Sony Ericsson’s Business Strategy

Business Strategy

Task 1: The role that objectives play in the process of strategic planning

Strategic planning is the process of developing and maintaining a strategic fit between the organisation’s objectives and resources and the changing market opportunities. This is generally regarded as corporate planning because it deals with the whole organisation. The strategic planning should base upon clear objectives in order to define the direction of all other plans. In definition, “objectives are the specific outcomes that an organisation wishes to achieve by carrying out its activities.” Objectives are the expected outcome of programmes of activity, and therefore they play a central role in planning. The importance of objectives can be reflected in many aspects.

Firstly, they help an organisation to determine its operation fields and carry out strategy. Those organisations who regard maximum profit as orientation, they will probably put the profit in the first place when carrying out strategies with objectives. While those organisations who are customer oriented are likely to consider meeting customer satisfaction as their prior objectives.

Secondly, objectives are able to provide a collective management concept for all the employees in each level within an organisation. The previous director of IBM, Watson, once pointed that a successful organisation must rely on a collective spirit rather than mere funds to survive consistently in the market. A set of appropriate objectives therefore provides the precondition and focus for all activities.

The objectives can also mobilise the positivity within an organisation. The CEO of Colgate-Palmolive Company, Reuben Mark has illustrated that a leader must help his staff enhancing the feeling and willing of comfort to be part of certain project which shows the organisation’s future by its objectives, and hence they will satisfy with their jobs and form the active attitude and behaviour towards their posts.

Moreover, objectives are able to contribute to facilitate the resources allocation and the control of actual performance and provide a basis for evaluating how successfully the strategic plans are being implemented.

A good example of objectives playing successful role in the strategic planning could be Nokia. For a corporation company, it is vital to establish clear and accurate objectives to adapt with the changing environment. With the help of globalisation sight of objectives, Nokia has made successful transformation since 1970s. Although 65% of its net profit generated from overseas in 1977, Nokia began to adjust its operation structure based upon its objective of �practical development submit to ideality’. Nokia put mobile communication which only took 10% of its total operation force into the most important place and positioned itself in mobile communication in the coming decades. By this mean, until 2000 Nokia has shifted its structure as 72% of mobile phones, 25% of telecom infrastructures and 3% of others. In 1990s, its core objective was to be the leader of mobile communication and achieves successfully nowadays. In 2000, Nokia switched the objective into bringing Internet to people wherever they are. It was believed that Microsoft would face the challenge from Nokia sooner or later. In 2006, Nokia announced its objectives in Chinese market: to be the leader in each aspect it operates in and keep steady growth; to be the most preferred partner to governments, operators and customers; and to become the most optimal employer in China.

Task 2: Different approaches to strategy