BUSINESS STRATEGY

Business Strategy

Business Strategy

Introduction

In today's rapidly changing business environment, the role of business strategy is vital for the success of any business. Business strategy can be defined as setting up the overall direction of a business that allows the business to develop a long-term plan in order to achieve its particular goals (Baye, 2009). In other words, the business strategy directs the company for how to conduct its business and attain the desired goals. It is important to know that developing a business strategy is a crucial as well as vital management function. In addition, it is also equally important to understand that strategy creation is not enough for the success of any business. This means, it is also essential to ensure proper implementation of the strategy to achieve business goals (Morrison, 2011).

Elements of Business Strategy

It has been seen in many organizations that managers develop business plans, conduct meetings and achieve results based on their selected business strategy (Baye, 2009). No doubt, the business idea and assets are generally recognized as basic elements of any business strategy, but the core elements of any business strategy are:

Power distribution

Decision making

Idea generation

Process

People

Organizational Audit

SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis can be defined as an important method of strategic planning that is used by many organisations to analyze as well as evaluate their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (Hitt et al., 2012). There is no doubt about the fact that SWOT is not only a powerful but also a most widely used tool that help organisations analyse their business environment and conduct audit of their strategic position. It is important to know that strengths and weaknesses are recognized as internal factors and used to evaluate internal potential of the business. (Kotler & Fox, 1995) In fact, strength and weaknesses are mostly related to any present situation of the business or any project. Whereas opportunities and threats are identified as external factors and used to assess or evaluate the external environment of the business (Hitt et al., 2012). In addition, opportunities and threats are usually related to the environmental changes that may affect the business or project. The SWOT comprises of four factors including strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Advantages of SWOT

SWOT is an important source to collect and process information for any strategic planning.

It enables organisations to set their strategic objectives

It allows organisations to synchronise their resources and capabilities with their competitive environment.

It plays a vital role in developing organisational strengths.

It also allows organisations to identify and improve their weaknesses to optimise productivity and maximise income.

It enables organisations to respond to spot and respond the opportunities in effective manner.

It also facilitates organisations to overcome any threat in their external environment (Hitt et al., 2012).

SWOT Analysis of German Swiss International School (GSIS)

Strengths

Researchers define strengths as quality or attribute that may help any organisation to reach its goals (Hitt et al., 2012). The German Swiss International School (GSIS) in Hong Kong has highly skilled teaching staff with a successful open day events (GRIPS, ...