (2013) portrays that absence of effective strategic planning not only results in poor business performance but also suffers for adversity like employee attrition, ineffective brand recognition and slow financial growth. Marketers also utilize some strategic planning tools for assessing their performance regularly and take effective steps for future improvements.

Short et al. (2013) mentioned that strategic planning is a process of envisioning a desired future and evaluating strategies regarding strengthening operations, allocating resources for different business procedures along with maintaining and developing their company’s resources. Organizations in this process evaluate their strength and weakness and assess their ability to develop in the future to attain more financial growth. This planning allows an organization to assess the gaps that have to be overcome for the business intensification (Cassidy, 2016). Strategic planning comprises of four simple steps that serve the purpose of business success.

In this stage, marketers evaluate organization’s external and internal environment and assess the strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats of the organization (Johnston & Bate, 2013). The evaluation of the competencies of the rival groups and future scope and barriers for products and services development into a new market will also be assessed during this step.

Albrechts (2013) stated that after assessing the external and internal business environment, in the second phase, marketers develops the mission and vision statement that represents the position. In this phase, they intend to be in future and what approaches they have to take in order to attain those goals. Channon and Jalland (2016) moreover portray that essential values that supports the developed mission and vision is also assessed by the managing authorities of an organization.

In this step, not only the required approaches are determined but necessary resources are also listed that allows them to attain the business objectives efficiently (Gordon, 2013). Albrechts (2013) thus state that the resource allocation is primarily accomplished in this step.

This is the final step, where marketers implement and evaluate the plan. Floros (2015) also explains that in larger organizations like multinational companies or government bodies, this implementation of developed plan are carried out through different set of organizational member. Moreover, Peteraf et al. (2014) depicts that monitoring the entire recess allows mangers to assess whether or not the developed process is effective and whether or not positive results are obtained through the developed plan.

Value of the strategic planning in Wesfarmers

Wesfarmers being the leader in retail industry in Australia, it is evident that they have an effective strategic plan through which the concerned organization able to attain much financial growth and business success. Wesfarmers desires to increase their business divisions and hence obtained many acquisitions since 1984 to 2007 (Wesfarmers.com.au, 2017). As a result, by the year 2009,the concerned organization has nine divisions- Coles Group, Home Improvement & Office Supplies, Target Group, K Mart Group, Resources, Insurance, Industrial- &- Safety, Chemicals- &- Fertilisers Division and Energy (Floros, 2015). The success in the business growth for Wesfarmers can easily be witnessed as each of the acquisitioned body comprised of other divisions.

Their strategic planning also observed from their management of the entire group as well as the every division. Wesfarmers was governed by a board of 10 directors and each division is also regulated by a board of executive members (Wesfarmers.com.au, 2017). Wesfarmers also plans for focusing on the managing capital and intends to emphasize more on optimizing the cost of debt, management of the business portfolio and maintenance of the balance sheet flexibility. In addition to that, the goals that they have formulated also reveal their strategic planning. These objectives are- to follow entrepreneurial initiative for securing growth opportunities, obtaining operational excellence by provide strength to existing business, renewal of the business portfolio through value-adding transactions and establishing long- term management for ensuring sustainability (Smith, 2013). Their strategic planning also comprised of five broad steps-

• Start- Managers organizes planning and engage different parties to work collaboratively.
• Purpose- These managers also set target and size up the strategic challenges
• Analyze- In this step, the managers evaluate the internal business environment to establish necessary operations
• Decide- The established operation plans are once again evaluated so that the best strategy can be utilized for better business outcome.
• Execute- This is the final step, where the organization’s leaders evaluates and actions on the strategies.

Lastly, it can also be said that the corporate office determines performance targets for each of their divisions and that is measured by return of capital (ROC) and return of equity (ROE) in conventional times. The outcome is compared with the five- year divisional plan that is proposed by each Wesfarmers’ division. Another strategy that drives their success is their corporate culture. In addition to that, financial discipline was the key to their successful acquisition and generating satisfactory shareholder returns. According to their plan, the business unit managers are liable for carrying out all the business expansion details and Business Development Department (BDD) staff assists them to evaluate projects without affecting the business culture of each division.

