Element 1 – Strategy Development Process – Case Study – Boardroom battles at Hewlett Packard
Strategic management is a word that is directly linked with the world of business nowadays. There are several instances where a wrong strategy resulted in the complete downfall of the business. A strategic management indicates the management of all the departments of business with a strategy (Johnson & Whittington, 2013). The strategy must be implemented based on certain theories called the theories of management. These theories are all proven and experimented down the ages by management gurus, and it forms a part of MBA course. The main job of this project is the application of those theories.
Understanding of the strategic issues:
The main strategic issues of the organization were following the autocratic model of leadership in the beginning. Autocratic leadership might bring in temporary profits, but it does not continue or earns the revenue in the long run (Mintzberg & Ahlstrand, 2005). The Mark Hurd’s five years autocratic leadership put tremendous pressure on the workers, which had put more stress on the board members. In the modern days, when a leadership strategy is chosen, the democratic model of leadership can be considered as the best method. The boardroom battles really improved the company when the next CEO, Leo Apotheker came on the market.
The next strategic issue of the business was a business to business transactions. The business continued to grow as an immediate focus was made on tie-ups with other business for increasing the profits (Richard & Devinney, 2009). HP also resulted in the tie-up with the British Data Company. However, the board members did not accept the decision of the newly appointed CEO and an argument issued inside the board. This clearly indicates the lack of communication within the board members. The lack of communication is mainly happening because the company is not following the meme stacks of leadership inside the board members.
Every individual thinks differently, and those patterns of psychological thinking can be specified under different colors according to the requirement. If a person thinks in materialistic terms, and another one in individual terms, and some other in terms of the microcosmic view about the company, then the three opinions can never match (Grünig & Kühn, 2015). The match of opinions is possible by making the board members sit for an MBTI test to judge their personality according to the requirements. Then, the board members should have been divided into the meme stacks according to the way they think.
The way of thinking is often compared even with the thinking hats. There are actually five types of thinking hats that one can wear during an argument or a discussion, namely, the white, red, yellow, black, green and the blue hat (Montgomery, 2011). Now, each of the members of the board had a problem that they were all wearing different thinking hats and discussing the topic. When the topic of discussion is the same, the thinking hats should be the same. Only then the perspectives would remain same, and there would be fewer arguments among the board members.
The leadership style and role models of a company are responsible for many changes that take place within or outside a company. There are many models of leadership that vary over time according to the changes in consumer behavior (Renz, 2016). The present HP Case Study is just a situation that has happened in the last decade. The main leader, Mark Hurd’s five-year autocratic leadership by wearing a black thinking hat, or by becoming a stern judge has become the complete disbursal of the company’s policies.
Demonstrating an understanding of the implementation issues facing the HP, and the role of leadership in management and change
The autocratic leadership style completely had put pressure on the labors to such an extent that they are completely away from all the other matters related to the work-life balance. So, the retention of employees might have become a big issue for the company (Freeman, 2010). Thanks to the newbie CEO, Leo Apotheker who can probably use the employee feedback policy and developed the situation of leadership in a better manner. He had also proven to be an innovative leader because he formulated the policy of making tie-ups with other businesses in order to get better opportunities.
The main implementation issue faced by HP is the communication. It is because the communication cannot be made possible in a corporate with different thinking hats. The thinking-hat patterns can be explained by a diagram given below:-
Now, according to the situation, the previous leader had worn a black hat whereas the newbie leader had worn the green hat. However, the other members were all wearing either red hats, some white hats. Very rarely does anyone wear a blue hat and think, and this is the only reason; the continuous disappearance of the communication resulted in the entire boardroom battle (Swayne & Duncan, 2012). The main issue of this case study is the miscommunication among the board members. Red hat is useful in some situations but not during exigencies, especially, when the company is completely facing a crisis.
Lastly, the private discussion between the Cathie Lesjak and Leo Apotheker resulted in various unethical means, which the board members are up to, and the board members are totally running this scam to happen, and Cathie confessed that she was only supporting them because they were bosses. Leo Apotheker took the decision of confessing the entire situation to the shareholders, which made the company fall into its place once again (Wheelen & Hunger, 2011). However, this spinning strategy was not fine for Leo, and that is the reason; he was dismissed from his service. As a proper leader, he should have verified the information before taking any decision regarding the same. The sudden decision made everything go haywire.
