Global Strategy Simulation: Developing International Strategy for Startup Growth

Global Strategy Simulation: Developing International Strategy for Startup Growth

Seeking assignment help online in the UK? Native Assignment Help is here to alleviate your academic burden. With our user-friendly platform and round-the-clock support, getting top-notch assignments has never been easier.

Introduction: Global Strategy Simulation: Developing International Strategy for Startup Growth

The report will develop an understanding of global strategy simulation which involved developing an international strategy to boost a start-up company's long-term development and profitability. The report will highlight an analysis of the strategic thinking process concerned during the simulation through strategic analysis, alternative, formulation, and implementation by using the porter 5 forces model, international product lifecycle, and Ansoff matrix (Zulfiqar, et. al. 2019). The report will critically appraise important strategic thinking processes during the simulation by using external factor analysis which will help Nicycle to enter its target location and do research and development activity (Badibanga and Ohlson, 2021). The report initially categories how the choices and strategy created value with the help of key performance indicators and VRIO analysis. To achieve the objective of the report critical analysis is done to assess the international strategy simulation's competitive strategies of the Nicycle with the help of the cage framework.

Give an analysis of the strategic thinking process involved during the simulation

A simulation is a method to appreciate cause-effect relations in a multifaceted world where cause-and-effect relations are neither linear nor not easy to recognize. In circumstance where rivalry is strong, development is rapid, the local circumstance is idiosyncratic, innovation is plentiful, and the technological option is more and more complex. The marketing manager requires to understand the dynamic force that influences the constitution of the industry to review the market strategic value (Warner and Wäger, 2019). Strategic management is a constant procedure that appraises the Nicycle in which the association is concerned; appraises its competitor, and fixes the goal to assemble all the future and present competitors and strategy.

Strategy analysis

Environmental scanning refers to a procedure of scrutinizing, collecting, and providing data and information for a strategic purpose. It assists in analyzing the external and internal factors authority an institute (Slack and Brandon-Jones, 2018). After carrying out the environmental investigation process, the organization should assess it permanently and endeavor to advance it.

Porter 5 forces model

The model can help in analyzing the attractiveness of an exacting industry, assess investment options, and review the competitive surroundings in the market. Considerate that both the competitive forces at play and overall industry arrangement are vital for effectual, strategic decision-making, and raising a compelling competitive plan for the future.

• Competitive rivalry: this factor looks at how extreme the rivalry is in the market. It considers the number of existing entrants and their range of products and services. 
• Bargaining power of suppliers: This factor analyzes how much authority a company's supplier has and how much power it has above the potential to lift its price, which, in turn, lowers a business's productivity, success, and profitability.
• Bargaining power of customers: This factor inspects the power of the customer, and their consequence on quality and pricing (Bruijl and Gerard, 2018). Customers have authority when they are fewer in figure but there are abundant sellers and it is easy for customers to switch. 
• The threat of new entrants: This factor thinks about how difficult or easy it is for a competitor to link to the market. The Nicycle should offer innovative products to its customers, so they feel satisfied.

Strategic choice and formulation

Strategy formulation is the procedure of deciding the best course of action for achieving managerial objectives and accomplishing organizational principles. After conducting environment scanning, managers prepare business, corporate, and functional strategies.

International product lifecycle

The international product lifecycle is an academic model conference on how a Nicycle evolves and crosswise national borders. This hypothesis shows the progress of Nicycle’s advertising curriculum on both foreign and domestic platforms. International product lifecycle includes economic main beliefs, norms, and standards which include economies of scale and market development, with product lifecycle marketing and other standard business models. These 4 stages of the model are growth, maturity, saturation, and decline.

• Growth: Efficiently advertised products meet the necessities in its target marketplace. The exporter of the manufactured goods conducts a market survey, to identify and analyze the market size and composition. At this stage, the case company has high growth potential in the new areas of business.
• Maturity: In this stage of the product lifecycle, the stage of product sales volumes and demand increase slowly. The company should invest highly in marketing to attract a large number of customers.
• Saturation: In this stage, the sales of the product accomplish hit the highest point and there is no extra possibility for further increase.
• Decline: it is the final stage of the product lifecycle. In this phase sales volume reduces and some of the products are removed or their usage is discontinued (Taddese, et. al. 2020). After this stage, the company should focus on inventing new products according to the demand and needs of the customers to survive in the market.

