Contexts of Business Strategy and Development

Contexts of Business Strategy and Development

Task 1.

In an effort to reposition Dubai Strategic Plan 2015 and to ensure that the emirate will remain globally competitive and flexible, Dubai unveiled its 2020 Economic Strategy Plan (ESP), which targets to create a sustainable growth and development plan. ESP changed business procedures and open a new environment for new global investors across several industries such as small and medium enterprise (SME), tourism, and infrastructure investments. The objective of ESP is to diversify Dubai's economy on non-oil sectors such as banking and finance, which have showed high growth performance. Recent research shows the most profitable companies in UAE which include: (1) Etisalat, (2) DP World, (3) National Bank of Abu Dhabi, (4) First Gulf Bank, (5) Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, (6) Emirates NBD, (7) Emaar, (8) Union National Bank, (9) RAK Bank, (10) Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank.

For purposes of this assignment, we are going to review the business strategy and development of DP World (shipping), NBD Emirates (banking), and Emaar (real estate) in relation with their performance and growth. These three companies represent three industries that play important role in Dubai business environment. 

P1. Correlation Between DP World's Strategic Contexts and Terminology and its Performance

Businesses are guided by specific principles that serve as guidelines on procedures and processes, targets and focus, and the entire flow of action taken by the company. The importance of this matter is well expressed on how a company formulate its strategic contexts and terminology as clearly represented on its business vision, mission, goals and objectives, and core competencies (Frisendal 2012). Otherwise, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for a business to develop business strategies, mainly because they don't have a foundation to start with. Simply, strategic contexts and terminology is the foundation of all activities undertaken by any organization, irrespective of its class and model.

To understand these points, let us review DP World, one of the biggest businesses in Dubai. DP World is a global logistic or shipping company operating more than 60 ports in six continents. The company's revenue heavily rely on container handling. DP World handled almost 55 million TEU or twenty-foot equivalent container units for the year 2011, and the company declared $2, 978, 000 revenue. The company is headquartered in Dubai, which beneficial to the emirate's goal of staying global and at par with global business trend.

To clearly understand how DP World maintained its market growth, it is essential to review its vision, mission, goals and objectives, and core competencies on the value of strategic contexts and terminology. DP World's vision says “Sustainable value through global growth, services, and excellence.” The company's vision expresses the long-term foundation and “picture preview” of the company as it “hoped to exist in a future period (Ireland, et. al., 2008, p. 25).” In the context of international companies like DP World, the vision must be deployed on its regional organization to align with the future development of the company.

In the value of describing the environment or the strategic context of DP World, the language of its vision is clear and expressed. With its “11 developments and major expansions underway in 10 countries (www.dpworld.com)” in key market countries such as China, and India, the company aims to maintain its global growth through an expansive services, which now include ferries and terminal services.

The second component of a company's vision is written on its mission statement. According to Ogbor (2009), the company's mission allows the organization “to craft a business brand or reputation” from which the “business will become known (p. 284).”  DP World's mission statement anchors on keeping “excellence, innovation and profitability” to ensure “exceptional customer service.” The successful performance of DP World in logistics can be traced to the satisfaction customers receive from the services provided by the company. In keeping up with the demand of its “exceptional customer service”, DP World continually expands its operations to cater to global markets, which is in congruence to its vision.

Based on the context and terminology used in its vision and mission, DP World's goals and objectives maintained the same spirit, although aimed at accomplishing long-term plans that will help realize the company's mission (Smith, 2002). For instance, in the aim of staying globally competitive, the move to put a US-based headquarter (although the move was controversially stopped) could have realized the vision statement of “global growth”. In fact, we find the company's mission, which aim to keep “a global approach to a local business environment” expressing where DP World wants to go (Nijssen & Frambach, 2000). The successful performance of DP World is attributed on how it successful the company created local headquarters in keeping up with the global demands. 

