A global strategy is a developing strategy that a company upgrades to expand into the global market and helps businesses succeed in the world. This strategy means multinational, standardization, and international strategies, and this strategy helps the company in many ways including global brand awareness and marketing sales in new markets. This strategy creation includes global customers, business components, and production sites that help to achieve success in global markets. This management helps to develop various policies and plans for achieving the objectives and implementing the new innovative plans. This strategy develops new skills in business and the different marketing strategies for various environments and grows more capabilities and opportunities of the market. It also analyses the different business operations that include emerging economies, different business entry modes, global sourcing, and different opportunities, sourcing, and market selection.
A strategy builds up the number of procedures and policies that help to grow various competitive advantages in the global market. This strategy identifies the various actions that improve the competitive position and improve performance in different ways. This management helps to build up leadership skills, overcome different obstacles, create key decisions, and make many opportunities for business development. Global competition means that companies focus on selling services and goods on an international scale.
Grab The Best Academic Assistance In Just One Click
Microsoft is the largest computer software in the world and it is a provider of video games, gaming hardware, cloud computing services, and online services. Microsoft was founded in the year 1975 and spreading innovative technologies throughout the whole world is the main mission of the company. Development of hardware, as well as software as per the demand of the market, is the main objective of the company and new opportunities are mainly arising from this objective (Seymour, 2020). The company's revenue increased with the help of development and software licensing. The company maintains its proper reputation with the help of a global advertising system that is admired by consumers around the world. The company designs the Xbox 360 gaming, Kinect for Xbox 360, and Microsoft PC hardware products.
Personal computers (PCs), phones, and various intelligent services are the products of the company. The computing environments, and productivity applications, are distributed with the help of server applications and the improvement of the server application is the main responsibility of the company. Microsoft 365 helps to improve the condition of the virtual world for common people and SharePoint, Microsoft, and Lync help to solve the communication problem. The revenue rate of Microsoft increased to $204.094B because of the pandemic situation (Seymour, 2020). People are mostly dependent on virtual applications to maintain their annual income and Microsoft continuously developed innovative technologies to improve the condition of the global market.
The company makes a proper relationship with consumers with the help of dynamic CRM and marketing professionals to provide an attractive outlook to the website to attract the attention of consumers. The innovation of Skype became profitable for the company because people can develop their connections with friends with the help of these innovative technologies (microsoft.com, 2023). The company made approximately 2189 investments and they recently invested $17M to develop innovative technologies. The company has made 4 diversity-based investments and rose $1M in the year 2021. The company has 50 exists and Apple, and Meta Uber are the examples of the most notable exits. The company recently focused to develop its research process as per the demand of consumers. The company wants to develop its consumer segment and help to increase its production rate in the future.
Identification of the current strategy and Value Proposition of Microsoft
The value proposition is the most valuable element for launching a new product for business and developing the business's success. The different marketing methods, tools, and frameworks that improve customer loyalty and the lifetime value of customers. As opined by Prakash et al. (2021), the value proposition helps the company to establish the different benefits of products and services and the consumer's overall problem (Hakobyan et al. 2019). This framework is also effective in establishing communication with the product provider and services related to the value provider problems of the services. It also helps in the process of communicating the advantages of the value propositions to all stakeholders of the company. This proposition communicates with distinction, relevance, and value to a customer.
Ansoff's matrix is a useful framework that evaluates strategic directions. It guides the users about the potential direction and also requires good analysis to evaluate market attractiveness. Microsoft uses different strategy options through the Ansoff Growth Matrix in consolidated ways (Joppa et al. 2021). The four strategies are product development, market penetration, diversification, and market development. This matrix deepens on different external and internal factors. The external factors include the stability of political aspects and the economy of a region and the internal factors include the capabilities of resources and talent management. Microsoft Works is successful in growth decisions and paths for different regions by use of the Ansoff matrix.
