Strategy of a company is a decision about how to use available resources to secure a major objective in the face of possible obstruction such as competitor, public opinion, legal status, taboos and similar forces (Koontz and O’Donnell) (Anon., n.d.)
Strategy is a pattern of actions that are allocated to achieve the organisation’s goals. Strategy deals with a company’s competitive initiatives and business approaches.
THE ROLE OF STRATEGY TO ACHIEVE BUSINESS OBJECTIVES AND GOALS
Corporate strategy at the top defines which business the company should be in, which industries to compete. Strategic vision includes the company’s business plans, where it needs to “go”. These tasks can include creating a roadmap to the future, deciding the position to take, and provide a long-term direction. The next level is business strategy. This is tactics to beat the competition, how to support corporate strategy and compete in a business area. Tactical strategies are something that pertains to the everyday moves of company to improve their market share, competitive pricing, customer service or other aspects that has advantages. Tactics can be short-term and considerations about how to deploy resources to win a battle. Tactics are meaningful in the service of long-term goals and values. Tactics are a way to put a business off of what they want to achieve (Anon., n.d.). Functional business strategies seek to improve the implementation of business and the corporate strategies. Functional strategies include marketing strategies and human resources strategies. Often concern specifics areas such the resource allocation, operating expense efficiencies and product improvement.
Mission, Vision, goals and Objectives:
A mission statement defines the current activities and boundaries of the business. It conveys where a company is at present and where it wants to be in future. An example of a mission statement is Starbucks coffee “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time”.
The Dream Academy Performing arts limited (Anon., n.d.) is an inclusive performing arts school based in many areas such as Gravesend, Dartford, and Gillingham alongside being in other areas, they mainly do workshop classes in performing arts (Anon., n.d.)
DREAM ACADEMY PERFORMING ARTS MISSION STATEMENT
“To create a safe, fun and inclusive environment for children to discover their inner superstar!”
Dream Academy Performing Arts mission statement defines they are in the education sector which provides teaching and learning in performing arts. It is clear from the statement that the service they provide is for children with special needs in safe and fun environment. The vision of the company is defined as “the desired, future state or aspiration, of an organisation” Johnson and Scholes (2002). (Anon., n.d.) Dream Academy performing arts vision focus is to improve children’s self-confidence and social skills.
Goals and objectives of Dream Academy:
Goals and Objectives are SMART this acronym follows certain words such as be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. Their objectives are to create a “safe, fun and inclusive environment for children to discover their inner superstar”
External Environmental Analysis:
Political and legal factors such as rules and regulation in the private training industry are ever changing. The regulations affecting employment and working with children are closely monitored by the Government. Policies and practice are constantly changing and improved by the government. The Dream Academy constantly need to adopt to such changes. One recent change of policy was that every adult must have a DBS. Dream Academy Performing Arts do this check alongside a reference for example All adults who wish to work with children and young people during Dream Academy PA activities are required to provide an existing DBS check or to complete a DBS in order to checked. (Anon., n.d.)
It is also important that a reference is sought from a person who knows the applicant well before they can start working with children. If the reference causes any doubts, Dream Academy PA reserve the right to make further verbal or written contact with the referees before the Adult can work with children in the organisation. If a Disclosure or reference gives sufficient cause applicants will not be allowed to work with children or young persons, there is safeguarding rules and regulations for to safeguard children’s health and development, taking action to enable all children to achieve the best outcomes, the child protection policy includes the welfare of children is paramount, all children must be treated fairly and without any favouritism, all children have right to be protected.(Anon., n.d.).
There are many child protection agencies such as NSPCC (Anon., n.d.) Child Exploitation Online & Protection Centre (CEOP) (Anon., n.d.). the equality act 2010 protects children, young people against harassment, victimisation and discrimination in relation to education, clubs and services for example disability, marriage and civil partnership and pregnancy and maternity (Anon., n.d.), the Human rights Act 1998 brings European convention of human rights into the English law (Anon., n.d.)
Economic factors in the organisation are inflation, wages, taxes, this affects the organisation because of the rise of inflation with services going up and the wages as well. The economy of the UK directly affects Government funding to the project.
The economic environment affects the income level of the people living in the UK. The economy now is in an okay state, but I think could be better. Dream Academy Performing Arts charge £32 which can be affordable for some but could be hard on other especially with some parent only have one main earner. The impact of this for Dream Academy Performing Arts is that they may lose customers because of some families may come into problems for example redundancy. I think they are meeting their expenditure and it is profitable but obviously if they are losing people then it could bring their expenditure and profits down, I do think they could afford to make the price higher because it could turn people away which would mean they lose business. As this company does not receive any funding from the government or any local resources it is mainly funded by parents. (Anon., n.d.)