Figure 1: international product lifecycle

Strategy implementation

This implies creating the strategy work as planned or putting the organization's selected approach into action. It includes distributing resources, designing the company’s structure, mounting the decision-making process, and managing human resources effectively and efficiently.

Strategy appraisal is the last step of the strategy management process which involves the key strategy evaluation activities such as appraising external and internal factors to measure performance; implementing the strategies, and taking corrective actions. Appraisal makes sure that the company’s strategy and its implementation meet the organizational objectives and goals.

Ansoff growth matrix

This matrix for product market growth is an extremely helpful tool for Nicycle in developing market instigate strategies. The matrix for market context and product provides entrepreneurs, decision-makers, and marketers with a structure for raising their company's development strategies.

Market penetration: this step is about captivating new market shares with a company’s existing product. For instance, Nicycle is trying to sell more of its products to new, existing, and customer competitors.

Market development: this step usually involves only negligible changes to the products to become accustomed to the new markets.

Product development: this step involves a strategy taking place when new products are launched in an existing marketplace with existing customers (Dawes, 2018). This might be the case when substituting existing goods or increasing the product range.

Diversification: in this step, Nicycle should propose completely new products in new market Diversification, therefore, offer the utmost potential for expansion, but with the greatest risk of breakdown.

Figure 2: components of the strategic management process

Appraise the most significant strategic thinking processes during the simulation

Strategy simulation is an influential method in mounting strategies. It involves development to accomplish goals by analyzing a range of factors that can affect the strategy's success. Thinking strategically also involves being capable to believe the probable impact of Nicycle’s actions (Rebs, et. al. 2019). It comprises the ability to review and optimize the company’s plans to robust the altering reality of Nicycle’s environment that involves long-term goals.

SWOT analysis

SWOT analysis of the Nicycle brand by its weaknesses, strengths, opportunities, and threats. In Nicycle analysis, the weaknesses and strengths are the internal factors on the other hand threats and opportunities are the external factors.

Strength: Nicycle strength seeks the key aspect of its business that gives it competitive gain and benefit in the market. A few significant factors in a brand's strength comprise its product uniqueness, experienced workforce, financial position, and intangible assets including brand value.

Weakness: Nicycle weaknesses include certain aspects of its business that can get better to boost its position further. Certain weaknesses can be definite as a characteristic that the brand is lacking and in which the competitors are better. 

Opportunity: it is significant for companies to grab new opportunities in their operations to increase their revenue and profits and help the company in its long-term goals (Benzaghta, et. al. 2021). Bicycle opportunities can lie down in product improvements, geographic expansion, better communication, and many different factors.

Threats: it is the most important factor which can negatively impact the companies and their growth and development. several factors like changing government policies, increased competitor activity, alternate products, and services, etc. can be threats.

Why did the company choose to enter country A rather than country B and what was the result of that choice?

Pestle analysis

PESTEL analysis is a significant and extensively used tool that helps companies to show the big picture of the external environment, predominantly as connected to foreign markets. PESTEL is a contraction for the political, economic, socio, cultural, technological, environmental, and legal circumstances in which a company operates. This analysis helps the company's managers to gain a better acceptance of the threats and opportunities they face and consequently helps in analyzing in building a better vision of the prospective business countryside and how the company might compete profitably. 

• Political factor: These factors refer to the various government regulations and policies of different countries that influence an economy and industries. These factors settle on how to the extent which government policy affects business. Distant from government policy, political determinants also comprise labor law, fiscal policy, foreign trade policy, tax policy, trade law and limitations, and political stability or instability. 
• Economic factors: these factors refer to the determinants that authorize a country's financial performance. This includes the economic exchange rate, inflation rate, interest rate, growth rate, disposable income of consumers, and unemployment rate. 
• Social factors: these factors include everything that makes the social measurement of a market. It includes factors such as norms, cultural population analytics, demographic characteristics, age distribution, income distribution, career attitude, health awareness, and the existence of the society in which a business operates successfully. 
• Technological factors: these factors refer to the technological innovation that has a positive impact on the market, business operations, and industry as a whole (Christodoulou and Cullinane, 2019). These determinants include innovation and automation incentives, research and development activities, technological consciousness, and technical expansion within a market.
• Legal factors: these factors are a component of the superior picture of the political environment, they include extra precise laws such as consumer protection, employment, discrimination, antitrust, patent and copyright, labor health and safety, and various other laws.