Market penetration means selling survival products to the markets and using the penetration strategy for selling the devices and Windows software and Microsoft stores worldwide through registered distributors and online channels. The company uses multinational technology and the loyalty program of Microsoft rewards to follow the penetration strategy in the market (Elali, 2021). This strategy helps to increase the capacity of production, develop distribution, reduce the costs of operation, and improve the investment of marketing and competitive pricing.
Product development is the growth strategy that includes the new products developed for selling the existing markets. Through the engineering groups, Microsoft develops products and services that include "Application and Services Engineering Groups", "Windows and Devices Engineering Groups" and "Cloud and Enterprise Engineering Groups" (Zámborský, 2021). This strategy helps to modify the existing products, develop Microsoft Works, launch some new products, and build up the partnerships and the quality of products.
Market development strategy is finding new markets in existing products and Microsoft penetrates a new market that allows for the potential for products and services. It helps to grow the expansion strategy internationally and the awareness of the business. According to (Correani et al. 2020) it grows the education of customers and regional expansion and development of the consumer segments, the different cultures of the market, behaviors, and trends. An example: HoloLens was available in 10 countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, and the United States. When its demand grew at a global level then the company was available to 29 markets globally.
Diversification includes the development of new products to sell in new markets and Microsoft uses it occasionally. In 2006, Amazon launched Amazon Web services which is an important example of the diversification strategy by Microsoft.
Figure1: Value proportion model of Microsoft
The Boston Matrix is a useful framework that makes corporate-level decisions about strategic resource investment at the business level. It is a simple way of thinking about investment decisions. The Boston Consulting group helps to plan the long-term strategy and helps to opportunities for growth of a business.
Blue Ocean is also a helpful framework for making corporate-level decisions about strategic resource investment at the business level for innovation. The blue ocean strategy was developed by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne professors consisting of the two markets these are the red ocean and the blue ocean (Gryshchenko et al. 2022). This strategy was launched 10 years ago and documented 30 industries with evident data. There are low costs and more differentiation in a business. There is no competition with each other in the companies. It identifies the unknown gap and makes the new market.
As noted by Fuaddah and Maharani, (2021), this strategy helps to provide the framework ideas that give more opportunities. It focuses on the market space and makes irrelevant competition.
Microsoft is able to make new demands and rapid growth by increasing profits. Microsoft is too able the boundaries of the market and the industry structure through actions and strategies. The four-action framework has helped to explore the company and develop new value curves for the company. This company is challenging the formation and the boundaries in the industry (Correani et al. 2020). The four action frameworks are raised, reduce, eliminate, and create in which the company is to create the benefits of sustainable and development capacities. Microsoft identified the factors over a long period and reduced the expansion plans that to able to maximize the benefits and opportunities.
Value Chain
The Company has an established value chain that offers customers great value through its various products. It helps in creating a competitive advantage that places the value of the company prior to its competitors. The value chain includes the demand chain and the supply chain. The former is related to the needs of the customer while the latter is more indulged in reducing the cost. The profit motive that is concerned the company is the transformation from the push demand to the pull demand. As opined by Mulyati et al. (2022), this helps in addressing the complex value chain issues that are currently faced by the dynamic business world. The realistic sales budget that the company presents has been achievable through the appropriate adoption of the value chain.
Identification of key future trends in the industry and how these may impact the industry
Management includes several functions like organizing, planning, directing, or controlling an organization. All these elements are essential for the competitive advantage of companies in the management of human resources (HR). Due to these reasons, people are the main asset of the company and strategic advantage of a company and terms of human capital.
In Microsoft, human resources is one of the important assets, as they supply knowledge to transform its better future aspects. The flexibility of the employees is the key factor for the improvement of Microsoft it's a better financial improvement, work productivity, customer satisfaction, and many more. With more than 80000 employees in the world and more than $15 billion in revenue, it is one of the biggest companies in the world. It is successful because of its good workplace environment, empowerment ideas of employees as well as its employee benefits (microsoft.com, 2023). According to Andrea Winfield HR director for Microsoft, most of the employees come to Microsoft as it makes a difference and holds up personal values and the contributions of employees in the development of society.
