SWOT analytical framework is an effective tool to be used for strategic decision making and the abbreviation stands for strengths weaknesses, opportunities and threats for the business. The application of SWOT analysis for Jamie’s Italian Sydney is necessary in order to assist in decision making and the formulation of the marketing strategy. Jamie’s Italian brand has considerable strengths in the marketplace that are primarily associated with the positive image of the owner of the brand Jamie Oliver who has won positive acclaim for initiatives aimed at increasing the quality of food in schools and he is also a well-known author of various recipes distributed by his numerous books. Moreover, Jamie’s Italian menu mainly consists of healthy foods and the range of foods introduced by Jamie Oliver, as well as the decoration of restaurants can be described as innovative. These strengths are needed to be build upon in order to increase the competitive advantage of the business and thus ensure the growth of Jamie’s Italian in Australian marketplace in long-term perspective. At the same time, there are certain weaknesses associated with Jamie’s Italian brand that primarily relate to the high prices of the food. Also, the level of service in a number of Jamie’s Italian in UK has faced critical reviews, and this fact can also be considered as a weakness of the brand in general with positive negative impact on its branch in Sydney. The analyses of weaknesses of the business provide the most valuable data for the management for further consideration. Specifically, if these weaknesses are not addressed timely and effectively the whole amount of financial resources invested in Austrian market would be exposed to the great risk. There are set of attractive business opportunities for Jamie’s Italian in Australian marketplace in general, and in Sydney in…
PESTEL stands for political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors that affect the business and it is considered to be an effective tool for analysing external environment for the business. Each of the factors presented below has to be critically analysed by the management of Jamie’s Italian Sydney in order to identify new potentials for creating competitive edge for the company. PESTEL analysis for Jamie’s Italian is presented on the following table: Political The level of consumer protection The level of political stability Market lobbying and pressure groups in Sydney International pressure groups Risk of military invasion Economical The level of economic growth in general The level of growth in catering industry The level of taxation Government spending Seasonality and weather issues Inflation rate Australian dollar exchange rate Minimum wage rates Social Changing family patterns Changes in lifestyle trends Healthy eating trends Consumer demographics in Sydney Activities of vegetarian and vegan groups Consumer attitudes and opinions The level of education of consumers Consumer preferences in catering industry Population growth rate in Sydney Technological Technology development in catering industry The level of research funding by the government and private sector The level of energy use and associated costs Associated and dependent technologies The potential for innovation in catering industry Environmental Ecological and environmental regulation in Australia The activities of various environmental groups Legal Taxation legislation in Sydney (both, corporate and consumer) Catering-specific rules and regulations Employment laws in Sydney Competition regulation
The definition of a small-medium enterprise (SME) is most commonly based on the number of employees that usually with fewer than 500 employees; In China, the definition of an SME is complex, which depends on the industry category and based on the number of employees, annual revenue and total assets, and this criteria on small and medium-sized enterprises are based on the SME Promotion Law of China (2003), which sets the guideline for classifying SME’s. 1. The relevant size of the SMEs is significantly smaller than the large and listed companies inChinadue to the size of their capital stock, credit allowance.According to Guo and Li (2007) ,the Structural characteristics of SMEs in China are: However, in recent years, some SMEs have grown really large in size due to their continuous improvement and technological improvements. 2.>After the reformations of government legislations in 2005 for the favour of SMEs in China, nowadays, SMEs have been operating in different branches of businesses such as manufacturing, services, construction, transport and retailing. This support has helped the emergence of many more SMEs inChinawhich means there is even greater demand for financing all these SMEs. 3.> Small enterprises also make up huge proportion of SMEs in China which usually lack the degree of specialization and cooperation in the production areas. This is mainly due to the fact that there is lack of government legislations that supports and shows guidelines for SMEs inChina. 4.> The main market for SMEs is the domestic market of China which is due to the fact that SMEs can not cope with fierce competition in the international markets or does not have advantage over foreign-invested companies with high-tech. Due to shortage of funds, most SMEs operate mainly in labour-intensive small and medium industries as the technological progress is slow for them.…
