Strategy

Strategic management is the set of managerial decisions and actions that determines the long-run performance of an organization. It is a process of identifying an organization’s goals. It involves making of policies and plans to achieve the goals and budgeting resources for the plan’s implementation. It also focuses on using the plans created as an outline for the daily activities. It is the top level of managerial activity, typically executed by the organization’s head and executive team. Importantly, it gives overall direction to the whole enterprise.

In Henry Mintzberg’s (1987) article “Crafting Strategy”, strategy creation and implementation are interdependent. He compares the art of strategy making to pottery, and managers to potters sitting at a wheel molding the clay and letting the shape of the object evolve in their hands. As Mintzberg explains, “In my metaphor, managers are craftsmen and strategy is their clay” (p. 66). This way, strategy is crafted not by managers or consulting experts alone but by individuals who know the organization in a deep and intimate way.

Mintzberg explains that the product of this is more likely to resemble a pattern, to emerge from disorderly debate than to be formulated from rational steps. He also points out that, “Like potters at the wheel, organizations must make sense of the past if they hope to manage the future. [… ]. Thus crafting strategy, like managing craft, requires a natural synthesis of the future, present, and past” (p. 75). I have to agree with the points raised by Mintzberg.

Strategy, indeed, materializes through the relationship of structured planning and informal responses. Strategy creation and implementation are interdependent. Formal planning alone is not the best way for managers to develop strategy since strategies are not always deliberate. They could also emerge over time as organizations innovate and respond to their markets and by seeing patterns take shape in their environments. Over time, an organization’s product/s may change to reflect both the demands of the markets and the organization’s own evolving style.

It is also true that top level managers should also listen to the people below them, especially those who are directly in touch with the customers since they are the ones who get first-hand feedbacks from clients regarding the products. It is also important to synthesize the past, present, and future experiences of an organization to find the most effective strategy for an organization. Knowing the mistakes and accomplishments of the past, the processes used, and the effectiveness of the knowledge in present time would greatly help an organization in creating a more effective strategy in the future.

A practical application of Mintzberg’s point could be seen in numerous organizations where salespersons are considered as merely people who need to sell the products and exceed the sales quota. The salespersons are normally not included in strategic planning meetings of executives. However, as Mintzberg suggested, it is important to integrate these people into strategy planning and ask their opinion of the products that they sell when crafting strategy.

Normally, when a salesperson makes modifications of the product that he is selling, he could get a warning or termination for not following the standardized process. In other cases, he could be asked to fill up a Product Modification Input Solicitation form that has to go through product development’s, strategic planning’s, and other committees’ review. In short, everything has to be done in a formal way. But as Mintzberg explains, formal planning is not always the answer to crafting strategy.

It is important to hear the opinions of the people who know the organization’s clients best — the salespeople. Successful strategies and innovations that evolve and cash in on unexpected problems or opportunities are part of a dynamic, organization learning process. Experiences, expertise, ideas, market and customer shifts, feedback, input and the like shape the emerging strategies and point the way to innovation pathways. Reference Mintzberg, H. (1987). Crafting Strategy. Harvard Business Review, 65 (4), 66-75.

All great products start with a clear strategy that is customer and market-driven. Your strategy defines the direction of your product and what you want to achieve. Establishing this first aligns the organization and keeps everyone focused on the work that matters the most. It tells the team where the product is headed and what needs to be done to get there.

The main purpose of a strategy is to align executives and other key stakeholders around how the product will achieve the high-level business objectives. It also provides the product manager with a clear direction to guide the team through implementation and to communicate the value of the product to cross-functional teams, such as sales, marketing, and support.

A product strategy is the foundation for the entire product lifecycle. As product leaders develop and adjust their product strategy, they zero in on target audiences and define the key product and customer attributes necessary to achieve success.

Strategy is comprised of three parts: vision, goals, and initiatives.

Vision

Your vision includes details on the market opportunity, target customers, positioning, a competitive analysis, and the Go-to-Market plan. It describes who the customers are, what they need, and how you plan to deliver a unique offering.

Image of a strategic vision diagram

Goals

Goals are measurable, time-bound objectives that have clearly defined success metrics associated with them. They help you set what you want to achieve in the next quarter, year, or 18 months.

