商务文化与策略hnd.doc

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1.0 Section 1
1.1 PESTL
Political: There was increasing public and government concern about binge drinking and the consequent antisocial behaviour, particularly in city centres.  So that the Martin is a noted euro-sceptic and in 2002 printed 500,000 beer mats and put up 10,000 to save the pound.
Economic: The supermarket began selling drinks. This result in people drinking at  home and this company lose its competitive prices. So J D saved the pound.
Social: J D Wetherspoon does not serve complimentary crisps with baguettes. Customers thought that the fried food is not healthy.Also, they began to reduce the wine drinking. Then J D Wetherspon plc develops a kind of low ethanol wine.
Technological: J D have plasma screens and can show TV programmers. There is a ventilation system (costing more than £100,000) which aims to ensure that customers do not leave smelling of smoke.
Legal:  The ‘tied house’ system had been broken by a ruling from the Monopolies could operate. The government concern about binge drinking, so the pub need establish a range of rules. There was a law severely limited the number of pubs, so J D as a retailer stepped into market had gotten many advantages.
1.2 SWOT
Strength: The kids can eat in the bar parents. In addition, they lower the price of beer sold to a wide range of real beer. Moreover, J D  places great importance on listening to and acting on, it has two-way communication from members of staff on all aspects of the business about the feedback.
Weakness: J D cannot meet the social-culture even it did have TV screens and its peaceful motto is also no longer fitted. So that the pubs cannot solicit those customer like music or TV lover. In 2001, J D  had long been a stock market favourite but the share price also fell. 
Opportunities: Pubs are not only provide breakfast, but also built a dedicated family dining area which make children and adults eat together. J D also begun developing budget hotel, this can develop another market and increase the profit of J D . J D used to have a clear idea that it can choose what sort of pubs it wished to operate and combined them perfectly while the other operators cannot did this.
Threat: There are more and more competitors, such as Regent Inns, Punch Taverns and the supermarkets. The market appears too many suppliers so that the marketing competition is become fierce. External environment will influence on J D through opportunity and threaten. Threat could use opportunities to make weakness become strength.
1.3 Effect of SWOT
Guidelines for SWOT Analysis: First, keep it simple. It’s important to focus on your organization. Moreover, be rooted in the now and don't get lost in the future. (http://www.ryerson.ca/~kjensen/strategic_planning/swot.html)
With the change of time, the internal and external environment will change. So SWOT would change also. Strength and weakness belongs to internal which can analysis the internal information, and the opportunity and threaten belongs to external. Some strength, but also may be a weakness. So the organization should distinguish what is the strength or the weakness.
A SWOT analysis is only be used for consulting, we couldn’t use SWOT analysis to make strategy. Opportunity and threaten can be founded in PESTEL that implies many factor of external environment.
2.0 Section 2
2.1 Value of Culture
Organizational culture encompasses values and behaviors that "contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization." (The Business Dictionary. Organizational culture 2015 ) In other words, culture is a kind of values and Shared a group of person take together constitute a surviving design standard system. 
Shared value is a high-profile symbol, and a formal form. It can become embodied in the organization’s ideology or philosophy and act as a guide to behavior and ways of dealing with anxiety, uncertainly and difficult events. The organizations need “share value”. From one part, it can help them to guide the behavior of employees and regulate the workers. On the other hand, “share value” is the essential part of organizational culture. Assumption value is low-profile symbol, informal form and unspoken rules. The basic assumptions at very fundamental, almost sub-conscious, level tell employees how to perceive, think and feel about things. Due to unseen and not openly identified in the day to day interactions, these factors also called as “unspoken rules”.
In the case, pubs are commonly considered as socialize area, so the pubs always supply cheap food and comfortable communicating atmosphere. Even more when people have awareness of non-smoking, the pubs will set up a special area for non-smoking which meets the customer’s needs.
2.2 Type of Culture
Deal and Kennedy created a model of culture that is based on 4 different types of organizations. They each focus on how quickly the organization receives feedback, the way members are rewarded, and the level of risks taken: Work-hard, play-hard culture; Tough-guy macho culture; Process culture and Bet-the-company culture. (http://changingminds.org/explanations/culture/deal_kennedy_culture.htm) The mode of Deal and Kennedy will be used in judging which type is fit for this company. Through the case, we can found that Tim Martin manages the company with his mind and idea, it company is include by the food industry, all the staff work hard every day, and then they will have a holiday for several days. So J D  is suit the  work hard/play hard culture. They also have high level energy and customer-orientation. J D provide lower prices of beer and good service, and maintenance. The company always pays highly attention to the staff and the customers, and the information’s high-speed recreation, the feedback will rapid.The employees always have high-speed actions which result in high-speed recreation activities. J D also does these suggestions quickly. So the risk is low.
2.3 Relationship between Behavior and Culture
Organizational Behavior is “the study of human behavior in organizational settings, the interface between human behavior and the organization, and the organization itself” (Moorhead, G., & Griffin, R. W. /1995). Organisation behavior is the response of the system or organism to various stimuli or inputs, whether internal or external, conscious or subconscious, overt or covert, and voluntary orinvoluntary. (Elizabeth,2014). The relationship between organisation behavior and organisation culture is consistent relationship. In this case, there are numbers of ideas and suggestions are discussed each week in company meeting and staff are rewarded for their suggestion, staff can also discuss company issues with board members.
2.4 Another culture type
According to DK model, J D could choose tough guy, which have higher risk and slower feedback than work hard/ play hard. J D can carry out more party to attract customer and take cost-advantage to confront competitor. And the type of tough guy mostly applies to this type of company which fast-moving financial and police force or athletes competing in team sports, and they are focus on the present rather than on the longer-term future, they make more short-term decisions. As the drawing of Christmas Eve, J D can plan a activity to promote their product and service. So the feedback is rapid, and exist high risk. However, even the reward of tough guy is high, it also may result in stress of staff and has influence on the performance of employees.
