Strategic Management Assignment: Implementing VRIO Framework on Situation of “Blood Diamond”

Question

Task: Students are required to submit a Strategic Management assignment on the movie “Blood Diamond”. Please ensure that the VRIO framework should be considered while writing the paper on the strategic management.

Answer

Introduction
The concept of strategic management explored in the strategic management assignment helps any firm or any organization to implement steps or procedures in a proper manner such that the risks and threats management can be implemented to gain a competitive advantage in the market. Strategic management follows a series of procedures which is needed to be implemented in order to achieve the desired goals and objectives (Hitt& Duane Ireland, 2017). Strategic management involves planning, monitoring, analysis, and assessment of any initiatives before theyare being started (Barney &Hesterly, 2010). Modifications in corporate environments enable companies to continually evaluate their performance strategies. Business culture, employee skills and skills, and organizational structure all are key elements that affect how a company is able to achieve its objectives. It is difficult to survive in a changing market climate and inflexible businesses (Dvorskýet al., 2020). Creating a barrier between strategy formulation and execution will make it impossible for administrators to decide when goals have been effectively achieved.

Blood Diamond
Blood Diamond (2006) is a film directed by Edward Zwick and co-produced by Jennifer Connelly, Leonardo DiCaprio, and DjimonHounsou and it is a political war thriller movie made in 2006. The title refers to the diamonds mined and sold to fund wars, profiting warlords and diamond industries all over the world is used as blood diamonds. The film's climax refers to a meeting which is held in 2000 in Kimberley, South Africa, which relates to a landmark meeting on blood diamonds movie (Cankurtaran, 2019).The movie shows excellent use of strategic skills used by the Vandy to escape from the warlord Captain Poison and the Government agents and hide the precious pink diamond. In the end, Vandy survives the situation and successfully brought the real intentions of van de Kaap and his criminal intentions when he tried to sell the diamond to the representative of Van de Kaap and Maddy took the picture of the deal between Vandy and Van de Kaap for huge sum of money and publishes it in the article which has helped in exposing the intentions of Van de Kaap (Ng et al., 2020). Even Vandy in the conference held in Kimberley on blood diamond has shared his experience and received a standing ovation. The proper implementation of strategy by Vandy and Maddy has exposed the criminal and it shows how strategic management helps in achieving the goals and objectives.

VRIO Framework
VRIO is used to analyze the situation faced by Vandy in the movie and how Solomon Vandy and Archer escapes from the prison and survives the cruelty of warlord Poison and expose the corrupt executive Van de Kaap. This will help in understanding how utilizing the VRIO framework can achieve the set objectives and goals in a competitive environment. The VRIO framework consists of the four stages or four question framework is Value, Rarity, Imitability, and Organization (Miethlich& Oldenburg, 2019).

Value
In the value part, certain questions are needed to be considered that as to whether proper resources are being provided to the consumer and whether the opportunities are being capitalized with internal capabilities or threats are being mitigated with internal capabilities or not (Buzatuet al., 2019). Answering these questions shows that whether the company is at a competitive disadvantage or in competitive advantage (Bogerset al., 2019). If it is No, then the company is at a competitive disadvantage and if it is Yes then the company can focus on the next step that is the Rarity. The value phase in strategic management can be understood from certain scenes of the movie which can be utilized as an understanding of what valuable resources are to gain a competitive advantage. A huge pink diamond is found in the river by Vandy and Captain Poison attempts to take the diamond from Solomon Vandy, but government troops raid the area unexpectedly.

Before being seized, Vandy buries the stone in a safe place. Poison and Vandy both hold captive but along with them,Danny Archer was also held captive since he was held for smuggling diamonds. Danny Archer was a Rhineland mercenary and his family was killed in the Rhodesian Bush War. The veteran was a part of 32 South African Border War battalion and Archer was prisoned while he was attempting to smuggle diamonds into Liberia. The main target of the government soldier was to capture the crooked mining executive of South Africa, Rudolph van de Kaap. In the prison,Vandy tells Archer about the diamond and Archer arranges to release himself and Vandy from jail after having heard the pink diamond. Col. Coetzee, a former Afrikaner with the South African Security Force in the Apartheid period and who controls a private military company, is heading to Cape Town to visit his boss. Archer to sell the diamonds and leave that place forever but Coetzee has some other plans and tells him that it as a consolation for the failed trafficking mission of Archer. Archer goes back to Sierra Leone and meets Vandy, promising to help him locate his family if he is helping him to getadiamond for his own purpose. So, in order to achieve the desired aim, both Vandy and Archer have set out for their own resources to reach their goals and both of them are dependent on one another.The film shows various conflicts in its various scenes and it must be understood that the cause behind the different issues has been the international sanctions that make Sierra Leone illegally selling diamonds in the world (Feng, 2017). This was achieved by an organization like the UN that was supposed to minimize the potential for diamonds to finance warlords' private wars in the area of West Africa. Vandy and Archer made use of the available resources to reach their advantage point to gain control of the situation.