Haines (2016) stated that strategic planning also provides a direction to all the working personnel. In addition to that, strategic plan is also useful from annual budgets to set an organizational culture. However, Hill et al. (2014) argues that absence of strategic plan signifies that the organization does not have any objective to follow. This furthermore results in lack of focus to achieve corporate goals, problems in allocating efficient resources for performing each business divisions. Cohen (2014) moreover portrays that effective strategic planning also demands a well structure hierarchy within the workplace. The lack of coherent planning also signifies that here is no focused effort for employees. The adverse effect of absence of strategic planning can also be witnessed through improper communication among the business units and divisions.

Consequences of absence of strategic planning

In context of Wesfarmers, the corporate strategies are established through top- down structure that is the managers, who are seniors at the corporate level are also the member of board of directors at divisional boards. Baker (2014) explains that in this way, these managers not only can handle the working procedures in a particular unit but also act as an effective decision- maker for the entire Wesfarmers Group.  Simons (2013) argues that in spite that the organization took every effective step to perform their business operations effectively, lack in proper planning results in huge loss for the organization. It is found from the case study that financial discipline was the key to Wesfarmers’ acquisitions and the managing authorities are careful for not to pay too much.  Initially many plans are made for the business but lastly, many plans often get rejected as it requires much cost for implementing. However, no additional plan was made if any plan gets rejected. The prime reason for this is that Wesfarmers values stakeholders more than company’s acquisitions and they often opt for divestments if some of its costs too high. This results in low profitability for the entire organization in the year 2009 due to Coles Turnaround (Haines, 2016). The actual reason highlighted by many business experts are the difference of organizational values and objectives. Moreover, in the year 2016, Coles remains strong but the Wesfarmers 2016 profit dropped and their desired target was missed out (Abc.net.au., 2017). In the year 2016, Coles increased its revenue by 2.7% compared to its 2015 financial year but for this Wesfarmers investing in ‘every day’ low pricing scheme by lowering Coles prices with nearly 1, 000 products (Ausfoodnews.com.au, 2017).

The decision- making model comprise of eight steps- identification of the problem, establishment of the decisions criteria, weighing decision criteria, generating alternatives, evaluating the alternatives, choosing the best alternatives, implementation of the decisions and evaluation of the decisions (Cohen, 2014). Hill et al. (2014) also depicts that the strategic analysis comprise of the first five stages, where an organization develops effective plans for business benefits. The process of choice is represented by the sixth step while the implementation process comprises of seventh and eights step.

                                                                                   Image 1- Decision- making model

                                                                                            (Source- Cohen, 2014)

Baker (2014) portrays that in this step, marketers defines the problem that necessitates the analysis. The major focus of this analysis is to gain competitive market share; building company image and refining the operational systems. Wesfarmers also identifies the approaches for business expansion and focusing on the specific departments through which they can provide a huge products and services options to their customers. Cohen (2014) also mentions that in this step, marketers also gather information that defines the strength of the organization. The businessperson also conducts observational studies and assembles qualified teams to evaluate departmental strengths. In case of Wesfarmers, the unit board of directors evaluates the competencies of each unit so that they can assess the performance of the overall unit. They analyze the strategic challenge that needs development of specific development of the undertaken systems. In the third step, the marketers often analyze internal environment for identifying the potential opportunities and threats. Wesfarmers’ mangers also identifies the firm’s efforts and other external business environment analysis like changes in government regulations, price reductions on raw materials or shifts in public opinion before acquisition other business divisions (Ibrahim, 2015).

Taken for instance, Wesfarmers board of directors identify the opportunity for improve returns through improvements in operating costs and margins, optimizing level of working capital and identifying new sources from existing capital. Moreover, (Cohen, 2014) also highlight that in Wesfarmers the discipline of invest for growth is also planned by identifying opportunity to invest capital profitability. Lastly, the planning for managing capital is accomplished through optimizing the cost of debt through gearing and access to debt markets, managing business portfolio along with the maintenance of balance sheet flexibility. Lastly, the review of found results is crucial for identification of the most effective step for implementing an action. 

