Strategic Management and Core Competence

A strategy is said to be a plan that is made for the long term success of a product or brand. It is extremely important to have a strategy in order to figure out a direction towards which any company is able to focus all its resources efficiently and achieve desired outcomes. Formulating effective strategies is a considerably long process in itself that combines analysing several factors, situations and issues that are already present in a company and looking to improve on them alongside trying to implement various innovations and ideas to collectively create a direction towards which they can move and direct the resources available to them.

A practical and technical change in processes of this magnitude warrants an external consultant who can implement and resolve the potential drawbacks from this division wide change. The experience based knowledge of a consultant to usher in this type

Additionally, consultant should be part of the client’s team and participate in the process to obtain all information required, diagnose the problem and root causes

In analyzing problem solving, thee skills and role of a consultant can take on a variety of factors such as understanding the nature of the problems, purpose and desired outcomes of consultation, skills of the consultant and skills of the consultee (Dougherty,2014). The skills used to analyze problems in an organization, consultants will use a systemic approach which involves a variety of stages and levels of phases to ensure proper analysis, intervention, and implementation of existing problems.

strength and position in the market as an “implementation” consulting firm. The firm’s ability to

The advantage of bringing an external party will help to harmonise the sales, service process and systems. The Consulting companies are specialist in their field and using their expertise will help manoeuvre the Company in right direction.

The management of a consulting project calls on a variety of skills. This is an actuality that has been stressed throughout the course lectures, seminars and cases as well as throughout the course literature. The fact that consultants must integrate their skills when conducting a consulting project is as clear-cut as it is evident.

Selected consultants must have sufficient staff available to ensure that several simultaneous projects can be run successfully with task continuity, timely delivery of services and completion of all assigned tasks. Team must be

Whether they deserve it or not, it is notable that consultants and their business morals have been questioned and caricatured. Statements such as ``The new witch doctors'' or ``Consultants are people who borrow your watch to tell you the time and then walk off with it'' have often been quoted. A headline like ``They change colour according to the environment'' indicates a certain unreliability. However, it also has to be recognized that consultants often operate in situations characterized by ambiguity, sensitivity and bounded rationality. Therefore it can be expected that recipients in situations where they might be slightly criticized will react with

Mostly are large consulting firms (more than 30 employees) that offer consulting services to small and medium sized businesses. However, these large firms cannot cost effectively service this market due to high overhead and labour costs. Small and medium sized businesses usually cannot afford the high hourly fees charged by these firms. Business from this target market does not represent a significant portion of the revenues generated by these large firms which all specialize in new projects.

“Management Consulting involves providing professional knowledge and skills and specialist advice to management or the clients. It aims at improving organizational performance.” The service does this by first pinpointing the existing problems of an organization and then proposing solutions to said problems as well as helping with the execution of the solution to increase the performance of the organization. Today, with the uncertainty surrounding the global economy, the management consultancy sector could not be more important. “With a total value of $250 million, the global consulting sector is one of the largest and most mature markets within the professional services industry”. Due to the nature of the sector, it is clear that the

for their expertise and knowledge. Consultants also need to possess good personal skills so as to be

Question You are a project management consultant assigned to a small manufacturing firm that has been experiencing a myriad of problems. After conducting interviews and fact-finding with key managers, you have observed the following:

With the start of twenty first century organizations have been facing the uncertainties of many different shapes: rapid globalization, accelerating innovation and growing competition, bringing them the challenge to develop a “strategy” to survive and operate in such hostile conditions. Strategy can be defined as a method or plan acquired to bring about a desired future, such as achievement of a goal or solution to a problem. Strategy is also considered as the art and science of planning and conducting resources for their most effective and efficient use. In terms of business we can say strategy is a plan that determines how organizations use their resources, skills and competencies in a combination to create competitive advantage. (BusinessDictionary.com, 2015) In for- profit organizations main objective of strategy is to increase profitability, get more market share, increase approval ratings or boost customer satisfaction and complete a project under budget and before deadline (porter, 1985).

A strategy, according to Robbins and Barnwell (2002, p. 139) is “the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary to achieve the organisation’s goals”.