Standing for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, SWOT analysis represents a strategic analytical tool to be used for company analysis. Burrow (2008) stresses that SWOT analysis offers the advantages of identifying core capabilities and competencies associated with the business and developing suitable strategies and tactics. Strengths Oracle research and development capabilities can be highlighted as one of its main points of competitive edge. Specifically, the company successfully operates Oracle Labs where a wide range of projects that include Fortress, Maxine Research VM, QVM, Adaptive Optimization, Computer Architecture and Performance Modelling (CAP), Network Computing, Scalable Synchronisation, Electric VLSI Design System and many other projects have been developed that contribute to the competitive edge of the company (Oracle Lab, 2011, online). Other points of strengths include inorganic growth strategy that has enabled the company to achieve its current status and the robust market positioning of the brand. Moreover, the company has a strong and charismatic leader in the personality of Larry Ellison. Moreover, the takeover of Sun Microsystems by Oracle considerable enhanced the position of the company in the global marketplace and the same time as increasing the ranges of products and services offered by Oracle. Weaknesses One of the major weaknesses of Oracle relates to the heavy dependence of the company on the US and Europe marketplaces. Specifically, during the fiscal year of 2009-2010 Oracle operating revenue from US and European markets amounted to 64% of the total business revenues (Annual Report, 2009 – 2010). In other words, the lack of Oracle presence in Asian marketplace can be considered as the weakness of the company due to the fact that the role of Asian businesses are growing in the international business arena, at the same time when US and European countries are faced with serious financial issues. Moreover,…
PESTEL is one of the most effective strategic analytical tools available that can be used for analysing the external environment for the business (Klein, 2007). The abbreviation stands for political, economical, social, technological, environmental, as well as, legal factors that affect the business. The following table illustrates the PESTEL analysis conducted for Oracle Corporation in UK marketplace: Political Environmental regulations and protection Tax regulations International trade regulations The level of consumer protection The level of political stability Health and safety regulations Contract enforcement regulations Economical Taxation The level of economic growth Interest rates UK monetary policies Unemployment rate and relevant policies GBP:USD exchange rate The level of government and consumer spending Social Social values The nature of income distribution Demographic tendencies Social mobility of labour Work-career balance The level of consumer education Personalities of opinion leaders Technological Technological breakthroughs in related to the software industry Research and development The level of energy use and associated costs Innovations in information technology The duration of technology life-cycle Environmental The activities of non-government environmental groups Global warming issues The impact of Oracle on environment and its consequences Legal Rules and regulations specific to the software industry Other government regulations affecting Oracle in direct and indirect ways References Klein, G. (2007) “Strategic Marketing” GRIN Verlag
Five forces strategy, introduced by Michael Porter (2004) describes five individual forces that shape the level of competition in any given industry. These forces consist of threat of new entrants, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitute products or services, bargaining power of suppliers and the level of rivalry among existing firms within the industry. Threat of New Entrants Threat of new entrants relates to the level of difficulty associated with entering the industry. Accordingly, if there are substantial barriers to enter the industry the threat of new entrants would be low, and vice versa. The most significant industry entrance barriers are specified by Baker and Hart (2007) as brand loyalty, absolute cost advantage, economies of scale, switching cost and the level of government regulation. The threat of new entrants to the software industry in UK can be described as high. This is because the amount of financial resources required for entering the industry can raised by many businesses and individual entrepreneurs. Moreover, there is a constant risk for major software companies such as Oracle that any new business with innovative software offerings can claim Oracle’s market share within a short period of time. Bargaining Power of Buyers The essence of the bargaining power of buyers primarily relates to the level of easiness or difficulty with which buyers can change the companies. (Johnson et al, 2006). However, nowadays the buyers possess a vast amount of bargaining power almost in all industries due to the intensifying level of competition. The same applies to the UK software industry as well. Specifically, there are several other global players in UK software industry such as IBM, Microsoft and SAP, as well as, many other local companies that compete with Oracle in direct and indirect ways. Many of these companies offer the customers…
