Communicating in Health and Social Care Organisations

Introduction

Communication is a crucial component both for an organization and our everyday life. It is a demonstration through which individuals exchange data with one then onto the next and one place to another. communication procedure could be possible through verbal, talked, composed, non-verbal, for example, utilizing sign, non-verbal communication, motions thus on and visualization such graphs and charts (Fielding, 2006). The most imperative matter of communication is that it must be justifiable to others. In health and social care understanding needs of service, the receiver is very important. If the needs of individuals cannot communicate properly, they are deprived of proper service. So, it is very important for healthcare staffs understanding the ways of communication with service receiver. In other words, removing communication barriers will facilitate better communication with individuals in health and social care service. This report will discuss various theories of communication-related to health and social care contexts and mention inappropriate methods in interpersonal communication in health and social care.  And, describe the appropriate process of communication to meet individual specific needs. In addition, this report will briefly describe the ways that communication process is influenced by values and cultural factors. Moreover, this report will analyze the benefits of using ICT in health and social care with various stakeholders.

                                      

Task One: Demonstration the skills of communication are used and various factors of communication process in health and social care

It is not possible to provide good service to individual, if health and social care staffs are not aware about communication skills and process of communication with individuals. And, there has arisen conflict between individual and health and social care specialist when inappropriate communication processes are used. This section will discuss about communication skills and process of communication in health and social care.

1 (a) Various theories of communication to health and social care contexts

Communication gaps between team members will affect negatively in providing service to the individuals. Moreover, communication gaps between healthcare staffs and service users also deprive service users from getting good services. As a result, there has conflict arise among the parties which hampers in health and social care service. Health and social care staffs should follow humanistic approach when serving a client. Wagner (2014) mentioned that health care staffs should remember that each client possesses unique problems and they require psychological treatment for curing. Humanistic communication approach is psychologically motivated the audiences and collect respect from the audience. Working with a team often conflict arises between colleagues. In addition, often staffs are not cooperating properly with the client. As a result, proper service cannot possible to client and team performance will decrease. This conflict is arising when the perception of others does not match. Moreover, individual outlook to other people also influences in communication. Many people humiliate other because they feel fun by humiliating others. Many people undermine intentionally other person because of jealousy or enmity. This approach is taken place when individual has psychological problems because it is not normal that a person humiliate others. From overcoming this negative approach humanistic theory of communication works better.

John was criticized bone of his colleague and his team members often humiliate health and social care service user by calling them in derogatory names. This approach is not acceptable from health and social care staffs. Disable people come health and social care organization for treatment from curing the problems. So, the client always expects better behavior from health care specialist. John can apply the humanistic theory of communication to pursue his colleagues and the local community to increase a more positive behavior to people with learning disabilities. Pursuing colleagues is always challenging if he/she become someone. To get respect from that colleague's John should check the background of the colleague and need to find out why the person humiliating him. John should approach politely with the colleague though he behaves badly. This positive behaviour of John will impact psychologically on that person. If John reacts negatively the person will continue non-cooperation with John. So, John should have patience and communicate with the colleagues with a smile. With the passage of time psychologically he/she become weak and develop positive behaviour with John and clients of health and social care service.

Many people dislike disable people and neglect them. This approach is bad because any well-fitted people become disable any time through accident or illness. John should explain to the community that disables people are the part of society and they are our father, brother or son. So, we should treat them as a member of our family. Disable people does not need compassion rather they need cooperation. This humanistic communication practice will help John to resolve problems.

1 (b) Communication process influenced by values and cultural factors in health and social care context

The person-centered communication process is very effective in health and social care service. According to Fisher (2005) person-centered communication approach is communicating with individual’s considering personal wants, needs, goals, and desires so that individual become a central part of communication process. For health and social care employees, this person-centered communication approach helps both clients and health specialist in communication. There have different frameworks that are applied in person-centered communication. it is very important to listen to the opinion of client s carefully. When a client expresses his/her opinion then health care specialist can understand the reality of the clients. In addition, the client will feel comfort and satisfaction when health care specialist carefully listens to individual’s opinion. There have some advantages of listening techniques such as more information about clients can be possible to know and clients feel relax mentally by expressing his/her problems. It will help client psychologically because they are feeling inferiority for their disabilities.

Healthcare specialist should show empathy to the client and never humiliate them. Clients are coming health care specialist with hope for better service. They are not able to live freely like a capable person. This issue gives them pain mentally. Reid (2013) mentioned that client feels more mental strength and satisfaction when any person shows empathy towards them. It is important to get respect from the client because advice of healthcare specialist will be abided by the client.

