Assessment Details and Submission Guidelines | |
Trimester | T2 2019 |
Unit Code | HI6006 |
Unit Title | Competitive Strategy |
Assessment Type | Group Assignment – maximum 4 persons per group Note: Groups must be formed by week 6 and your lecturer informed in writing of each member’s name and student number. Once a group is formed, no changes are allowed. If you fail to form a group, your lecturer may allow you to submit individually. |
Assessment Title | Report – Case Analysis and Application of Strategy Models |
Purpose of the assessment | Students are required to explain in report format, with reference to a case of your choice, how any one of the following would be applied: Business Strategy, Competitive Dynamics, Corporate Strategy, Acquisitions and Structure, International Strategy. This is strictly required to be your own original work. Be sure to base your answer on the models studied in class and quote your academic sources. |
Submission Guidelines |
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Purpose:
Assignment 2 Specifications
This assignment aims at ensuring that students have familiarised themselves with at least one significant case study and are able to apply the relevant foundational strategy development models that are applicable to the case.
Details
Select any case from those listed from between weeks 1 and 9, select from the following aspects of competitive strategy and apply the theories of strategy development and implementation as relevant to the case you choose:
In this report, the use of sub-headings is essential. Be sure to use paragraphing.
Be sure to reference your sources in-text and provide a list of references at the end, all in Harvard style.
Your final submission is due Friday of week 10 at midnight. Late submissions attract penalties at the rate of -10% per day.
ANALYSIS OF BUSINESS STRATGIES
Executive Summary
The study mainly analysed the business level strategies of the Atlassian Plc from a case analysis. The SWOT analysis, TOWS matrix and the Porter model critically analyze the business level strategies in an efficient way. The major strategic issues of the organisation has been analysed in the study those are lack in collaborative work culture and pricing policy of the organisation. Effective recommendations have been given to nullify the effects of the issues.
Introduction
In this world of globalisation it is seen that competition is increasing in a rapid manner. The business process of the organizations should be adapted according to the latest trend by analysing different business strategies in an efficient way. The critical analysis of the business strategies helps in identifying the proper lacuna of the organisation so that effective solution may be formulated to mitigate the lacuna in the business level structure in an efficient way. It has been seen that almost 20 % of the profit is dependent on the business level strategies of the organisation. It is essential to identify lacuna by the help of some specific tools.
In this report, a case analysis is present and the strategies issues faced by the company will be depicted in the report in an efficient way. Moreover, the different strategic tools and concepts like the SWOT analysis and TOWS matrix will be used to analyse the strengths weaknessess and opportunities threats that exist at the business level for the company. Furthermore, Porter’s Generic forces will be used to analyse in detail the business level strategies including product differentiation and cost leadership in the market. Moreover, recommendation to improve the business level strategy of the company will be given.
Case Background
The Atlassian is a public sector software company that is founded in Sydney and currently headquartered in Sydney. They mainly focus on development of the software that includes Jira , confluence and Hipchat. This software includes inventory management and content management systems for different organizations. The total revenue of the company is almost 1,210 million dollars, number of employees has increased, and at present, it is almost 3,616 (Atlassian, 2019). The organisation has performed venture capitalism and slowly it has enhanced its business in an effective manner in Australia. It is one of the major software development firms with good product differentiation strategies in the market. One of the major important factors in the Atlassian Company is that it has grown as an organisation with a strategy complete focused on innovation resulting in very good and useful software development according to the exact requirement of the market. The company relied on the flexible structure and innovative work environment.
Identification of strategic issue of the company
The business level strategies of the Atlassian organization includes focusing on the research and development to formulate innovate software that helps the managers of the client organisation to effectively manage inventory, content and other business operation in an efficient way. According to the case details it seen that work culture and work environment of the Atlassian organisation is very much flexible with very good collaboration within the developmental team, sales team and research development team. However, since the business has grown and now it is one of the big organisation it is very hard for the management to maintain the same flexibility as collaboration is becoming difficult with more departments and enhancement of work load. This is one of the strategic issue needs to be encountered by the top management. If collaborative work environment is not there then it will hamper the productivity. Furthermore, one of the pricing policies is becoming one of major concern for the company as competitors are rising with low cost products in the market.
