Sustainable strategic fit is a concept that refers to the alignment between a company’s business strategy and its sustainable practices. In today’s business landscape, sustainability is increasingly becoming a critical factor for companies to remain competitive and relevant in the long-term. Sustainable strategic fit helps companies achieve their sustainability goals while also driving business value. To understand sustainable strategic fit, it is important to first define what is meant by sustainability in business. Sustainability refers to the ability of a company to operate in a way that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This includes environmental, social, and economic considerations. Businesses can achieve sustainability through various practices, such as reducing waste and emissions, sourcing materials sustainably, supporting local communities, and promoting diversity and inclusion. However, achieving sustainability is not enough on its own. Companies must also ensure that Continue reading
Corporate Strategies
Case Study: The Meteoric Rise and Fall of Uber’s Founder Travis Kalanick
Travis Kalanick is an American entrepreneur and the co-founder of Uber Technologies Inc., a ride-hailing company that revolutionized the transportation industry. He was born on August 6, 1976, in Los Angeles, California. Kalanick grew up in a middle-class family and showed an early interest in entrepreneurship. Kalanick attended the University of California, Los Angeles, but dropped out before completing his degree to pursue his entrepreneurial ventures. He co-founded his first startup, Scour, a peer-to-peer file-sharing company, in 1998. However, Scour faced significant legal challenges related to copyright infringement and was eventually forced to file for bankruptcy. Kalanick went on to found several other startups, including Red Swoosh, a content delivery network, and Uber, which he co-founded in 2009 with Garrett Camp. Under Kalanick’s leadership, Uber grew rapidly, expanding into hundreds of cities around the world and attracting billions of dollars in investment. However, Kalanick’s tenure at Uber was also marked Continue reading
Resource Based View (RBV) and Sustainable Competitive Advantage
Resource based view (RBV) focuses on the internal factors that contribute to a firm’s growth and performance. It highlights the importance of firm’s resources and capabilities. Both of them will together form a competency that can create a competitive advantage. Resources can also be divided into tangible resources and intangible resources. Capabilities of the firm in utilizing the resources have a big impact on how a firm will be able to stand out among other competitors. Competitive advantage arises when a firm has a lower cost structure, products differentiation and niche markets. RBV also concerns in value creation in order to compete with others. On the other hand, in order to survive in this competitive world, a firm needs to fully prepare itself to achieve sustainable competitive advantage (SCA), which means having a superior performance in a longer term compared to other rivals. According to Jay Barney (1991), resources need Continue reading
Case Study: The Collaboration Between Sony and Ericsson
Nowadays, it’s very common for companies from different countries and sector to work together. In 2001, a joint venture company – Sony Ericsson Mobile communication has been established by a Japanese electronics company Sony Corporation and Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson. The aim of this cooperation is to produce the mobile phone with multimedia communication solution to customers all over the world. The initial for this collaboration is to associate the Sony’s multimedia consumer electronics expertise and Ericsson’s technical knowledge in telecommunications. Once Sony Ericsson established, both of the companies stopped their individual mobile business. The Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications is a London-based 50:50 joint venture business. Before the collaboration, Ericsson ran its mobile business in the market for years and obtained 10.7% in the handset market in 2000. It has a great loss when faced the cheaper mobile phone producer as Nokia. Mobile phone is one of the core businesses Continue reading
Stakeholder Theory and Corporate Governance
In contemporary society, business organizations are taking on an increasingly complex and significant role. Some corporate giants control vast resources and possess enormous influence in human daily life. Especially when they enter areas such as health care and education, they can have a more deep relationship and powerful impact on society. However, the nature of business activities is to pursue the best interests and it could lead to some conflicts between different stakeholders. Thus, proper corporate governance needs to be used to ensure corporates continue operating on a normal track. In theory, corporate governance is a kind of system that could direct and control companies. The object of corporate governance is to make maximum profit for shareholders in the past. Unfortunately, it has been considered one of the most root causes of the governance crisis in recent times. On the one hand, excessive pursuit of share price performance has neglected Continue reading
Corporate Social Responsibility as a Source of Competitive Advantage
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) means that a corporation should be held accountable for any of its actions that affect people, their communities and their environment; it may require a company to forgo some profits if its social impacts are seriously harmful to the corporation’s stakeholders or if its funds can be used to promote a positive social good. Tougher competition recently has compelled the firms to adopt something that is different from their rivals and has also put a pressure on the firms to examine their philanthropy and other social activities, by doing so the company can sometimes achieve a strategic advantage over its competitors. There is a business case for CSR but it is much less important or influential than many proponents of civil regulation believe, CSR is best understood as a niche rather than a generic strategy: it makes business sense for some firms in some areas in Continue reading