Body language also helps to communicate with clients in the person-centered communication process. Adams (2007) argued that health care specialist should carefully use body language because service taker follows the body expression and try to reach a decision himself. Healthcare specialist never shows bad facial expression and body language that gives a negative message to the client which hurt the client.

Individual’s age, values, cultural belief, social culture, education levels influences in communication with others (Robb, 2004). People do not come in same background and culture. In the UK, there have various religion, race and countries people. The belief, cultures are not same of all. As a result, this influences in communication with others. Similarly, clients and health care specialist communication also influenced by these factors. To serving young disabilities, age, education of health care specialist helps for example; the age of John is 21 years and higher educated. Young disable learners can easily share information with John without feeling shy that will not be with adult health care specialist.

1 (c) Reviewing inappropriate interpersonal communication, analysing effectiveness of organizational system, policies and suggestions ways of improving communication 

Communicating with other is always challenging because there are many barriers such interpersonal, organizational, team effects in proper communication. Communicating with team members are very critical because all members are not holding same culture, belief or outlook towards a thing. So, conflict among team members and client is an inevitable scenario. Root (2015) has described some barriers in team communication such as:

Ø  Ego:  Many employees in team contain a high level of ego that’s why they undermine others. This ego problem creates barriers in teamwork.

Ø  Linguistic barrier: When different countries people work within team often it has seen linguistic problems affects in the communication process.

Ø  Poor role of team leader: The poor role of team leader also negatively affects team communication. If team leader neglects solving conflicting issues affects team communication.

Ø  Lack of respect: If team members do not respect each other then naturally team communication hampers.

Zaineb (2014) has explained some barriers that affect a carer-client relationship. These are as follows:

Ø  Neglect: Many healthcare assistant neglects lower class people and shows an unwillingness to communicate and giving proper healthcare advice.

Ø  Language barrier: Language barriers creates a problem in transferring information properly from both side. The client also failed to share his/her problem and health care consultant also failed to advise properly.

Ø  Gender barrier: Female client often feeling shy to communicate with male health care consultant and vice versa.

Ø  Cultural barrier: Different ethnic people often avoid consulting with other ethnic health care specialist. This cultural barrier effects in the communication process.

There are many strategies that can be adopted by line manager to remove communication barriers and promote good practices within the team members. Pujari (2013) suggested some strategies for overcoming communication barriers.

Ø  Develop interpersonal communication: The line manager should carefully analyze the relationship among employees. He/she should individually sit down with both employees those do not cooperate each other. Line manager should sincerely listen to the speech of both employees. It is to be noted that, line manager should not state that he/she is observing the opinion of employees. Then line manager makes a small sub-team and select those conflicting employees for the team member and assigned them for a specific task for doing. When conflicting individuals work each other there will create an interpersonal relationship that removes the barriers to communication and the conflicting situation will resolve.

Ø  Motivating staffs: Motivation is an important to increase the enthusiasm of staffs. Line manager can motivate staffs those have lack of knowledge in English and insist them to learn English and practice the language within the groups. Line manager should sit down regularly in team meeting and encourage staffs sharing their opinion. Thus way communication barrier will be removed and effective social care service can be possible to provide.

1 (d) Analysing the use of strategies to support users of health and social care services with specific communication needs

Makaton is a language system utilizing signs and symbols to help individuals to communicate (Pollard, 2010). It is developed to support in spoken language and symbols and signs are used speech according to spoken word order. Children and adults can communicate through sign and symbols by using Makaton. It is very effective ways communication and Makaton vocabulary contains 450 words, symbols and signs. According to Zangari (2014) Taking Mats is communication tools uses three sets of picture symbols named top scale, topics and options. Talking mats and Makaton are modern tools of communication where people can share information through symbols, pictures and signs. Makaton and talking mats support person with unclear speech, no speech or those who are not interested to communicate. Some individuals use these for certain period of time whereas some take it as lifetime communication system. This modern information technology facilitates in improving communication between clients and caseworkers in numbers of ways. Client who not capable to verbal communication or has language barrier can communicate with caseworkers and remove communication barriers. On the hand, caseworkers also transfer information to those clients has language barriers or autistics. These modern communication systems removes barrier in proving proper health and social to clients.

1 (e) The impact of legislation, charts and codes of practices in communication process in health and social care

UK government establishes Equality Act-2010, Health and Social Care Act-2012 for proving better health and social care to the people. These acts clearly stated the roles and responsibilities of health and social care service providers. On the other hand, the rights of service users also clearly states. As a result, this legislation, codes removes the ambiguity about the right and responsibilities both clients and carer. It is essential to present six key points of social workers codes and practices outlined by General Social Care Council in training session named “Respect for Diversity”. These are mentioned below:

Ø  The rights and interest of service user and carers  must be protected

Ø   Should develop confidence and trust between service users and carers.

