Strategic Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 28

Strategic Management - Essay Example ted and respected models of strategic analysis, including SWOT, Porter’s Five Forces, and even cultural characteristics modelling provided by Geert Hofstede in order to adjust in an evolutionary or systemic philosophy. To build a solid brand reputation and gain market share among competition, KFC must understand its strengths and weaknesses, as well as externally-driven market threats to build a sustainable and marketable strategic position. Without this knowledge, the business will not be able to create productive and long-standing relationships with the very diverse markets in which the business operates. The SWOT analysis is an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Performing a SWOT analysis is a measure by which a business entity examines both its internal competencies and capabilities aligned with the external market to determine its current strategic position in its market. The basic assumption of the relevancy of the SWOT analysis is that the company can be properly fit within the context of external opportunities and threats by understanding internal resources available (Pearce and Robinson 2011). The SWOT analysis is a framework by which strategic planners are able to make adjustments to the internal organisational structure or reallocate resources to better respond to external market conditions. Porter’s Value Chain is a model that looks at the organisation as a chain of activities that transforms inputs into effective outputs. It is a customer-centric model that views that organisation as being an entity with a set of inter-dependent systems and divisions able to create outputs that customers will perceive as having sustainable value (Pearce and Robinson 2011). There are three ways in which customers perceive the aforementioned value: through activities that provide differentiation of product or services, through activities that lower their costs, and the ability of a company to respond to customer needs rapidly (Thompson,