This process comprise of choosing the best alternative among all other listed solutions. Gordon (2013) describes that strategic choice signifies the approach for understanding the nature of stakeholder’s expectations, identification of the strategic option and finally, the evaluation and selection of optimal choice. It is evident from the given case study that, one of the directors of Wesfarmers had noticed that the common thing that top organizations were following was high return on shareholder funds and is considered as fundamental measure for corporate success until now (Gordon, 2013). Changing the performance measures, setting targets for each division and developing five- year plan for each business divisions are some of the proposed strategies in Wesfarmers. However, the first suggested plan took much time to implement as the process is very cumbersome. Cohen (2014) also affirms that the other two strategies are effectively followed by the organization due to which Wesfarmers have attained immense success. Thus, it can be said that the second two proposed suggestions were selected.

Baker (2014) portrays that strategic implementation resembles the penultimate stage of strategic management and strategic analysis and choice. In this context, it can be said that the second and third suggestion is implemented that is to perform according to the target set for each business divisions and developing a five- year divisional plan so that the progress can be evaluated. Taken for instance, Wesfarmers always valued their stakeholder more than their business profitability. Wesfarmers invested in bringing improvement in fresh produce offering, expanding its online shopping service and providing training to improve customer service (Ausfoodnews.com.au, 2017). However, in the same year Wesfarmers did not meet the set target but individually as a group, Coles managed to increase their profit by 2.7% compared to the previous year.

Baker (2014) explains that approaches and methods that a company conducts various functions in the business operations resemble the business- level strategies. Larger companies like Wesfarmers, who have several departments with different business functions, often use more business strategies compared to small organizations. These business- level strategies also provide guidelines for managing authorities so that they can direct other employees for attaining business objectives (Li & Dimitratos, 2014). There are four types of business- level strategies-

Channon and Jalland (2016) depicts that this business level strategies signifies the coordination of all individual unit activities of an organization. However, Baker (2014) stated that managers usually evaluate the coordination of these groups. These managers take all the decisions and liable for allocating resources among different business units or divisions.

Hill et al. (2014) highlighted that this process conducts economic analysis and examines customers and market demand. Moreover, Huys et al. (2015) describes other niches that are modification of existing products or services and targeting a specific demographic group. Channon and Jalland (2016) furthermore portrays that filling a specific market niche allows other organizations to incur higher consumer prices.

Managing human resources are crucial for performing a business functions as employees or staffs are liable to operate all the business functionalities (Gordon, 2013). These building blocks of the organization are responsible to produce a specific output of goods or services. Thus, selecting right type of human resources of the organization drives the profitability and productivity of the organization.

Gordon (2013) stated that evaluation of human resources and business culture is not only important but monitoring of the products and services are also important for evaluating the business effectiveness. Baker (2014) also affirms that some companies review the acquisition process for economic resources, business facilities and other administrative costs so that it can be ensured whether or not all the capital is used for earning a strong rate of return.

In context of Wesfarmers, the two business- level strategies that are used are- Coordinate Unit Activities and Identification of Market Niches.

In Wesfarmers, there are boards of 10 directors, who are working as an executive directors as well as senior management at the corporate level. Moreover, the Managing Director of the concerned organization not only manages the finance of the company but also handles all the public affairs and human resource operations (Smith, 2013). Moreover, the authorities at the headquarter handles the business operations of all the other business divisions so that the Wesfarmers as an organization can outperform to attain maximum financial growth.

The prime objective of the Wesfarmers is to satisfy all kind of customer’s need through which they can serve their best for acquire best business outcomes. The “Coles Group” themselves provides supermarkets facility, convenience stores, liquor chains and online pharmacy services (Channon & Jalland, 2016). Moreover, the division of “Home Improvement & Office Supplies” has three retail divisions that serves- hardware, electronic goods and other office supplies (Gordon, 2013). On the other hand, Smith (2013) defines that “The Target Group” retails clothes, home- wares and electronic goods. K-Mart are also liable for the similar kind of business but served a relatively low-end market segment. Thus, from this discussion it can be evaluated that not only product niche is evaluated but the niche for market segment is also assessed through their acquisition. Wesfarmers also cover the insurance and fertilizers sectors through their acquisition of Lumley and CSB respectively.  

The forces that have a significant impact on the success of an organization based on the products and services offerings, threat of new competition, changes in consumer tastes and  price competitiveness is known as industry environment (Channon & Jalland, 2016). Purce (2014) also depicts that marketing departments cannot control these forces.