Ø  Encourage the independence of service users during protect them from harm and danger

Ø  Showing proper respect to the rights of service users and making sure that harmful behaviour does not happen

Ø  Increase confidence and public trust in social care services; finally

Ø  Accountability should be done for their quality of works and take responsibility for improving and maintain their skills and knowledge.

The social care workers must abide by these code of conducts in their service.

  

Conclusion

Communication process is an important operational function of every organization. Communication process plays a vital role at every level of organization’s operation. It cannot imagine that without communication process an organization can run. Developing organization communication process is not easy jobs for the management. Many issues such as language, organizational culture, employee’s perception, client’s nature and so on require considering in establishing communication strategies for health and social care organization. Health and social care service develop its communication process considering various types of client. It is important to understand the problems of clients. If carer does not understand the specific need of clients cannot give proper advice. Various communication technologies such as Makaton, Talking Mats successfully reduce communication gaps between carer and service users. it is important to provide training to care about these communication technologies for removing communication gaps. Moreover, for better performance of carer, line manager must be very careful to remove any kind of conflict within the team members.

References

Adams, R. (2007) Foundations of Health and Social Care, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan

Fielding, M. (2006) Effective Communication in Organization, 3rd Edition, Cape Town: Juta and Company Ltd.

Fisher, A. (2005) Health and Social Care, Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publishers.

Pollard, T. (2010) My First Makaton Symbols and Signs, Yorkshire: Tipi Publishing Limited.

Pujari, S. (2013) Important Measures to Overcome the Barriers of Communication, www.yourarticlelibrary.com, [available at http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/business-communication/9-important-measures-to-overcome-the-barriers-of-communication/1006/], [accessed at April 20, 2015]

Reid, L. S. (2013) Promote Person-Centred approaches in Health and Social Care, www.academia.edu, [available at http://www.academia.edu/9762986/Unit_7_Promote_Person-Centred_Approaches_in_Health_and_Social_Care], [accessed at April 20, 2015]

Robb, M. (2004) Communication, Relationship and Care, New York: Psychological Press.

Root, G. N. (2015) Examples of Barriers to Effective Teamwork, smallbusiness.chron.com, [available at http://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-barriers-effective-teamwork-10394.html], [accessed at April 20, 2015].

Wagner, K. (2014) Theories of Communication in Counseling, www.ehow.com, [available at http://www.ehow.com/info_8562916_theories-communication-counseling.html], [accessed at April 20, 2015]

Zaineb, A. (2014) Barriers to Effective Communication in an Organization and Overcoming It, bcommlabindia.com, [available at http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-design/barriers-to-communication], [accessed at April 20, 2015]

Zangari, C. (2014) Talking Mats: A Practical Tool, praacticalaac.org, [available at http://praacticalaac.org/praactical/talking-mats-a-praactical-tool/], [accessed at April 20, 2015]

Apple Inc: Strengths, Weakness, Vision and Mission

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About Apple Inc

Apple is a world leading multinational technology company which is originated in the United States. The headquarters of Apple is in Cupertino, California. The company designs, innovates, develops and sells computer hardware, software, consumer electronics, and online services. The company was founded by innovation king Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne and Steve Wozniak. The company was established on April 1, 1976. As of July 2015, the company employs 115,000 workers where 76,000 are employed in United Sates (Elmer, 2016). In seventeen countries, the company opened 476 retail stores which include 268 stores in US and 208 in other countries since May 2001 (Macrumors.com, 2016). China is the second largest retail footprint of Apple where the company is aggressively expanding its business. Apple operates online iTunes Store, world largest music retailer, and Apple Stores. Apple possesses the high level of brand and customer loyalty all over the world. Arthur D. Levinson is the current Chairman, and Tim Cook is the CEO of Apple Inc.

Products and Services

The company manufactures and sales computer hardware, computer software, consumer electronics, and fables silicon design. The products of Apple are Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, OS X, iOS, watchOS, iLife, and iWork. The services are Apple Store, iTunes Store, App Store, Mac App Store, iBooks Store, iCloud, iOS App Store and Apple Music.

Apple history of foundation

1976-1981: The history of Apple is considered as the most favorite start-ups. The company was started on April 1, 1976. At first, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded the business. Later on, Steve Jobs had convinced Ronald Wayne to join with them. The first product of Apple was Apple I, personal computer kit. It was manually assembled by Wozniak which was first exhibited to the people at the Homebrew Computer Club. People did not take this attempt seriously until Apple II debuted in 1977. In a local trade show, this new version was published. Apple II  has included color graphics and plastic case. It was the first personal computer. After including Apple Disk II and floppy drive, the sales of Apple was boosted up. The company was an increase in size and employees by 1980 when the company released Apple III. In 1981, the company had faced difficulty in selling the computers because of the saturated market condition.