DP World's successful performance is guarded by its core values or competencies, which the company harnessed to realize its vision and mission. At the top of these competencies is its innovation on corporate and technology. For the past years, DP World invested on its people to ensure that the company will be able to cope with demand of “exceptional customer service” through professional and skilled workforce. In the same manner, the company has also poured large investments on facilities and new technologies that will enhance their capability to deliver to their customers and business partners. Nonetheless, DP World's advantage of global arms had continued with new investment on projects such as the London Gateway(Oxford Business Group, 2008).

According to Walters (2004),  “to understand the complex web of ideas... we have to appreciate its role in setting the context and giving a guiding purpose to the operations (p. 1).” DP World was able to create a strong and clear expression of its context, therefore giving the company a fair opportunity to understand the sophisticated components of their business. Overall, the vision and mission of the company hit the same note and do it straightforwardly. As a result, objectives and goals are more patterned to the said vision-mission to ensure achievement of them. As always, the foundation of the business means its success, and this is where DP World gains a vantage point.

P2. Strategic Planning of Emirates NBD (600)

Strategic planning is defined as being “directed at determining a unique business mission which takes into consideration the external environment, and the capabilities of the business and which enables the business to develop a strategy... with the greatest potential (Kroon, 1995, p. 136).” Dunne, et. al. (2010), further defined strategic planning as an adaptive measure of the company using “resources of the firm to the opportunities and threats” of the ever-changing business environment. Companies that failed to acknowledge strategic planning often fail to create positive actions toward the accomplishment of their vision and mission.

As we are reviewing contexts of business strategy and development in Dubai, let us explore the strategic planning of Emirates NBD. Emirates NBD is considered the largest banking company based in the Middle East, in terms of financial assets. Headquartered in Dubai, UAE, this banking group operates in the United Kingdom, Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with representative offices in Iran, India and Singapore.

A comprehensive strategic plan comes with various areas or elements that must be considered during the planning process, such as communication strategy, vision-mission statements, values or core competencies, implementation strategy, and monitoring strategy. Emirates NBD's “Pay Yourself First” initiative and its partnership with Avaya cemented the approach on how the banking group developed their communication strategy, either for internal or external benefits.  According to the Results Presentation of the Emirates NBD released last June 2012, they have a “clear strategy in placed and is focused on relentless execution.” The company maintains a high level of implementation strategy to carry out their plans and achieve their goals within their specific timeframe.

It is also worth mentioning that Emirates NBD's strategy context and terminology are clearly expressed in its vision and mission. In fact, the vision of the company is as simple as “to be globally recognized as the leading and most dynamic financial services provider in the Middle East (www.emiratesnbd.com).” As the leading retail banking group in Dubai and in the entire UAE with its strong corporate investment banking portfolio, Emirates NBD aims to “:deliver outstanding value to its shareholders, customers, and employees.”

Overall, strategic planning help managers make better strategic decisions that are advantageous and beneficial to the company's accomplishments of its goals and objectives under the guideline of its vision and mission (Hill & Jones, 2009). Strategic planning methodologies are essential factors that ensures the company's survival even in the midst of an unpreditable or unstable business environment. For companies like the Emirates NBD in the banking industry, where financial instruments are volatile and the entire environment is dependent on several external factors, strategic planning is a leverage against fluctuations and changes.  

Emirates NBD follows a top-down business model, wherein employees achievement of a target depends on the decision of the top manager. Strategic planning dictates managers to establish or define tasks or objectives that should be achieved by the business. These tasks or objectives are distributed across different department and levels. Without a clear definition of a plan, employees would be beating the air for nothing.

When employees understand what is the goal of the organization, managers can implement or execute the plan without delay. An advantage of strategic planning is setting up a time schedule for tasks to be done and for objectives to be accomplished. With the guiding schedule, it is easier for the organization to achieve its goals. In the same manner, each task is calculated to ensure that they have a positive impact on the vision and mission of the company. For Emirates NBD, the goal is to become a global banking services provider, and they are accomplishing through strategic expansion on other key markets.