Social factors in the organisation are religion, family or wealth, this affects the organisation because the company must use equal opportunities for all children and adults.
The social factors affecting Dream Academy Performing arts are that medication is always changing, (Anon., n.d.), low numbers of carers for people with disabilities, the society opinion on disability some people with disabilities are having their rights violated and comes under the 2010 equality act (Anon., n.d.), with the 2010 equality act it covers discrimination this includes extending protection against indirect discrimination to disability, introducing the concept of “discrimination arising from disability” to replace protection under previous legislation lost as a result of a legal judgment, applying the detriment model to victimization protection (aligning with the approach in employment law) and extending protection against harassment of employees by third parties to all protected characteristics, making it more difficult for disabled people to be unfairly screened out when applying for jobs.(Anon., n.d.)
Porter’s five forces: Attractiveness of the industry
Bargaining power of the supplier
The bargaining power of Dream Academy Performing arts is high because they do not have their own venue, the venues needs to be hired every week to run their session. The venue owner has considerable influence on them on time and dates the venue can be made available. This makes it difficult for dream academy to put long term plan. The venue owner is also able to change the price of rent frequently.
Threat of substitute products:
The threat of substitute products or services is high because there are other institutions such as Walk Tall who run the similar programme and provides sessions on Friday for 1.5 hours for their academy for 8- 11 year olds and is charged at £21 and they also run a 12-17 youth theatre academy which is on Tuesday 1.5 hours which is also £21, so in comparison for Walk Tall’s annual membership is cheaper.
Bargaining power of the customers:
The bargaining power of customer is high because customers can easily switch to another performing arts school to them. As the customers enrol on monthly basis for their lesson, there is no binding agreement after the enrolment date.
Threats of new entrants:
The threat of new entrants is very high. It does not take high investment and rare skill to run the programme similar to this.
Intensity of competition/rivalry:
The threat of competition or rivalry is high. There are many such institutions which run similar programme. Dream academy do not offer any special programme which could allow them to differentiate themselves form their competitors and charge higher price. The price charged by all of the institutions are relatively similar.
Capabilities of Dream Academy Performing arts: Internal capabilities analysis using VRIO framework:
The definition for resources is where human, financial, physical and knowledge factors enables the firm to perform their business process (Anon., n.d.). The resources used by Dream Academy can be tangible and intangible, a tangible resource is something that is fixed such as the land or the building, where it is placed and the position it is in. an intangible resource is human knowledge and their skill, their reputation or brand that they stand for and how innovative they are.
Core Competencies:
It is a unique ability a company possess which cannot be imitated. Core competencies are what gives the company its advantages in delivering value to the customer in the chosen field, this can also be called core capabilities (Anon., n.d.) They provide competitive advantage to the company, these include copying brand name, products or services and distribution channels. The definition for capabilities is to measure the ability of department, organisation, person or system to achieve its objectives in relation to their overall admission. (Anon., n.d.)
Internal Analysis: VRIO FRAMEWORK
V- Valuable are resource or capability that allows the firm to exploit opportunities. The Dream academy possess resources/capabilities such as talent. The talent within a company is important because that means that you only employ the best.
R- Rare which is a resource that is not widely possessed by competitors. The Dream Academy possess resources/capabilities such as brand identity. The brand identity is important because this is something you can protect yourself.
I- Inimitable is a resource that is hard to imitate so it has competitive advantage. The Dream Academy can easily be copied because the structure of the company is easy to follow so
O-organisation is a resource where an organisation needs to have good organisational capabilities that combines many resources. The Dream Academy does not really have any organisation features and does not put their resources to any use.
The core competencies within Dream Academy Performing Arts is talent which means they are good at attracting, motivating and are able to retain and are committed to people, brand identity which ensures that customer and employees have consistent and positive experience within the organisation, collaboration which means they are good at working in collaboration when the organisation as a whole gains efficiencies when pooling their services and through sharing ideas talent and ideas across all boundaries and the last one is learning where they will look at what the other competitors are doing and experimenting and they are also innovative because as a company they are always learning new things to attract more customer for example the deaf.
The capabilities of Dream Academy Performing arts are the talent that they employ are all trained staff with a recognised qualification, their mission is straight to the point, where their mission is to get all children involved no matter age, disability they will try and help gain confidence to help in everyday life and to help with school. The staff are trained in sign language. How to deal with special needs such as autism, learning difficulties, performance opportunities for the student, have award nights for the students.