Here are a few examples:

• Increase revenue by 30%
• Expand into 5 new countries
• Increase mobile adoption by 100%
• Reduce the number of support tickets by 15%
• Image showing the strategic business goals for a product
• Initiatives

Initiatives are the high-level efforts or big themes that need to be implemented to achieve your goals.

Here are some examples:

• Performance improvements
• UI improvements
• Better reporting
• Expand into China
• Image of a grid showing product initiatives

Your strategy provides the foundation for planning your roadmap, defining your features, and prioritizing your work. To visualize your strategy and see how it ties to your execution plan, it helps if you link releases and features to initiatives and goals. This allows you to analyze your roadmap at a high level and to discover any gaps.

It is easier to understand the relationships between product lines, products, goals, initiatives, and releases when you can see them all in one view. This also helps you to identify “orphan” goals or initiatives and adjust your plans accordingly.A great strategy starts with a clear product plan, a vision, and a canvas that explains how customer and market forces shape the product’s direction. The first step is to have a north star that tells you where your product is headed.

Most international companies have created value by transferring differentiated product offerings developed at home to new markets overseas. Consequently, they tend to centralize product development functions, in their home country. However, they also tend to establish manufacturing and marketing functions in each major country in which they do business. Although they may undertake some local customization of product offering and marketing strategy, this tends to be limited in scope.

Ultimately, as in most international companies, the head quarters, based in London, retained tight control over marketing and product strategy. An international strategy makes sense if a company has valuable unique competencies that local competitors in foreign markets lack and if the company faces relatively weak pressures for local responsiveness and cost reductions. In such situations, an international strategy can be very profitable .

However, when pressures for local responsiveness are high, companies pursuing this strategy lose out to companies that place a greater emphasis on customizing the product offering and market strategy to local conditions. Furthermore, because of the duplication of manufacturing facilities. Therefore, this strategy is often unsuitable for industries in which cost pressures are high.

Multidomestic Strategy

A multidomestic strategy orient themselves toward achieving maximum local responsiveness. As with companies pursuing an international strategy, they tend to transfer skills and products developed at home to foreign markets. However, unlike international companies, extensively customize both their product offering and their marketing strategy to different national environments, Consistent with this approach, also tend to establish a complete set of activities including production, marketing, and R&D in each major national market in which it is doing business. As a result, generally does not realize value from experience-curve effects and location advantages and, therefore, often have a high cost structure.

A multidomestic strategy makes most sense when there are high pressures for local responsiveness and low pressures for cost reductions. The high cost structure associated with the replication of production facilities makes this strategy inappropriate in industries in which cost pressures are intense. Another limitation of this strategy is that have developed into decentralized groupings in which each national subsidiary functions in a largely autonomous manner.

Transnational Strategy

Pret A Manger whose operations are spread across several locations worldwide and are not confined to any country or a region and since pursue low cost and product differentiation at the same time are referred to as transnational companies. In essence, transnational companies operate on a global level while maintaining a high level of local responsiveness. A transnational strategy makes sense when a company faces high pressures for cost reductions and high pressures for local responsiveness. Pret A Manger which pursues a transnational strategy, basically tries to achieve low-cost and differentiation advantages simultaneously.

Although this strategy looks attractive, in practice it is a difficult strategy to pursue. Pressures for local responsiveness and cost reductions place conflicting demands on the company. Local responsiveness raises costs, which clearly makes cost reductions difficult to achieve. Although a transnational strategy apparently offers the most advantages, it should be remembered that implementing it raises difficult organizational issues. The appropriateness of each strategy depends on the relative strength of pressures for cost reductions and for local responsiveness.

Google is a company that provides both search and advertising services to computer users all around the globe. The main aim or rather the mission of the company is to organize the maximum amount of the information in the world and make the gathered information accessible universally (Google). Apart from being a dominant and popular search engine all over the globe the company also offers a wide variety of products the most popular being Google Earth, You tube etc. Considering today’s state of art technology, a clear vision and commitment is required to develop innovation and technology and survive in the competitive world.

