A popular “Corporate Portfolio Analysis” technique is the result of pioneering effort of General Electric Company along with McKinsey Consultants which is known as the GE NINE CELL MATRIX. GE Nine-Box Matrix  This is a strategy tool that offers a systematic approach for the multi business enterprises. It helps them to prioritize their investments among the various business units. It is a framework that evaluates business portfolio and  provides further strategic implications. Each business is appraised in terms of two major dimensions – Market Attractiveness and Business Strength. If one of these factors is missing, then the business will not produce desired results. Neither a strong company operating in an unattractive market, nor a weak company operating in an attractive market will do very well. The vertical axis denotes industry attractiveness, which is a weighted composite rating based on eight different factors. They are: Market size and growth rateIndustry profit margins Intensity of Competition Seasonality Product Life Cycle Changes Economies of scale Technology Social, Environmental, Legal and Human Impacts What Does the Horizontal Axis Represent? It indicates business strength or in other words competitive position, which is again a weighted composite rating based on seven factors as listed below: Relative Market ShareProfit margins Ability to compete on price and qualityKnowledge of customer and market Competitive strength and weakness Technological capability Caliber of management The two composite values for industry attractiveness and competitive position are plotted for each strategic business unit (SBU) in a COMPANY’S PORTFOLIO. The PIE chart (circles) denotes the proportional size of the industry and the dark segments denote the company’s respective market share. The green zone suggests you to ‘go ahead’, to grow and build, pushing you through expansion strategies. Businesses in the green zone attract major investment. Red indicates that you have to adopt turnover strategies of divestment and liquidation or rebuilding approach. Advantages Helps to prioritize the limited resources in order to achieve the best returns.The performance of  products or business units becomes evident. It’s more sophisticated business portfolio framework than the BCG matrix. Determines the strategic steps the company needs to adopt to improve the performance of its business portfolio. Disadvantages Needs a consultant or an expert to determine industry’s attractiveness and business unit strength as accurately as possible.It is expensive to conduct. It doesn’t take into account the harmony that could exist between two or more business units. PORTER’S FIVE FORCES-INDUSTRY...

What is Portfolio Analysis ? Portfolio Planning is best advised for diversified companies than the more product coherent ones. Portfolio analysis plays a vital role in planning and implementation of  various #strategic business units of the organization as a whole. Portfolio planning recognizes that diversified companies are a collection of businesses, each of which makes a distinct contribution to the overall corporate performance and which should be managed accordingly. Companies dealing with a wide #product range and divisions are expected to redefine their strategies for each of the SBU’s or Strategic Business Units. Then they classify these units on a portfolio grid according to the competitive position and attractiveness of a particular product market. What are strategic business units? A strategic business unit is a fully functional and discrete unit of the business that builds its own strategic vision and direction. Within large companies there are smaller specialized divisions that work towards specific projects and #objectives. The strategic business unit, often referred to as an SBU, remains an important element of the company and is accountable to their head office about their operational status. Typically they will operate as an independent organization with a specific focus on target markets and are large enough to maintain internal divisions such as finance, HR, and so forth. Being Strategic: Thinking and Acting with Impact Types of Portfolio Planning: Analytical Planning: Planning is only at the initial level where traditional administrative tools are used. Process Planning: Here planning is a central part of the ongoing #management process and strategic mission is explicit in activities. Advantages of Portfolio Planning: It promotes substantial improvement in the quality of strategies formulated both at the business and corporate levels.It provides a guideline for adopting their overall management process to the needs of each business.It provides selective #resource allocation to the various SBUs.It furnishes companies with a greatly improved capacity for strategic control when portfolio planning is applied intelligently and with attention to its limitations and problems. Since the road to portfolio planning is a long one, companies often face difficulties trying to implement it and cannot realize the full potential of the approach. In implementing portfolio planning, there is a tendency for the focus to be shifted towards #capital investment rather than resource allocation. #Resource Development is the key: Become a Product Manager | Learn the Skills & Get the Job Implementing Corporate Level and Business Level Strategies: Corporate level #strategy is concerned with the strategic decisions a business makes that affect the entire organization. Financial performance, mergers and acquisitions, #human resource management and the allocation of resources are considered part of corporate level strategy.Business level strategy focuses on how to compete in a particular product/market segment or industry. Competitive advantages and distinctive competencies thus become dominant strategic concerns at this level.At the functional level, the primary focus of strategy is efficiency.  Boston Consulting Group Matrix: The business policy portfolio models are most popular and useful to understand the firm’s strategic concerns and choices. They define the firm’s scope or domain by highlighting the inter-relatedness of the diverse factors, such as: #Market Growth#Market ShareCash and Cash flow patternsCapital Intensity#Product Maturity BCG Matrix #Stars– Star category represents high growth and high market share– High investments are needed to maintain the share– High cash flow outward movement in this category to maintain status– Usually in the end of the ‘Growth’ #Product Life Cycle stage– Represents emerging and good business for the company, though they need alot of attention and priority #Cash Cows– Represents low growth, high market share– This is the best quadrant of the portfolio as the company basically enjoy the ‘milk’ of success– This is where the...