The case company by analyzing the above external factors can choose the area or country where they can operate their business. From the above analysis, the business can choose country A because country B follows more strict laws and regulations that can affect Nicycle in the long term and can also affect its sales and profitability.

Why did the company should invest in a particular function (such as Marketing and R&D),

Market research is very important for companies of all size as it provide genuine data and information which can be useful to strengthen and improve a variety of parts of the company. Research is extremely significant when developing a new product and service, and questioning its customer base can offer helpful insight to constrain business development. Investing in market research can prevent businesses from wasting wealth on the target market that is not wanted or needed. Research and development are significant for businesses because it offers influential insights and knowledge that lead to improvements to an accessible process where competence can be augmented and costs reduced (Krizanova, et. al. 2019). Furthermore, it allows businesses to expand new products and services to consent to thrive and survive in competitive markets. A company that can adapt and innovate new technologies and improves existing process is further likely to accomplish something in the long run.

Why did that investment positively influence growth?

Importance of marketing for Nicycle

Engagement: company needs to engage clientele, and advertising helps make this achievable. Engaging consumers do not simply involve approaching offers, but generous the consumer useful data and information about the trade and its products.

Communication: advertising helps consumers to learn about Nicycle’s new services and products when they are launched, and their usage and value. Communication and advertising products make this possible for the company to create awareness among customers about the company's new products.

Boost sales: marketing involves diverse techniques and tools of promotions to boost sales. When a product of a company is advertised effectively, the chances of it selling are increased.

Business insight: marketing offers business imminent into the objective demographic (Dahl, et. al. 2018). This way, marketers can appreciate their requirements and needs.

Creating revenue: most businesses started their business at a small scale and are cash-strapped. In this case, their alternative is limited.

Importance of research and development for Nicycle

Research and development can help Nicycle to expand and design unique products and services. These do not always have to be completely new, they can drive the company's product improvement and innovation inside the existing business contribution (Caligiuri, et. al. 2020). Distinctive products and services resulting from successful research and development projects can bring financial benefits to the business.

Analyze how the strategy and choices created value

Value creation is the objective of each booming business entity, generating value for consumers helps the company to sell its products and services with effortlessness. In a similar element, creating value for stakeholders in the appearance of a boost in stock prices and dividend ensure the accessibility of investment capital to finance future operations. Value creation is represented by intangible assets such as ideas, brands, people, and innovation. Consequently, it is seen as a better management tool than simple financial measures of business presentation (Freudenreich, et. al. 2020). It is believed that if the business focuses on creating value for clientele, it becomes effortless to encourage people to support the products and services.

Customers: for customers, it means offering products and services a consumer finds constantly useful. Such value creation is based on the innovation process, product, and understanding of customer requirements.

Employees: include valued, loved, and esteemed in the position of discharging their duties. They require appreciating and carrying all along in each decision-making process. Employees also value work, outstanding compensation plans, and continuous training and development.

Investors: this involves offering high returns on capital constantly. This requires attractive strong revenue growth and profit margins (Saggi and Jain, 2018). This can only be achieved if a company delivers continuous value for customers.

VRIO Analysis 

It is an internal analysis tool, used by companies to classify their resources based on whether they grasp certain characters outlined in the structure. This classification then allows the company to identify the resources that provide a competitive advantage. The framework is a contraction for a variety of measurements of achievement that relate to Nicycle. It includes rarity, Imitate, value, and organization. These 4 categories are an indicator of the resources and unique value the business is characterized by and it's data analysis which helps to uncover what the long-term advantages are for an organization. 

Value: while a resource is valuable, it is providing the Nicycle with several sorts of benefits. Though, resources that are valuable and do not fit into some of the other proportions of the framework, are not a competitive advantage. A company can only accomplish a competitive advantage with resources that are valuable and neither rare nor tough to imitate.

Rare: These are resources that are uncommon and not overcome by the majority of organizations are rare. When a resource is both rare and valuable, gives the company to gain a competitive advantage.

Imitate: these resources are hard to imitate if they are tremendously luxurious for other companies to obtain them (Ariwibowo, et. al. 2021). A resource might also be tough for a company to emulate if it is protected by legal measures, such as patents and trademarks.