The proper implementation of leadership strategy along with the lack of communication was the main issue of this case study. The lack of communication to its highest point is portrayed in this particular HP related case study. The failure of an autocratic leadership is understood, and the necessity of teamwork is what is understandable from this case study as well.
Understanding of the strategic issues:
The entire strategic issue in the One Sony situation is the breakdown or the collapse of a complete industry over time. It has tried to apply several strategies, innovation and market research methods, however, none of the research methods actually worked (Mendenhall, 2012). The main aim “One Sony” is getting doomed even after manufacturing the Sony Ericsson mobile phones. The consumer behavior is very unpredictable, and it is quite sure that the company is not completely working with a perfect strategy that would solve all the issues in a proper manner.
Element 2 – Organizing for success – Case – One Sony
The previous CEO, Kazau Hirai, a Japanese person has actually thought of making the entire Sony as one particular brand that would provide all sorts of solutions related to the IT level like the creation of new animations, video games, other television and music systems, etc. He applied promotional strategies but failed. Howard Stringer, an American businessman, was appointed as the next CEO for the strategic development of the company. Instead of promotional strategy, he used the strategy of innovation and even introduced mobile phones into the market. However, even the introduction of mobile phones couldn’t keep up with the demands of the consumers.
The main competitors were Apple and Samsung, which Sony couldn’t stand against. So, if Porter’s five forces theory is applied here, it can be said that the intensity of competitive rivalry is the main aspect behind the complete failure of the industry. The industry cannot bear the rivalry of the competitors (Doz & Kosonen, 2010). It is only because Apple had made a brand name, and Samsung made a brand name with the name of its exceptional technology. Consumers are thinking twice before buying any product of Sony from the market.
It is also observed that the online marketing of Sony Ericsson is very rare. Apple and Samsung marketing were quite obviously done online and got huge responses from the optimization of websites. Such things were not possible for Sony to that extent, so it did not work on the marketing front to that extent (Huber, 2013). The issue with online marketing was very less as compared to the Samsung and Apple. Sony did not do online marketing to that extent. This was one of the strategic defects that can be pointed out for Sony.
The brand name of Sony can be increased by doing a survey among the customers. It is an old method of promotion. The offline survey is the best method because it gives a direct interaction with the customers (Poister, 2010). The survey questions should be mainly open-ended questions to get an overview of the consumers’ mindsets before taking a final decision about the innovation of the products. The product innovation should stick towards the mobile phone for the time being because that is the main market for profit at this moment.
Leadership plays an important role in the improvement of business. Autocratic leadership is only good if the leader possesses exceptional qualities. Otherwise, a democratic leadership system would work with Sony. Even during the period of Kazau Hirai, there was autocratic leadership, and the same trend followed during the time of Howard Springer as well. However, springer stressed a little on innovation, which resulted in some teamwork inside the company. A lot of strategic changes are required for building the exact kind of product that everybody looks for.
Sony has become quite an old-fashioned name nowadays. The first promotional innovation that should be done for the company is changing the name of the brand to something new and attractive (Anderson, 2010). When the consumers think about the name Sony, the first TV comes to minds, and they go after the latest gadgets. So, the change of name is highly wanted. Needless to say, the team building and corporate training should also be started the company to grow the spirit once more. The company actually cannot adapt to the changing behavior of the consumers. Implementing the spirit of democratic leadership comes with merging several learning theories while training the candidates.
The recruitment policies should also be changed to a certain extent. The MBTI assessment test must be made compulsory for making the process of selection proper. The assessment would set the job roles of different people within the company (Vaccaro & Jansen, 2012). Moreover, during the corporate training process, the personality of an individual can be measured by the same assessment called the MBTI test, which is actually a yardstick for measuring the improvement of the company candidates. If one kind of learning method fails, another type of learning method should be implemented to ensure the proper decoding of the encoded information of the training module.
The practical application of the training should also be inculcated within the candidates. A proper leadership would mean the formulation of SMART objectives for the company where the word is an abbreviation called specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound (Connors, 2011). The objectives of Sony should be to increase the sales revenue by at least 10% by the next quarter. It should be the management motto, and creative ads can do the magic of changing the environment. Creative ads always do not mean the big ads with a picture, but a small message with a sense of humor is all it needs for marketing.
