Directions: Below is my first draft of my essay. I need to elaborate on this strategy diamond theory below regarding a virtual simulation I’m in with my team. I’ve attached additional notes to help guide the paper. I need to add on about 7 more paragraphs. Please stick to the strategy diamond model. The question that needs to be answered is: Are the Elements of Your Strategy Consistent and Aligned with Your Strategic Position?
ROUGH DRAFT BELOW and notes attached:
Arenas, Differentiators, and Economic Logic
Our company combines the first three facets of the Strategy Diamond Tool as they represent the hallmark of our organizational strategy. Our company seeks to match market needs and opportunities in the vehicle manufacturing industry (shown in the arenas) with its unique features of high-quality and reliability (shown as its differentiators) to ensure that we get to our target market. It also seeks to expand our footprint through repeat customers, referrals and investor goodwill (hence our economic logic). We emphasize our performance based on its financial, social and environmental impacts that our products and services will have. More specifically, regarding arenas, our strategy clearly identifies our geographic and product market areas. Our geographic market is situated in a location where we are likely to make use of efficient infrastructure to easily reach our consumers. The infrastructure should also give us the opportunity to attain our quality and reliability goals more cost-effectively. Our product-market is also explicitly identified as vehicle manufacturing, and this helps us in acquiring factors of production that are appropriate for this product market. Beyond this, we strive to make use of our tangible and intangible assets to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the industry. Such physical structures as energy-efficient housing, quality equipment, and high-tech automobiles will enhance our image among our customers (Witt, 2013). We would also make use of copyrights for specific software in our products, company logo, and goodwill to gain a competitive edge (Walker Sands Communications, 2016). We are going to achieve this through our integrated marketing communication tools in the communication strategy. Finally, on economic logic, we seek to create more financial benefits so that we fund both environmental and social causes we seek to pursue as well as maintain a stream of investors (Kuntz, 2014). This is why we seek to create goodwill for Company B.
Vehicles
The first three facets of the strategy tool help the company to address issues within its external and internal environment as well as giving the opportunity to address the issue of company fit with its market niche. The fourth facet is the vehicle which arguments our arenas and differentiators above to communicate the direction that our strategy is taking to achieve the set goals and objectives (Ireland, Hoskisson, & Hitt, 2007). We put emphasis on quality and reliability, and thus we focus efforts on these. To realize quality, we have vowed to make use of advanced technologies in production to achieve almost zero tolerance for errors that may impact product image (Wiedmann et al., 2012). Quality assurance is an issue that is at the pinnacle of our production process, and we empower our highly trained employees to help streamline processes towards achieving this unique quality. That is to say; we engage our employees in empowerment programs such as simulated training and onboarding on an on-going basis to sharpen and align their skills with our skill needs. We highly believe that a great vehicle towards realizing the quality and consequently reliability of our products depends much on the kind of team we have and the quality tools we provide them with to achieve our product and service level goals.
Staging and Pacing
These fifth and sixth facets of the Strategy Diamond Tool helps in timing and sequencing our strategic moves. Actually, through staging, we focus on how well we can plan the staging our company manufacturing centers across the United States without compromising convenience in managing the various outlets. That is to say; our strategy simply ensures that we make use of the opportunities provided by efficient transport infrastructure between our various company manufacturing locations to allow high flexibility in management. Our managers then take advantage of this to ensure that they can reach every center within the shortest time possible. Otherwise, our strategy will seek to locate our centers among cities that are highly connected with efficient road and airline transport as well as reliable communication systems.
References
Ireland, R. D., Hoskisson, R. E., & Hitt, M. A. (2007). Understanding business strategy: Concepts and cases. Mason, OH: Thomson South-Western.
Kuntz, B. (2014). Organic vs. Inorganic: Which Way To Grow? Retrieved October 21, 2016, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/ey/2014/01/14/organic-…
Walker Sands Communications (2016). How to Build Strong Brand Image. Retrieved on October 22, 2016 http://www.walkersands.com/How-To-Build-A-Strong-Brand-Image.
Weidmann, K., Hennigs, N., Schmidt, S., and Wuestfold, T. (2012). Drivers and Outcomes of Brand Heritage: Consumers’ Perceptions of Heritage Brands in the Automotive Industry. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice. 19(2)
Witt, C. (2013). Compete on Differentiators: Not on Price or Quality. Witt: Communication Matters. Retrieved on October 21, 2016 from http://christopherwitt.com/compete-on-differentiators-not-on-price-or-quality/.