Organize to capture value: a firm’s resources are organized to incarcerate value only if it is held up by the structure, processes, and culture of the corporation. Resources that are rare, valuable, tough to imitate, and prepared to capture value are a long-standing competitive advantage.

Figure 3: VRIO analysis

Why some of Nicycle team's choices may have failed to add value (in terms of key performance indicators)

Strategy issue: many companies do not appreciate their value application. This refers to how the company delivers value to its existing customer base and what strategies the firm is operating to expand the base. For this, the case company needs to have a clear sense of their ideal customers (Chesbrough, et. al. 2018). Every company should know its consumer base, as it directly impacts marketing strategies, particularly those intended to boost sales increase leads, and loyal customers, and attract new customers.

People issue: a large number of firms do not have the right employees ambitious to accomplish the successful outcome and desired growth. For this Nicycle requires opportune, practical initiative from human resource experts. For instance, if the brand has a high attrition rate, it is essential to appreciate the core issue workers face.

Process issue: When a firm wants to create value, having an effectual strategy is not sufficient to gain a competitive advantage. Every firm has several ecosystems and the value creation procedure guides the entire business to think, talk, and act to create value. 

Cultural issue: these issues' points of view in value creation shift on how stakeholders, leaders, and managers think about differentiation and innovation which makes their services and products unique. To set up a culture of value creation, the company venture should beyond their distinct roles.

Leadership issue: precise measures of efficient leadership are the quantity of value a leader creates for stakeholders and customers. Poor communication between leaders, and frontline employees, creates disagreement between leaders resulting in a common lack of direction for employees.

Express critical use to evaluate the international strategy, simulation and competitive

Multi-domestic strategy: this strategy maximizes local receptiveness by offering decentralizing decision-making influence to the local business unit in every country so that they can create products and services optimized to its local markets. A multi-domestic strategy focuses on rivalry within each state and maximizes local awareness (Luthans and Doh, 2018). It assumes that the markets are at variance and, therefore, are segmented by national boundaries. 

Global strategy: this strategy is national and prohibited by the home offices and seeks to make the most of global competence. Under the global strategy, products are probable to be consistent rather than modified to local markets. The planned business unit operating in each country is unspecified to be mutually dependent, and the home office attempt to attain incorporation across these firms.

Transnational strategy: this strategy seeks to unite the greatest of multi-domestic strategy and global strategy to obtain both local responsiveness and global efficiency (Kiss and Schmuck, 2021).

CAGE framework

The model helps a Nicycle to measure the distance that the target market is from the company’s home country on 4 dimensions. The greater the difference, the more risk exists and the less opportunity there is for accomplishment.

The 4 CAGE dimensions are:

Cultural Distance: it refers to the dissimilarities of cultures between the home and target countries. The history of relations between nations provides one source of clarification for the similarity or differences between cultures. In the case, a large number of countries suffered from the authority of imposing rules during regal times with possessions that are obvious in their modern culture and influence national relationships.

Administrative distance: political and legal systems of the target and home countries resolve the organizational distance between the 2 countries where the political and legal systems are different.

Geographic Distance: it can also be exaggerated by the transportation of a state in different ways other than the internet and communication capabilities (Peng, et. al. 2011). 

Economic distance: international business between 2 countries is also impacted by the difference in their economic factors. The superior the dissimilarity between the 2 economies, the more complex it is to be successful.

Conclusion

The report has developed a consideration on global strategy simulation which is concerned with increasing an international strategy to improve a start-up Nicycle’s long-term growth and profitability. The report has highlighted an analysis of the strategic thinking process concerned throughout the simulation through strategic analysis, alternative and formulation, and implementation by using the international product lifecycle, porter 5 forces model, and Ansoff matrix. The report has critically evaluated on importance of strategic thinking processes during the simulation by using pestle analysis which helped Nicycle to enter its target location and do research and development. The report has initially categorized the strategy and choices for value creation with the assistance of VRIO analysis and key performance indicators. To achieve the purpose of the report critical analysis has been done to review the international strategy simulation’s competitive strategy of the Nicycle with cage framework.

References

Ariwibowo, P., Saputro, F.B. and Haryanto, H., 2021. Analysis of Strength & Weakness, Using the Concept of Resource-Based View with the VRIO Framework in Sharia Cooperatives. Jurnal Manajemen Strategi dan Aplikasi Bisnis, 4(1), pp.279-294.