This is what exactly Google team strives for. Despite being accredited as the world’s best internet search engines, the goal of the company remains to provide higher service levels to all the customers who are need of information irrespective of their situation i. e. making information available on the desk, mobile and at the fingertips of the customer (Crunch Base). The strategy that the company adopts is continuous innovation along with exceeding the limits of today’s existing technology in order to serve its customers with fast and accurate information at their ease and convenience.

Since its evolution, the company’s main focus was on providing the best possible experience to its users. Google has been conscious in not making any changes to the way it does business if there is not benefit that a customer can get. Google’s focus and main interest has always been customers, customer and only customers. This way it has built a huge amount of loyal customer on the web. The company believes in instant satisfaction or delight.

It is because of this belief that the company has become a unique and one and only company in the world whose goal is to ensure that its users leave its website at a very minimal time p. This means that the customers are getting the required information which is latest in a very limited time and this obviously means the company updates the information base continuously. The company continuously strives to always deliver more than what is expected. According to the company, best is not the end but rather it is the point of start. Innovation and iteration are the two aspects on which the company continuously focuses upon.

Another strategy that the company uses is to facilitate information across the globe and in order to achieve this; the company hosts a plethora of internet domains in more than 35 languages to suit the preferences of different kinds of users. The company also adopts a translation feature in order to make the information available to its user irrespective of their native language. This feature allows customization of the information into more than 100 languages. According to the founders of the company – Google, the company does not consider anything serious apart from search.

The basic idea behind the evolution of Google is that the task undertaken should be challenging enough and the challenge handling process should be fun filled. With a user base of more than millions, Google continuously strives to identify points of resistance and also means to handle them in a very small time p. This continuous effort is what is helping the company to remain the global leader in search engines. ? Bibliography Crunch Base. google. 2008. 8 December 2008 <http://www. crunchbase. com/company/google>. Google. Company Overview. 2008. 8 December 2008 <http://www. google. com/corporate/>.

Bridgestone, the world second largest tire manufacturing company in the world is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It owns 20% of worldwide market share. It is engaged in the production of other rubber products which include tubes for various machinery and contruction equipment. The company is operating at a global scale and competes with the worlds largest tire manufacturers, the likes of Michelin, Continental and Goodyear. Although it does own 20% of worldwide market share in the tire industry, it owns a lower market share of 10% in Europe due to the strong presence of Michelin and Continental.

Bridgestone is the leading supplier to the F1 grand prix which reflects their trust in the quality of their product. In 1988 Bridgestone acquired Firestone, which was targeted to the mid range segment Bridgestone continues to internationalize and develop ways to tackle the European market. Michelin owns 32% of the European market share for tires. It however plans to improve its productivity in Europe by 20% in the next 3 years. It is therefore expecting to accomplish this by developing its products, service and multibrand policy.

Also by, restructuring all its European activities. (Hollensen, 2011) In hopes to promote growth and strengrthen its marketing strategies, Michelin may emphasize on the differentiation on its products and services in the European market, in order to serve to local demand of tires, and therefore increase European market share. An example of such would be Michelin dealing with environmental concerns further, and therefore promoting environmentally friendly tires, or “green” tires.

Among the strengths of Michelin include its globally renowned R&D centers that are known for their quality in research in innovative products and are known to be amongst the top in the world, and are therefore largely financially supported. (Michelin, 2010) Michelins strength of brand and their “Michelan man” logo is a worldwide symbol for quality of product and service. Michelin manufactures aircraft tires and that in itself is considered a competitive advantage over its competitors Goodyear and Continental.

For its involvement in the aircraft industry, this guarantees the durability and quality of its tires, and enables its market share to increase because they trust the product and services of the company. Looking at the European market as a whole however, Michelin could attempt to increase its market share in the UK and Germany, where although it still holds largest market share, it still has strong competitors such as Dunlop (Goodyear) and Continental respectively.

Germany’s largest tire manufacturer for commercial tires, but is known to manufacturer power transmission systems, engine and suspension mounts, vehicle interiors and electronic brake and traction control systems. Continental is the fourth largest tire manufacturer in the world following Michelin, Bridgestone, and Goodyear respectively. It pursues a multibrand strategy, especially in the European regions, due the lack of strength of its key brand. The potential to therefore increase its market share in the European region is available.