Figure 2: Marketing strategy of Microsoft
Succession planning, learning, performance, and an upgraded system of recruitment are needed for better Human capital management. Most companies use multi-evaluators, specific curricula, new models, perspective approaches manually as tools for the improvement of human resources.
In the UK, human resource management is researched on a very large scale. An upgraded model of human resource management of Microsoft includes organized strategies, an adaptation of new technologies for practical application, and strategic controls. There are some ways adopted by Microsoft to improve its working culture, i.e.
Building the right culture
The aim of Microsoft is to recruit skilled people and those who have the capabilities to handle any situation according to the situation and time. As noted by Pansang and Jaidee, (2021), the company cannot be able to achieve its target if its employees are not customer-obsessed. Through this HR transformation, the workforce will be purpose-friendly, entrenched with human diversity, and powered by learning and demonstrated by the leaders.
Data for awareness and decisions
Due to adaptation to internal mobility, there are several data hotspots in HR. The reports based on those data help Microsoft to innovate or reform new ideas regarding its business model and strategies. If we take recruitment as an example, data will help us to analyze the market availability (Martin and Tapp, 2019). Data and information help the company to get an overview regarding hiring. It helps Microsoft to understand the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). The transformational data are valuable too.
Making things simple
The working lifestyle of employees is changing day to day. They expect a smooth digital experience wherever they are. According to Weinstein, (2021), they adopted self-service options irrespective of time. Simplicity is a key feature. Having an HR solution simplifies the ways between employers and employees.
Enhancing employee skills
Talented employees can change the world. Microsoft needs to encourage new talents for the betterment of today and for the great future. Microsoft needs to think about how the improvement of technologies helps to recruit skilled talented persons in this company.
Porter's Five Forces Model
Microsoft is a reputed company in the world and Porter's five forces model of this company analyses a competitive image as well as all factors of this sector. The five forces have been explained because of an analysis of the market position. These five forces are mentioned below:
The threat of New Entrants: Microsoft is a globally reputed company and this company has provided computer software and operating systems and many types of electronic products. Microsoft is expanding its business in the world and has about 95% of its share in the global market. In the current situation, many new competitors have been increased in the market. All competitors want to increase their own profitability (Si et al. 2022). As a result, Microsoft has created many modern technology and development methods. This company for improving its profitability has adopted various types of modern technology.
Figure 3: Porter’s Five Forces Model
The threat of substitutes: It is the second part of Porter’s five forces model. Many new competitors have tried to manufacture the same quality products to get the market position. The PC market is the highest competitor of the company and it wants to provide the same quality products as Microsoft. As a result, it is a threat to this company.
Bargaining power of customers: Customers are the main part of any organization. Microsoft has a big and strong customer base. This company always provides good quality products and services to build loyal customers (Prasetyo and Wijaya, 2021). The bargaining power of customers has increased day by day because of their purchasing size and the competitor market is highly increased. In the current situation, customers are helping to build a business.
Bargaining power of suppliers: Suppliers are the main part of this company and it provides many essential materials for producing good quality products and services. Suppliers have provided many hardware components (Yaghmaie et al. 2020). During the pandemic, suppliers have left their jobs and most companies have been affected. After the pandemic, the bargaining power of suppliers has increased.
Competitive Rivalry: In the current scenario, many competitors have occurred in the software market. Hence, this company's business is highly increased because of high-quality technology. As per Nambisan et al. (2020), many competitors of this company are Apple, IBM, and others. All competitors want to get market position so various types of modern technology have been improving on a daily basis. It can be said that all competitors have increased on a large scale.
Scenario planning
Scenario planning is the planning tool. This is made to help the organization to understand the effective decisions made today in an uncertain future. It helps to modify strategic methods. In this method, we propose here the transformation of planning (Wieninger et al. 2019). Data logistics, data quality, data characteristics, and the preferred tools and languages are the key factors in this planning. In the logistic data source location, target destination, and requirement of moving the data including the schedule, amount, and resources. The data sources include a publicly available HTTPS address, a local network file, and SQL server-based data.