With more than 8, 000 employees, Emirates NBD has a massive team of professionals and well-trained financial providers that can translate the goal of the organization into reality. As part of the key element of strategic planning, it is very important for organization to have a task force that will implement specific areas of the objectives. Strategic planing dictates managers to assign tasks to definite members of the team to maximize the impact of the workforce.

However, according to Monahan (2001), “employees must have analytical skills to evaluate the processes they use and clarify what is expected of them, both by the managers and by customers.”  Generally, managers should understand that strategic plans will only be effective if those who implement these plans are involved in coming up with this plan. Otherwise, it would alienate the team from telling managers what is wrong in terms of practice – not in theory alone.

Strategic planning is an essential part of the business's performance. Without clear definition of a plan, it is impossible to accomplish them. In Emirates NBD, strategic planning stands supreme to ensure they can deliver the best. In the same manner, the company works on the different areas of plan to keep everything on check from their “relentless execution” to the communication strategy for internal purposes (employees) and for external concerns (customers).

P3. Business Strategies of Emaar

There are numerous planning techniques and plans that can be applied on strategic planning processes to arrive at a certain level of action that can counterfight the impact of a changing business and economic environment. Strategic planning is central to the development of a strong business concept and strategy for Emaar. Emaar is a real-estate company that works on changing the lifestyle destination of Dubai Downtown. With partnership with different companies across different global markets, Emaar plans to develop more advanced master-planned communities to provide wider options for consumers. The long-term mission of Emaar is to make it a globally-competitive brand with diversified portfolio.

Before making recommendations on the different techniques and systems that can be used to develop a strategic plan for Emaar, it is essential to review the different planning systems and behavioral approaches that are widely-used by companies across different industries around the world. There are three basic planning systems used in strategic planning, namely: formal planning, informal planning, and behavioral approaches. According to Steiner (2010), formal strategic planning is an effort to duplicate what goes on in the mind of a brilliant intuitive planner. The stress of this system is the outcome of a rational thinking and planning process (Hill & Jones, 2009) on the rationale the businesses work under a more predictable environment that plans will work as they are written and conceived (Mohr, et. al., 2009).

On the other hand, informal planning system involves little complexity than formal strategic planning (Kuratko & Hodgetts, 2008). In essence, informal planning is more relaxed than it does not require a systematic procedure to under the business environment for the creation of a strategy. Moreover, there are behavioral approaches used by some managers to create potential positive strategies. These approaches are based on behavioral models that are geared to promote short-term plans and understanding of the business environment (Sutton, 1980).

Strategic planning, nonetheless, also follows different major planning techniques that help businesses to outline their current environment and formulate certain strategies that will answer the demand of the business environment. The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix works on the performance of specific products or goods that are offered by the organization. It is a very simplistic matrix that works on high and low report of goods, which can be used by managers to create strategies, especially on low performing goods or products (Finkler, 2007, p. 446). On the other hand, the directional policy matrix is somewhat similar to SWOT analysis. It requires managers to evaluate the environment of the business to predict future direction of the business (Roney, 2004).

Another major planning technique is SPACE, which stands for Strategic Position and Action Evaluation. This technique looks at the financial strength and competitive advantage of the firm to confirm a strategic posture of the company in the future (Abraham, 2012). While PIMS or Profit Impact of Marking Strategy is focused on more than twenty-five variables evaluated on a linear regression model (Roney, 2004). 

Other methodologies used in strategic planning include SWOT and PESTEL. SWOT or Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, provides “a brief overview of essential and relevant information about internal assets as well as the market audit (Pahl & Richter, 2009)”. PESTEL, on the other hand, stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Eco-Logical, and Legal, which stresses on the environment audit of the business to create a strategic plan for the future action of the business.

As a recommendation for Emaar's strategic plan to counter the impact of the changing business environment, top managers or strategic planning executives can utilize SWOT or PESTEL to understand its environment. Due to the fact that real-estate industry is very volatile, a clear knowledge of all factors contributing to the said change is essential to the formulation of an effective strategy. Both SWOT and PESTEL can provide a market or an environment audit that gives an overview of the current position of the business.