Being established as a German brand, Continental has therefore taken over the market share in Germany, but is unable to penetrate the markets in other european countries, and is under respresented in the UK, Spain, Italy, and France. It aims to do so by using its competitive advantage in developing a position as a complete systems supplier to the automotive industry. In 1995, Continental’s research and development team sought to achieve higher market share in the automotive industry and invested in the research and technology in automotive electronics, which promised much higher profits than tires.

The objective was to gain a strong competitive position in the fast-growing market for electronic stability programs (ESPs). It wasn’t long until Continental became the world leader in the braking segment in the automotive industry. (Universe, 2004) The USA based company Goodyear, owns 17% of the worlds market share in tires. It operates solely in the rubber business where it develops, manufactures, distributes and sells rubber products. (Hollensen, 2011)

Currently it follows a strategy in which it aims to remain the lowest cost producer of tires in the world, and continues acquiring profitable brand names, which include Dunlop. Although continental as a key brand, has a lack of exposure in the European region, Dunlop has a higher market share in more regions, those such as the UK and Germany. (Hollensen, 2011) Goodyear’s partnership with RMT robotics gives them a competitive edge over their rivals. Reducing their labor costs and keeping inventory levels low and customer responses high.

This allows precise and faster production processes. “We will remain a customer-centric company. We will strive to earn our customers’ business every day with the industry’s best products packed with innovation. ” (Kramer, 2010) Being a customer-centric company, allows them to satisfy their customers needs and cater to their demands faster, thus gaining a large consumer base. With drag racing and drifting surfacing as a popular sport, Goodyear has worked to ensure the safety of the racers by offering semi-slick and fully slick tires specially created for such purposes.

Manufacturing companies today are always looking for a cutthroat advantage that would put them ahead of their rivals in an industry. Lean manufacturing could be the best solution. “Lean manufacturing is thought of to be the consideration of the total cost of resources to achieve a specific objective and to eliminate waste” (MXI, 2010) It is an operational strategy in which all elements that do not create value to the company are eliminated in the supply chain, and this results in the decreasing of costs and a more efficient supply chain.

Companies that follow a global strategy focus on increasing profitability by reaping the benefits of cost reductions that come from experience-curve effects and location economies. That is, they are pursuing a low-cost strategy. The various activities such as production, marketing, and R&D of XYZ pursuing a global strategy are concentrated in a few favorable locations. Global companies do not tend to customize their product offering and marketing strategy to local conditions.

This is because customization raises costs because it involves shorter production runs and the duplication of functions. Instead, global companies prefer to market a standardized product worldwide so that they can reap the maximum benefits from the economies of scale that lie behind the experience curve. This strategy makes sense in XYZ case in which there are strong pressures for cost reductions and where demands for local responsiveness are minimal. These conditions exist in many industries manufacturing industrial goods.

(http://www/loc. gov/index. html) Transnational Strategy XYZ Corporation whose operations are spread across several locations worldwide and are not confined to any country or a region and which pursue low cost and product differentiation at the same time is referred to as transnational companies. Transnational companies operate on a global level while maintaining a high level of local responsiveness. A transnational strategy makes sense when XYZ faces high pressures for cost reductions and high pressures for local responsiveness.

Companies that pursue a transnational strategy basically try to achieve low-cost and differentiation advantages simultaneously. Although this strategy looks attractive, in practice it is a difficult strategy to pursue. Pressures for local responsiveness and cost reductions place conflicting demands on the company. Local responsiveness raises costs, which clearly makes cost reductions difficult to achieve. Although a transnational strategy apparently offers the most advantages, implementing it raises difficult organizational issues.

The appropriateness of each strategy depends on the relative strength of pressures for cost reductions and for local responsiveness. APPROACHES TO GLOBAL ENTRY There are five main modes of entering a foreign market: exporting, licensing, franchising, entering into a joint venture with a host country company, and setting up a wholly owned subsidiary in the host country. Each entry mode has its advantages and disadvantages, and XYZ must weigh these carefully when deciding which mode to use. Exporting

Manufacturing companies begin their quest for global expansion as exporters and then switch to other modes. Exporting has two distinct advantages. First, it avoids the costs of establishing manufacturing facilities in the host country, which are often quite substantial. Second, by manufacturing the product in a centralized location and then exporting it to foreign market, the company may be able to realize substantial economies of scale from its worldwide sales. On the contrary, there are a number of negative aspects to exporting.

