Microsoft Strategy Assignment PDF

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Assignment on Strategy. This is a part of strategy course to analyze Mircosoft current startegy...

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Project Option 1: Microsoft's Turnaround Under Nadella (Link)

Name : Shashank for Courser Final CAPSTONE Project

Shashank – Project 1: Microsoft

Introduction Question 1: Compare Microsoft’s strategies under Ballmer and Nadella Two months after Satya Nadella took over Microsoft in 2014, the company closed its almost $8 billion purchase of Nokia. It was a catastrophic deal and represented the last vestiges of the Steve Ballmer era. While Nadella inherited Nokia, an acquisition that was struck the prior year, he’s taken a very different approach to dealmaking than former CEO Ballmer, and has been lauded for luring large and growing communities of users and developers to a company that had become notorious for missing out on technology trends. After Nadella Joined, Microsoft had to change the strategy immediately, the sooner they start, the more rewarding the new approach will likely be. Microsoft said that it’s spending $7.5 billion on GitHub, a popular platform used by software developers to collaborate and share code. GitHub, which was last valued at $2 billion by venture investors, is light on revenue because a lot of customers use the free version. But it’s a service that’s been almost universally adopted by developers. Similarly, when Microsoft made its biggest purchase ever in 2016 — the $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn — Nadella was bringing in by far the most popular website used by working professionals to connect with one another. That’s an immensely valuable data source that Microsoft can weave into other products, like its software that’s used by salespeople.The business-level strategy use can help Microsoft focus on ways of obtaining and satisfying their consumers, how they offer their products and services to meet the needs of the market their products are based in and increasing profits. Microsoft Corporation should concentrate on putting themselves in a position where they are staying competitive and up to date on market trends and technology changes. The two potential business level strategies that Microsoft Corporation should converge on is cost leadership and differentiation. Since the technology field is very competitive and there are many businesses that are innovating products that rival Microsoft cost leadership should take part in winning over customers through aggressive pricing and making profits through high efficiency. Cost leadership is one strategy where a company is the most competitively priced product on the market, meaning it is the cheapest. Microsoft can use cost leadership strategy to discover new customers. Advertising some of its products at a cheaper price will demonstrate to consumers that they could save money, avoid the hassle of other cheaper products that do not work properly, and are not compatible with their devices. This is a business level strategy that put Microsoft products in the consumer hands and build a relationship where the consumers will come back to Microsoft because they will eventually be in the market for newer devices to purchase that are priced higher. Differentiation of Microsoft products in a way of uniqueness can give them the edge to set their prices on a higher scale. Apple Inc. seems to have no problem doing this with their iPhones. The technology industry is competitive, so price differentiation can help Microsoft stand out in the demographic target area of technology. Being the least expensive or the most expensive will rely on the quality and personal experience for Microsoft clients. The Microsoft Office Suite software Shashank – Project 1: Microsoft

and Windows programs separate Microsoft from its competitors by putting definite focus on what kind of audience they are seeking. Convenience and expertise are differentiated business level strategies that can increase customer traffic and establish Microsoft Corporation a place in the technology industry and make their products more attractive Microsoft Potential Corporate Level Strategies Corporate level strategies in Microsoft Corporation expresses the scope of a company’s activities and the way a company’s business processes support company goals. Corporate level strategy for Microsoft center on acquiring a business mix of products that will help the company succeed. At the corporate level strategy Microsoft Corporation should be able to share resources without the necessity to duplicate. A strategic corporate strategy that can allow Microsoft to have more control of the availability and pricing of their products is to buy out a supplier. This is based on vertical integration, which will provide the corporation with better opportunities to differentiate and have suitable control over their products that are going in and out of production. Question : Microsoft started to play in the right areas to achieve new growth essay Before Nadella took over as CEO, Microsofts products were facing poor reception in the market. Microsoft was also facing competition from Apple and Google. The Internal pressure faced by Microsoft is the pressure to grow their market share and form a collaboration with Nokia and Huawei Technologies respectively. Microsoft was like a puddle Before Satya Nadella took over as CEO, Microsoft had started to lose its control over the market. Windows 8 had not performed very well and the company was struggling to make its way into the smartphone revolution. Zune, which was launched to compete against iPod, had been a product failure and to add insult to injury, the customers were losing faith in the company. The industry was shifting from Microsofts windows to Apples iPhone and Googles android resulting in a market share of less than 4%. Even the stock prices had stalled despite increased revenue and profits. Initially, Microsoft talked about having its operating system Windows on every PC but by 2014 the scenario had changed completely. Mobile phones had made PCs obsolete. Microsoft needed a turnaround strategy in order to compete with Apple and Google whose innovations were quickly expanding their market share. Planning and preparing the change Problems with Choice of agent: In an organization, which was undergoing technological change, a manager who was considered an expert was selected to be the change agent. But this decision was proved to be wrong as this manager had no influence over its team. He was unable to communicate the top managements vision of change to the employees. Due to lack of influence, he was not able to stay abreast with the concerns people had with the change process. A person with subject expertise is not necessarily the right person for implementing change. Quality of change relationship: In the same organization a new technological advancement required a certain kind of training. When the employees got this news through grapevine, they resisted the change as they feared to lose their job despite the fact that the management had no such intentions. Due to poor communication with that group that is targeted for change implementation, the organization can face employee resistance at the beginning of change process. If the employees are resistant to change, it can adversely affect the quality of change relationship. Identification of the group to be targeted for change: Sometimes the target of change implementation might be Shashank – Project 1: Microsoft

