Strategic Management Assignment: Business Strategy Of The Sky City Entertainment Group

Question

Task: A Report Based On One Of The Following Newzealand Organisations:

• SkyCity Entertainment Group
• Mainfreight
• ThePort of Tauranga

Choose ONE (1) company from the list of three provided above. Your report is mainly based on information contained in the Annual Report and their company website (These two sources should be referenced but do not count in the Reference List requirements). At this level, it is also expected that you read widely from other relevant academic literature demonstrating that you have consulted resources appropriate for a level seven paper.

You need to show evidence of theory discussed in class through the Power Point slides. Additionally, you need to use databases (such as Business Source Complete and Australia NZ Reference Centre) to investigate thecompany beyond what is shown on the website. Specifically, use the Instructional Words to guide your responses to the report questions in addition tõ the:

• Organisation’s Annual Report
• A minimum of twenty (20) additional justifiable academic sources is expected which must be evidenced in your report (ten (10) in each part).

Your writing must be reflective of an understanding of the material, integration of theory, and a critical evaluation of the company strategy with specific examples.

PART A

1 Demonstrate the linkage of the organisation’s strategy to its vision and mission.

2 Utilising Porter’s five (5) Competitive Forces evaluate the industry environment, and the organisational response from a business-level strategy perspective (3 pages). (15 marks)

3 (a) Examine the global perspectives the company needs to factor into the implementation of their strategy (1-2 pages).

(b) Critically analyse their success OR if these global perspectives have not been considered. Then recommend an approach tied to their strategy (1-2 pages).

4 Select any two (2) of their functional strategies and demonstrate whether these functional level strategies support the organisation’s strategic objectives. If they do not have functional strategies, suggest any two (2) and how these would link to their strategic objectives (2 pages).

5 Analyse any one (1) critical problem the company is facing related to either the functional level, business level or global level perspective AND critically evaluate the company’s response to it (2 pages).

Answer

Linkage between the Organisation’s Strategy to the Mission and Vision

Before discussing the business strategy of the Sky City Entertainment Group, it is important here to discuss the mission and vision of the company. This will help to create a linkage between the strategy of the organisation and mission as well as vision of the company.

The vision of the company is to offer a world-class and high quality casino entertainment to the target customers. On the other hand, the mission of the company is to make every customer happy, make every customer feel like winner, and excite as well as thrill every customer.

Now, it is important to discuss about the organisational strategy of Sky City Entertainment Group. The major organisational strategy is to maintain a strong and healthy relationship with the employees, community members, and other important stakeholders (Huotari and Hamari, 2017). The majority of the customers love to visit the casinos or restaurants or the holiday inns as the management of Sky City Entertainment Group always offers high quality as well as differentiated services. The strong relationship with community members, employees, and other stakeholders allow the company to take care of ultimate need of Sky City Entertainment Group, which is to satisfy the needs of customers. Effective sustainability in business and strong CSR approaches in the business operation processes have helped the management of Sky City Entertainment Group to offer high quality and world class casino entertainment services to the target customers (Andreassen et al., 2016). Moreover, value-addition in different services has significantly assisted the management to make every customer happy, make every customer feel like winner, and excite as well as thrill every customer. Hence, it can be identified that the business operation activities of Sky City Entertainment Group have helped to meet the developed mission and vision quite effectively.

Utilisation of the Porter’s Five Competitive Forces

The utilisation of the porter’s competitive force model will evaluate the impact of micro competitive factors of environment on the business operation process of Sky City Entertainment Group.

Purchasing Power of Buyers
The threat of the purchasing power of the target customers is high enough as the restaurant, travel and tourism, and entertainment industry is highly competitive. Therefore, the demand of target customers for differentiated goods and services can be easily identified. Hence, the organisations have to react according to the needs of the target customers. Therefore, it is quite obvious to state that the threat of the purchasing power of the target customers is really high.

Purchasing Power of Suppliers
The threat of the purchasing power of the suppliers is really low in this industry for Sky City Entertainment Group considering the availability of numerous skilled, cost efficient and time efficient suppliers. The company already has its supply chain partner and the relationship between the two partners is healthy enough (Shaw, 2016). Therefore, the company management of Sky City Entertainment Group cannot find any kind of the supply chain related threat (Buhalis and Foerste, 2015).