Communication systems, technology, and transportation improved the competition between companies in various countries. This strategy analyses the environmental effects on the management, explains the changes, and develops the issues of the environment in a systematic way.
Figure 4: Scenario Planning
As per Ingram et al. (2022), it can be stated scenario planning is inherently a group process and should be developed as a group skill. If the scenario is fulfilling its role of changing its decision-maker's view on how the world works the organization process and “buy-in” are crucial. Microsoft is a strong customer-based company.
Strategy clock
A strategy clock is a method of marketing in which the competitive position of a company compares to other companies. Cliff Bowman and David Faulkner have developed this theory. This is an elaborated version of Porter’s Generic strategies (Osterwalder et al. 2020). Bowman observes competitive advantages in relation to differentiation advantages and cost advantages. This reflects eight possible strategies in four quadrants with the help of price and value. Microsoft has a huge customer base.
In this competitive world, firms do not want to compete. The low price makes this company more valuable. The low price of the selling products helps the company to boost its selling volume of products (Carlini et al. 2019). As per the market, the company is able to change its product value.
Recommendations
Recommendation 1
A Freemium pricing strategy is the best way to attract the attention of the customer over the use of a new product. The company can use this marketing strategy to distribute its product among new customers. This is followed by using the product line strategy to differentiate the product based on price and quality (Bhattarai et al. 2019). This will help in penetrating the product to the market that that too at a relative cost share. This change in product strategy can help the company to focus on a defined customer base and create constructive market demand.
Recommendation 2
The Company has a huge portfolio of products but is diversified within a constricted price scenario. The STP strategy can help the company to divide the market into small segments and understand the needs of the targeted audience. Proper segmentation based on demographic, geographic, and location will help the company to segregate the appropriate market base where the company can introduce its new product. This will help in understanding the concern of the huge audience base and converting it into a selective small segment. Segmentation, targeting, and position are very useful tools to understand and target the market audience.
Recommendation 3
The VRIO framework has shown that the company‘s high compatibility with a large array of third-party products is relatively helpful in creating a sustainable advantage. Cloud services can help in spreading the network externalities that can effectively help in showcasing the valuable products of the company. According to Beverungen et al. (2021), this can help the company to rebrand its product among the new audience base and retain the trust of the older customers. The company needs to build its alliances with other firms to improve the external vulnerabilities and create a competitive edge. The diversification of the portfolio among the various customer bases can help the company meet the needs of each target market.
Recommendation 4
The cross-department workflow can help the company distribute its product to a larger audience specifically the social media audience. This helps in knowing the demands of the customer and aligning all the resources to understand the need for the current market tools. This can help in serving the needs of the customer and help in understanding the core competencies that are required for business resurgence (Upadhyay and Khandelwal, 2022). It also helps in understanding the long-term competencies of the company about its related products. The continuous advancement in security features can help the company build trust among professionals and college students. This will increase the demand for more tools that can be initially promoted to these target markets.
Recommendation 5
The Company has the opportunity to innovate new hardware products and increase business growth. This needs to be distributed among a large audience base which can only be possible if it creates a defined product line (Legimai et al. 2022). The use of mergers and business development strategies can help the company to take advantage of the new business growth of its competitors. It is recommended to build alliances with the hardware manufacturers to create productive hardware products.
Recommendation 6
The Company should develop different strategic plans to develop its product and service process. Microsoft must improve its recruitment process by developing an online test process to assess the candidates. The company must appoint more specialists including potential technologists to identify the internal and external issues (Goyal, 2020). With their help, the company must develop different strategic plans to increase the quality and speed of its services. With the help of different new tools and advanced technologies, the company should develop its software as per the requirements of the changing competitive market.
Recommendation 7
Microsoft must improve its functioning with the help of “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs”. It helps to assure the safety and security of the employees of the company (Bhattarai et al. 2019). Apart from that, the model helps the company to identify basic needs such as “physiological needs”, “love and belonging needs”, “esteem”, and “self-actualization”. Job security is the priority of every employee thus the company should develop policies and practices to ensure the position of the employees in the company (Prakash et al. 2021). The management should focus on the training process that would help the employees to improve their creativity skills along with the application of technological knowledge to improve their performances.