1982-1985: After the historic visit at Xerox PARC in 1979, Jobs along with other engineers started the Lisa project. Unfortunately, Jobs was seen as an unskilled project manager and handed over project Lisa to Mike Markkula. When IBM released their personal computer in 1981, Jobs realized the company was grown up. In 1982, Sculley became the CEO of Apple instead of Jobs. A race broke out between Macintosh team and Lisa team where Lisa team won and started to sell personal computer publicly in 1983. But, it was failed because of limited software and expensive price. After a long confrontation between Jobs and Sculley, the board took a vote where Sculley won as head of Apple and Jobs resigned from the company.

1986-1993: Under the Sculley direction, Apple first lay off its workforce and faced its first quarterly loss. In 1987, Apple introduced the Mac II. It was a powerful computer which supports the Macintosh line a viable. Again Apple came back into the competition with Microsoft after losing exclusive rights to its interface design to Microsoft. By 1990, Mac faced a problem again when Microsoft rolled out with Windows 3.0. This version could run on PC clones in the world. To challenge this situation, Apple made license the Mac OS. Apple released its first generation PowerBooks in 1991 which were an instant success.

1994-2000: PowerMac family was introduced in 1994 by Apple. It was based on Mac PowerPC chip which was a very fast processor developed with Motorola and IBM. In the 1995-95 season, the company faced the extreme worst situation ever because misjudge the market. The company tried to sell their product by low cost, but it did not work. In this circumstance, Spindler was resigned from CEO, and Gil Amelio became new CEO of Apple in 1996. The new CEO did a vast change in corporate structure. The company was to be divided into seven different divisions. In Q4 of that year, the company again showed the face of profit. In late 1996, Apple incorporated NeXT, and thus Jobs again came into the Apple. In 1997, Gil Amelio resigned from Apple because of loss and Steve Jobs took the role of Interim CEO at Apple. In that year, Apple released two new machines PowerBook G3 and PowerMac G3. Jobs declared an exclusive shift in Apple’s OS direction. In 1999, Apple has introduced its new product iBook. In 2000, Apple announced PowerMac G4 Cube. It was the biggest gamble of Steve Jobs.

2001-2015: In 2001, Apple brought a new line of PowerMacs including a new SuperDrive. In this year, Apple first opened retail stores across the United States. In 2002, Apple released flat panel iMac, iPod, and iPhoto a new software. Apple announced iLife, a bundle of the package of iMovie, iTunes, iDVD, and iPhoto. In 2008, Apple launched the App Store, and within a month the store sold sixty million applications. On January 2010, Apple announced iPad which is compatible with iPhone apps and operating system. In 2011, Apple launched iCloud, an online service for photos, software, music, and files. In 2011, Steve Jobs had died while he was acted as Chairman of Apple. From 2011 to 2012, Apple announced the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5. Apple launched new 3 stores in Tokyo in 2014. Now Apple is upgrading its existing products and services.  

Vision and Mission Statement of Apple

Apple has changed their vision and mission statement recently which includes Steve Jobs’ original developed vision and mission statement. Tim Cook, the current CEO of Apple, has introduced the new vision and mission statement of the company which indicates the present position of the company.

Current vision Statement of Apple

The vision statement of Apple focuses on some major issues, such as emphasis on innovation which facilitates Apple’s innovation strategy, simplicity in product design and development, careful selection of new markets, develop unique organisational culture, collaboration with employees, and continued Apple as a global successful business organisation based on excellence and innovation (Rowland, 2015).

Current mission statement of Apple

The mission statement of Apple is unambiguous. The current mission statement of Apple is designed Macs, OS X, iWork, iLife, and professional software. Though iPads and iTunes online store, Apple leads the digital music revolution. Apple is defining the future mobile media though iPhone and App store and computing devices with iPad (Rowland, 2015).

Strengths and weaknesses of Apple

 A company operating without any strength and weakness is absolutely impossible. Apple also consists of several strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths

The strengths of Apple are as follows:

ü  Strong brand loyalty all over the world.

ü  Continuous innovation of new designs and features of products and services.

ü  Simplicity in product design and advertisement.

ü  Strong brand reputation (Sepherteladze, 2015).

Weaknesses

The major weaknesses of Apple are as follows:

ü  The price of Apple products is relatively high compared to other similar products.

ü  The operating system is not open to the third party hence the operating system is used only Apple product which limits its software selling (Mueller, 2010).

ü  Limited distribution network.

ü  Narrow product line.

Major challenges faced by Apple

Apple is facing some major challenges in past several weeks such as

ü  Apple wireless earbuds need to upgrade and ensure only one Bluetooth audio device will be connected at a time to a phone.