First, exporting from the company’s home base may not be appropriate if there are low-cost manufacturing locations abroad. A second drawback is that high transport costs can make exporting uneconomical, particularly for bulk products. One way of overcoming this problem is to manufacture bulk products locally. This strategy allows the company to realize economies from large-scale production and at the same time minimize transport costs. Thus, many multinational companies manufacture their products from a base in a region and serve several countries in that regional base.

Third, tariff barriers can make exporting uneconomical. In fact the threat of tariff barriers by Japan may sometimes force the company to set up manufacturing facilities in that country. Finally, the practice of delegating marketing activities to a local agent among companies that are just beginning to export also poses risks since there is no guarantee that the agent will act in the company’s best interest. Many foreign agents also deal with the products of competitors leading to divided loyalties. Therefore, XYZ would perform better if it manages marketing on its own.

One way to do it is to set up a wholly owned subsidiary in the host country to handle marketing locally. This can lead to huge cost advantages arising from manufacturing the product in a single location and controlling the marketing activities in the host country. (http://www/imf. org/) Licensing Licensing is an arrangement by which a foreign licensee buys the rights to produce a company’s product in the licensee’s country for a negotiated fee. The licensee then invests major share of the capital required to commence the operations.

The advantage of this arrangement is that the company need not bear the development costs and risks associated with launching foreign operations. Hence, licensing is a very attractive choice for XYZ Corporation that can not invest capital to develop overseas operations or for the company unwilling to take the risk of committing substantial financial resources in unfamiliar or politically volatile foreign environment. In high technology areas it is quite common for companies to provide know-how through licensing arrangements.

Licensing as a mode of entry into global arena has three serious drawbacks. First, companies do not reap the benefits of cost economies and location economies since licensees typically set up their own manufacturing facilities. And in cases where these economies are important, licensing method is not the best mode to go overseas. Second, in a global marketplace it is necessary to coordinate all the operations across all the countries in order to use the profits earned in one country to support competitive attack in another. Licensing severely restricts a company’s ability to do this.

A licensee will not let a multinational company to take its profits to support competitive moves of the company in other countries. A third and a very major problem with licensing is the risk associated with licensing and sharing technological know-how with foreign companies. Technological know- how provides a formidable competitive advantage for many technology based companies and licensing its technology can quickly erode its competitive advantage. Franchising Franchising is a strategy employed by many companies. The advantages of franchising are similar to those of licensing.

The franchiser does not bear the development costs and risks of commencing the operations in a foreign market on its own since the franchisee typically assumes those costs and risks. Thus, a company can build up a global presence quickly and at a low cost, using a franchising strategy. The disadvantages, however, are less prominent than in the case of licensing. Since franchising is a strategy used by smaller companies, a franchiser need not coordinate manufacturing activities in order to realize experience- curve effects and location advantages A major disadvantage of franchising is the lack of quality control.

A basic notion of franchising arrangements is that the company’s brand name conveys a message of quality to the consumers. The geographic distance from the franchisees and the large number of franchisees make it difficult for the franchiser to maintain quality and hence quality problems generally persevere. To overcome this handicap, companies set up a subsidiary, which is wholly owned or a joint venture with a foreign partner in each country and region in which they plan to operate. Closeness and the limited number of independent franchisees to be monitored reduce the problem of quality control.

This type of arrangement is well accepted in franchising. (http://www. worldbank. org/) Joint Ventures Joint venture with a foreign partner, like Japan, to enter foreign markets has been the vogue in recent times. A 50:50 venture is quite common, in which each party takes a 50 percent ownership stake and operating control is shared by a team consisting of managers from both parent companies. Some companies, however, prefer joint ventures in which they have a majority shareholding since this allows tighter control by the principal partner.