Threat of the Substitutes
The threat of the substitute is also quite high for the management of Sky City Entertainment Group as the number of different entertainment companies are increasing significantly and rapidly. The entertainment companies other than the casinos and restaurants can be considered as the substitutes (Valos et al., 2016). The example of zoo, water parks, and other types of entertainment options can be considered as the substitutes of Sky City Entertainment Group, whose demands are high among the target customers. Hence, the threat is really very high for the management of Sky City Entertainment Group within the Australian entertainment industry.

Degree of the Industry Rivalry
The degree of the industry rivalry is really high for the management of Sky City Entertainment Group as different small scale as well as large scale organisations are operating in Auckland and across the New Zealand. Different organisations have adopted and implemented different types of competitive strategic approaches in the business operation process to gain competitive advantages (Andrews and Shimp, 2017). Hence, the degree of competition is so high.

Response of Organisation from the Perspectives of Business Level Strategy

The organisational management of Sky City Entertainment Group has responded to the above mentioned threats, such as high purchasing power of the target customers, high competition, and higher demand of substitute entertainment options through the adoption and implementation of the business strategies (Abbas et al., 2018).

An organisation can adopt three different types of business level strategies, such as cost leadership strategy, differentiation strategy and focus strategy. However, the management of Sky City Entertainment Group has adopted the combination of the service differentiation strategy and cost leadership strategy (Charter, 2017). The hotel and hospitality services, travel and tourism services, restaurant services, food items, and casino services are available for the target customers at the competitive price level. Hence, it can be stated that the company has adopted cost leadership strategy to reduce the threat of high competition in market and high purchasing power of the target customers in market. On the other hand, the company management has adopted the service differentiation strategy to reduce the threat of the substitutes in the industry (Gummenson, 2017). The cost leadership strategy has helped to reduce the business operation cost that helped in offering differentiated services at economic price level. Most importantly, the demands and needs of the target customers are being satisfied and met through the adoption and implementation of the business level strategies. These business level strategies also have helped in maximise profitability and ensure business growth.

Examination of the Global Perspectives

The company already has established a strong customer base across New Zealand through its diversified services. In addition, the company is also offering value-added and differentiated services to the target customers at the competitive price level. Hence, it is acceptable that the management of Sky City Entertainment Group has become highly successful in adopting global perspectives to become successful in business (Wedel and Kannan, 2016).

Now, it is also important for the management of Sky City Entertainment Group to consider more global perspectives and apply them into the business operation activities. First of all, this is important here to adopt both traditional and contemporary promotional strategies to strengthen the brand awareness (Felix et al., 2017). In terms of the contemporary promotional activities, it will be essential to consider the search engines, online social media applications, mobile applications, e-mail marketing, telephonic marketing, website marketing, and television marketing can create a strong awareness of the brand name of products and services among the target customers. In terms of the traditional promotional approaches, the management of Sky City Entertainment Group also can consider newspapers, magazines, billboards, radio ingles, and hoardings to create brand awareness of the products and services among the target customers (Bianchi and Mathews, 2016). These two practices are strongly identified by the large scale, medium scale, and small scale firms in the business operation process to improve the overall brand awareness. Hence, these two traditional as well as modern activities are considered to be two important global perspectives, which need to be adopted and implemented by the management of Sky City Entertainment Group (Ramanathan et al., 2017).

Critical Analysis of Success or Failures and Recommendations

In terms of success, the management of Sky City Entertainment Group has adopted customer centric strategies in business operation process. The company maintains a strong and healthy relationship with the employees, community members, and other important stakeholders. High value-addition in different services has significantly assisted the management to make every customer happy, make every customer feel like winner, and excite as well as thrill every customer (Atwal and Williams, 2017). Effective sustainability in business and strong CSR approaches in the business operation processes have helped the management of Sky City Entertainment Group to offer high quality and world class casino entertainment services to the target customers. The majority of the customers love to visit the casinos or restaurants or the holiday inns as the management of Sky City Entertainment Group always offers high quality as well as differentiated services. The strong relationship with community members, employees, and other stakeholders allow the company to take care of ultimate need of Sky City Entertainment Group, which is to satisfy the needs of customers. Hence, it can be stated that the adopted factors have become highly successful for Sky City Entertainment Group in New Zealand (Kannan, 2017). If the mentioned world perspectives, such as traditional as well as contemporary promotional approaches are not considered in the business operation process, it might affect the degree and level of overall brand awareness of the future services in the market place.