ü  Improving software quality and more user-friendly.

ü  Apple is popularly grown as iPhone corporation across the world but the company sales several products and services. So, the company should go beyond the iPhone.

ü  Apple is facing challenges from customers about their product price which is high than other companies.  

ü  Apple business and share price is facing more external pressure (Swartz, 2016).

Apple return on investment

Return on investment measures the cash flow that a company earns against per dollar invested in the company (Brigham and Ehrhardt, 2013). Apple’s return on investment was 23.25% in March 2016, which is lower compared to a previous quarter (Csimarket.com, 2016). In December 2015, it was 25.67%, September 2015 (26.42%), June 2015 (26.46%) and March 2015 (26%). Though the ROI of Apple has decreased, the ROI total ranking has improved to 71 which were 161 in the previous quarter. In 2015, Apple revenue was reached $233.7bn.

As of September 2015, the return of investment of Samsung Electronics was 18.02%. In 2015, the revenue of Samsung was $176.59bn.   In 2015, Nokia revenue was $26.22bn and return on investment was 10.58%. In 2015, Microsoft revenue was $93.58bn and return on investment was 9.65%. So, it is seen that Apple is doing well compare to its rival organisation.

Industry analysis

The technology industry is always changing. The landscape of this sector is defined and redefined with frequent changes of new products and innovation. Both hardware and software companies are facing challenges to grow their business in sluggish market condition. Apple, Nokia, Samsung, Microsoft, IBM and HP all are facing slow return on investment in the first quarter of 2016. The changing consumer preferences drive companies to innovate new features at their product line. For instance, Apple introduced iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 plus. Samsung released S3, S4, S5, S6, S7. Android is released several version of its operating systems etc. Apple is doing well in shrinking market conditions with their iPhone, iPads, and Macs. Microsoft, as usual, retains their leadership by Microsoft Office and Windows software. Unfortunately, Microsoft does not make well with their Lumia mobile. The consumer market is messing seriously that driving out many competitors from business (Wildstrom, 2014). Sony out of the PC business, Samsung lost their significance in U.S., LG is reducing their PC business and focusing on mobile development, and HP has decided to diversify its printer and PC maker into HP Inc, a new startup. On the other hand, Apple is doing very well with their online iTunes Store and App Store. So, it is clear that product and service innovation are playing vital role in technology industry where Apple is successfully done it.

The uniqueness of Apple that makes its different from others

Undoubtedly, in the technology industry, Apple creates a revolution that no other company can do it before. The company is a pioneer in technology products history. The major reasons that make this company unique are;

ü  For any product that Apple develops, people want this product for them.

ü  Apple creates a strong feeling of customers to their products. People, who use Apple item once, rarely shift from this brand.

ü  The product design and operating are easy.

ü  Apple offers unique customer service and in-store experience.

ü  Innovation of unique devices such as iPod, iPad and services such as iTunes, iMovies, iPhoto etc.

These make Apple unique than other technology companies.

Apple is one of the global brand names which do revolution in the technology sector. The company is leading in the product and service innovation. Today’s competitive market, it is very difficult to grow a business with premium price tags but Apple is successfully continuing their business with premium price tags. There has no doubt that Steve Jobs brings Apple into the leader board and other CEOs also contribute as well. Now, it is the time to see how long Apple can hold their leadership in technology sector.

References

Brigham, E. and Ehrhardt, M. (2013) Financial Management. 14^th Edition. Mason: Cengage Learning

Csimarket.com (2016) Apple Inc ROI per quarter. [Online]. Available at: http://csimarket.com/stocks/AAPL-Return-on-Investment-ROI.html (Accessed: 17 May 2016).

Elmer, P. (2016) Amazon now has twice as many employees as Apple. [Online]. Available at: http://fortune.com/2016/02/08/apple-amazon-hiring-spree/ (Accessed: 16 May 2016).

Mueller, J. (2010) Apple-strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. [Online]. Available At: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2010/06/07/apple-strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats.aspx (Accessed: 17 May 2016).

Rowland, C. (2015) Apple’s vision statement and mission statement. [Online]. Available at: http://panmore.com/apple-mission-statement-vision-statement (Accessed: 17 May 2016).

Sepherteladze, S. (2015) Apple SWOT analysis with info graphics. [Online]. Available at: https://inevitablesteps.com/swot-analysis/apple-swot-analysis/ (Accessed: 17 May 2016).

Swartz, J. (2016) Apple faces challenges from every flank. [Online]. Available at: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/01/20/apple-enters-earnings-season-facing-challenges-every-flank/78037798/ (Accessed: 17 May 2016).