Analysis of the Business level strategies
SWOT analysis
The SWOT analysis is one of the most important tools that help in analysisng the internal strengths and the weakness of the company. Based on the SWOT the restructuring of the business strategies of the Atlassian organisation is to be done.
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
TOWS analysis helps in evaluating the business strategies and its current performance according to the opportunities s and threats present in the market.
Strengths opportunities
Atlassian has a strong focus on innovation that can be considered its major strength. The market has high demand with low inflation rate so it is better to allocate budget smartly and develop product according to exact need of the clients (Jibai, Alaaraj, and Issa, 2018).
Weaknesses Opportunities
The profitability of the organisation is low compared to other competitors. However if smart budget is done the economic condition is good with market demand so profitability should be enhanced if collaborative work is performed (Al Salmi, and Hasnan, 2015). The organisation may divided into small unites to govern its business process in a smooth and effective manner.
Strengths Threats
One of the major strength of the company is formulation of excellent business strategies to capture the new market. However according to the strengths of the organisation one of the major important point is the rise in competition that effects the business operations (MZ, SA, and Saliluddin, 2019). However, marketing plan may be developed and coloration may be done to nullify the competition of Atlassian.
Weaknesses Threats
Major weakness of the company is that after its growth collaborative work culture has decreasing that is resulting in high attrition rate (Gottfried et al., 2018). Moreover, competition is increasing and legal structures are changing. These issues need to be focused in an efficient way by Atlassian. One of the major business strategies may be to divide teams in to subunit and delegate jobs to the team according to their own strength. Moreover, there might be a centralized reporting system so that unity in business process may maintain.
Michael Porter has taken into account different aspects of competitive business into consideration and demonstrated four different strategies that can be used to make sure that a business is on its way towards development by all means. The generic strategies are described as follows and they can be great options for Atlassian if the end goal is to make sure that they address the current issues and be more competitive in the Australian market.
Application of strategic model
The strategic model that has been discussed above can be regarded as an aspect that can be useful for the likes of large firm such as Atlassian due to the fact that it will help them to address the stiff competition that they are facing from their Australian rivals. However, as mentioned before, there are four strategies present in the Porters Model of generic strategies and thus the most apt tactics must be applied for the best results. Ad per the case study, the organization in this case is facing a situation where the organization is not being able to invest a lot of money in the research and development functions as the operating costs are shooting up. Thus, it can be said that there is very little scope for the organization to carry out research work in order to effectively understand the demands of the consumers and introduce new features in their software (Neubert, 2017). The options of Differentiation and Differentiation Focus is cannot be exercised in these conditions.
The options that are most suitable for Atlassian in this case are the Cost Leadership Strategy and the Cost Focus Strategy. The strategies in this case can be a great help for the firm as the competition in the market is getting fierce and thus in order to exist, the firm must be able to make sure that they are offering something special and in this case it would be the attractive prices. However, when providing the supplies, it must be made sure that no complaints of lesser quality are there as the organizational objective would be to fulfill the consumer demands. The Cost focus strategy use however is debatable in terms of use as the organization would naturally want to target the larger population (Wicker, 2015). However, in case of a new product or service that has a less competitive pressure, this method can be applied.
Recommendation
The organization in this particular case study is facing problems of competition and increased costs. They are also facing a situation where the firm is not being able to manage different groups that have been created as the firm has grown in size. The following recommendations however can be followed to address the issues.
Conclusion
In order to understand and makes sure that a firm is running on the right policies towards development, it must be made sure that the right strategic paths are chosen and the study conducted above was a great help in understanding that the business strategies are most revolving around the choices of the consumers and thus they are the main stakeholders who determine an approach towards business.