wrong. For the two organizations which merged recently the focus of the cultural training included the middle and lower level management. However, problems started cropping up when the key people in the organization found it difficult to stay together and work. Specification of the change issues: While defining the organizational change issues managers might completely ignore the main issue and focus on other minor issues while developing an implementation plan. For example, an IT company dedicated its efforts in developing advanced versions of their existing products in order to compete in the market while completely ignoring the fact that the market has shifted to new innovations making their products obsolete. People and Culture While implementing change it is expected that change agent might face resistance from employees it can be both active and passive. When employees stop complying with new organizational norms, they continue to attend the meetings and might appear to agree with the change but do not do anything to fulfill the commitment. The active form of resistance can be seen in the form of sharing their discontent on public platforms and involving in unionism and politics in order to obstruct change process. Proper communication plays an important role in the successful implementation of change. Opportunity to offer feedback should reach every level of the organization till the lowest level. Communication is also important to help employees identify the benefits that the change will bring for them. Listening is also important to create a trusting and employee oriented organization. Another way to lessen the resistance is to link the collaborative behavior of employees with job pe performance. Implementing Change Technological, political and economic policies, change in governance etc. are some of the external variables. Change in leadership and culture are some internal variables. If not taken into account, these variables can result in failure of change implementation. When Apple came up with iPhone Microsoft first denied that success of such a product is a possibility, but currently, the success of iPhone is a well-known fact. Under Steve Ballmer, Microsoft kept innovating products like Windows Vista and search engine Bing but was very late in including technological advancements in its change strategy. So in the case of Microsoft, Technology was the situational variable that they did not take into account and failed in product innovation. It was only after Satya Nadella took over as the CEO, Microsoft was able to meet the pace with innovations happening in IT industry. Sustaining the change Change is the only thing that is constant. In order to survive the fast moving business environment, businesses should embrace change. Technology and innovations are the most important drivers of organizational change. Adapting to this change is important as it increases productivity and saves time. For an evidence-based practitioner, it is important to note that as a change agent, their role as an influencer, communicator and a progressive thinker will play a key role in the success of change management. A future change agent should not only prepare himself/herself with the subject expertise but build leadership skills as well to successfully lead the change implementation by motivating and communicating employees so that everyone in the organization shares the same goals and vision. For managing organizational change successfully, a change agent should cautiously address the fear of change in the minds of employees. Stress caused is directly proportional to the lev el of change experienced. In order to address this fear, change agents should ensure that the employees are heard and the management is communicating the expectations continuously and correctly. Secondly, it should also be ensured that the teams receive training for the skills required for them to stay updated.

Shashank – Project 1: Microsoft

Potential Global Strategies for Microsoft Global strategy consists of being able to distinguish a company’s resources, capabilities and current international position.Microsoft can use global strategies to consider the world as one big market and source for its products and services. Microsoft potential of using global strategies is to increase their brand to be recognized throughout the world and lower labor and input costs deciding what manufacture to select from that have low labor costs. Microsoft Corporation can use global standardization strategy to promote their products internationally. Global standardization in marketing is a standardized marketing approach that can be used internationally. This type of marketing strategy conforms to work across different cultures and countries to promote a product.Microsoft can develop an integrated marketing outline that can be effective across different time zones that will save the company time and money. Recommendation and Rationale After proactively evaluating different strategies for Microsoft to implement in their company. It is important to ensure that the implementation strategy fit the corporation. To confirm effectiveness there need to be an efficient plan to accurately execute the strategy. The recommendation for Microsoft is to implement the subscription model. The subscription model offers consumers a monthly fee to use a service provided by a company. Microsoft can benefit more from this service because subscription models ensure you’re continuously running the most updated version of the software possible, and not just the most updated version of old software. Therefore, Microsoft is even moving towards selling businesses Windows as a subscription .The best thing about using subscription model in a business is that Microsoft 365 business can be assess anywhere in the world and give businesses the opportunity to connect all devices. Remarketing is another strategy that Microsoft can use to advertise their business. Remarketing is a concept where consumers visit a website, leave it and goes to a different website where the previous ad will be display on the new page. This type of tracking tool can amass consumer data for Microsoft and help develop targeted brand marketing. Remarketing gives businesses the opportunity of using specific and tailored ads and offers relating to their experience on the website to lure back indecisive customers. Hence, in simple terms, remarketing gives businesses another chance to close the deal. This type of marketing can help Microsoft Corporation connect with the right target audience to purchase their products and services. Conclusion Microsoft should be aware on how to tailor and adapt their products and services through strategies that do not ignore cultural context. When Microsoft chooses to market itself internationally, it faces a unique set of challenges. While the company wants to maintain a consistent image across different markets, it must also consider the cultural context into which its marketing material is entering. By using the different potential strategies within the corporation of Microsoft they could evaluate the strategies before implementation and make amendments and evaluate again to prevent inaccuracies in the future.

Shashank – Project 1: Microsoft...