Wildstrom, S. (2014) The computer struggles Apple vs. the industry. [Online]. available at: https://techpinions.com/the-computer-struggles-apple-vs-the-industry/36227 (Accessed: 17 May 2016). 

Macrumors.com (2016) Apple Stores. [Online]. Available at: http://www.macrumors.com/roundup/apple-retail-stores/ (Accessed: 16 May 2016). 

An Assignment on Business Strategy

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Introduction

Business environment is chaining continuously all over the world. Since recession 2008, business organisations are suffering seriously about their business growth and profit. Many small and medium size business organisations were shut down and big business organisations are suffering still today. Hence, organisations’ requires reevaluating their business strategy in this slow growth but fierce competitive market (Teece, 2010). Tata Steel Europe, is one of the leading companies in Europe, is suffering loss of profit problem in recent year. Thus there has incurred a possibility of shrinking the business activities and job cut. This report will discuss about the business missions, visions, objectives, goals and core competencies of Tata Steel UK and mention the factors need to be considered during strategy formulation. In addition, this report will analyse strategic position of Tata Steel UK and carrying out an organisational audit. Moreover, the roles and responsibilities of personnel who are in charge of strategy implementation and evaluation of SMART targets of Tata Steel UK will describe in this report.

Task 1: Understanding the process of strategic planning and approaches to strategy evaluation

Date: 6/6/2016

To: Board of directors

Subject: Outlining the process of strategic planning and approaches to strategy evaluation

Tata Steel UK is suffering from loss of profit; hence, the company requires evaluating its current strategic planning and strategic approaches. Based on the evaluation, the company requires formulating change strategic planning and strategic approaches that align the business missions, visions, objectives, goals and core competencies.

1.1.      Tata Steel UK’s business missions, visions, objective, goals and core competencies

Vision: It describes the purpose of business and picture of the future direction of the business (Ristau, 2010). Every business organisation is working for achieving specific vision. A clear and shared vision is essential for a business organisation to operate the business successfully. The vision of Tata Steel is to be the global steel industry benchmark for value creation and corporate citizenship.

Mission: It refers the specific activities of business organisation for specific purpose. Mission is consistent with the vision. The mission of Tata Steel is striving for increasing the powerful industrial base through the effective utillsation of workers and materials.

Objective: It is certain attainment that can be gained through a certain number of steps. Objective is more concrete and structured. Tata Steel’s objective is continuous improvement in product portfolio and operational excellence.

Goal: It refers long-term aims that a business organisation wants to achieve (Norman, 2016). Goal is less structured than objective. Creating long-term value is the goal of Tata Steel.

Core competencies: It refers the special abilities that a business company achieves over its rival organisation and cannot imitate easily (Richard, 2012). The core competencies of Tata Steel are unique brand and environment friendly operation plants which is very rare in steel manufacturing industry.

Clearly stating vision, mission, objective, are an important task of business founders because these clarify the aim of the business organisation. It gives direction to the managers and workers in formulating organisational strategies and paths achieving the targets.

1.2.      Factors required to be considered during formulating strategic plans

Strategic planning describes an organisation’s process of clarifying its strategy, direction and taking decisions of arraigning and allocating necessary resources to pursue its strategy (Steiner, 2010). Strategic planning gives long term direction of the organisation. Formulating strategic planning is very challenging for manager because it requires considering several issues, some are mentioned below:

Internal factors: Various internal factors such as innovation capability, human resource, financial capacity, organisational structure, core competencies, supply of raw materials etc. are affecting in formulating strategic planning. For example; Tata Steel UK requires considering the supply of raw materials in their strategic planning because UK has shortage of raw materials and the company collect raw materials from other countries.

External factors: Various external factors such as environmental issue, political issue, legal issue, economic issue, social issue etc. are affecting in developing strategic planning. For example; UK government has environmental policy and Tata Steel UK should take it into consideration during strategic planning.

Business level factors: There are many rivals are existing in the market. All of them are always trying to capture the market with their product, marketing and sales strategy etc. Rival organisations’ strategy also affect in business strategic planning. For example, Tata Steel UK should consider its rivals strategy during establish its strategic planning.

1.3.      Evaluating the techniques used in developing strategic business plan

Various techniques are used in developing strategic business planning. The success depends on selecting the appropriate technique among various. BCG matrix, SPACE, PIMS, or stakeholder mapping are several techniques in strategic business plan.

BCG matrix: This is one of the most popular techniques in strategic business planning. Boston Consultant Group developed this technique. This BCG matrix helps managers develop a better understanding of how different strategic business units contribute overall organisation (Griffin, 2011).

                              

BCG matrix results four catergories in product portfolio of a business organisation.

Stars indicates high market share in high growth market.

Cash cows indicates high market share in low growth market.

