Location Strategy, Human Resource Management, And Value Chain Management For Audi, P&G And IKEA: A Strategic Management Approach

LO1 Research and evaluate a range of key issues in strategic and operational management.

LO2 Critique a range of key theoretical models and apply them to case study-based examples.

LO3 Critically evaluate strategic management practice in organisations and its relationship to managing operations.

Key Issues in Location Strategy for Audi

1. The organization selected here is ASB bank and a brief about the internal resources and the capabilities of the organization is presented here (Williams et al. 2017).Internal resources mainly include the number of employees which is estimated to be 4907, the services of the bank such as personal banking, business loans, educational loan facilitates and services, internet banking, insurance services, atm services, bank branches, computers and banking applications and software and some others (Williams et al. 2017). ASB is one of the oldest banks in New Zealand and was founded in the year 1847 in the name of Auckland Savings Bank. However on the other hand the capability of the bank is also referred to. The capabilities of the bank are IT capabilities, financial capabilities, problem solving capability and some others.
2. External environment that can impact the organization includes political factor, economic factor, social factor and technological factor (Williams et al. 2017).Political factor like interest rates, rules and regulations and others can impact the working and services of the organization (Williams et al. 2017). Economic factor like cash flow in the market, economic scenario, stock market trend and others impacts the organization. Social factor like choice and preference of people also affects the popularity and position of the bank. Technological factor like updated applications and software and system used by other banking organizations has an impact on the organization as well (Williams et al. 2017). However on a general note some of the external factors like economic recession, online scam, closing of small town banks and some others can impact the organization (Namada, 2018). These are also the external factors.
3. Generating and selecting sustainable strategies at the corporate and business levels of the organization is very important ( Strategies like monitoring of money laundering can be done and this is all about illegal accumulation or sourcing of money and this strategy will help in maintaining the business functionalities at the organization (Williams et al. 2017).Other strategies include policy and programs to supervise the banking work, setting up departmental function and some others.

1. the organization’s formulated strategy can only be maintained and can be supervised through appropriate leadership, management, staff, system and structure (Hornstein 2015).ASB bank can follow staff management approach, employee motivation, leadership style like team leadership, following of labor law to manage the employee and treat them as resource that can carry on with the strategy, contemporary management style and others.
2. monitoring and evaluation of the performance of the implemented strategy can be done through checking the final outcome, yearly outcome in terms of work, operation, services of the organization and also n terms of market position and people feedback about the organization (Hornstein 2015).Other than this legal transaction of money within the bank and outside the bank also provides evidence of the performance of the implemented strategy.
3. The global automotive organization selected here is Audi and the organizations’ operational business environment is vital in this case as this requires and issues in decision making is a common aspect (Stead and Stead 2017).Audi is one of most reputed and branded automobile company across the world and has its own customer base (Namada, 2018). Key issues of decision making in areas like location strategy and Human resource management and job design will be briefed here that helps in presenting a clear view of how the issues can impact the strategic management practices in the contemporary environment.

Location strategy- key issues in decision making in this areas includes, where Audi can locate their factories, where the showrooms of Audi can be located so that it can have maximum visibility and that can attract maximum number of people or customers, what are the government laws and policies behind establishing an automobile company, what are the terms for the local automobile companies and what will be the term for Audi, what will be the reposition of profits to the home country, copyright aspect is also an issue in decision making and some others (Stead and Stead 2017). Audi while looking for their location options and finalizing their location strategy it is important for them to analyze the key issues that are associated with it so that the location strategy is made perfectly and that it ultimately helps the organization in its positive strategic management approach and also have a competitive advantage in the industry environment (Stead and Stead 2017). 

Human resource management and job design- key issues in human resource management include employee motivation, social requirement of the employees, personal requirement of the employees, employee guidance, employee management, employee performance supervision and management and some others. In case of job design, job roles, skill requirement, shift designing, job pattern deciding, multi tasking of the employees, job rotation, job assigning as per their particular skill and capability, employee qualification assessment, employee experience assessment and others are some of the issues in decision making for this particular area (Stead and Stead 2017).

Porter’s Competitive 5 Forces Model as an approach for management practice in the contemporary business environment is very important. This model includes 5 forces such as threat of new entry, buyer power, and threat of substitution, supplier power and competitive rivalry (Namada, 2018). These give an estimation of how the management practices of the organization should be and this is a summary of the competitive environment (Stead and Stead 2017). Threat of new entry is all about new companies coming in the market and creating a competition, threat of substation is all about same goods and services being sold by the organization that can lead to reduced customer base and also can lead to lack of popularity in the market place (Hornstein 2015). Threat of rivals or contemporary rivalry is all about rivalry and competition with the existing power and threat of buyer and supplier is all about their bargaining power and approach.