The importance of industry environment can be witnessed from the provision of the ability of the managing authorities through which they can evaluate the progress of the organization (Purce, 2014). Industry environment analysis allows the marketers to review information on current economic market conditions and local economic market. Moreover, this assessment of industry environment also allows an organization to estimate how much profit they can generate through their business operations. (Smith, 2013) furthermore depicts that business owners may discover a market niche through the analysis of industry environment.

The overarching term vertical integration implies that a business organization expands into new operation in order to decrease the reliability of firms on others in the process of production as well as distribution. One of the most effective advantages of vertical integration is that by implementing this particular strategy a specific business organization has a complete control over one or more than one stages while distributing the product.

Horizontal integration is another form of business strategy with the help of which a specific business organization intends to integrate internal assets for enhancing the range of production capacity (Mazzolari & Neumark, 2012). The primary purpose of implementing horizontal integration is to acquire business acquisition for enhancing the productivity of organization. The enhancement of productivity would help the business organizations to generate more revenue that reflects in the business improvement. Horizontal integration is possessed with some of the major advantages. This specific business strategy helps the organization in integrating the business assets and enhancing internal resources for performing well.

In context to the Wesfarmers it has been observed the business experts have primarily focused on horizontal integration in order to run their entire business process successfully in the market of retail industry. As per the case scenario it has been observed that Wesfarmers have used horizontal integration strategy in order to make an acquisition with Coles. The primary purpose of business acquisition with Coles was integrating internal assets (Reardon, Timmer & Minten, 2012). As a result, people belonging to different geographical boundaries would get the scope to use the products and services within time. Wesfarmers primarily wanted to integrate the human resources in order to keep a constant control over the demand and supply of the products. However, the case scenario has depicted that after the business acquisition Coles failed to maintain their business process effectively in the market (Célérier & Vallée, 2013). The workforces were not able to perform well due to large number of religious barriers as well as cultural barriers. In this kind of situation, horizontal integration strategy was not effective for enhancing the revenue growth of this specific organization (Fernandes & Chamusca, 2014). The revenue growth of Coles has been decreased after maintaining the business acquisition process of the organization. Wesfarmers in order to overcome this specific situation can be recommended to identify the issues that Wesfarmers is facing currently before using a specific business strategy.

                                                                                 Image 2: Vertical and Horizontal strategy

                                                                               (Source: Basker, Klimek & Hoang Van, 2012)

Diversification is one of the most effective risk management technique based on which a specific business organization tends to focus on wide variety of investment within the portfolio. Diversification can be maintained on products, services and workforces. With the changing environment of business industry the rapid needs and demands of the customers are changing gradually. In this kind of situation, the customers tend to purchase products and services only when they would get variety (Assaf et al., 2012). Product diversification is one of the most effective business strategies of enhancing the needs and demands of the customers. Like the same way business organizations can maintain diversity within service process as well. The customers’ executives should be flexible enough in dealing with the customers of different cultural backgrounds. Consumers belonging to different geographical boundaries should be treated with equal respect and dignity. In this kind of situation, the target customers would show their interest in using the products and service process of organization (Yu, Ramanathan & Nath, 2014). In addition, diversification can be maintained in the recruitment process as well. People should be recruited as per the skill and competency level of the employees that than their cultural attributes. However, the human resource managers should recruit the employees from various psychologies and attitudes.

As per the case scenario, it has been observed that Wesfarmers has maintained business acquisition strategy with Coles in order to render diversification within the business process. Ultimately, it has been observed that the implementation of this specific strategy is possessed with some of its negative effects as well (Berry?Stölzle, Hoyt & Wende, 2013). After the implementations of product and service diversity the business experts failed to maintain a balance on the overall service process. The customers of Wesfarmers had to wait for a long time in order to receive the service of this specific organization. However, the primary recommendations that Wesfarmers can be provided for maintaining diversification at the workplace are as follows:

• Recruiting sufficient number of workforce:

In order to maintain product diversification at the workplace Wesfarmers should recruit sufficient number of employees who would be able to keep a constant control over the entire business process. While maintaining diversified products and services the organization should have different counters (Ashworth, 2012). Therefore, sufficient number of workforce strength is highly needed who would be able to fulfill the needs and demands of customers and the customers would not have to wait for a long time in order to receive the service process.