Badibanga, A. and Ohlson, M., 2021. Millennials’ Leadership Skills for Promoting Flow and Profit in a Business Simulation. Journal of Leadership Studies, 15(2), pp.70-80.

Benzaghta, M.A., Elwalda, A., Mousa, M.M., Erkan, I. and Rahman, M., 2021. SWOT analysis applications: An integrative literature review. Journal of Global Business Insights, 6(1), pp.55-73.

Bruijl, D. and Gerard, H.T., 2018. The relevance of Porter's five forces in today's innovative and changing business environment. Available at SSRN 3192207.

Bruin, 2016. VRIO analysis. VRIO: From Firm Resources to Competitive Advantage. [Online]. [Available on]. :<https://www.business-to-you.com/vrio-from-firm-resources-to-competitive-advantage/#google_vignette>. [Assessed on 29/11/2022].

Caligiuri, P., De Cieri, H., Minbaeva, D., Verbeke, A. and Zimmermann, A., 2020. International HRM insights for navigating the COVID-19 pandemic: Implications for future research and practice. Journal of international business studies, 51(5), pp.697-713.

Certo, 2022. components of strategic management process. [Online]. [Available on]. :< https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/modern-management-concepts/9780134729138/xhtml/fileP7000495120000000000000000001C17.xhtml>. [Assessed on 29/11/2022].

Chesbrough, H., Lettl, C. and Ritter, T., 2018. Value creation and value capture in open innovation. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 35(6), pp.930-938.

Christodoulou, A. and Cullinane, K., 2019. Identifying the main opportunities and challenges from the implementation of a port energy management system: A SWOT/PESTLE analysis. Sustainability, 11(21), p.6046.

Dahl, R.E., Allen, N.B., Wilbrecht, L. and Suleiman, A.B., 2018. Importance of investing in adolescence from a developmental science perspective. Nature, 554(7693), pp.441-450.

Dawes, J., 2018. The Ansoff matrix: A legendary tool, but with two logical problems. But with Two Logical Problems (February 27, 2018).

Freudenreich, B., Lüdeke-Freund, F. and Schaltegger, S., 2020. A stakeholder theory perspective on business models: Value creation for sustainability. Journal of Business Ethics, 166(1), pp.3-18.

Kiss, T. and Schmuck, R., 2021. A longitudinal study of the skills and attitudes conveyed by two business simulation games in pécs, hungary. Simulation & Gaming, 52(4), pp.435-464.

Krizanova, A., L?z?roiu, G., Gajanova, L., Kliestikova, J., Nadanyiova, M. and Moravcikova, D., 2019. The effectiveness of marketing communication and importance of its evaluation in an online environment. Sustainability, 11(24), p.7016.

Luthans, F. and Doh, J.P., 2018. International management: Culture, strategy, and behavior. McGraw-Hill.

Peng, M.W., Meyer, K. and Meyer, K., 2011. International business. London: Cengage Learning.

Rebs, T., Brandenburg, M. and Seuring, S., 2019. System dynamics modeling for sustainable supply chain management: A literature review and systems thinking approach. Journal of cleaner production, 208, pp.1265-1280.

Saggi, M.K. and Jain, S., 2018. A survey towards an integration of big data analytics to big insights for value-creation. Information Processing & Management, 54(5), pp.758-790.

Sarmistha, 2022. International product lifecycle. [Online]. [Available on]. :< https://www.businessmanagementideas.com/marketing/product-life-cycle/product-life-cycle-stages-examples-strategies-definition-5-stages-examples-notes-and-diagram/17961>. [Assessed on 29/11/2022].

Slack, N. and Brandon-Jones, A., 2018. Operations and process management: principles and practice for strategic impact. Pearson UK.

Taddese, G., Durieux, S. and Duc, E., 2020. Sustainability performance indicators for additive manufacturing: a literature review based on product life cycle studies. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 107(7), pp.3109-3134.

Warner, K.S. and Wäger, M., 2019. Building dynamic capabilities for digital transformation: An ongoing process of strategic renewal. Long range planning, 52(3), pp.326-349.

Zulfiqar, S., Sarwar, B., Aziz, S., Ejaz Chandia, K. and Khan, M.K., 2019. An analysis of influence of business simulation games on business school students’ attitude and intention toward entrepreneurial activities. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 57(1), pp.106-130.