Key Issues in Human Resource Management and Job Design for Audi

applying Porter’s Five Force Model to P&G Ltd. so that they can have an advantage in the contemporary operational field (Stead and Stead 2017).This Porter’s 5 Forces Model helps in providing a brief about the competition intensity for P&G Ltd. in the market (Hornstein 2015).Threat of new entry is always there for P&G Ltd. as this organization produces consumer packaged goods and companies of the same kind can come into the business in USA and that can lead to lack of popularity of this company. Every now and then companies are being launched in USA be it retail company for clothes and fashion or be it consumer food company (Stead and Stead 2017). Threat of new entry is there in this case (Hornstein 2015). Threat of substation is also high as the products that are produced and sold by the organization such as health care products, beauty products, and personal care products, home products and others can be easily substituted. Thereby the risk of substitution is there for P&G Ltd. Supplier power is also vital and that is bargaining power mostly (Stead and Stead 2017). The supplier provides the products to this organization and they can ask for more price and can set their supply numbers and others. Supplier power is also there for P&G Ltd. Power of the buyer is not that high since in P&G Ltd (Stead and Stead 2017). All the prices of the products that they sell are fixed and there is no deviation in that (Hornstein 2015). Competitive rivalry is there and this rivalry is mainly with the existing firms in the market such as Avon, Estee Lauder, Jonshon and Jonshon, Billie, Harry’s, Palmolive and some others.

the relevance of this Porter’s Value Chain is immense since this helps in getting an idea about the organization structure and also helps in providing an idea about the intensity of the competition, about the likely profit that the organization can have and also the attractiveness of the company in the marketplace (Cameron and Green 2015).A quick and a brief assessment about the organization and the levels of its work can be received and this is immensely helpful in the contemporary business environment.

Porter’s Value Chain management that can be used for strategic management practice of IKEA in their contemporary operational environment is discussed here (Namada, 2018).It is mainly a set of activities that a firm performs to deliver goods and services (Cameron and Green 2015).It has hierarchical organization structure and large scale stores in size that comes under the firm infrastructure section. It has human resource management section that is also one of the operations by IKEA to deliver their best of services and products to the customers (Cameron and Green 2015). In this section they have implemented effective staff training and developmental programs and high level of commitment to HR practices (North and Kumta 2018). Technology development is also there and this includes extensive use of information technology to give the best when it comes to ready to assemble furniture by IKEA and research and development activity is also initiated (Cameron and Green 2015). Procurement is also there in the value chain and there is long strategic relationship with suppliers and raw materials need not be procured as IKEA does not produce own brand products.

Analysis and assessment phase is very crucial and is one of the preliminary phases which is all about knowing and understanding the internal and the external environment of the organization (Cameron and Green 2015).This phase has its relationship with operational management of a global technology organization such as Google (North and Kumta 2018). Analysis and assessment in order to realize the organization’s objective is important like in case of Google it is important in this phase to know about the external market condition as well as strengths and powers of the internal side of Google so that they can go ahead with the new objective of materializing Project Jacquard which is all about the fact that the phone can be set free while biking or exercising and other projects like Google mail update (North and Kumta 2018). This phase gives a preliminary idea about the surrounding environment so that planning, organization and coordinating of the resources can be done effectively (North and Kumta 2018).

Strategy formulation in case of operational management of Google is important and this is all about setting a strategy and that is all about creating a strategy that supports the organizations objective and goal like Project Jacquard (North and Kumta 2018).The strategic management practice includes bringing in one place the latest technology, researching, developing new ideas and others and in that case the strategy formulation is also based on the same line. Strategy formulation of Google in this case keeps in the forefront the primary objective that is Project Jacquard (North and Kumta 2018).

Strategy implementation is all about implementing the formed strategy and this is vital since this is the step towards achieving the objective by the organization such as Project Jacquard. Strategy implementation is putting the strategy in use and this is the implementation aspect for the success of the set goal or for achieving the objective that is already there (North and Kumta 2018).Strategy implementation is done with the objective of translating the operational planning into actionable measure (Hornstein 2015). This is the most important step for Google where the line of strategies and measures to meet the goal is implemented and that thereafter leads to the result.

The final and the last phase is evaluation of the strategy and this can be done by Google by seeing how the objective is fulfilled, whether the set goal is ticked or not, whether the outcome is as expected or not and other points (North and Kumta 2018).Evaluation of the strategy is mainly done by viewing the outcome of the organization, Google who successful the project has been how much effective the project has been and what is the overall performance level of the organization.

Reference:

Cameron, E. and Green, M., 2015. Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.

Namada, J.M., 2018. Organizational learning and competitive advantage. In Handbook of Research on Knowledge Management for Contemporary Business Environments (pp. 86-104). IGI Global.

Stead, J.G. and Stead, W.E., 2017. Management for a small planet. Routledge.

Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B. and Wright, P.M., 2017. Human resource management: Gaining a competitive advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.

North, K. and Kumta, G., 2018. Knowledge management: Value creation through organizational learning. Springer.

Lewis, S., Cantore, S. and Passmore, J., 2016. Appreciative inquiry for change management: Using AI to facilitate organizational development. Kogan Page Publishers.

Williams, T.A., Gruber, D.A., Sutcliffe, K.M., Shepherd, D.A. and Zhao, E.Y., 2017. Organizational response to adversity: Fusing crisis management and resilience research streams. Academy of Management Annals, 11(2), pp.733-769.

Hornstein, H.A., 2015. The integration of project management and organizational change management is now a necessity. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2), pp.291-298.