Mergers and Acquisitions Series

Strategic Drivers of competitive advantage

Purpose

The purpose of this programme is to expose executives to concepts and tools in strategic management. This will help them understand the basis of success in any given business, and build their skills to create strategies that enable their company or business to achieve sustainable competitive advantage and growth. The programme focuses on business, corporate and global strategies – it seeks to enhance participants’ ability to develop, evaluate, and implement value-creating strategies at all these levels by using well-developed analytical techniques and frameworks in strategic management. In achieving this goal, the programme will also integrate and build upon the participants’ skills and knowledge in their individual operational or functional areas.

Overview

The programme focuses on business-level strategy, global strategy, corporate-level strategy and on strategies for inorganic growth. A brief overview of each part is provided below:

Part I: Business level Strategy

This part examines strategy at the level of a business unit, which is the foundation level for competitive analysis and advantage. Here, the focus is on strategic planning and decision-making from the perspective of a manager who heads a single-business company or leads a given business within a large, multi-business corporation. Some of the following issues will be examined in great detail:

a) What is the primary purpose of business level strategy?
b) How do the external environment and industry conditions impact advantage or performance in a given business?
c) What are the different competitive positions that companies can potentially adopt in their business? How can they create sustainable advantage based on those positions?
d) What trade-offs do firms need to consider in developing their strategy?
e) How do industry transformation, competitive dynamics and innovation influence the sustainability of advantage? How should companies respond to them?

Part II: International Strategy

Over time most companies, including many Indian companies, seek to expand or compete in international markets. Similarly, they face competition in their home markets from international rivals. Thus, managers need to understand the challenges and opportunities that exist in the context of international expansion and competition. Some of the issues we shall examine are:

a) What is the basis and nature of international competition? How does international competition evolve over time?
b) What strategies can companies adopt in order to succeed in international markets
c) What unique challenges and opportunities do emerging markets present in the context of international expansion and competition?
d) Can companies from emerging markets like India assume global leadership?

Part III: Corporate Level Strategy

This part of program focuses on strategy at the corporate level. Here, the emphasis is on achieving growth and advantage by expanding into multiple businesses either through vertical integration, or related/unrelated diversification. But growth through multi-business expansion comes with its own challenges and many companies have failed in their attempt to create growth and advantage through this means. Hence we can examine issues such as:
a) Why do companies expand into multiple businesses?
b) When does vertical integration create value?
c) What are the different ways in which firms can diversify into multiple businesses?
d) What are the performance and management implications of different corporate or diversification strategies? How do business units and departments align themselves to the corporate strategy so that business objectives are met?

Part IV: Strategies for In-organic Growth

Inorganic modes such as mergers, acquisitions (M&A) and alliances have increasingly become an important element of Indian companies’ strategies to achieve competitive advantage and growth, both domestically as well as internationally. At the same time, global evidence on acquisitions and alliances suggests that value is being destroyed in these transactions just as frequently (if not more) as it is being created. This part of the program examines the conditions and practices that might enable companies to create value through the acquisitions or alliances they engage in. Some of the issues we shall examine are:
(a) How should companies think about whether and what to acquire?
(b) What are some of the principal mechanisms of value creation in M&A? What are some of the best practices in various stages of M&A such as opportunity evaluation, target assessment and selection, due diligence and negotiation, etc?
(c) What are some of the significant challenges during post-acquisition integration, and how should companies address them to actually realize or translate the potential of their acquisition into long-term company or shareholder value?
(d) When should companies do ‘alliances’ instead of ‘acquisitions’ to achieve their desired business objectives?
(e) If alliances are indeed an option to doing acquisitions in some situations, what are the critical issues and challenges in successful alliance management

Format

Topics will be presented and discussed through a combination of lectures, cases, and group discussion and exercises. This format provides participants an opportunity to learn the concepts and frameworks in strategy and to apply them to analyze "real-world" business situations. Cases on “real-world” companies will be used to facilitate the learning. Cases will include those on US/European companies as well as companies from India or other emerging markets. However, the difference in geographic contexts should not in any way hamper anyone’s efforts to learn and understand “key issues in strategy”. It is important to recognize that the core principles and concepts in strategy are effective in analyzing, formulating and implementing strategies in any context.

Participant profile

This programme is for senior executives in the organisation who are involved in setting strategic direction of the company and are part of the Senior Leadership team

Programme Fees

Around Rs 150000/- per participant

Programme Dates

To be announced soon

Contact Details
Programme Director :
R Sunder (rsunder@tata.com)
Senior Consultant
Phone: 020 66091028 Mobile: 0 9225505473 Fax: 020 26122338