Business Expansion and Challenges A Case Study of Riverwood Logistics

As noted through the research, Riverwood has the potential to successfully pursue its global objectives. Diversification and the use of technology have put the company in a position to accomplish its goals in a better way. There are a number of factors that have great influence in the performance of the company in Singapore including the consistent political climate and international policies, overall economic growth of the country, socio-cultural activities of the people, and the legal environment within the country among others. Competition is raging in the industry. However, the company has been able to rise and grow over time. These insights will help to understand how Riverwood would retain its market share in Singapore despite the rising of new and prominent competitors in Singapore. Research question How can Riverwood expand while retaining its market share in Singapore and remain competitive with the rise of new competitors and big competitors in Singapore? 2.

Literature Review 2. Theories The development of Riverwood to new markets around the world can be addressed through various theoretical frameworks and models especially with lenience to strategic planning which takes the centre stage in the new development. While this research highly recommends McKinsey 7S model and TOWS matrix as useful strategic management tools especially in the case of Riverwood, there are a bunch other models and theoretical frameworks that would help to fill in the gaps that exist in the two models (Pothiyadath and Wesley, 2014). Organisations such as Riverwood would utilise the information about these forces to come up with a decision that would help to establish a new state. Definitely, new opposing forces emerge as a result of the change which will be opposing any further changes. All these actions require a strategy that would help to strengthen the driving forces or weaken the opposing forces in order to realise the desired change.

Pieterse, Canie¨ls and Homan (2012) observe that every change process requires sufficient strategic considerations especially the need to improve the performance of the business. Ansoff Matrix According to Gianos (2013), Ansoff Matrix (also known as product/market expansion grid) was developed by H. Lastly, diversification (upper right quadrant) is a case where a company introduces a new product to a new market. This aspect of business expansion is considered quite risky since the management has limited information about the market and the product sales may be limited. Gaps in the theories There are various gaps in the two theories especially the Ansoff Matrix. Despite the fact that the model is directly addressing the expansion requirements of an organisation, it lacks a bit of critical explanation on the strategic intricacies involved in achieving its proposal.

As noted by American Society of Clinical Oncology (2009) strategic planning is an important structural component that guide the day to day decision making processes and therefore, it would be prudent if the model provided some direction on this subject (Sedevich-Fons, 2018). The theory also dictates that a company would be concerned about the actions of the competitors in case it takes a particular action. The model allows an organisation to handle particular issues at a time in order to get the best out of it. Moreover, the theory indicates that a company will pay attention to particular issues especially the competitive advantage within the industry is evenly distributed (Gluck, Kaufman, and Walleck, 2018). For example, on the one hand, a company will follow up on the activities of the competitors especially of the competitive advantage is evenly distributed.

On the other hand, a company will have little concern on the activities of the competitors when it has exceptional competitive advantage in the industry. The organisation could hardly transport items from its storage facilities to the outlets and therefore the shelves would remain empty for some time. The failure in systems and processes would later affect the buying behaviour of the customers. Most of the customers would go to other shops to make purchases. Another reason was the fact the wages and salaries in Canada are a bit high compared to the U. S. The model presents seven key factors that influence the strategic management of an organisation. Strategy, structure, and systems are referred to as ‘hard Ss’ while shared values, skills, staff and style are commonly taken as ‘soft Ss’.

Hard Ss are normally hard factors that can be identified and managed easily when compared to the soft elements (Ravanfar, 2015). Soft Ss are harder to manage than the hard elements. However, the soft Ss are the foundation of any organisation and would determine the competitiveness of an organisation in the industry and market. The organisation can drive its mission through the guidance of this model it will have to change most of the elements to suit the new objective. The model indicates that a change in one aspect affects one or more elements and therefore they must be changed in order to align with the new requirements. For instance, the company wants to adopt a new strategy to increase its profitability and therefore it will require more staff to carry out the new responsibilities.

The company may also need new managers with regional operations skills to ensure that the organisation achieves its new objectives. The competitive dynamics theory explains the interaction and the impact of the actions of a firm and the reactions of the competitors in a particular industry (Zhang and Gao, 2014). One of the key issues the company has to handle is competition in order to maintain its market share in Singapore. Therefore, it has to identify its strength that would help to edge out competitions (Ravanavar and Charantimath, 2012). More significantly, TOWS matrix gives Riverwood Logistics a guideline in addressing some of the key challenges that may hinder its success in the new markets. By using some of these strategies, the company will be in position to utilise the available about threats, weaknesses, and strengths to grab the available opportunities.

However, the theory does not explain the intricacies of how a company would reach for a particular strategy (Jibai, Alaaraj and Issa, 2017). More importantly, these strategies have maintained the presence of the company in the original country. Toyota’s expansion plan has been able to cope with the increasing competition in the industry. Through acquisitions, the company has been able to expand its assets base which enabled the company to produce more cheaply. These are great examples that can help Riverwood Logistics to expand globally (Toyota Motor Corporation, 2018). Acquisitions in other countries will help the company to start operations in those countries more easily. org/Journals/index. php/JMCR/article/download/25887/26370 [Accessed 10 Sep. American Society of Clinical Oncology (2009). Strategic Planning: Why It Makes a Difference, and How to Do It.  Journal of Oncology Practice, [online] 5(3), pp.

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