Strategic Evaluation: concerns mainly the analysis and judgment of interventions at the level of strategic goals. One of the noteworthy aspects of strategic evaluation consists of the verification of the adopted strategy with respect to the current and likely social and economic situation. How a firm has performed over time and relatively to its competitors, can be determined with the help of the following quantitative measures. Market price of the sharesMarket shareEarnings on capital employedDividend ratesReturn on equityGrowth in sales volumeProduction costs and efficiencyDistribution costs and efficiencyEmployee turnover, absenteeism, and satisfaction indices. Since there is a high correlation between progress and these indicators, we can say that a firm is successful if majority of the factors show a positive signal. But in reality, one cannot expect a business firm to satisfy all the above mentioned criteria, as performance is also affected by unexpected variations in the external environment. One has to trade-off between the positive and negative indicators and find suitable ways to enhance the performance levels. Effectiveness of a Strategy: The strategic importance of any particular criterion may not remain the same at different points of time. The short run and long run effectiveness of strategy cannot be evaluated using the same criteria. There may be difficulties in computation and different methods of computation that may be encountered in measurement. These factors serve as the bases for firms to identify the elements of success. Yet another way of performance evaluation is to identify critical factors that may be regarded as symptoms of decline and can be treated as early warning signals during the implementation of strategy. If they indicate the necessity of a turnaround or retrenchment strategy, the firm should definitely go for a suitable action without further delay. Such factors may be: Declining profit marginDeclining market shareRapidly increasing debtDeclining working capitalIncreasing managerial turnover What is the Need for Strategic Evaluation? You might be curious to know, what is the need for a strategic evaluation at all in the first instance? See, business firms and corporate companies are always in a position to execute their action plans in the wake of severe competition and retention of market share. A plan without a strategy is like life without a soul and decision making is solely dependent upon strategic inputs. Turnaround Strategy The need for feedback, appraisal and reward, check on the validity of strategic choice congruence between decisions and intended strategy all these help in successful culmination of strategic management process and create inputs for new strategic planning. What’s the difference between Strategy and Tactic? The evaluation need not be based only on quantitative terms, but also on qualitative aspects such as: internal consistency, consistency with the environment, appropriateness of the strategy in the light of available resources, acceptability of the degree of risk involved in the strategy, appropriateness of the time horizon of the strategy...