Dogs indicates low market share in low market growth market.

Question marks indicate low market share in high growth market.

BCG matrix is useful for those business organisations which have several product portfolios. Organisation evaluates their business units and determines their position in BCG matrix. The faster the products market growth or the bigger the market share of business unit holds, the better it is for the business organisation.

SPACE technique: The Strategic Position and Action Evaluation matrix is another technique for assessing the wisdom and sense in a specific strategic business plan. SPACE technique consists of four dimensions; two external factors and two internal factors (Nag, 2015).

External factors: It evaluates industry attractiveness and environment stability.

Internal factors: It evaluates competitive advantage and financial strength.

After discussing the above strategic planning techniques, SPACE analysis is appropriate for the Tata Steel UK because Tata Steel UK has single product portfolio and SPACE technique analyse and examine both external and internal factors of an organisation. So, this strategic planning technique is appropriate for the company.

Task 2: Be able to formulate new strategy and understand approaches to strategy evaluation

To

Board of directors

Tata Steel UK

Subject: Proposal of a new strategic business plan.

Dear Sir,

According to yours advice, here I am going to present a new strategic business plan for the Tata Steel UK.

2.1. + 2.2. Analysing the strategic positioning of Tata Steel UK and carrying out an organisational audit of the company

For developing strategic plan for a company, it is necessary to analyse the internal and external position of the company. SWOT and PESTEL are two most appropriate business position analysis techniques (Nishadha, 2012).

Internal position analysis: SWOT analysis is the appropriate technique for internal strategic position analysis.

Strengths of the Tata Steel UK

ü  The company holds strong brand loyalty.

ü  The company has the competitive advantage of manufacturing product in environment friendly plants.

ü  The company can produce different product for different market.

ü  The company has good control on supply chain management.

Weaknesses of Tata Steel UK

ü  As a renowned business giant, the company does not achieve operational excellence.

ü   Increasing debt-to-equity ratio is a big weakness of the company.

Opportunities of Tata Steel UK

ü  The global economic growth is slightly raising that increases the opportunity to reach economies of scale.

ü  The company has adopted newer technologies like Hismelt process, Corex process which is helping to produce quality product at low cost.

ü  Acquisition of coal block in Africa and Asia.

Threats of Tata Steel UK

ü  More competition from rival organisation like Excalibur Steel, Liberty House etc.

ü  Increase pressure from difficult global market and unfair trade of steel imports into UK.

ü  Maintain Co2 emission limits determined in Paris climate change conference 2015.

External position analysis: PESTEL analysis technique is the appropriate for external analysis. 

Political factor

UK government is going to arrange a national vote for determining whether UK stays in EU or not. If UK gets out from EU, the company will face big problem to export their product in EU countries.

Economic factor

The EU economy growth becomes sluggish. In addition, UK government was decided to declare surplus budget by 2018 which will increase the corporate tax; hence, Tata Steel UK will suffer from loss of profit.

Socio-cultural factor

It includes attitudes, societal values, lifestyle and cultural factors that impact on business strategy (Thompson et al, 2014). Tata Steel UK is manufacturing and selling various types of steel. So, social-cultural factor has little impact on its business operations.

Technological factor

UK is technologically advance country and the people of UK are embracing new technologies. Tata Steel UK ahs installed new technologies which is giving the company to produce more quality steel than other company.

Environmental factor

Environment issue is currently a big concern for all countries across the world. In Paris climate change conference 2015, all countries in the world were agreed to reduce carbon emission and UK also signed in that treaty. Luckily, Tata Steel UK is always careful about environment safety because people of UK are more concern in this regard.

Legal factor

UK business competition act, labour act, health and safety act, equality act etc. are essentially followed by every company that wants to do business in UK. Recently UK government declared minimum wage rates and Tata Steel UK must follow all the legal factors of the UK government.

Political, economic, environment and legal factors have more impact Tata Steel UK’s business strategic plan and the company can give less attention on socio-cultural and technological factors.  

2.3. Significance of stakeholder analysis while formulating new strategy

Stakeholder: A stakeholder refers any individual, group or party with an interest in a business (BBC, 2014). A business consists of various external and internal stakeholders with various priorities and interests. Owner, workers, managers, customers, lenders, suppliers, investors, government regulatory bodies etc. are some example of stakeholders.

Stakeholder analysis: It is a technique which is used to identify people, or group who have to be own over (Thompson, 2002). In this process, the interest and power of stakeholders are analysed. High interest and high power stakeholders are considered as key players. On the other hand, low interest and power stakeholders are considered as least interest.

This stakeholder’s analysis is conducted through four steps;

Step 1: Defining the stakeholder

Step 2: Prioritise stakeholders

Step 3: Understanding the key stakeholders

Step 4: Stakeholder engagement.