3.0 Section 3
3.1 Business strategy
The main strategies are classified into four types: cost leadership, differentiation, focus differentiation and penetration.
Cost leadership: is a concept developed by Michael Porter, used in business strategy. It describes a way to establish the competitive advantage. Cost leadership means the lowest cost of operation in the industry（Stahl, Grigsby，1997）. The cost leadership is often driven by company efficiency, size, scale, scope and cumulative experience (learning curve). A cost leadership strategy aims to exploit scale of production, well defined scope and other economies, producing highly standardized products, using high technology. Business environment: strong competition and a threat of substitute products.
Differentiation: is the process of distinguishing a product or service from others, to make it more attractive to a particular target market. This involves differentiating it from competitors' products as well as a firm's own products(Chamberlin, 1949). Business environment: The chosen basis for differentiation should be inherently difficult to imitate, and will probably need to be developed over time. It could reduce rivalry with competitors and improve customer loyalty.
Focus differentiation: seeks a high price premium in return for a high degree of differentiation. It means focus on a well-defined and probably quite restricted market segment. Business environment: If the market was saturated, the focused differentiation could provide opportunities.
Penetration: It measures the brand popularity. It is defined as the number of people who buy a specific brand or a category of goods at least once in a given period, divided by the size of the relevant market population(Farris, Bendle, Pfeifer, et al, 2010). Market penetration is one of the four growth strategies of the Product-Market Growth Matrix as defined byAnsoff. Business environment: In a stagnating market increase in sales cause there is only possible by grabbing market share from rivals.
3.2 Strategy during the 1980s and 1990s
During the 1980s and 1990s, J D Wetherspoon adopted the differentiation. In the case, J D Wetherspoon is a pub chain, which has many pubs. The company aims to manage the pub to satisfied with the customer, and it was always make its strategy in the pub chain, all actions of JD like provide cheap beer and non-smoking area and so on, which are all of set the main point to its pub manage style. During the1980s and 1990s, JD built non-smoking and provide health food to the customers. The company thinks that the stuffs are its best asset.
There are four benefits if J D Wetherspoon choose the differentiation: the company build its own style and brand, form own customer group, the quick growing of expansion about share and scope, and the income is more than before.
3.3 Strategy during the 21st century
During the 21st century, J D Wetherspoon adopted the focus differentiation. In the case, they provided the differentiated products and services to meet the demands of customers. For instance, there are a dedicated family dining area, which children and adults can eat together. The different strategy could make the different effect to the organization structure, management style and organization culture.
During the 1980s and 1990s the company relied on organic growth by acquiring suitable sites and converting them into J D Wetherspoon plc, instead of buying the other pubs. At that time, all the pubs’ style is same, so it could use the same management style. But in the 21st century, while it also pays attention to the staffs, it try to change its style, manage model and the food what has provided.3.4 Two factors
Before changing the strategy, J D Wetherspoon may consider exterior environment and industry life cycle.
Exterior environment: When the company can not adapt to the changes in the external environment, the strategic drift occurs. Strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by a company's top management on behalf of owners, based on consideration of resources and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which the organization competes (Nag R, Hambrick D C, Chen M J.,2007).
During the 21st century, the retail licensing market had adapt to the changes in the ‘tied house’ system. Other pubs had been adapted it and developing their business. Therefore, there are much more competitors for JD. It led to the market saturation of pub. So J D Wetherspoon needs to change its business strategy.
Industry life cycle: The stages are the same for all industries, yet industries cycle through the stages in various lengths of time. Even within the same industry, various firms may be at different life cycle stages. Strategies of a firm as well as of competitors vary depending on the stage of the life cycle. The growth of an industry's sales over time is used to chart the life cycle. The distinct stages of an industry life cycle are: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline (reference for business, 2013). When the industry development to maturity, the company should consider the change
In this case, the pubs industry has entered a mature stage so that the competitors will be more and more. So J D Wetherspoon needs considering different product form other pubs to attract customers. J D Wetherspoon pubs now serve breakfast and open earlier in the morning before normal licensing hours begin at 11.00 a.m.
3.5 Business strategy and strategic choice
Business strategy: A business strategy typically is a document that clearly articulates the direction a business will pursue and the steps it will take to achieve its goals. It facilitates enterprise to achieve competitive advantage in the market, and create more benefits.
Strategic choice: Choose one of the most appropriate strategies as the company's strategy. For any organization, it faces a lot of options strategy. So every organization must make a strategic choice about which strategy they need to follow or adopt.
In the case, we can know that J D Wetherspoon adopted the differentiation as its business strategy during the 1980s and 1990s. It supplies special environment quiet, clean, non-smoking to others. During the development of pubs, the other pubs also became to do special environment like that. Then J D Wetherspoon began to serve breakfast, show World Cup football and so on, it also develop new brand like and begun developing budget hotel to change its strategy. All these process of strategy is its strategic choice, which from differentiation to focus on difference strategy choosing.
3.6 Two key issues
Being clear about the direction and the development of company: J D Wetherspoon known their development direction is to be distinctive and differentiation. It provides real ale beers at relatively low prices and care about child and disable, it build non-smoking area to keep health for the customers.
Make ensure every staff aware of strategy： In this case, the staffs of J D Wetherspoon are keeping in touch with weekly newsletters, a monthly company video and by publicizing the minutes of broad meeting. And J D Wetherspoon attend to listen to the staff voice. This management method greatly help the company and employees with their exchanging ideas and suggestions.
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