Satya Nadella: CEO Of Microsoft And Corporate Strategy, Essay

Definition of strategy

Select a leader in an organization of your choice. This leader must be a decision-making manager; an executive or CEO is preferred. This must be a manager who understands the company’s strategy and has a level of authority and responsibility to answer questions on macro-environment factors that impact his or her organization as well as on assessing, to some degree, how well the company is performing to its stated strategy. While an executive or CEO is ideal, most decision-making managers will implement the organization’s strategy, for example, through the allocation of resources, assignment of tasks, or appraisal of employees in meeting company objectives.

You will have some predetermined interview questions to pose to your interviewee/leader, but you must also add three to five of your own strategy-related interview questions that pertain to material in Modules One through Three and are relevant to this leader or his or her organization. When you create your questions, be sensitive to the leader’s need for confidentiality on some aspects of the organization’s internal information.

Material from Module One:

• Define strategy
• Identify a company’s strategy
• Discuss the importance of a sound, well-executed corporate strategy
• Describe the key tasks in the process of crafting and executing a company’s strategy
• Define corporate governance in the strategy process

Material from Module Two:

• Describe macro environment factors and the impact they can have on corporate strategy
• Identify ways to assess factors that impact strategy like rivals and drivers of industry change
• Apply Porter’s five forces of competition to corporate examples

Material from Module Three:

• Apply the concept of SWOT analysis to corporate examples
• Explain the value chain and its role in developing competitive advantage

Satya Nadella is the chief executive officer of Microsoft. He was born in a Telugu speaking family. His father was a civil servant in administrative service. He was appointed as CEO on 4^th February 2014. The CEO follows individual business strategies that are the reason behind the company's success.

The policy can be defined as a plan or method to bring out the desired future such as individual achievements or solutions of a problem. It is a plan that is made for attaining different goals in uncertain conditions. The strategy is very much necessary according to  Satya Padilla's decision because the resources available for achieving goals are very much limited. The process of the strategy involves setting goals, determined to achieve the situate goals and mobilize resources to carry out the process (Rondaâ€ÂPupo & Guerrasâ€ÂMartin ,2012)

Microsoft strategy

Accessibility is the main reason behind usability, and it is the primary consideration against Microsoft's progress. Microsoft focuses on testing, development, design, research. Network marketing is the first and most known strategy of Microsoft. The primary factor behind the policy is that one window is compatible with the other. For example, a document can be opened in some computers because of the number of people using Microsoft. Therefore, the concept of network marketing has been established correctly( Clark et al.,2013)

A business strategy is defined as a tactic or procedure that is needed for the effective and smooth running of the firm. Strategic planning describes where a person wants his company to be and where the company is heading. Microsoft is one of the multinational corporation which follows the sound, well-executed corporate strategy for proper management and coordination of the enterprise. As a result, it will be helpful in minimizing the risk of a firm by maintaining  balance between the decisions that arose in a company( Purce, 2014)

Five interrelated functions are needed in the process of crafting and executing Microsoft’s policy. The strategies are-

i) Developing a strategy that to knows where the company needs to head what are its future aspects regarding the product, customers services, etc. The managerial heads must provide long-term goals, focuses on the objectives of an organization and communicate with stakeholders regarding the future aspiration of the company (Berg et al.,2013).

Ii) To set objectives for the organization and uses the results as yardsticks to measure the performance of the company. Measuring company's strategy involves both financial as well as strategic objective. It includes information regarding when and in which field the company has improved itself.

Iii)To achieve objectives, strategies are needed to be crafted to move the company to the strategies of the management. It involves, or it is concerned about the changes in the external environment of the management, sustainable competition, uniting the different strategic actions, etc.

Iv) Implementing and executing the strategy is one of the prior tasks of an organization. The policies handled by management can be called successful if the company runs smoothly and it meets the financial and strategic needs and shows a good progression.

Importance of sound, well-executed corporate strategy

V) Performance evaluation and initiation includes long-term strategy, objectives, strategy, experience, changing conditions, new ideas, new opportunities, etc. This helps in measuring the company's success and in evaluating performance.

Corporate governance is developed by owners and businessman to develop a plan that is strategic in nature. It includes procedures and system that is designed for system authority, balance responsibility, providing accountability, etc. It is an important part of strategic management as it helps in improving the performance of Microsoft. External government recognizing is an important part of corporate governance. On the other hand, it should also focus on its internal stakeholders to have a direct impact on the progress of the organization (Wooldridge & Pizzo,2014)

 Macro environment factors can be defined as external factors which are not under control and can influence the strategies o f a business and decision making process. The external factors affect the strategy of a company to a great depth so to adopt the changes the company has to be flexible regarding the technology, governance, and  competition. (Aggarwal  & Dow , 2013)

Macro environment consists of certain factors that affect the strategies of the business, and the factors are:

i) Demographic factors include a study of the human population regarding size, density, location, gender, and race. It is very much important as it helps the marketers to divide the population into different parts of the market

Ii) Factors related with economics are the factors that help in buying power and spending. If the income of a company or a country changes, spending and buying pattern has to be changed according to the adjusted income. It includes a level of income, policy, economic resources, economic nature, distribution of wealth and income.

