Innovations and Virtual Environments
Innovations and Virtual Environments. Innovations and Virtual Environments. Strategic planning is an integral and important part of an organization in the 21st century where the market trends and environments keep changing due to various factors. Most organizations in the global market today are focusing on processing reengineering to meet the market demands and technology rather continuous improvement of the goods or services. This paper summarizes O’Dwyer (2011) and Zomorrodian (2017) strategies for innovations in the strategic planning especially in virtual environments.
According to O’Dwyer, Gilmore and Carson, (2011), strategic alliances are one of the innovative tools of marketing that is widely adopted by the small and medium sized enterprises across the globe today. Most companies and organizations have prioritized on innovative marketing as a ‘strategic tool’ that is adopted and implemented by the top management to make statements in the market. It has helped in closing the gap that exists between innovation and marketing of the products and services of the organization. Therefore, most organization uses strategic alliances to gain a competitive advantage in the market. The concept behind this is come together with other partner companies within the industry so that they can compete with other bigger organizations. This allows the small and medium sized enterprises to compete with multinationals in the industry. It also allows expansion of key resources, create a pool of skills and abilities, and finally increase the geographical spread ad presence of the SME’s.
Innovations and Virtual Environments
The main aim of creating the strategic alliances is to get market opportunities in terms of entry into the market, protection in the competitive market and also to acquire a given share in the market. The SME’s are also able to get closer contacts and links with the market intermediaries to facilitate and enhance their leverage and expansion into the global sphere. Some of the key factors that ensure successful alliances between the SME’s are synergy, compatibility between the partners’ involved and equal contributions within all the partners involved. Thus, strategic alliances as an innovation tool allow the partners who have come on board to adopt and existing concept that guides them in the competitive global market.
On the other hand, Zomorrodian (2017) argues that in virtual environments, organizations must seek to adopt and implement new strategies while focusing on the information technologies. Different stakeholders and partners in various locations should also be directed and guided on the most appropriate approaches. Strategic planning enables organizations to craft their long term vision as well as strategies that are implemented to achieve the desired goals. The key stakeholders and decision makers should therefore do a SWOT analysis of both environments and develop and implement strategies to succeed in the environments. SWOT as a strategic planning tools helps an organization to identify the key factors that affect strategic planning. Further communication is the only sure way of keeping virtual teams connected where they are able to gain trust and create productive work relationships. Leaders in the virtual teams should optimize communication to enhance trust within the team. In most cases leaders in the virtual teams tend to have difficulties in connecting with every member of the team, which leads to loss of ‘human element’.
In conclusion, al the strategies discussed above should be an integral part of any organization to enhance social change. Creating and maintaining strategic alliances with the industry players and partners enables organization create a competitive advantage which is a sure way of surviving in the global market. Communication is an important aspect when managing virtual teams and leaders should help their organization to establish their priorities, enhance proactive and consistent problem solving and finally give direction in the strategic planning processes.
References
O’Dwyer, M, Gilmore, A &Carson, D, (2011). Strategic alliances as an element of innovative marketing in SMES: Journal of Strategic Marketing, 19(1), pp. 91-104
Zomorrodian, A, (2017). New Trends on Strategic Planning: Virtual Environment, Tech Innovation, Globalization & Organizational Performance: American Society of Business & Behavioral Sciences.