Strategic Management Assignment Analyzing Generic Strategy Programs For BHP

Question

Task:
Strategic Management Assignment Task:
Explore the generic strategy programs available for the four stakeholders of BHP. You are to provide recommendations on the most suitable strategic approach for each stakeholder type discuss strategy implementation and review the importance of strategic leadership for BHP.

Assessment Instructions

1. Generic Strategy Programs

   Based on week four workshop discussions, you are to analyse the generic strategy programs available for each of the Swing, Defensive, Offensive and Hold stakeholders.

2. Recommended Strategy

   Based on the analysis of generic strategy options, recommend a specific strategic program for each of the stakeholders.

3. Strategy Implementation

   Based on workshop five discussions, analyse different elements of strategy implementation in the context of recommended strategies identified for BHP.

4. Strategic Leadership

   Based on workshop seven discussions, analyse the importance of strategic leadership for strategy development and implementation at BHP.

Answer

Executive Summary
The investigation carried on this strategic management assignment signifies that the regularly changing scene based life has set up another test before BHP as it has to consider the positive as well the negative effects of the condition. As BHP is the focal point of the partner, see the prototypical in which the key partners, similar to Purchasers, Contenders, and Providers, greatly affect BHP Partner. This investigation will isolate all partners in four classifications - Hostile, Cautious, Hold, and Swing Classification. We will, at that point, expand their conduct by understanding their Agreeable potential, serious danger, and real conduct while taking into the thought of their genuine intentions.

Proprietors go under guarded classification, and friends ought to strengthen current convictions about the organization. Shoppers go under hostile class, and friends should try to make the most of on any accessible chances. Providers go under hold classification, and friends should utilize their current projects to invalidate any danger. Contenders go under the swing classification, and friends should attempt to alteration runs and acquaint new thoughts with using them at their preferred position.

Introduction
BHP Billiton is one of the major international resource company that is formed under the merger of Billiton PLC and BHP Ltd in 2001. The company so one of the major mining companies that majorly involved in producing iron, silver, aluminum, copper, steel, oil, and gas. The company also takes part in transportation and engineering. The headquarter of the company is in Melbourne, Australia. BHP is considered as the leading Resource Companyof the world due to the extraction of mineral resources, oil, and gas. The company has more than 72,000 contractors and employees, mainly in Australia and in the USA. The BHP sold its products across the world, having sales and marketing that has been led through Houston, USA, and Singapore. The company functions under the name of Dual Listed Company and has structured two parent companies, namely BHP Group Limited and BHP Group PLC, that are operated under the single economic entity (Billiton, 2012).

The BHP Company has an amalgamated board of management. For the sake of doing so, the company has adopted the strategies that provide the best competences and the best commodities, best assets, and the finest stakeholders to create the long term worth and the high revenues. So the study aims to assess the generic strategy programs that are mainly available for the identified stakeholders and to provide a recommendation on the basis of analysis. This will lead to the implementation of the strategy and further incorporate strategic leadership

BHP Model View with Stakeholders

Stakeholders of BHP
Here are the stakeholder of BHP:

Defensive Government
The government is the main stakeholder in BHP. This mainly includes the South Australian, Australian, and the representatives of the territory government, government agencies, and their service providers. They provide the original atmosphere for the management to embellishment the business by putting the trust in them. The main goal of these shareholders is to maximize wealth and become a financial superpower in the market.

Offensive Employees
This group mainly includes employees and contractors who majorly involved in the mining activities.

Customers – Category - Hold
This could help to provide the new customer's range and to make more interactions by promoting their services and products. This could help to add more value and receive a mixed response. The reason is that the customers are looking for refined and new experiences (Black, 2007).

Investors -Category - Swing
The benefit is to provide the benefit and offer similar services, which result in bringing new ideas and experiences through the company. They also want to take the customer's stream towards them.

Suppliers – Category - Hold
There are several suppliers for the company, and they are non-exclusive and manage the quality of the product. The objective is to supply the products not to the region but to the international market.

Generic Strategy Program
Here is the given generic strategic program that is currently available for BHP in Australia.

Swing Investors
This is that category who could greatly affect the services and products of the company in the market. There is a need for the BHP Company to implement that strategy program that could help to nullify the threats of the company. Here are the selected options that could be related to the BHP Company.