Iii) Factors that are natural are very much important, and it is affected by the activities of the marketers. Global warming, cyclone are the examples of physical factors.

Iv) Factors related to technology - The factors help to create new markets for the marketers, and it is vital as it is one of the macroeconomic forces that is changing rapidly.

V) Political issues- It includes government policies, rules, legislative that effect the business. Any political factor can create problem for an organization.

Key tasks in the process of crafting and executing a company’s strategy

Vi) Factors related to culture- Culture, Heritage is the factors that affect the company‘s strategy. Socially responsive business method should be used to reduce products that can harm the society (Servaes & Tamayo, 2013)

For smooth running of business, the businessman must recognize and deal with the external and internal factors. There are many ways to access the elements and they are:

i) Factors that affect the internal environment- The factors that is associated with the human resource of the organization and the way in which it is taken for achieving the goals of an organization( Thompson et al.,2013)

Ii) Factors that affect the external environment- the factors help in developing strategic goals of an organization. The factors include economic, technological, social factors.

According to Porter five forces affect the competition of corporate market, and they are:

i) Suppliers power of bargaining- It shows how much power a business supplier has and how can it increase the prices of the product. Business will be in a better position if there is multitude number of suppliers (E. Dobbs, 2014)

Ii) Customers power of bargaining- It studies the customers power of bargaining and the power will rise if there are no of sellers and one can switch from one product to another.

Iii) Competition- Rivalry competition is present in the market when there is very less number of business man, and all of them are selling the same goods. The consumers have the opportunity of switching from one product to another and, as a result, the competitors.

Iv) Threats of the new entrants- It examines the probability how suitable it is for the new competitors to join the market.

V) Threats to product and services- it examines how much useful it may be a switch from one product to another of a competitor. The threats can be minimized by switching costs both short term and long term.

For a business man, it is of prior importance to analyze the situation carefully before taking any decisions. It helps in minimizing the risk of being mistaken. To help the businessman one analysis named SWOT analysis is available. SWOT analysis helps in listing down the favorable and unfavorable condition for a particular situation. It analyzes all the weakness, strengths threats of both external and internal factors of a situation. So the business managers can understand whether the situation is for Microsoft or not (Hollensen, 2015).

Value chain management is the concept of porter, and it is mainly built on the concept of a business system. It’s the main purpose is to help you to find, develop and create the competitive advantage of Microsoft. The idea competitive advantage does thing fully different from competitors, and at a very low cost. They also do the task uniquely, fully different from competitors. The advantage comes from cost leadership position and by providing some unique value.

Reference

Aggarwal, R., & Dow, S. (2013). Corporate governance and business strategies for climate change and environmental mitigation. InEntrepreneurship, Finance, Governance and Ethics (pp. 315-340). Springer Netherlands.

Berg, J. M., Dutton, J. E., & Wrzesniewski, A. (2013). Job crafting and meaningful work. Purpose and meaning in the workplace, 81-104.

Clark, R. A., Pua, Y. H., Bryant, A. L., & Hunt, M. A. (2013). Validity of the Microsoft Kinect for providing lateral trunk lean feedback during gait retraining. Gait & posture, 38(4), 1064-1066.

Dobbs, M. (2014). Guidelines for applying Porter's five forces framework: a set of industry analysis templates.Competitiveness Review,24(1), 32-45.

Hollensen, S. (2015). Marketing management: A relationship approach. Pearson Education.

Purce, J. (2014). The impact of corporate strategy on human resource management. New Perspectives on Human Resource Management (Routledge Revivals), 67.

Rondaâ€ÂPupo, G. A., & Guerrasâ€ÂMartin, L. Á. (2012). Dynamics of the evolution of the strategy concept 1962–2008: a coâ€Âword analysis. Strategic Management Journal, 33(2), 162-188.

Servaes, H., & Tamayo, A. (2013). The impact of corporate social responsibility on firm value: The role of customer awareness. Management Science, 59(5), 1045-1061.

Thompson, A., Peteraf, M., Gamble, J., Strickland III, A. J., & Jain, A. K. (2013). Crafting & Executing Strategy 19/e: The Quest for Competitive Advantage: Concepts and Cases. McGraw-Hill Education.Crafting & Executing Strategy 19/e: The Quest for Competitive Advantage: Concepts and Cases. McGraw-Hill Education.

Wooldridge, B., & Pizzo, A. D. (2014, January). Towards a Taxonomy of Middle Management Positions and Their Impact on Strategy. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2014, No. 1, p. 14263). Academy of Management.