Discussion
It has been found that strategic management can either make or break a company. There are instances of companies failing due to wrong strategy. The leaders with a strong vision can well visualize what a company needs in order to stay dominating in the market and always receive the competitive edge over the market rivals. They understand that the task of setting business goals and connect them with the vision of the company (Hill 2017). With the growth of the company, the strategic plan can support it with certain benchmarks and evaluate its success. The strategic plan can be considered to be a blueprint for the success of a particular organization. A strategic plan includes objectives, goals, mission, visions, target customers and important stakeholders. However, it is not that a strategic plan would be stagnant or fixed. It might change as the company moves forward and catches a significant market share in the industry.The role and importance of appropriate leadership in strategic implementation also cannot be ignored. The present report will deal with the case of Maisons du Monde which is a furniture company. It will further choose a strategy for Maison du Monde to expand their market share in Birminghm. It will justify the chosen strategy after analyzing the internal and external environment of the company.
The Maisons du Monde is a French based company basically dealing with furniture materials. It specially makes home decor furniture. The company was founded in the year 1990 holding the hands of Xavier Marie. The company grew fast and by the year 2015, it established more than 250 stores around the entire nation and beyond too including Spain, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Luzembourg and Germany (Maisonsdumonde.com 2018). The company became successful in generating almost E323 million in sales and by the year 2015, more than 5,500 people got connected with the organization. The company has most of the stores in France that is 193 in number. There are 30 stores in Italy and 16 stores in Luxemburg and Belgium. Notably, the company has least number of stores in United Kingdom and one each in Birmingham, Manchester, London and Leicester. The company needs to have choose a strategy to increase its market share in UK, particularly in Birmingham.
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Strengths- In the end of the year 2017, the Misons du Monde company generated E210 million online sales across almost 11 countries of Europe. The growth in sales is up to 24.2% as compared to the previous year. The net income in the year 2017 of the company is 63E millions. The Restocking of stores is a strong business model of the company and they have a strong concept of offering well –designed and functional products. |
Opportunities- It is considered as an environmentally friendly company that focuses more on the sustainability and reduced usage of water leaving low carbon footprints. This is what the UK shoppers are looking forward to. The company can deal and manufacture its own products when the suppliers hike their prices. Since the UK, market has become welcoming for the furniture products, especially in the household numbers and activities related to the housing market, the UK market will be a potential place where the company would be flourishing (Birminghammail.co.uk. 2018). |
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Weakness- The company makes use of the road transportation in order to reach the customers of other regions. The Group’s store locations are based in agreements with the landlords. The company invests a huge portion of its funds on the catalogues and serves it to the clients for free (Gudivada, Ra and Paris 2015). The customers in UK are not that familiar with the brand. |
Threats – An increase in the occupancy costs in future can negatively affect the profitability of the company. The amount of wood used in the Maisons du Monde company furniture production is a threat that soon the civilization in few parts of the world will run out of wood. |
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Threat of Substitutes |
Power of Suppliers |
Power of Buyers |
Threat of New Entrants |
Market Rivalry |
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Substitutes are those products which are identical and serve the same purpose. Buyers easily accept even the high prices when substitutes are not available in the market. Since furniture are essential in the households, there are low chances of threats from the substitutes (Bailey et al, 2018. |
Suppliers do effect the smooth business operations of a company because without the supply of raw materials, a company cannot stand up to the expected production. Since the Maison du Monde company holds the ability to manufacture its own products, this threat is also low. |
The power of buyers is high in the furniture market of UK, because of the existing market giants. Since the company has limited number of stores there, it will have to build a strong customer base to earn their favor. |
The threat of New entrants is relatively low for the company in Birmingham, UK, because entering in an established industry requires huge financial investment and essential expertise. It has been proved that even if 40% of the new entrants survive in the first year, by the second year they become distinct . |
The market rivalry in UK will be high because of the existing players I the furniture industry such as the Aaron’s, Inc, Alfa Vega, Artesania 1810 Trading Company Limited, Badcock Home Furniture and many others. |
According to the internal and external analysis of the company, it can choose from four options to enter the market of Birmingham (UK) in full-fledged form. The options are as follows:
Overview of the company
Market Penetration
The company can allure the customers of Birmingham’s market by the help of heavy advertisements, cutting down the prices, distributing intensively. This can be done by observing the strategy of the existing competitors and achieve a competitive advantage.