Based on the audit through the mentioned techniques, planning executives can use the formal planning system. With formal planning, Emaar focuses on what is being forecasted. But as mentioned, the volatility and changing nature of the real-estate industry requires the organization to react in the shortest possible time – and only informal planning can do that. Emaar can shift from formal planning to informal planning during the intervals of the formal planning strategy. On the other hand, informal planning serves as the quick S-R of the organization.

Lastly, it is also recommended that strategic planning for Emaar be broken. Decentralized strategic planning allows those who are in the actual market to react without the approval of the executives. This is a very important part of real-estate industries that work on various climate. Delay on reaction and plan can only mean losses and can damage master-planned communities, such as those developed by Emaar.

Task 2.

P1. Emirates NBD's Strategic Positioning and UAE's Economic Environment

Dubai's 2020 Economic Strategy Plan changed business procedures, streamline business activities, and increase infrastructure and business investments in the region. As a result, it provided wider and steeper competition among businesses. With the ESP, Dubai attracts more foreign and local investments on banking and finance, or as an indirect result of economic appreciation. As a result, Emirates NBD, being one of the leaders in this industry, may find itself competing with new foreign or local players. For Emirates to accomplish and remain at its productivity and profitability, it is necessary to formulate new plans that will translate the company's vision-mission into reality. With this intent, it is necessary to create an an audit of Emaar's environment.

Since its inception in 2007, Emirates NBD has cemented itself as one of the industry leaders with a thrust on the development of banking services that are beneficial and essential to customers or clients. Emirates NBD is the result when Emirates Bank International merged with National Bank of Dubai, making the new bank the biggest and largest banking group in Dubai and in the whole United Arab Emirates. With more than 141 branches and more than 740 automated teller machines, Emirates NBD cemented itself as the main financial services provider of the region. The strength of the company envelops its retail banking and corporate banking franchise. However, with the aim of becoming a global financial and banking leader, Emirates NBD has only few representative offices on few key markets. Yet, if viewed on another perspective, these low number of overseas offices and headquarters, Emirates NBD can turn the business tides to their favor.

The current diversification of Emirates NBD has changed the environment for the banking champion within the Dubai and UAE region. It is a good note that the company has diversified its investments on various industries giving it a leverage on value. With a 8, 000-strong workforce, the banking group has made itself more than just a banking institution, but also a financial-investment company. Its market diversification to include asset management and brokerage services has provided the company better value. Right now, they have created a financial value for the company even if the banking and investments is not considered.

Nonetheless, Emirates NBD's banking market demography has largely changed to fit the current environment of Dubai. The appreciation of businesses, especially in retail, corporate banking is not enough to cater personal market demographics or retail banking franchise. The isolation and confinement of Emirates NBD on a specific population may lead to exhaustion. Once the demographic market gets exhausted, it is impossible for Emirates NBD to remain profitable and productive. It is essential for the business to expand and extend its reach on other demographic markets, like what the banking group did on its growing retail banking franchise.  With the diversified networks and portfolio of Emirates NBD, understanding the culture and values of the market is a top concern. With the demographic market of the banking group, it is necessary to understand from time to time how people react to the luxury options offered by the company.

The current behavior of Dubai business environment poses a tremendous weight and burden on companies, and not just on Emirates NBD. With the understanding of its environment, it would be easier for top managers to create strategies that will position the company in Dubai's business and economic environment.

P2. Emirates NBD Environment Audit

Aside from a clear understanding of the business internal environment, an external market audit is also very important to review the external market or environment of Emirates NBD. It will provide an overview of other contributing factors that may affect the direction, profitability and success performance of the business. For the purpose of this environment audit, PESTEL and Porter's five forces analysis will be used.