Sergio Marchionne has really shown a true leadership in the automobile industry that was sinking for a long time due to the autocratic mode of leadership. The entire company was controlled by engineers and the senior executives including the labors had no voice in improving the firm (Zhang & Bartol, 2010). There was no policy of an employee feedback generation when he was chosen as a CEO. His informal dresses coupled with his “feel at home” attitude inspired the entire turnaround of Fiat and Chrysler and made the dreams of thousands come true including the automobile industry itself.
Leadership quality imbibes a democratic policy and encouraging employee feedback, which should be learned from this great personality. A dream can show another dream. He did nothing but sold dreams to earn money, the dreams to become big to all the senior level managers in the organizations (O’Reilly & Caldwell, 2010). The workers who created a lot of problems were all laid off without further notice because nothing could be compromised at the cost of the business. Some new managers were even hired from companies like Apple, which are not from the automobile industry. It is mainly because the managerial qualities were essential, and not the engineering level experience.
The innovation is also wonderfully created in the product based on the VRIN category. According to his exceptional leadership, we can observe that the newbie model of Fiat gives the customer its product value, rarity is inimitable by any other automobile industry and non-sustainable in nature (Carmeli & Tishler, 2012). The next brand called Chrysler is also of the same category. This is the reason the leadership quality is completely inside him. A leader is one who follows a number of methods and shows the others a path to development.
Sergio Marchionne has proven to be a wonderful leader by proving the rules of leadership by talking to all the levels of the company and bridging the communication gap between one another. There was a big communication gap in the very beginning when the industry first started. After the involvement of the aforementioned leader, everything started to change because he implemented the employee satisfaction policy (Grant, 2016). As long as the employees are not motivated, the company cannot function. The case study teaches us various levels of motivation that can be given by the leader.
The main motivational technique used by him is the intrinsic motivation. He talked about all the levels of the office staff at first and analyzed the entire situation. Later on, he talked with the senior managers and had given them some well-defined objectives to achieve. He also pacified them by saying that the inability to achieve a target is not the end of the world because we learn by the process of trial and error (Boxall & Purcell, 2011). Now, the point of concern is the position of the company Fiat, which he changed over time within a few months. He also provided extrinsic motivation to all the employees like perks and incentives to justify his work over other matters.
The detailed analysis shows that the entire Fiat and Chrysler has been excelled by the complete analysis of only one leader called Sergio Marchionne, who by his inherent capacity of leadership has brought a sinking company to such as the point that can only be dreamt of. The dreams are made a reality with the experience of applying various strategies of leadership (García-Morales & Jiménez-Barrionuevo, 2012). Firstly, he analyzed those employees through a psychological monitoring who are worthless in nature and destroyed all those who are completely worthless to the company. The layoff is done in a very polite manner. The next step is building the communication within the workplace.
Communication is built with the help of strategies of leadership, which are flexible in nature. The managers are already informed that they can learn by trial and error method, and this has built more confidence within the company. The previous people are completely at par with the methods imbibed within the company, but in a submerged state (Keupp & Palmié, 2012). The inspiration is brought forth by the present leader, which again had given a proper growth within the entire company. The intrinsic motivation is given to both the managers and the engineers to build a newbie car with an innovative model all over again.
The leadership of the product innovation followed the VRIN model of leadership. It means the product must be valuable, rare, inimitable and time-bound. All the processes are completely based on the basic patterns of learning theories when the corporate training is given (Rainey, 2010). All the training are provided within the same situation where from everything is starting. So, as a whole, the leadership is very unique in nature and outstanding in experience, which has completely changed the entire company.
Conclusion:
From the three case studies, it can be figured out that the essential elements speak about the strategies that are involved in the case and the leadership methods that are used for everything. The strategies that are used are completely based on the strategies taken from the theory of marketing. The companies have all suffered due to wrong strategies (Tarique & Schuler, 2010). Some leaders have changed the strategies and developed the company all over again. So, as a whole, it can be said that the company is completely at par with the proper implementation and application of theories. If the marketing science is properly applied, any company can turn back once again for the future.
References
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