In terms of recommendation, it can be stated that the management of Sky City Entertainment Group needs to adopt the stakeholder engagement approach in order to apply all the strategies according to the needs and satisfaction of the stakeholders. A company can have two types of stakeholders, such as external and internal stakeholders (Sheth, 2017). External stakeholders of Sky City Entertainment Group are customers, government agencies, suppliers, community members, and policy makers. On the other hand, the internal stakeholders are employees, management, CEO, board members, managers, decision makers, and departmental leaders. Most importantly, the company management of Sky City Entertainment Group should consider the advertisers and marketing agencies as the important external stakeholders in order to promote the services and products among the target customers.

Functional Strategies and Strategic Objectives

Two functional strategies of Sky City Entertainment Group are mentioned here. First of all, it is important to maximise the value of the licenses of the existing three casinos by taking care of the quality standards of the food items, drinking items, and services. Secondly, it is important to ensure a strong partnership with the important stakeholders to meet the demands of the target customers (Verma et al., 2016). These function level objectives always support the overall organisational objectives as the achievement of functional objectives significantly help in meeting the developed strategic objectives.

The first strategic objective of the company is to offer a world-class and high quality casino entertainment to the target customers. On the other hand, the second strategic objective of the company is to make every customer happy, make every customer feel like winner, and excite as well as thrill every customer (Hofacker et al., 2016). The above mentioned functional objectives can significantly assist in meeting the developed strategic objectives. High value of casinos and strong quality standards is the first strategic objective and it can help to make every customer happy, make every customer feel like winner, and excite as well as thrill every customer. High value means different kinds of value-added services, which are important for attracting the target customers to casinos. These value added services help to motivate the customers to visit in huge numbers and the quality management is helping the customers to make happy. Secondly, the consideration of the strong partnership with the suppliers, community members, and the important stakeholders helps to offer a world-class and high quality casino entertainment to the target customers (Miles et al., 2015). Community members are considered to be the major stakeholders in this segment. The casino business is becoming highly successful only because of value-added services to the target customers across the communities. The sustainable services and corporate social responsibility activities have helped the community members as well as different important stakeholders to make Sky City Entertainment Group a successful entertainment company. Like these ways, the functional strategies are strategically related with the strategic objectives.

Analysis of Problem and Response of the Company

The major problem of the company is lack of brand awareness of the newly offered services and it is highly important for the management to strengthen the brand image of each and every service in this contemporary era of competitive business environment. It is important for the company to create effective promotional approaches to overcome the ongoing problems. The entertainment industry has become highly competitive as it is clear from the conducted micro environment industry analysis that the demand for the substitutes have improved significantly. Moreover, the degree of competition also has improved significantly. Overall, Sky City Entertainment Group has adopted and implemented a strong service differentiation and business diversification strategy. But, it will be essential to create strong awareness of the introduced services among the target customers.

In terms of the traditional promotional approaches, the management of Sky City Entertainment Group also can consider newspapers, magazines, billboards, radio ingles, and hoardings to create brand awareness of the products and services among the target customers. These two practices are strongly identified by the large scale, medium scale, and small scale firms in the business operation process to improve the overall brand awareness (Hapsari et al., 2017). This is important here to adopt both traditional and contemporary promotional strategies to strengthen the brand awareness. In terms of the contemporary promotional activities, it will be essential to consider the search engines, online social media applications; mobile applications, e-mail marketing, telephonic marketing, website marketing, and television marketing can create a strong awareness of the brand name of products and services among the target customers. Hence, these two traditional as well as modern activities are considered to be two important global perspectives, which need to be adopted and implemented by the management of Sky City Entertainment Group. Apart from these, it is also acceptable that the marketing managers of Sky City Entertainment Group should consider sponsorship approaches and public relation approaches in order to ensure a strong awareness of all kinds of services.

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