Tactics or Strategy – Ethical Considerations Give a man a fish everyday, his appetite is sated. Teach him how to fish; you have fulfilled his appetite for an entire life time. This is strategy. To make it work, to make the impossible, possible. There is no drawn out template for success or for that matter strategy. But both of them go together when the right strategy is used at the right time and you can bang on your target. Neither the same strategy fits the bill for everybody. Your smart approach to that particular situation backed up by your knowledge and experience does the magic. It cannot be taught, it comes from within when the situation warrants for action. It is more like “Survival of the fittest”, if you want to retain your niche in this business world you act fast and think wise. Tactics: How many of you are bold enough to think differently to make a difference, to make others feel your presence. Never implement tactics which is short lived and don’t make your presence felt either by imitation or by unethical competitor criticism. That will paint a greasy picture on your firm. That is of course strategy but cheap strategy. But always be on the run to know your competitors’ weaknesses and shortcomings which will make you improve your product or service. That is acceptable business practice where competitor spying gives us an edge in terms of identifying unexploited niches of the market. Resort to  Constructive Strategies: Strategies must always be constructive and it assures success in the long run. Tactics or gimmicks will prove to be fruitful only for a short while and that is not your aim also. Will you be satisfied if you are able to sell your product or service as hot cakes only for a season! Is that going to cover your profit margin for the entire accounting year? True, strategies are always associated with making profits, boosting up the sales, for retaining the market share and maximizing the share value. But it should also make your business perennial and viable. Strategic Framework: Many of us forget that strategies are applicable in every activity of a firm that forms a compact framework which gives your business a solid foundation upon which you can build your empire of success without looking back. Right from framing your vision, mission, policies, procedures and programmes including recruitment, selection, training, evaluation and empowering your employees, strategies play their role in giving clarity and direction to the firm.  Long-Term Planning: Although strategies are meant for long term planning, a periodic review and appraisal of the company’s strategies to all the employees concerned is a must to keep them informed. Strategies are secrets but not to the employees of your organization. Strategies are born out of compulsion, a compulsion to survive in the market and have an edge over others. So they must be meticulously planned after brain storming sessions and expert consultations. Sometimes even a small idea suggested by one of your employees might become the basis for a turnkey operation. So keep your eyes and ears open and also be open minded to accept ideas even from the lowest level as they are your pillars of strength and they know the pulse of the market and people better. Strategic Action Plans: Success is not a cake walk, it has to be achieved with great hardships and the taste of success will be sweeter. Strategies are formulated in every step of your business plan, remember it is an ongoing process; you have to revitalize your strategies every now and then to be in the scene, to make...

Why mission statements are important? Before going into that, let me first briefly tell you what a mission statement is. Contact Us for Promotions & Partnerships Firms in corporate business arena perform different business activities to earn profit as well as to retain their market share and stand. How does the general public know what they are up to? Is it really necessary for the firms to expose the nature of their activities to outsiders! Well, by explicitly defining the mission of your company, you stand a chance to gain identity, character and image and there is nothing to lose. A mission statement defines the basic reason for the existence of the organization and it clearly reflects your corporate philosophy. The management’s actions also might reflect their mission, in which case the mission statement is not explicitly defined and sometimes it could be deduced from the press statements released by the CEO. Whether defined or not defined, each and every organization has a definite mission that is clearly communicated to all the employees for action. When defined, it also serves as a means to highlight the firm’s social responsibility. Following are the Distinct Characteristics that a Mission Statement Should Possess It should be precise: The mission should neither be narrow as to restrict the activities of an organization nor too broad to make the situation pointless.It should be crystal clear: It should be clear enough to lead to action and not high-sounding and adhere to cheap publicity.It should be feasible: The actions mentioned must be well within the reach of the company and should not be impossible. It should be realistic and achievable. As, credibility is involved, firms must exercise caution when they release their mission statements. Feasibility mainly depends on the resources available that facilitate the firm to work towards the mission.It should be motivating: Motivating both for the employees and the society. Employees must identify themselves with the organization and feel proud that it is worth working for the firm and customers should take pride in associating themselves with that firm.It should be distinctive: It should project your distinctive competence to sustain competitive advantage. Say, if you own a garment shop, you should talk about the range of clothes that you can offer for different sections of the society and you can name yours a “Family Shoppe”, so that people will understand the nature of your business.It should indicate major components of strategy: If the aim of your company is stability, growth, diversification or concentration, all those can be included in your mission statement.It should also indicate how objectives are to be accomplished: The time period, production target, product specialization, product or process differentiation, everything can find their place in mission statements for the benefit of the society and self. Knowledge at Your Finger TipsUdemy Strategic management involves intelligent and timely decision making and mission statements are nothing but components of strategic planning that help the managers to lead the firm with some distinct “ideology” in the form of mission statements. Some Interesting Mission Statements Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.  Nike-“Crush Reebok.” Wal-Mart-“To give ordinary folk the chance to buy the same thing as rich people.” Walt Disney-“To make people...