The Dream Academy Performing Arts has very strict health and safety policies. The company follow the laws, rules and regulations and has strict paperwork that is filled in after each trial of a child such as emergency contact, how they would like to pay and granting permission for photographs.
Internal analysis: VRIO FRAMEWORK
Valuable Rare Difficult to imitate Supported by organisations Competitive implications Performance
Yes Yes No
Competitive disadvantages Normal
Yes ——- ——- Non -competitive parity Below normal
Yes —- Yes Temporary competitive advantage Normal
Yes —— ——– Sustained competitive advantage Above normal
SWOT (VRIO, PESTLE AND 5 FORCES)
Strengths
• Valuable are the teachers have specialist training in Performing Arts, sign language, first aid
• rare as there is not another school in local area of Dartford and surrounding areas that supplies the same thing for example specialist classes
• Organised because within the company they follow the laws, rules and regulations, have strict paperwork that is filled in after each trial of a child such as emergency contact, how they would like to pay and also granting permission for photographs.
• teachers and teaching assistants that know for example sign language and first aid
Weaknesses
• imitate because you only need to find out what training the company provides and starts giving staff the same training
Opportunities
• The Performing arts education industry is very wide in the fact that you have colleges for example Reynolds Performing Arts
• One recent change of policy was that every adult must have a DBS.
• Rivalry between each company to be the best.
Threats
• Political and legal factors such as rules and regulation in the private training industry are ever changing.
• low numbers of carers for people with disabilities
• Dream Academy Performing Arts charge £32 which can be affordable for some but could be hard on other especially with some parent only have one main earner
The Strategies for DREAM ACADEMY PERFORMING ARTS
Pursing opportunities using strengths
• Valuable: They could have a special training centre/ college so that they could supply their own training instead of using external companies
• Rare: There needs to be more funding for private performing arts schools so that it could be introduced in other schools for example primary schools such as Milestone Academy Dartford
• Organised: They could have information pack sent out via e mail or have their full pack on their website or create an app for them to sign up easily and a way of registering through social media sites.
Pursing threats using strengths
• The specialist training could stop because external provider may stop running training to enhance learning for the teacher or teaching assistants so the company will have to keep on looking around for external providers constantly to provide training that they cannot at this present time
• Another Performing Arts school in the local area could come across it and decided to do the same thing in providing inclusive performing arts, they could make more inclusive by partnering with special needs providers such as Kent County Council, day centres, nurseries for children with special needs.
• Parents could decide that they do not want their children to go to the school anymore either because of personal circumstances or child may not want to do it anymore, they could offer deals or change how they run their classes by having giving the child the choice of the three classes singing, acting or dance, this could also be the same for adults.
Pursing weaknesses using opportunities
• There are so many Performing arts schools/colleges/ charities there is a lot of competition, so they could have patent on everything to cover themselves and stop other competitors taking advantage
• Some performing arts companies that are very lenient about DBS and may not want to pay out themselves, could make sure that is the first thing they do even if it just an interview, trial or work experience
• There could be a lot of rivalry between Performing Arts schools/ colleges and charities to be more outstanding than others, so you always need to make sure that you follow every law, have the correct documents legally and think about offering one type of exam for example LAMDA Musical Theatre at a low cost
Pursing weaknesses using threats
• Brexit deal is being decided there are many laws that are changing, so now it has become very divided and the government opinions change day by day
• There is a limited number of carers for people with special needs, so the funding is there but not able to be used because of not enough people but also there is an obdurate risk of funding being cut as well.
• At some point Dream Academy Performing Arts might have to put their price per term up or change the way payments are set up and could be more expensive
ANSOFF MATRIX
Dream academy of Performing arts their strategy is market penetration which means they have an existing service with existing market and includes being the lowest cost price, they increase their market share, aim to take out other competitors locally but I do think that once other businesses know of their price and what they have to offer that there might be a price war and also product development which is a new product and existing service, this is innovation, adding new services, good brand presence and can increase the life cycle or growth of the service
These are the best strategies because I feel that they are what Dream Academy Performing Arts follow because they do have an existing product with an existing market because they are already providing performing arts classes, opportunities to students that is inclusive to every type of student.
LIFE CYCLE
Porters Generic strategy
Dream Academy Performing Arts strategy uses differentiation because they target a certain type of markets, they are clearly different because they are not like mainstream performing arts schools that only except a certain type of student, so within Dream Academy Performing Arts have their own niche because they run a workshop type of classes than just straight classes with no structure, they are different from company mentioned above Walk Tall does not offer training to their staff like Dream academy performing Arts.
1.12.2018