Joint venture is a very mode of entry into foreign markets. Joint ventures have a number of advantages, the first one being the benefit a company can derive from a local partner’s knowledge of a host country’s business ecosystem. Second, a company might gain by sharing high costs and risks associated with opening of a new market with a local partner. Finally, political considerations in the host country make joint ventures the only practical way of entering those markets. Despite these advantages, joint ventures are difficult to establish and run because of two reasons.

First, as in the case of licensing, a company risks losing control over its technology to its venture partner. To minimize this risk, the dominant company can seek a majority ownership stake in the joint venture to exercise greater control over its technology provided the foreign partner is willing to accept a minority ownership. The second disadvantage is that a joint venture does not give a company the tight control over its subsidiaries needed to realize experience curve effects or location advantages or to engage in coordinated global attacks against its rivals. (http://www. un. org/issues/m-intprp. html)

Abu Dhabi Gas Industries Ltd (GASCO) is involved in the processing of natural and associated gas in Abu Dhabi. GASCO was established in 1978 as a joint venture between Shell, Abu Dhabi national oil Company (ADNOC) and total each of them having 15% shares and Partex with 2% shares by late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nayhan, the President of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Abu Dhabi, in order to make use of Abu Dhabi’s momentous wealth of associated gas. Today, at GASCO the associated gas is being transformed into a wide range of marketable products, which are exported all over the world as well as used domestically.

Abu Dhabi Gas Company (ATHEER) was integrated with GASCO in 2001 which made GASCO recognized as one of the world’s largest gas processing companies with the process capability exceeding 5300 million standard cubic feet of gas per day. (Abu Dhabi Gas Industries Ltd, 2009) Importance of using appropriate Strategies in the competitive business world: With the passage of time the world has globalized and has advanced technologically, in this era of technology and globalization competition has increased rapidly.

For this purpose it has become very important for the organizations to develop and use appropriate strategies that are strong and will help them to compete and survive. With competition, new concepts , new issues, new problems and new challenges have also come into existence to cope up with the changes in the external as well as the internal environment there is a special need for the company to have appropriates strategies otherwise it not be able to compete in the changing business world.

Appropriate strategies are very important as they are the backbone of any company and they determine the direction of the organization. (Bettis and Hitt, 2007) The current Strategy of the company: Currently the company is using the following strategies:  GASCO is using ISO certification for its processes in order to deliver:

• Efficient and effective processes
• Increase shareholder value
• Enhance customer-satisfaction
• Improve employee motivation, awareness and morale
• Reduce waste and increase productivity.

Expansion and excellence:

• Several Multi-dollar expansion activities in the pipelines
• To improve performance in long-term gas resource management, asset integrity, become employer of choice; emiritization and achieve excellence in all business activities.

Compliance and certification:

• To Establish and maintain quality standards
• Map all major business procedures and processes
• Verify the implementation of procedures.

Effectiveness and optimization:

• Identify inefficient procedures
• Redefining and remodeling business procedures and processes
• To create an environment that is continuously improved.

 Integrated quality management system:

• Integration of ISO 9001with ISO 14001, ISO 29001 and ISO 18001.
• To ensure visible impact upon the business and the environment
• To build commitment and ownership at all levels.

Strategy of the department: I have worked at the health, safety and environment department. The management of health and safety is very important for GASC O. The management of health, safety and environment, vision statement and policy all provide a framework for the execution of the health safety and environment at GASCO.

Following is the strategy used by the health, safety and environment department:  All the divisions of GASCO develops annual health, safety and environment action plans for the implementation of the various related actions that are transformed into different jobs and goals which are flowed down the company.  This process is reviewed and monitored on a routinely basis to keep thing s realistic.  There is also a health, safely and environment auditing program consisting of different levels of audits whose results are trailed to the ultimate completion via a closeout process.

The health, safety and environment issues are performed with the participation of all the employees. Strategy school used by GASCO The strategy school used by GASCO is Learning and Flexibility. The organization believes in constantly learning and has a flexible structure. At GASCO the management and employees believes in change that benefits the customer as well as the organization. They believe in providing best to the customers. The strategies at GASCO emerge and change continuously. This strategy school helps the organization to keep updated. This also helps to keep the employees and the customers satisfied.