1. The current threat of the copyright has raised the threat of the company on BHP, where the competitors have raised the legal scrutiny as well. The company can make lobby to the government bodies that could push this long battle in order to decrease the faith of the users in some other competitors and retain the market share.
2. BHP Company could negotiate with the competitors and make a union with each other. This could help to permit the user to experience the facilities and the products of each other as well. This will also help to allow the BHP to retain their users and to keep the users at the same time by adding more.
3. The Company has introduced the revolutionary program that could help to provide a more refined version of the products and the raw materials that could become catchier to the customers. The customers will then shift from other competitors to the BHP Company and have different experiences (Dwyer., 2011).

Offensive Employees
This category plays a vital role in achieving the objectives of the Company. So there is a need to get the full gain out of them. In this regard, the given options have been utilized:

1. The company is recently targeting the group that is focusing on purchasing the raw material in bulk, and they introduce the interface or provide the services that could appeal to the target group. This could help open the wide stream of new customers.
2. The BHP Company has introduced more quality raw material alongside typical competitors across the world. However, the introduction of the new refined material can able to convince the customers, and the organization wants the same thing.
3. Although the refined material got some criticism and both the organization which has been openly accepted by the company to make the changes and to incorporate the change to provide the improved version (Hill & G, 2009).

Defensive Government
BHP Company has introduced the strategic program for the shareholders so that they could retain the confidence in the organization. The given below options help elaborate the defensive shareholders.

1. The shareholders could show strong and financial feasibility and the innovative and refined products that could help maximize the wealth of the company. This has been affirmed with the affirmation from the reports in which the message has been given to the shareholders.
2. The BHP Company will tend to allow its shareholders to the ballot before the expansion into the new marketplace. This will result in allowing the shareholders and raising their confidence

Hold Customers
Customers are considered as that category that is considered less destructive and helpful to comprehend the position of the company, which is as below:

1. BHP Company checks the information and content that has been providing by the dealers and assess that is required to the normal and to the assessment related to the periodic that should be made.
2. The company is trying to generate a long-lasting association between the contractors by generating the exclusive contracts that could keep the company committed towards the suppliers.
3. The company has to encounter with the customers to inform all the time about the new products and the services that could make the role easier (Black, 2007).

Strategy Implementation
Based on the recommendation, it is evident that the company should focus on strategic implementation that could help achieve the goals of the company. In light of the above recommendation, the following strategies are as below:

Cost Leadership Strategy:
The given strategy tens to allow the company to develop the edge that could enable the company to lead the market from the competitors and take away the sales from the competitors. To achieve the cost leadership strategy, the company should follow the two main methods, which are:

1. Increase the profit by the decrease in the cost and to charge the industry average.
2. Increase the market share and charge the low price.

Differentiation Strategy:
The considered strategy mainly includes the product differentiation of the company from the competitors by making the improve quality products. This strategy depends on the support, functionality, and the customer's durability. To implement this, there is a need for good market research and to provide product development. This can be achieved by developing marketing as an effective strategy (Smith., 2012).

Focus Strategy:
The strategy follows the strategy that mainly includes the focus in the market and to understand the dynamic of the market with the customer requirements. This could develop well-specified or low-cost products for the market. This strategy implementation could focus on differentiation and low-cost strategy.

Strategic Leadership Development
Strategic leadership can be explained as the capability of the leader to inspire others who can willingly participate in the right decision making to give the right direction to the organization for achieving the objectives and long term future success. The importance of strategic leadership holds great importance by implementing the various leadership approaches to influence the vision, including the right direction of growth and success of the organization. To deal with the change, the senior management develops specific indicators based on the skills for the development of strategy and the implementation. It orders to bring positive change; it also needs the strategic leaders who can be beneficial in guiding the right direction, but also provide a sense of developing the ownership (Finlayson, 2010).

Significance of the strategic Leadership
The importance of strategic leadership can best be felt by using the various styles of leadership management; it can help develop the right strategy to remain in the competitive environment from the perspective of economic and technological changes. The strategic leadership is important in the perspective of BHP, which is an Australian resource-based company, which can be helpful in developing the widespread vision of the employees, as BHP is the resource-based company and the true leadership can be helpful in boosting the morale of the employees and also develop in them the true sense of unity and the right direction, which can be beneficial to implement the major change within the organization.

As it has been observed that by reading the whole workshops, strategic leadership is important for bringing positive change in the organization. Therefore the strategic change can be done in the form of restructuring and allocating the resources as specific to each unit to achieve the organizational goals. The company has made the strategy in order to gain the business objective through the completion of the mergers, thus by keeping the mergers by BHP limited and Billiton, they had declared themselves as the leading group.

