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An Analysis Of Robert Waterman And Tom Peters

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Introduction Robert Waterman and Tom Peters, who both worked for McKinsey & Co, first introduced McKinsey’s 7’s model in the book “In Search of Excellence”. At this time, many managers focused on structure, a model was needed that showed how different factors were interconnected. These internal factors all need to work together in order for the company to succeed and if one changes, then there is a knock on effect on the other factors. There are seven factors that are split into hard and soft. The hard S’s are strategy, structure and system. This means that style; staff, skills and shared values are soft S’s. The difference between these two categories is that the managers easily manipulate hard S’s while they have less influence on the…show more content…
In this essay I will devise a strategy for Under Armour to implement and then state how this will impact on the rest of the S’s, then I will go through the various strength and limitations of using this model. Strategy Garcia (2012) defines strategy as “a plan, method, or series of manoeuvres or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result”. However, Mintzberg (1987) argues that you cannot have a singular definition for strategy and instead, had five different definitions for the term. These were known as the 5 P’s. These P’s are: plan, ploy, position, pattern and perspective. A strategy is a developed plan, where you ploy to out maneuver your competition. You will have a position that you wish to achieve by carrying out different actions (pattern) and you set your perspective on the situation at hand. Applying my strategy for Under Armour, I will relate it to each of Mintzberg’s P’s. Firstly, my plan for Under Armour is for them to enhance their presence in the UK sportswear market. This would be beneficial for them as they have already made their business one of the most successful sportswear companies and they have hardly tapped into the £5.8 billion UK market. There are a number of competitors in the market so to out maneuver them, Under Armour must secure the signings of high-profile professional sport people from the most popular sports in the UK, secure kit supplying deals with top flight sports teams as this will boost brand awareness, and
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