Case of the Kongs

Welcome to the second week of Marketing III

This week’s lecture was all about strategy development, but also discussed the corporate culture, which can often make or break a strategy’s implementation. Also discussed was the role of the marketing manager and the skills required to perform this job effectively. Honourable mentions for this week’s readings go to Piercy and Giles for their practical guide to making better use of SWOT analyses. The parameters that they used to focus their SWOT analyses has provided excellent direction for the SWOT my team will compose for Assignment 3. However, I think the most valuable reading this week was the paper by M. J. Thomas. Thomas highlighted the key competencies required to be a successful and prosperous marketing manager. Definitely worth the ink – get it printed!

As discussed in class, Dr Linda Ford personifies corporate culture as an 800 pound gorilla (or Donkey Kong, if you will!) – a force to be reckoned with. See her video below:

Dr Linda Ford identified that corporate culture can indeed be somewhat of a gorilla. So, how can a firm tame its culture monkey into a little Diddy Kong? In my humble opinion, it begins with the effectiveness of the employer branding, and thus, the employee brand commitment and the benefits that follow. Common sense would suggest that with great employer branding comes great corporate culture. Upon further reading, this suggestion has been supported by Sullivan (2008). See the Best Places to Work in Australia (2009) list to see which companies are the best at fostering a great corporate culture.

Know your Diddys from your Donkeys!

Diane also discussed strategic planning and types of strategy during Friday’s lecture, as follows:

• Competitive Advantage – giving an organisation some advantage over its rivals.
• Cost Advantage – a strategy to seek out and secure a cost advantage of some kind – lower average costs, lower labour costs, cheaper resources costs, etc.
• Market Dominance – achieved through a) internal growth, or b) acquisitions – mergers and takeovers.
• New Product Development – to set the pace in the market.
• Contraction/Expansion – focus more on core competencies/strengths or seek to expand into a wider range of markets?
• Price Leadership – through dominating the industry – others will follow your price lead.
• Global – seeking to expand global operations
• Reengineering – thinking outside the box – looking at new ways of doing things to leverage the organisation’s performance.
• Downsizing – divesting unwanted business units – similar to contraction.
• Delayering – flattening the managerial structure, removing bureaucracy, speeding up decision making.
• Restructuring – complete rethink of the organisation.

The last three dot points (in grey) are internal strategies that may be applicable to our South Oz Winery assignment. It may be the case that we decide to sell unwanted parts of the business, such as the B&B, for example. Or, there might be a need to delayer the hierarchical structure to achieve the organisation and marketing objectives.

Thanks, and stay tuned!