• Providing professional and development training on maintaining professional attitude at the workplace:

Wesfarmers can be recommended that employees should be provided a professional and development training. With the help of this training session, employees would be able to maintain their professional attitudes. Employees endowed with diverse cultures and attitudes cannot exchange necessary information with each other (Lowe, George & Alexy, 2012). As a result, this specific training session would help the employees to maintain an effective communication with each other. In addition, an effective training session would help the employees to control over the entire process of business despite having diversification.

Strategic alliance is the mutual understanding between the two or more than two parties in order to reach the set of goals (Celerier & Vallee, 2013). In this specific business scenario it has been observed that a mutual strategic alliance has been created between Coles and Wesfarmers for expanding the entire business process beyond going to the regional market. After evaluating the case study it has been observed that Wesfarmers failed to maintain an effective communication with the business experts of Coles. As a result, this particular strategic alliance theory has not become applicable for the business organization (Ashworth, 2012). Strategic alliance however is possessed with some of the major advantages and disadvantages.

In context to Wesfarmers, the organization after making agreement with Coles has enhanced their number of workforces, their physical equipment, technological devices and many other material aspects (Berry?Stolzle, Hoyt & Wende, 2013). As a result, the customers are getting services within time. People belonging to different geographical markets are getting necessary facilities and benefits from the business experts by using the advancement of technology. At the same time, the theory of strategic alliance is possessed with some of the major disadvantages as well. After the business acquisition the employees of different cultural backgrounds has been amalgamated within the same process of business (Lowe, George & Alexy, 2012). As a result, employees fail to communicate with each other properly. Due to the lack of communication, the employees failed to provide appropriate service process to the employees. In this kind of situation, the business experts of Wesfarmers had to face innumerable difficulties in running drawing the attention of customers from different geographical locations.

Goerzen et al. (2014) portrays that a multinational organization invests in other country and are not intended to have coordinated product offerings in each country. Their strategy is to focus in adopting their products and services and offer it to in those local markets.

International strategies

International companies are liable to import and export their products. Buckley and Ghauri, (2015) describes that their strategies is to only investment in host countries. Hitt et al. (2016) also describes that international strategies deploys innovations and resources allocation through foreign investments. In international companies, marketers examine and audit their competence, present and prospective competitions along with position of its key suppliers (Verbeke & Asmussen, 2016).

The strategy adopted by global companies is to invest in many nations and territories. They also emphasizes on selling of same products with same name in these nations. Cavusgil et al. (2013) furthermore stated that these organizations majorly focus on the cost management, efficiency and volume. In addition to that, Channon and Jalland (2016) portrays that global strategy needs to gain economies of scale for selling their same brand products to many customers.

According to the viewpoint of De Marchi et al. (2014), a transnational company follows a difficult organizational structure. Their strategy is to invest in foreign operations. They also involves in decision-making and marketing powers for each individual foreign country (Doh et al. 2015).

Conclusion

Thus, it can be concluded that strategic planning ensures effective competencies of an organization. Wesfarmers also develop some strategic plans that comprise of five steps. The first step is “start”, where managers organize planning and engage different parties to work collaboratively. The second phase is “purpose”, where these managers also set target and size up the strategic challenges. The third step is “analyze” and in this step, the managers evaluates internal business environment to establish necessary operations. The fourth step is “decide” that resembles that they focus on establishment of operation plans are once again evaluate the plan so that the best strategy can be utilized for better business outcome. The final and the fifth step is “execute”, here the organization’s leaders evaluates and actions on the strategies. This allows the concerned organization to handle all their business division after acquisition different companies. It is also concluded from the discussion that Wesfarmers’ conventional strategy for valuing stakeholder are still effective but for managing every business division effectively, all the subsidiaries must align their business culture together. This way in recent time, also they can attain maximum financial growth through each division. The company also follows a top-bottom approach for decision-making that is that same person is liable for handling both unit’s responsibility and entire business’ liability. In this way, all the managing authorities have a clear perception regarding the business operation that is required to maintain all the business units under a single brand name.

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