Strategic Management Assignments 1 Mini Mills

What is a mini mill? There is no official definition, but it can be described as a low-tonnage mill with a single-line structure system. The mini-mill is generally built with minimum capital investment. As a rule, mini-mills are located close to major population centers that are a source of both raw material supply and customers for finished products. Unlike large structure facilities located on remote sites, mini-mills frequently are located in industrial parks close to the urban forests. A properly design mini-mill can be extremely efficient and competitive. The key is to design the mill for minimum capital investment and operating costs. The design process starts with the selection of a mill site. Sitting the mill in an industrial park can mean huge savings on such support and service facilities as access roads, railroad sidings, electric substations, storm sewers, etc. It might also enable the mill to share a cogeneration facility with other industries in the park.

Mittal Steel Company Mittal steel is the worlds number one steel company, with 320,000 employees in more than 60 countries. The company is the leader in all major global markets, including automotive, construction, household appliances and packaging, with leading R&D and technology, as well as sizeable captive supplies of raw materials and outstanding distribution networks.

Strategic Management Assignments 2

Business model of Microsoft: Microsoft employs a cadre of highly skilled programmers to develop propriety code, keep the source code hidden from users and lock them in to using Microsofts propriety software. Microsoft sells the resulting operating system and software package to personal computer markets and to PC users at relatively attractive price and achieves large unit sales. Microsoft provides technical support to users at no cost. Business Model of Linux: Whereas Red hat Linux a company to formed to market its own version of the open-source Linux operating system, employs a business model based on sharply different revenue-cost-profit. Make source code open and available to all users, allowing them to operate a customize version of Linux. Linux sell software at zero cost but rely on sells of technical support service, training, and consulting to generate revenues sufficient to cover cost and yield a profit. Generic Strategy: There are three type of generic strategy: Cost Differentiation

Focus A cost leader has the product with the lowest acquisition cost. Market

structure will determine how difficult it is to maintain a cost leadership position. If, for example, the competition is fierce and the cost of raw materials or production is high this will keep profit margins low and make maintaining a cost leadership position extremely difficult. Differentiation leaders generally have higher prices, but provide value through extras features that are not found in the lower cost solutions. Cost focus and differentiation focus are two variants of the same generic strategy. A cost focus leader has the lowest acquisition price for a target segment of the market. A differentiation focus leader extends its products with extras that meet the needs of a target segment of the market. Generic Strategy of Microsoft and Linux It most markets, it is nearly impossible to be both a cost and differentiation leader. However, there are exceptions. If a market has few competitors or a company can control a significant percentage of the market, then it is possible to be both a cost and differentiation leader. This, of course, is how Microsoft came to dominate the software industry. At the time when Microsoft entered the market, it had few competitors. This allowed Microsoft to quickly gain a significant market share, which in turn, has enabled it to maintain both its cost leadership position and its differentiation position to this day. Linux presents a significant threat to Microsofts dominance, because it undermines the cost leadership position that Microsoft has enjoyed for so long. As a result, Microsoft has been forced to resign its cost leadership position and focus on differentiation (hence, we get the term total cost of ownership, which is decidedly rooted in differentiation.

Linux is also following differtiation strategy.

Strategic Management Assignments 3

Strategic Business Unit Strategic Business Unit or SBU is understood as a business unit within the overall corporate identity which is distinguishable from other business because it serves a defined external market where management can conduct strategic planning in relation to products and markets. Strategic Business Unit is an organizational entity of a company that is given the responsibility to serve the particular demands of one business area and therefore has its own mission, objectives and business strategy. Acronym is SBU. Contrary to the use of the word "business unit" in everyday life, an SBU in the strategic management sense is normally an entire division in large corporations. Example of SBU BRAC has several Strategic Business Unit, Such as BRAC University, BRAC Bank, BRAC dairy, ARONG and so on. Among the different SBUs of BRAC we have selected ARONG and BRAC University to clarify the idea of Strategic Business Unit. BRAC University and ARONG is two different business unit of BRAC. The markets of both the organization are also different. Their Mission, Vision, Objective and the way of executing business is not similar. Moreover, target customer, forward linkage and backward linkage are different too. Each SBU has its own CEO and both of them are accountable to the chairman of BRAC. To manage these SBUs in a healthy manner or to generate substantial profit from both organizations needs different and unique strategy.

So we can say that BRAC University and ARONG is the SBU of BRAC. SBU can be within the Business Unit too. For example Within BRAC University different schools can be SBU too. BRAC Business School and BRAC school of Law can be different SBU as well. Because, both the schools serve different market to meet different demand, they need different strategy, different planning, their set of competitor are different as well. We can summarize the whole thing in a way that organizational entities are large enough and homogeneous enough to exercise control over most strategic factors affecting their performance. They are managed as self contained planning units for which discrete business strategies can be developed. A Strategic Business Unit can encompass an entire company, or can simply be a smaller part of a company set up to perform a specific task. The SBU has its own business strategy, objectives and competitors and these will often be different from those of the parent company.

Strategic Management Assignments 4

SWOT analysis of BRAC University Strength Brand image: BRAC is a brand name. BRAC University is using this brand name. Modern education system: BRAC University follows modern education system with sophisticated equipment. Own Building: This university is situated of BRAC own building. Small campus: As a university the campus is small. It is more vertical but university campus should be wider or horizontal. Limited Subject: Number of subject is few and most of the subjects are professional subject. Subject of social science is very few. Few permanent faculties: Number of permanent faculties should be more than current number. Opportunity Rate of higher education trend is upward sloping: Higher education trend is increasing day by day. BRAC University should grab this opportunity. Open more contemporary subject: It is the age of information and technology. So they can start more technical subject. Transport & hostel facility: BRAC University can provide transport and hostel facility for its students. Threat Systematic threat: Government or university grant commission can take any decision which can go disfavor of all private universities or BRAC University. Weakness

Competitive threat: Others private universities can be a threat in several sector of BRAC University. Threat from public universities: Infrastructure of public universities is much better than private universities as well as BRAC University.