The recent 2020 Economic Strategy Plan provided a dramatic change on policy making in the region. The government streamlined the function of businesses and institutions even simplifying the business procedures for new ecosystems that are more open for investments and ventures. With the 2020 ESP, economic behavior in Dubai has appreciated which increases the economic growth of the region. This economic upheaval or movement affects Emirates NBD, in such a way that businesses across different industries need the banking and financial services sector to serve their purpose. The economic growth of the region, on the other hand, provides Emirates NBD an opportunity to diversify its investment portfolio, especially on infrastructure and its vertical industries.

Emirates NBD 8, 000-strong human resources come from various culture and social norms. As the growth of the business appreciates, cultural differences of workers may result to organizational changes and remodeling which is essential to cope with this workforce situation. On the other hand, the consciousness of the populace in Dubai over banking and finance can also provide a positive outlook for Emirates NBD personal banking than just corporate banking.  As part of its thrust to keep Emirates NBD at par with its global counterparts, the banking group works with Avaya to create a formidable and reliable IT infrastructure and architecture that will enhance the services of the company. It also creates a communication system that will increase the S-R time of divisions and departments in resolving issues with customers.

The 2020 ESP opens Dubai for a better tourism, which is a great advantage for many businesses. Indirectly, Emirates NBD can generate from this development, but it can also tap another aspect of this situation. In fact, new services can be opened by Emirates NBD to provide for expats and other sectors. On the other hand, Dubai's legal limitations and cap on banking sector may also provide a weakness on Emirates NBD's desire to become one of the leading financial group of the world.

As mentioned, the introduction of ESP on the context of business environment, the economic behavior of the region attracts new foreign and local players. Within the banking system, as Dubai opens up its markets for foreign investments, it may also yield to new competitors for Emirates NBD. In the same manner, as the economic activity of the region rises, it will always demand for new banking players. Furthermore, these new banking-industry players may open services to streamline products for individuals and SMEs. Or new players may create a better investment options for companies in the region that are looking for capitalization.

In this context of competition, customers will always get the best. As a result, customers have strength to demand for lower banking and investment fees, and better or newer products and services that will cater their needs. Emirates NBD should keep a good check on these areas to ensure that their customers will not reduce into a certain number due to the untapped section of the market. On the other hand, as new banking players enter the market, the inflow of deposits may reduce which will affect the investment portfolio of the company.

In understanding these overall forces, it is necessary to evaluate the intensity of the competition. As such, innovation on services and products must be evaluated to counter the intensity of competition, or new markets be explored and exploited to diversify into relax markets.

P3. Analysis of Emirates NBD's External Environment

To further understanding of Emirates NBD's external factors, let us review some techniques that are used by most organizations to evaluate their external market. The external environment of a business is a very broad or wide area that its sections must be studied carefully and analyzed succinctly. Otherwise, it would be hard for strategic planners to create effective strategies that have positive impact on the direction of the business.

For purposes of understanding the external factor of Emirates NBD, let us use the stakeholder analysis to evaluate key stakeholders of any action taken by the banking company. Should the company its investment portfolio, it also entails higher operating cost for the company which will reduce the dividends of corporate stockholders. This is very important to note that for any action of the company, the primary concern is the interest of stockholders. This is a common practice of the corporate world because stakeholders can stop projects at their will. For instance, if Emirates NBD intends to establish new offices on key markets or cities, such action may reduce unappropriated retained earnings, thus directly affecting available funds for dividends.

On the other hand, it is necessary to note that if Emirates NBD intends to expand, it may need employees transferred to another location. This would result to a socio-cultural problem (based on our PESTEL analysis of Emirates NBD), which would result to low performance or lack of organizational culture for a unified goals and objectives. Other stakeholders affected by such move are customers. With the establishment of new headquarters, customers may just transfer to another one rendering the former reduced in terms of productivity and profitability.

Moreover, it is necessary for Emirates NBD to identify factors that will affects its survival. For one, what customers need at the moment is very vital for the banking group. With the introduction of 2020 ESP, capitalization is a need among corporate clients. Thus, the banking group must open itself to these investments than itself deposits or cash inflow. In the same manner, the business must be ready with the high level of withdrawal or cash outflow, aside from the capitalization investments, as more corporate clients get their assets to invest on more income-generating activities. Altogether, it is necessary for the organization to be ready to provide for its customers, whatever they need.