Sosik and Godshalk (2000) inform that transformational leadership theory has evolved once rapidly intensified level of competition in the global level has revealed serious shortcomings of transactional leadership style. Namely, changing market conditions have necessitated increased level of involvement of employees at all levels for decision making, a well as, the level of motivation of the workforce has become the matter of survival for many industries in the global marketplace. The main characteristics of transformational leaders are specified by Khanin (2007) as highly receptive of their followers’ needs and wants, as well as, striving for their professional development at various fronts that would result in followers eventually replacing leaders in the future. Moreover, Walumba and Hartnell (2011) justly attribute high achievement of transformational leaders to their attractive behaviour, charisma, and the ability to motivate their followers. Also, the role of organisational vision that is shared by all members of the workforce is stressed by Garcia-Morales et al (2008), who rightly specify the adoption of transformational leadership as an effective method of motivating workforce through developing and communicating the vision. The main distinction between transformational and transactional leadership styles can be specified as the ability of the former style to address higher, intangible needs of employees as well as material needs the latter style is mainly associated with. In other words, transformational leaders promote creativity, positive team spirit and challenging working environment, thus achieving increased level of performance through highly motivated workforce. However transformational leadership style can be time consuming process before they provide positive results, and they also create potential for abuse among certain members of the workforce. Specifically, the elements of sensitivity and gentleness expressed by transformational leaders might be perceived to be signs of weaknesses among specific members of the workforce due to their cultural differences, individual temperament…
The most important elements of SWOT analysis for M&S are presented on the following table: Strengths Financial maturity Human capital High level of customer loyalty Weaknesses Unfocused segmentation of clothing ranges Weak online presence High level of prices Opportunities Improving the offer of clothing ranges More focus on ‘ethical’ foods Focusing on customer segmentation Threats Conflicts between shareholders and executives Newly appointed top management not fitting in corporate culture Ineffective implementation of the proposed strategy
The Porter’s Five Forces model examines and analyses the competitive environment of Sharp Corporation. According to Porter (2004) there are five forces, which are discussed below in turn, that determine industry attractiveness and profitability in long-run. Threat of Entry of New Competitors Lynch (2006) states that in general threat of entry of new competitors in electronics industry is high as the new entrants can overcome entry barriers by investing in facilities, advanced technology or outsourcing the same electronic components from suppliers. However, Johnson and Scholes (2006) argue that the strong brand and large scale of economies the company built over the years with the use of advanced technologies resulted in high entry barriers such as large capital requirement, high switching costs, need for advanced technology, know-how knowledge and innovation, preventing new competitors entering into market. Threat of Substitute Products Although Sharp has strong brand equity associated with high quality and reliable products allowing the company to sell its products at premium, with increasing number of products being manufactured in China and Malaysia the company is struggling to reduce the impact of cheaper substitute products on most of its marketing segments (Datamonitor, 2010). Moreover, while certain products of Sharp such as TVs are considered to be the best in the market, many other products the company manufactures including PCs and mobile phones falls short from meeting high customer expectations indicating that it is high likely that there are direct alternative products available for these market segments. Bargaining power of Buyers Considering the nature of the electronics industry it is argued that the bargaining power of buyers is rather high. This is because electronic products are highly price sensitive as majority of them are considered to be luxury goods rather than essential and today’s consumers tend to demand high quality…
PESTEL analysis helps to analyse external macro-environmental factors and assesses their impact on organisation. The PESTLE analysis framework is made up of Political, Economical, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental factors. Political Given the company’s international operations, political factors for Sharp can vary from country to country. In addition, these factors can change dramatically at any time as governments have the power to introduce any new regulations, impose tariffs or taxes. This shows that the company does not have any control over these factors or has a very little influence as they are usually exist at national level. However, almost all political factors that affect the Sharp have the same effect on its competitors. Hence, the company must be prepared for any possible changes that affect its trade in order to stay ahead of it competitors by incorporating existing political factors into its business strategy and constantly review the effects of these political factors. Economical Without doubt the macro-economic factors are one of the most important external factors for the company as they have profound effect on the company’s business. Moreover, considering the nature of products the company manufactures and sales, the economic indicators such as GDP growth rates, the level of disposable income and employment rates have strong impact on the company (Mintzberg et al, 2002). Furthermore, given the company’s international operations, Jonson and Scholes (2006) point out that the changes in interest and exchange rates is another important economic factors as it affects company’s income from foreign countries. Social Although Sharp has a strong brand associated with reliable and quality products, the company must ensure that its products reflect the changes in social and cultural trends and in particular able to attract new generation of consumers. Moreover, given that the products the company manufactures and the…