After the merger, the group has declared the $ 38 billion enterprise value, along with major diversification in the countryside as the CEO and the Managing Directors are the right kind of leadership which can be helpful to motivate their employees by guiding them the right path and enhance their productivity in the form of achieving the desired goals. In the workshops, the importance being given to the division of the stakeholders and allocating the resources on the need of the organization. Thus it can be helpful in the right decision-making process (Black, 2007).

The importance of strategic leadership has been felt for the right kind of decision making, which can bring bright prospects to the company. Thus the strategy to merge the group has got many benefits in the form of monetary strength, international scope, and it can also help manage the right kind of skilled human resource for the expansion. Thus the strategic implementation can provide the benefits to gain more clients and shareholders in the form of more business opportunities. In light of the above mention strategy, the importance of strategic leadership has been felt to achieve the organizational goal and to keep the company in attaining sustainable growth for the bright future. The strategic leadership can help make the business to expand in the diversified direction and work to gain a more profitable business in the international market.

Recommended Strategy
From the above-given discussion, the recommendation related to the stakeholders are as below:

• The BHP Company should develop a biyearly session of negotiation with the competitors that could help maximize the experience of their customers. This alliance among the stakeholders can be beneficial over the competitors and retain the customers as well.
• In addition, the Company should examine and develop the business development strategy to the risky endeavors which are supported by the government as the oil spill has some of the litigation fees and the clearing cost while the change in the demand of the customers makes the stream of the income volatile. So still there is a need to invest in the assets and capital when the prices of the industry are positive.
• BHP Company openly accepted the need and the improvement that could revert back to their previous stock with the improved version, and this will lead to success in future growth.
• There is also a need to justify the confidence of the shareholders, and also, the company should focus on the new strategies (Billiton, 2012).
• Annual or bi-annual meetings should discuss the innovative and new strategies that could retain the faith of the customers.
• There is also a need for the offered quality by the suppliers, and the company should stab to generate long term and retain relationships with the stakeholders. Also, well-knowledgeable suppliers can result in a robust and strong relationship to achieve the objectives.
• The need for strong governmental support is required to train the mining employees to achieve high growth.
• Freight expenses are considered the biggest part of the total cost; this is due to the increasing petrol cost and transportation expenses, which is high in the operations. So there is the need for BHP to focus on sustainable development like the health of their employees and their safety options, which could lead to a strong relationship (Finlayson, 2010).

Conclusion
Hence it is concluded that the company is following the different plans that are highly associated with the strategic decision making in the organization. In this regard, the above mentioned generic options help make the strategies and to provide the recommendations that could bring the company to the top level, and the implementation of the strategy is helpful in this regard. So the different stakeholders have been recognized and to provide the solution in their perspective.The analysis of the stakeholder and Development of strategy Report for BHP that can outline Consumers, shareholders, and Competitors play a key role in this organization and their achievement. Such stakeholders are correlated to the others. in this regard, it is vital for BHP to adopt the generic strategies that could maximize the capacity of the company by nullifying the errors. On the basis of such issues, the options that are available for the company can be recommended to form the strategy.

References
Billiton, B., 2012. amongst FORTUNE Magazine/ Hay Group World’s Most Admired Companies.. http://www. haygroup. com/downloads/au/misc/hay_group_-_fortune_press_release. pdf Created 07/03/12.

Black, J. A. K. E. A., 2007. BHP Billiton Ltd (BHP) http://www. reuters. com/finance/stocks/overview? symbol=BHP(accessed 22/4/2012) BHP Billiton, Strategic Option. http://pierre. benain. free. fr/MBA698%20BHP%20Billiton%20Report. pdf.

Dwyer., 2011. A 2009 perspective of HR practices in Australian mining.. Strategic management assignment Journal of Management Development. 30(4): 329-343(Scholar).

Finlayson, E., 2010. . Exploration and acquisition in the global mining industry.. Paper presented at the World Mining Investment Congress. London..

Hill, C. & G, J., 2009. Strategic Management Theory: An integrated approach.. Cengage Learning. Hubbard.

Smith., C. C., 2012. The Strategy Pathfinder: Core Concepts and Live Cases. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons. BHP Billiton. 2012a. Our Strategy Delivers.. http://www. bhpbilliton. com/home/aboutus/strategy/Pages/default. aspx .