Employees there feel free and work hard. (Mintzberg and Ghoshal, 2003) SWOT Analysis of the company’s strategy: SWOT stands for:

1. Strengths: Following are the strengths of the company, ISO Certification, Expansion Programme,Quality management system, Health, safety and environment precautions.
2. Weakness: Following are the Weaknesses of the company’s strategy, Little emphasis on marketing and promotional activities.
3. Opportunities: Following are the opportunities that will be available for the company in the future because of the strategy.ISO certification will play a major role in the promotion of the company, Health, safety and environment can attract potential employees.
4. Threat: following are the threats that the company might face in future,Expansion may be difficult, There will be global competition for the organization in the future. (Fine, 2009) Changes in the organization’s industry The gas industry is changing continuously sometimes there are changes in the laws like changes in the labor laws; sometimes there are changes in the drilling laws these changes in the laws have a great impact upon the business.

These sometimes increase the cost or may create problem for the organization in one way or the other. Right now there is no mention of such changes in the company’s strategy. But it is very important for GASCO to mention and make strategy related to the changes occurring in the industry as the company is operating on global level. Growth and change should never be stopped and in this regard it is very important for a company to keep itself updated with the changes in its industry. Impact of significance and complexity of culture in international trade on GASCO.

It is very important to understand the business culture of the country where the company is operating otherwise the company will have to suffer loss and get a bad reputation in the market. Same goes for GASCO, understanding the culture of the country is very important for any company as it affects the business directly. Besides the culture is a force that is very complex as it varies from country to country, it also has a significance influence on the operation and activities. The culture of any country includes the religion, language, ethnic group, ideology and the way of living of the people of that country.

There is special need for the company to have complete knowledge of these cultural factors (Becker, 2000). Future of the Organization GASCO is doing well at the current stage there is a lot of scope for the company to grow rapidly as it has made a good name in the domestic as well as the international market. But in the future the company has to be very careful and attentive because of the new entrants and the competitors. Besides this there is a special need for the company to constantly revise its strategies and keep itself technologically updated as technology will play a vital role in future.

In short the Future of GASCO is very bright and promising as it has made a good reputation but it has be careful and do some little changes as it is the need of the time and era New competitive strategy for GASCO Following is the new strategy for the organization that will helpful in future to achieve greater success:

Use ISO certification to deliver:

• Increase shareholder value
• Enhance customer-satisfaction
• Improve employee morale awareness and motivation
• Reduce waste and increase productivity.
• proficient and effective processes
• To become employer of choice.

Expansion and excellence:

• Several Multi-dollar expansion activities in the pipelines
• To improve performance in long-term gas resource management, asset integrity, become employer of choice; emiritization and achieve excellence in all business activities.

Compliance and certification:

• To establish and maintain quality standards and identify inefficient ones.
• Map all major business procedures and processes
• Verify the implementation of procedures.

Effectiveness and optimization: To create an environment that is continuously improved.

Integrated quality management system:

• Integration of ISO 9001with ISO 14001, ISO 29001 and ISO 18001.
• To build commitment and ownership at all levels.

Marketing and promotional activities:

• Sponsor different business and charity events.
• Promote the products through ads on TV, Billboard and newspaper.

Dealing with changes in the industry in future:

• Keep up to date info regarding the different laws effecting the business
• Keep some margin in cost.

References

1. Bettis, R, A and Hitt, M, A. (2007). The new competitive landscape. Strategic management Journal, volume 16, pages 7-19. Retrieved August 13, 2010. From Wiley Online library.
2. Mintzberg, H and Ghoshal, S. (2003). The strategy process: concepts, contexts, cases. 4th edition. Location: Pearson education.
3. Becker, K. (2000). Culture and international Business. Location: Routledge Abu Dhabi Gas Industries Ltd. (2007 to 2009).
4. GASCO Abu Dhabi Gas Industries Ltd. Retrieved August 13, 2010, from http://www. gasco. ae/gasco2007/index. html
5. Fine, L, G. (2009). The SWOT Analysis: Using Your Strength to Overcome Weaknesses, Using Opportunities to Overcome Threats. Location: Booksurge Llc