Research Methods for Strategic Managers Essay

1, What are the strategic options for product and/or market development for the organisation? – Ansoff’s product-matrix

ASOS is an international fashion retailer, which offers an extensive line of products, varying from high street to

Business that provide a wide range of products and services should regularly study their product portfolio. According to Lewis and Trevitt (2007) a product portfolio may be defined as “the range of products sold or produced by a business”. Businesses who strive for success should regularly study their product portfolio as it could show where the firm stands within the market, this would help a firm decide whether a product or service should be introduced or whether it should be taken off the market (Wolinski, and Coates,2015; 184). A way to analyse a product portfolio is through the use of the Boston matrix a tool that analyses “the position of a firm’s products in terms of their market share and the growth of the markets they operate in” (Surrdidge, Gillespie; 2002:66). For this assignment the Boston matrix will be analysed and evaluated. By first looking in depth at the Boston matrix, then by exploring the different components of the Boston matrix, and finally determining its usefulness for any business.

Even though smart phones are supposed to make working easier, studies have shown that they actually hurt our performance. In 2015, a Journal of Experimental Psychology study had 166 people to test. The experiment was to have the participants work on a challenging task while their phones start beeping and buzzing. The results showed that the worker became messier and had their attention elsewhere, whether or not they checked their phone. Dr. Adrian Ward is a psychologist and marketing professor at the University of Texas at Austin, he has been working with the effects of smart phones on our thoughts and decision making. Dr. Ward believes that we have grown so attached to our phones that they reduce our intelligence with their presence. To test this theory, Dr. Ward and three colleagues began a clever experiment to test his idea. They decided to enlist 520 undergraduate students at UCSD and make them perform two standard tests of intellectual acuity. The first test evaluated “available cognitive capacity”, it’s a test to measure how fully a person’s mind can focus on a single task. The second test gauged “fluid intelligence”, a person’s ability to understand and answer an unfamiliar problem. The only difference was the location of the student’s smart phone. Some students had their phone on the desk, while others had it in their bag or pocket. Others were even asked to leave their phone in a different room. The results of this test showed that “As the phone’s proximity increased, brainpower decreased” (pg.3).

For the simulation my company name was H Company. Below you will find the results to the 8-year simulation. H Company has been highlighted in the majority of screen-shots.

In 1957, Igor Ansoff developed a tools or matrix to use in the market planning. The matrix is called Ansoff Matrix. The market planner of an organization such executive, managers, senior manager are provided a structure by this matrix. This matrix consists of four strategies. It is said by Igor Ansoff that every business organization has the importance to be developed by using this strategy. The strategy is used for developing new product, entering into the market at newly; making the existing market etc. Four strategies of Ansoff matrix are given below:

All the above mentioned descriptions emphasize on basic idea from where we can extract the result Leadership is the art of getting things done by inspiration, influence or motivating its followers while Management mainly depends on the analysis and ground realities.

In the past few years the use of cell phones has suddenly increased, since we can do almost everything in our phones. The smart phone keeps us in touch with family members, and friends. If we want to talk to them and they live far away from us, we don’t have to write a letter and wait for days to receive it. We can just text, call or e-mail them with our smart phone. Phones made easier to stay in touch with the people we care about. The calendar in our phone made it easier to plan, schedule our daily routine and made it harder to not forget about work. Smith stated that cell phone owners are more likely to view their phone as a time saver. When we

According to, the Ansoff Product-Market Growth Matrix is an instrument in marketing that was developed by Igor Ansoff. In the Ansoff matrix, it allows the marketers to look at different ways to grow the business through existing products and markets and new products and markets. Moreover, the matrix is composed of four various strategies:

According to Kourdi (2009) ‘Business strategy is the set of activities where business combines mission, vision and goals of business and goes forward to achieve them’. Every business combines strategic plan and activities to achieve their goals. In other aspect it can be said business strategy is the subject by which an organisation make their roadmap

Dissimilar sources plan altered steps involved in the planning process, but in this case I will discuss on seven steps that are involved in the entire process. The first step is goal setting. This basically involves coming up with the main objectives and goals that the company wishes to establish within a particular period of time. It is a very important section because the company will operate with a view of the goal in mind, if it is not clearly established, and then the business could lose direction along the way. After goal setting, we have development of the planning premises, where the plans are prepared and any underlying conditions defined. This is where there is an assessment of the environment and any constraints or

Based on Ansoff Matrix Analysis, the set of decisions made related to market and/or product selection can lead to the following strategic options or directions:

Operational management processes in a firm involves overseeing, formulating and reformulation of the operations of a business. The processes are meant to ensure efficiency in administering resources whilst ensuring there is effective management of client’s specifications and or directions. This is achieved by adding value to the firm’s processes. Such achievements are experienced when a firm embarks in directing its physical and or technical functions towards enhancing its development, production and manufacturing. These should be pre-determined and controlled by market opportunities if a company is to reach its ultimate production levels. Their realisation adds up to ensuring the future of a firm, offering operational

The strategic management process is sometimes improperly perceived as a unidirectional flow of objectives, strategies and decision parameters from management to the employees. In fact, the process should be highly interactive since it is designed to stimulate input from creative, skilled and knowledgeable people working at every level of the business.

The BCG matrix portrays the perspective of the product portfolio, which is the growth-share matrix. This framework of tool categorizes products within a company's portfolio or within the business units as stars, cash cows, dogs, or question marks according to growth rate, market share, and positively or negative cash flow. By using positive cash flows a company can capitalize on growth opportunities. From this analysis, it can be seen that the products that is growing