Strategic methods

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  • Strategic Methods
    • Business Growth
      • Larger Businesses v Smaller Businesses
        • Economies of scale
          • Technical - Large businesses can afford to buy better, more advanced machinery
          • Managerial - Large businesses can employ managers with specialist skills
          • Marketing - A large business can afford more effective forms of advertising
          • Purchasing - Big businesses can negotiate discounts when buying supplies in large quantities
          • Diseconomies of scale
            • Communication is harder and less efficient in a larger business
            • Harder to motivate - People don't feel as if they belong
            • Poor coordination
        • The experience curve
          • Workers get practice and experience at making the products, they become more productive
          • As efficiency increases as total units produced increases
            • Workers develop better ways to make the product, including wasting fewer materials, taking less time and becoming better at using technology and machines
        • Economies of scope
          • Cheaper to produce many products than it is for many businesses to produce one product each
          • A business that already has people and infrastructure in place will be more efficient at producing an additional product
          • Allows a business to charge lower prices, and therefore, be more competitive
        • Retrenchment
          • May be necessary for a business to remain profitable
          • Cutting jobs, reducing output, withdrawing from markets and demerging
          • Effect on workers depends on how quickly retrenchment is completed
    • Business Growth - Organic
      • Advantages
        • Can maintain current management style, ethics and culture of the business
        • Less risk - usually financed using profits
        • Easy to manage and control
        • Less disruptive - ensures efficiency, productivity and moral among workers remains high
      • Dis-advantages
        • Can take a long time to grow a business internally and adapt to changes
        • If the market isn't growing, the business is restricted to increasing its market share or finding a new market to sell products to
        • Businesses might miss out on opportunities for more ambitious growth if they grow internally
      • Issues in growing in size
        • Large companies can suffer from diseconomiesscale
        • More difficult to manage cash flow
        • Increases risk of overtrading
        • Wish to maintain culture

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