Conclusion
A business plan is a business strengths plan that explains the development of company success. The competitive advantage depends on the low cost versus features that differentiate the competitors in the firm. This strategy creation includes global customers, business components, and production sites that help to achieve success in global markets. This management helps to develop various policies and plans for achieving the objectives and implementing the new innovative plans. The value proposition is the most valuable element for launching a new product for business and developing the business's success. The different marketing methods, tools, and frameworks that improve customer loyalty and the lifetime value of customers. Through this HR transformation, the workforce will be purpose-friendly, entrenched with human diversity, and powered by learning and demonstrated by the leaders.
The company uses multinational technology and the loyalty program of Microsoft rewards to follow the penetration strategy in the market. Scenario planning is the planning tool. This is made to help the organization to understand the effective decisions made today in an uncertain future. It helps to modify strategic methods. The company's revenue increased with the help of development and software licensing. The flexibility of the employees is the key factor for the improvement of Microsoft it is a better financial improvement, work productivity, and customer satisfaction. Most companies use multi-evaluators, specific curricula, new models, perspective approaches manually as tools for the improvement of human resources.
References
Journals
Beverungen, D., Kundisch, D. and Wünderlich, N., 2021. Transforming into a platform provider: strategic options for industrial smart service providers. Journal of Service Management, 32(4), pp.507-532.
Bhattarai, B.P., Paudyal, S., Luo, Y., Mohanpurkar, M., Cheung, K., Tonkoski, R., Hovsapian, R., Myers, K.S., Zhang, R., Zhao, P. and Manic, M., 2019. Big data analytics in smart grids: state?of?the?art, challenges, opportunities, and future directions. IET Smart Grid, 2(2), pp.141-154.
Carlini, J., Grace, D., France, C. and Lo Iacono, J., 2019. The corporate social responsibility (CSR) employer brand process: an integrative review and comprehensive model. Journal of Marketing Management, 35(1-2), pp.182-205.
?irjevskis, A., 2019. The role of dynamic capabilities as drivers of business model innovation in mergers and acquisitions of technology-advanced firms. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, 5(1), p.12.
Correani, A., De Massis, A., Frattini, F., Petruzzelli, A.M. and Natalicchio, A., 2020. Implementing a digital strategy: Learning from the experience of three digital transformation projects. California Management Review, 62(4), pp.37-56.
Elali, W., 2021. The importance of strategic agility to business survival during the coronavirus crisis and beyond. International Journal of Business Ethics and Governance, 4(2), pp.1-8.
Fuaddah, N.S.U. and Maharani, M.M., 2021. Microsoft Teams in the Perspective of the Users. Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Research, 2(2), pp.62-69.
Goyal, A., 2020. A Critical Analysis of Porter’s 5 Forces model of competitive advantage. Goyal, A.(2021). A Critical Analysis of Porter’s, 5.
Gryshchenko, O., Babenko, V., Bilovodska, O., Voronkova, T., Ponomarenko, I. and Shatskaya, Z., 2022. Green tourism business as marketing perspective in environmental management. Global Journal of Environmental Science and Management.
Hakobyan, N., Khachatryan, A., Vardanyan, N. and Chortok, Y.V., 2019. The implementation of corporate social and environmental responsibility practices into the competitive strategy of the company.
Ingram, J., Maye, D., Bailey, C., Barnes, A., Bear, C., Bell, M., Cutress, D., Davies, L., de Boon, A., Dinnie, L. and Gairdner, J., 2022. What are the priority research questions for digital agriculture?. Land Use Policy, 114, p.105962.
Joppa, L., Luers, A., Willmott, E., Friedmann, S.J., Hamburg, S.P. and Broze, R., 2021. Microsoft’s million-tonne CO2-removal purchase—lessons for net zero. Nature, 597(7878), pp.629-632.
