Creating strategy for company Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Creating strategy for company - Case Study Example Acquisition-led growth strategy This is one of the major strategic issues stated in the case which was said to be suited in a widely globalizing market. Prior to digging on this issue further, let us examine first other important strategic issues. ABB tried to adapt certain capacity to be global in coverage and this resulted to its strategic move to optimize resources in order to have competitive edge in cost leadership. For instance, the company tried to improve its economies of scale and scope by specializing in the production of major product’s components around the world. Not only that, ABB also tried to come up with feasible cost saving measures such as component outsourcing and overhead cuts. Based on the idea of Levitt (1984) on globalization, the idea of ABB to go global is therefore a matter of necessity. The very reason is the fact that in globalization, there is an attempt on the part of an organization to come up with goods of the best quality and reliability yet a t the lowest price possible in order to compete. This is the very reason why ABB needs to consider two important dimensions in its structure: products and region just prior to be highly competitive in the global setting. It is implied that in order to obtain competitive advantage according to Porter (1998), the two factors that need to be taken into account are attractiveness of industries and relative competitive position. According to Porter, it is not an assurance that certain competitive advantage can be achieved if only one of these two factors is considered. In other words, certain firm aiming to reach its competitive advantage needs to be certain about the competitiveness of industries and its relative competitive position. This is also the very reason why ABB eventually needs to consider operating local. The local presence of a certain company contributes to its potential to top in the competition especially in the industry where ABB belongs. Thus, ABB finally decided to con sider an acquisition-led growth strategy, a sort of its focus competitive strategy based on Porter’s generic competitive strategies (Porter, 1998). ABB believes that with this strategy while it stays in its goal to be global, it can also increase its local presence in order to enhance its competitive advantage. However, there is basically a contradiction in this. ABB aiming to go global needs also to stand local is a form of contradiction at some point. Levitt (1984) pointed out that poor execution may be a significant problem in this situation due to the fact that what exists in the local trend may not be what is in the global setting and vice versa. This is a potential reason why ABB failed with its acquisition-led growth strategy and to some extent, the management considered having incurred bad purchases of some of its acquired companies. In this case, Porter and Levitt’s theories of competitive advantage and globalization proved to be highly significant in understa nding the success of ABB in the midst of ongoing competition in the global setting. The very proofs are specific situations just presented earlier in this section. In fact, based on these theories, ABB’s success can be significantly assessed and the reasons of its failures may be substantially explained. This proves further that the theories of Porter and Levitt are useful in formulating future strategies for various firms in both local and global context. Novel structure Another issue facing ABB is its ability