Rarity
In rarity mainly it is being seen that whether the scarce resources are being controlled properly or not and check whether any resources that are hard to find are being utilized since the consumers might demand it (Soboci?Ska, 2017). If it is No, then the company is in competitive parity that means the resources are present but it is common which makes it difficult togainacompetitive advantage in the market. If it is yes that means the company has to see the Imitability (Ahmad et al., 2020). The concept of rarity can be explained with a scene of the movie where the RUF rebels are escalating hostilities on Freetown and Vandy's son Dia was held captive to serve under Captain Poison as a child soldier. Archer and Vandy fled to Lungi by hiding themselves and Vandy met his wife and daughters but found his son captured by the RUF. Archer will be providing details of the illegal diamond trade by meeting Maddy Bowen who is an American Journalist. The scene has a famous dialogue in which Coetzee says to Danny, "This red earth is in our skin, they say it's red from all the blood from fighting over the land. This is home you’ll never leave Africa".In reply, Danny says, "If you say so, sir,". Maddy Bowen can be taken as a rare resource for Vandy and Archer to escape the town and reveal the dark secret of the diamond smuggling that goes on in that region and reunite with his family.

Imitability
If it is No that means the resources are of value and rarity but it is easily affordable or can be easily copied which means the competitive advantage is temporary (Trigeorgis&Reuer, 2017). If it is Yes, then the resource is rare and it is difficult to imitate (Fascioneet al., 2018). This concept of Imitability can be understood from certain scenes of the movie in which in order to smuggle gems, Danny worked for Colonel Coetzee, who was to smuggle diamonds to Liberia from Sierra Leone. When he and Solomon team up with the gem, Danny wants to leave Africa. It's not seen where Solomon discovers a river diamond and keeps it secret. With the aid of Maddy, Archer, and Vandy ride as journalists through the press convoy but rebellious forcesattacked the convoy and forced all the three to escape. On the way, they meet Kamajor who was a military man when they wander through the jungle who takes them to a nice place called Benjamin Kapanay. While

Kamajorwas wounded by a RUF soldier on the way when he offers them help to reach Kono.

The trio reached Kono after a struggling journey, during which the rebel forces are repulsed by Coetzee and his private army who made a deal with the government of Sierra Leone.The two of themwent to the camp of Captain Poison and Maddyleaves the place with her story about the whole incident. Dia son of Vandy who is posted in the RUF garrison, faces Vandy, but he refuses to recognize his father because he was brainwashed. Archer informs Coetzee about the location who performs made both air and ground assaults on the camp as per the coordinates of the locations provided by Archer. Vandy finds Captain Poison and kills him but Coetzee out of greed held Dia captive forcing Vandy to show him the gem, but Archer killed Coetzee who discovers that Coetzee will kill both of them to get the stone.Archer admits that he was deadly wounded and tells Vandy to take the stone and sell it for the better future of his family. Archer made the last phone call for Maddy who is in Cape Town and tell her to complete her article and help Vandy and his son to fly them to safety and help them to reveal the secrets about Kaap. After this he bids final farewells to her and before dying, Archer finally enjoys the gorgeous African scenery. Archer can be taken as imitable in this case scenario who proved himself valuable and showed rare friendship for Vandy to sacrifice himself to protect them such that they can live and reveal the real truth.

Organization
If it is No that means it would be difficult to understand the importanceof the expensive asset entirely without the internal organization and assistance (Dzwigol, 2020). This means that the corporation has an unused strategic edge and wants to reassess how the necessary strategies can be accomplished (Galvão&Henriques, 2018). If it is Yes, that means the four elements of the VRIO system have been correctly established and the company has accomplished the ultimate objective of a sustainable competitive edge. This can be understood from the final scene of the movie where Maddy helps Vandy to make a deal with the Van de Kaap representative and took picture of the dealing and published it in her article to expose Van de Kaap's criminal intentions. If Maddy did not help Vandy then it would have never been possible for Vandy to tell the real truth about the diamond and criminal activities that are going on in Africa.

Table 1: VRIO analysis of Blood Diamond

Conclusion
The above analysis helps in the understanding of the importance of the VRIO framework in strategic management as it helps in understanding the procedure using which competitive edge can be gained. The analysis of the movie Blood Diamond with the help of the VRIO framework shows the masterpiece that is being created in the movie which is still applauded by the audience after so many years have passed by after the movie is being released where Archer, Vandy, and Maddy strategic planning helped them to achieve the desired result. Strategic management is critical in business because it helps a business to analyze areas of business growth. They will also either pursue an analytical approach that determines emerging risks and opportunities or merely follow the guidance. Given the organization's structure, a corporation may decide to follow either a prescriptive or descriptive strategic management strategy. Strategies for development and implementation are illustrated in a prescriptive model.

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