Kretschmer, T., Leiponen, A., Schilling, M. and Vasudeva, G., 2022. Platform ecosystems as meta?organizations: Implications for platform strategies. Strategic Management Journal, 43(3), pp.405-424.
Legimai, N.M.C., Saldanha, E.S. and Graciana, B., 2022. The Mediation Effect of Business Strategy on the Relations between External Factors, Internal Factors and Business Performance. Timor Leste Journal of Business and Management, 4, pp.34-47.
Martin, L. and Tapp, D., 2019. Teaching with Teams: An introduction to teaching an undergraduate law module using Microsoft Teams. Innovative Practice in Higher Education, 3(3).
Mulyati, E.N., Sabatini, R., Nuraeni, I. and Fitriani, N., 2022. Development of ICT Learning Task Analysis About Microsoft Office Word on Jaws (Job Access With Speech) Application For Visually Impaired Students Class X At Slbn Pajajaran Bandung City: 10.2478/bjlp-2022-007063. Baltic Journal of Law & Politics, 15(7), pp.863-875.
Nambisan, S., Zahra, S.A. and Luo, Y., 2019. Global platforms and ecosystems: Implications for international business theories. Journal of International Business Studies, 50, pp.1464-1486.
Osterwalder, A., Pigneur, Y., Smith, A. and Etiemble, F., 2020. The invincible company: how to constantly reinvent your organization with inspiration from the world's best business models (Vol. 4). John Wiley & Sons.
Pansang, S. and Jaidee, M., 2021, July. The Development of an Online Multimedia Lesson about an Introduction to Using Microsoft Word 2010 for the TGT collaborative learning technique. The 13th NPRU National Academic Conference Nakhon Pathom Rajabhat University.
Prakash, D., Bisla, M. and Rastogi, S.G., 2021. Understanding Authentic Leadership Style: The Satya Nadella Microsoft Approach.
Prasetyo, D.E. and Wijaya, A.F., 2021. Information System Strategic Planning For Tourism Transportation Company Using Ward And Peppard Methodology. INTENSIF: Jurnal Ilmiah Penelitian dan Penerapan Teknologi Sistem Informasi, 5(1), pp.43-57.
Seymour, F., 2020. Seeing the forests as well as the (trillion) trees in corporate climate strategies. One Earth, 2(5), pp.390-393.
Si, M., Si, Z. and Ye, Y., 2022, March. The Analysis of Google’s Monopoly in The Search Engine Industry. In 2022 7th International Conference on Financial Innovation and Economic Development (ICFIED 2022) (pp. 2168-2173). Atlantis Press.
Upadhyay, A.K. and Khandelwal, K., 2022. Metaverse: the future of immersive training. Strategic HR Review, 21(3), pp.83-86.
Weinstein, A.T., 2021. Business models for the new economy. Journal of Business Strategy, 42(6), pp.382-391.
Wieninger, S., Götzen, R., Gudergan, G. and Wenning, K.M., 2019, June. The strategic analysis of business ecosystems: New conception and practical application of a research approach. In 2019 IEEE International Conference on Engineering, Technology, and Innovation (ICE/ITMC) (pp. 1-8). IEEE.
Yaghmaie, P. and Vanhaverbeke, W., 2020. Identifying and describing constituents of innovation ecosystems: A systematic review of the literature. EuroMed Journal of Business, 15(3), pp.283-314.
Zámborský, P., 2021. A blueprint for succeeding despite uncertain global markets. Journal of Business Strategy, 42(3), pp.168-176.
Websites
fourweekmba.com, (2023), Mission of Microsoft, Available at: https://fourweekmba.com/microsoft-mission-statement/ [Accesed on: 8th March 2023]
marketing91.com, (2023), Marketing Strategy of Microsoft – Microsoft strategy, Available at: https://www.marketing91.com/marketing-strategy-of-microsoft/ [Accesed on: 8th March, 2023]
microsoft.com, (2023), About Company, Available at: https://www.microsoft.com/en-in [Accesed on: 8th March, 2023]
