Strategy Implementation, Cost Leadership, and Product Development
This paper examines three interconnected aspects of business strategy. First, it outlines the key steps in implementing a strategic plan, including resource allocation, leadership appointment, stakeholder buy-in through champions, and employee motivation through intrinsic connection to organizational goals. Second, it analyzes Walmart as a case study in Porter's cost leadership generic strategy, highlighting its investments in logistics, cross-docking, and centralized control. Third, it evaluates Apple's use of the product development grand strategy, demonstrating how the company leveraged the iPod's success to expand into smartphones and tablets while building a loyal customer base and attracting new buyers through brand relationships.
- Strategy Implementation: From Plan to Action: Steps, leadership, and communication in executing strategy
- Stakeholder Considerations in Strategy Implementation: Identifying and managing key strategic stakeholders
- Walmart and the Cost Leadership Strategy: Walmart's logistics, centralization, and cost discipline
- Apple and the Product Development Grand Strategy: Apple's expansion from iPod to iPhone and iPad
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What makes this paper effective
- Applies abstract strategic frameworks directly to well-known real-world companies, making theoretical concepts concrete and accessible.
- Moves logically from strategy formulation and implementation to competitive strategy typologies, giving the paper a coherent progression.
- Balances breadth (covering multiple frameworks — generic strategies, grand strategies, implementation steps) with concise, focused analysis in each section.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper effectively uses the case study approach to ground theoretical frameworks. Rather than merely defining cost leadership or product development strategies, the writer selects paradigmatic examples — Walmart and Apple — and maps specific company behaviors (cross-docking, satellite tracking, iPhone and iPad launches) onto the theoretical criteria, demonstrating analytical application of course concepts.
Structure breakdown
The paper is divided into three numbered sections. The first covers the process of strategy implementation, including functional steps, leadership, communication, and stakeholder considerations. The second applies Porter's generic cost leadership strategy to Walmart. The third examines Apple through the lens of the product development grand strategy. Each section is self-contained but collectively forms a coherent survey of strategic management concepts at the implementation and competitive levels.
Strategy Implementation: From Plan to Action
Once a strategic plan has been developed, the next step is to put that plan into action. Implementing the plan requires that the organization outline the different steps that need to be conducted in order to bring the plan to fruition. These steps can include resource acquisition and allocation, initiating projects, gathering information, providing work plans and direction, and more. Once the organization has a sense of the work that needs to be done, it must allocate leadership resources to the project. Different leaders and functional heads will need to be appointed to specific tasks, such that every critical task has a specific chain of responsibility. Timelines will need to be set at this point, and adjustments made to the strategy. From there, work plans are created, again with specific chains of responsibility (Chapman, 2004).
Beyond the functional level, there also often needs to be a significant amount of work in terms of leadership and vision in order to ensure stakeholder buy-in. This occurs through the use of champions who can explain the new direction or project throughout the company, even at lower levels. Champions create a common sense of mission and inspiration, and this results in a higher level of buy-in. While this is occurring, management will be measuring the progress of the strategy towards quantifiable goals and making adjustments. The congruence between the activities of lower-level employees and the ultimate goals of the strategy will help to determine how successful the implementation of the strategy is.
Information will generally be shared throughout the organization regarding the end objectives of the strategy only. Managers will have a better sense of how the different components of the strategy fit together, but in general they will ensure that lower-level employees are performing their assigned tasks. Each employee, however, will be communicated with in terms of how their own efforts contribute to the overall mission of the corporation. For this form of motivation to be effective, the intrinsic motivation must be directed toward something that is meaningful enough for the employee to have a genuine connection to it (Thomas, 2009).
Stakeholder Considerations in Strategy Implementation
A number of different stakeholders must be considered when implementing strategy, as must the interrelationships between those stakeholders and the various interactions that are undertaken. Employees, managers, executives, partners, suppliers, the board of directors, customers, shareholders, and regulators all must be taken into consideration when formulating and implementing strategy, since most major strategic initiatives will involve some form of contribution from each group.
Walmart and the Cost Leadership Strategy
Porter's generic strategies elaborate on the idea of a generic competitive approach as a means of achieving success, and one company that has succeeded through dedication to cost leadership is Walmart. Cost leadership requires companies to have access to capital, tight controls, investments in process improvement, and a hierarchical structure (Power, n.d.). Walmart exhibits all of these characteristics of a cost leader.
The most important attribute for Walmart is process improvement — something it sells to the consumer as a game-changer through its "Everyday Low Prices" promise. Walmart invests heavily in logistics in particular. It adopts best practices such as cross-docking in order to reduce total inventory, and it uses satellite tracking technology to monitor the progress of goods being shipped to its warehouses and stores. The company's culture features strict dedication to cost reduction, which drives it to become innovative in supply chain management — an area the company has identified as critical to maintaining its position as a cost leader.
Walmart also uses a number of other tactics. It is strongly centralized and hierarchical, with lower-level managers having just enough leeway to make minor merchandising decisions at the store level. This high degree of centralization provides Walmart with the control it needs to maintain strong, company-wide discipline. By implementing the generic cost leadership strategy across all areas of the organization, Walmart has been able to become the dominant cost leader, achieving sustainable competitive advantage even over other large discounters.
References
Chapman, A. (2004). Strategy implementation and realization. Business Balls. Retrieved November 21, 2012, from http://www.businessballs.com/businessstrategyimplementation.htm
Power, D. (n.d.). Identifying and evaluating business strategies. Planning Skills. Retrieved November 21, 2012, from
Thomas, K. (2009). The four intrinsic rewards that drive employee engagement. Ivey Business Journal. Retrieved November 21, 2012, from http://www.iveybusinessjournal.com/topics/the-workplace/the-four-intrinsic-rewards-that-drive-employee-engagement
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