Importance of stakeholder analysis

Stakeholder analysis plays an important role in business strategy formulation. Different stakeholder has different interest and power. So that managing all this issues in business strategic planning is necessary. It is important for several reasons;

ü  Stakeholder analysis determines the high powerful and low powerful people or group for the business.

ü  The interest of different stakeholder can be understood..

ü  It is essential developing marketing plan.

ü  It is a tool to influence other stakeholders.

ü  Company can determine the priorities among various stakeholders.

In formulating new business strategy, stakeholder analysis of Tata Steel UK is playing a key role because creating a balance between internal and external stakeholders in strategy formulation ensure sustainable operations and growth of the company.

2.4. New strategy for Tata Steel UK

Industry analysis: Tata Steel Europe is passing very challenging times in the industry. Tata Steel UK is facing loss of it profit in its UK operations. The company has 4,000 workers in its UK plant which is one of the biggest plants in UK steel industry. But, last six years unprecedented market conditions are facing by Tata Steel Europe. The company was made a loss of £68m in third quarter December 2015 (Grandhi, 2016). As a result the company announced 1050 job cuts and searching buyer to sell the business. Cheap imports of steel from China, Russia and South Korea had brought an intense pressure on the profit margin of the company. These countries are export their steel in UK below the cost of production; hence; the domestic companies of UK are suffering from fierce challenge.

Proposal for new strategic business plan for Tata Steel UK

Based on SPACE analysis, Tata Steel UK has good competitive advantage but recent losses of profit make them into fanatical back foot. But, the company has the ability to manage this financial crisis. UK steel market is always attractive industry to all companies because the country needs millions of tons of steel every year for massive construction purpose. Environment factor has little impact on the company because the operational plant has got the permission while it passed in environmental operations.

Political and economic factors are largely impact on the UK steel industry. China, Russia and South Korea are exporting their steel into UK below cost of production to grab the market. This unfair trade practice can be handled by only UK government. To overcome from recent crisis of Tata Steel UK, the government of UK is willing to take 25% stake. In addition, two potential buyers also have shown their willingness to buy the business.

The best business strategy for Tata Steel UK is creating strategic alliance with UK’s other companies to challenge the unfair imports of steel from outside.

3.2. Justifying the selection of this strategy

UK holds free market economy where any company can enter or exit anytime and government has little interference on the business strategies of the companies. Russia, South Korea and especially China export steel into UK, which is very low because the country gets some advantages from its cheap labour and available raw materials. As a result the cost of production is low and the country can sell their product at low price in UK. This strategic alliance reduces the cost of production of the Tata’s steel as close as the imported steel; hence, domestic customers will purchase Tata’s steel because of high quality and brand value.

3.1. Analysing the appropriateness of alternative strategies relating to market entry

There are various market entry strategies those are discussed below:

Organic growth: It refers strengthen the business using its own resources and energy. The main benefit of this strategy is low dependency to other like suppliers, independent agents etc. The main disadvantage is slow growth of the business (Mack, 2016).

Growth by merger: It refers when two companies are accompanied and create a new company with a new name.

Acquisition: It refers purchasing or obtaining an existing business by other business organisation.

Strategic alliance: It is an mutual agreement between two or more companies to accomplish a set of agreed upon objectives but remaining as an independent organisation.

Substantive growth strategies: There are two types of substantive growth strategies; related and unrelated diversification.

“Related businesses possess competitively valuable cross business value chain and resource matchups (Thompson et al, 2014, p. 229)”. For example, A company ios doing business of hardware computer accessories. Doing business of software production is related business for that business organisation.

“Unrelated businesses have dissimilar value chains and resource requirements with no competitively important cross business relationships at the value chain level (Thompson et al, 2014, p. 229)”. For example, Tata is a conglomerate company of unrelated businesses.

Limited growth strategies: There are two types of limited growth strategies such as market penetration and market development.

Market penetration strategy refers entering the market at relatively low price. For example, Chinese companies are using market penetration strategy in UK steel industry.

Market development strategy refers searching new market for current products. For example, Tata can develop their steel market in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Retrenchment Strategies: It includes turnaround strategies, divestment and liquidation.

Turnaround is a process of revival for getting out the problem of industrial sickness. It is a process of restructuring the business and regenerating loss making Company into profitable.

Divestment strategy means reduction some sorts of asset for financial, political objectives or purchases the existing business by another company.

Liquidation strategy refers selling some parts of a company or entirely for the value of its assets. For example, Corus group plc has liquidated to Tata Steel Europe Ltd.

Tata Steel UK can take market development strategy in Asia, Africa and Latin America or turnaround strategy from overcoming their loss of profit situation.

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