Market Expansion
The company can target the non –users or the lapsed users in order to expand the business or strengthen the customer base. The usage rate of the product of the company can be increased by offering what the customers actually demand.
Product Development
The company can develop new products or modify the existing products to provide the potential customers greater choice and options. The existing product will be benefitted with new features. This will promote innovation in the organization.
Since the number of stores in Birmingham, UK is limited and most of the people in that country do not even know about the Maison du Monde company which is relatively famous in other regions, the company must adopt the market penetration strategy to increase the number of users of the company products that can subsequently heighten its familiarity.
The strategy will focus on the attention of the company on a particular target market. In the case of Maison du Monde, the company must focus on the middle aged women or housewives who might get attracted towards the modified furniture products of the company. The needs of the customers will be focused on in order to fulfill their demands and preferences. The usage rates of the company in Birmingham will be increased and there will be scope for the company to open more retail stores.
There are so many ways by which companies promote their business in other regions and increase their customer base. According to the results found after the analysis of the Maison du Monde company, the best method for it to promote their brand name would be the search engine optimization process.
Search Engine Optimization
It is a process that helps to tweak the website, web pages and key words to reach up to a first-page listing in the search engines. The most effective search engines are Google .com and Yahoo (Ruelle et al. 2015). The company will have to get some expert who has specialization in the search engine optimization around Birmingham. The web designers can also come in help. The company can buy the internet traffic software in order to track the results (Ledford 2015).
In order to implement the search engine optimization strategy successfully, the Maison du Monde company will have to set effective keywords. It must be based on what people search mostly and want to explore. The Meta tags are another important aspect by which the keywords are reflected on the title. The content is the most driving area. Hence, the quality of the content has to be increased addressing all the possible queries of the customer and also must be written in attractive language that educates the customer (Schmale, Seidl and Cristia 2015). It should contain the pictures of the products with previous achievements of the company. Lastly, but not the least, it must have a proper mission statement like “we are made to decorate your world “.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be said that The selection of a strategy is not sufficient. The implementation of corporate strategy needs the assistance and support of team members of the company along with a suitable leader to guide the process. In the entire change management, each person of the organization has his/her own responsibilities and the whole organization need to understand the role of leadership guidance for the effectiveness of the new strategy.
References
Bailey, C., Mankin, D., Kelliher, C. and Garavan, T., 2018. Strategic human resource management. Oxford University Press.
Birminghammail.co.uk. 2018. Birmingham Live – Birmingham news, features, information and sport. [online] Available at: https://www.birminghammail.co.uk [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
Cushman, M., 2018. Search engine optimization: What is it and why should we care?. Research and Practice in Thrombosis and Haemostasis, 2(2), pp.180-181.
Gudivada, V.N., Rao, D. and Paris, J., 2015. Understanding search-engine optimization. Computer, 48(10), pp.43-52.
Hill, T., 2017. Manufacturing strategy: the strategic management of the manufacturing function. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Ledford, J.L., 2015. Search engine optimization bible (Vol. 584). John Wiley & Sons.
Maisonsdumonde.com. 2018. Furniture – Home Décor and Accessories | Maisons du Monde. [online] Available at: https://www.maisonsdumonde.com/UK [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
Ruelle, E., Delaby, L., Wallace, M. and Shalloo, L., 2015. Using models to establish the most financially optimum expansion strategy for Irish dairy farms. Grassland and forages in high output dairy farming systems, p.119.
Schmale, R., Seidl, A. and Cristia, A., 2015. Mechanisms underlying accent accommodation in early word learning: Evidence for general expansion. Developmental science, 18(4), pp.664-670.
Wheelen, T.L., Hunger, J.D., Hoffman, A.N. and Bamford, C.E., 2017. Strategic management and business policy. pearson.
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