Barnes and Nobles Optimal Grand Strategy

Besides, these factors are put into consideration because they can affect the growth of any given business organization. In the business setting, there are twelve Grant Strategies that when put into use will guarantee success to ay business organization. Thus, the paper will give a detailed discussion on Grand Strategy Matrix (GSM) and at the end it will be possible to identify the best of the 12 Grand strategies Barnes & Noble should use to achieve their set goals and objectives. In addition the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Growth-Share Matrix will be examined to help in determining the direction Barnes & Noble should take in order to attain success. To be able to make determinations, this paper will explore some of the factors that have enabled Barnes & Noble to attain success in the past years.

Discussing the Grand Strategies and the Grand Strategy Selection Matrix The 12 Grand Strategies, as explained by Fadeyi, Adegbuyi, Oke, and Ajagbe (2015), include concentrated market growth, market development, product development, vertical integration, liquidation among others, as explained in table 1 below. Each strategy is unique in some ways and provides different benefits to organizations. Table 1: The 12 Grand Strategies Grand Strategy Explanation Concentrated Growth Put more focus on various methods that will help the firm to increase market share in already identified markets Market Development Through selling goods and services introduced in newly identified markets. Company leadership will be expected to focus on product promotions, opening sales offices, and creating alliances for this will help in coming up with an effective market strategy. Product Development Changing or improving the current products and introducing new ones in the existing markets Vertical Integration Acquiring business organizations from where the company sources raw materials.

The relationship between GSM and the 12 Grand Strategies is as illustrated in the figure one below. Figure 1: The Grand Strategy Matrix Consequently, from the figure above, one can conclude that Barnes & Noble exist in the third quadrant of the GSM, and this is because the firm is found in a weak competitive position and again the market is growing at a slow phase. Over the years, Barnes & Noble has been doing great but as at 2017, Amazon. com recorded 289% revenue growth more than Barnes & Noble and this was a sign than Barnes & Noble is not the leading firm in the industry (Matousek, 2018). Thus, Barnes & Noble should put more emphasis on the Concentric Diversification Grand Strategy, which is a strategy that enables a firm to bring new products in the market that are closely related to substitutes being offered by competitors (How the BCG Matrix Works, 2013).

On the other hand, Cash Cows can be defined as the goods and services that a company will require to invest less on them if high levels of profits have to be realized. In the same vein, Question marks are defined as the end products that have the chance of becoming stars or even dogs and it is at this time when a company is required to closely monitor their products so as to determine whether it viable to invest or divest. Finally, Dogs are goods and services that have failed to conquer the market, and any business organization will be advised to terminate such products. As from the above discussions Barnes and Noble will be required to invest more on technology and the internet since they currently form the stars.

Additionally, Barnes & Noble should achieve a lot from brick and mortar stores for the two happens to be the cash cows. The paper also established that Barnes & Noble Company is in the third Quadrant, a situation that forces a company to focus more on Concentric Diversification Grand Strategy in order to increase revenue generation. Lastly, the BCG Growth-Share Matrix helped in affirming the importance of Concentric Diversification to Barnes & Noble. References Fadeyi, O. , Adegbuyi, A. , Oke, A. com/strategy/1145-grand-strategy-matrix. html Hall, W. , & Gupta, A. Barnes & noble, inc. : Maintaining A competitive edge in an ever-changing industry. Retrieved from: http://www. pulselive. co. ke/bi/strategy/strategy-we-visited-amazon-and-barnes-noble-bookstores-in-new-york-city-and-they-revealed-a-depressing-truth-about-the-future-of-retail-amzn-bks-id7984648. html Palia, A. php/absel/article/download/765/734 Strategic Management: 15 Grand Strategies.  Cal Miramar University.  Podcast retrieved from from http://www.