On the other hand, it is necessary for Emirates NBD to change its economic or organizational value to survive. For instance, if products and services of the banking group are not meeting the demands of customers, it is imperative and inevitable for the business to change its course of action to serve the customers. Adaptive measure is a vital part of business strategy.

In the process of understanding the movement of the business, it is necessary to check the market attractiveness. The current Dubai business environment with the introduction of ESP poses different areas that can mean a lot for a business. With Emirates NBD, new policy on investments on infrastructures and other vertical industries open a high attraction for investments. In fact, heavy industries in Dubai have already grown with the Dubai Strategic Plan 2015, and 2020 ESP reinforced this growth, which is a great advantage for Emirates NBD, which has a large asset portfolio.

On the other hand, the other side of the spectrum shows that corporate banking may not appreciate due to the large investment opportunities opened for companies in Dubai. The scenario requires the banking group to divest on other key services like retail banking and personal banking.

Simply, the need for a business to evaluate its current business environment, both internal and external, is a vital part of strategic planning. Executives cannot just direct new strategies and actions for the business without careful analysis of the market. Otherwise, strategies may not effectively translate the demand of the market and the business itself.

Task 3.

P1. Significance of Stakeholders in Business Strategy

DP World is a leader in ports and terminal operations, logistics, and contain handling. Being one of the most profitable businesses in Dubai, DP World maintains state-of-the-art technology and facilities, professional workers, and a better systematic process. The thrust of DP World is to keep innovation and excellence at the top with the aim of providing the exceptional customer service. But with the changing Dubai business environment, DP World needs to create actions that will counter these internal and external factors.

Stakeholder Groups	Finance (Gain or Loss)	Legislation and Policy (such as ESP)	Facility and Safety	Business Action (such as expansion)
Company's Stockholders	Affected	Affected Revenue)	_____________	Affected
Employees	Indirectly (Retrenchment)	______________	Affected	Affected
Customers	___________	______________	Affected	Affected

Figure 1: Stakeholders Analysis Mapping

Based on our analysis of DP World's stakeholders, it is necessary to note that our major stakeholders are DP World's Stockholders (corporate owners of the company), the employees (the 7, 800-strong human resources of the company), and customers (DP World's clients in all its divisions and services). Company's stockholders are directly affected with the gain or loss of the company; any business action may also affect the interest of the stockholders as it may reduce the unappropriated retained earnings of the business, thus reducing available funds for stockholders' distribution.

On the other hand, employees are indirectly affected with the financial gain or loss of DP World. With the current behavior of the company, expansion is inevitable and clear. However, if the company lose its profitability edge, retrenchment on employees become a secondary impact. With the advancement of the technologies used in DP World's facilities, employees are well-assured that they are getting the best safety and health requirements.

Lastly, customers are given the best service through the acquisition of new facilities and equipment that speed up the logistic and provide assurance that goods (containers) will arrive in shape. Although, customers are not affected by expansion in terms of financial gain, they get the benefit of being served faster and better, which is consonance to the vision of DP world which is to provide excellence, and its mission that aim to give “exceptional customer service.”

Below is the Stakeholder Analysis Grid (Power Grid), which explains the value of stakeholders and their subsequent involvement in DP World's activity.

Engagement * engage them in corporate decisions and planning * will become Players	Players * determine efforts of the business * high involvement in business plans and strategies
Information *website, documents, emails * will become members of those who Demands	Demands * work on areas of definite risks *work on areas of interest

In above's analysis, we used the Stakeholder method. This analytical method aims to provide “a clear understanding of the nature, attitude, value, and interest of stakeholders (Calabrese, 2008).” It gives the top manager who is involved in strategic planning an opportunity to get a clear overview of the entire organization. It ensures that CEO and executives consider the impact of their decisions and actions on the company's stakeholders.

 

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