Norton Lilly International Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Norton Lilly International - Case Study Example However, the growth in the company was not without consequences given that such growth had not been well entrenched in the company's culture as asserted by (Burton and Gamble 369). Consequently, operational efficiency did not match the agency's growth path leading to losses in 2006. Following the loss in 2006, the agency hired James Burton to double as the Chief Operations Officer and Chief Finance Officer given his professional qualifications as a Certified Public Accountant who had been consulted by various organisation that sort to achieve growth (Burton and Gamble 368). The agency's mission is to restore operational efficiency thereby helping to increase its profitability. The company sort to achieve this mission by pursuing growth which would see it double its size (Burton and Gamble 368). In addition, the agency had an objective of ensuring smooth transition as it was at the verge of being passed over to the next generation of in the family (Burton and Gamble 368). Basically, t he company wanted to have a turnaround strategy which would ensure both operational efficiency and profitability. Crafting of the strategy In first stage of the endeavour to bring about efficiency at the agency required development of a strategy. The strategy was based on ensuring the company achieves sustainable competitive advantage and could be based on five different perspectives that include; Dominant Industry Economic Features, Five Forces Analysis, Competitive Analysis, SWOT and PESTEL and Financial. Generic strategies may also form the basis for crafting a business strategy. A business can rely on a combination of perspectives or all of them. Based on the dominant industry perspective economic features, Burton first role in developing the strategy was to assess the business to identify the areas that could help the company get a strong foundation for execution (Burton and Gamble 370). Under this approach, core business areas are assessed and addressed given that they support other parts of the company. This is also in congruent with the competitive advantage approach which calls for one to assess the strengths and maximize on them to ensure achieve the mission set out. The crafting of the strategy execution was also based on PESTEL analysis which postulates that a strategy must assess the social perceptions of the people involved (Goodstein and Burke 5). Consequently, Burton understood that he was bringing change among a group of people who were equally competent and therefore he had to introduce ideas hat could be easily accepted and therefore he chose an incremental approach. The other components of PESTEL require the political, environmental, technological, economic and legal macro-environment within which a business is conducted given that they may affect its growth. In the strategy crafting, Burton noted that he could only achieve change through a gradual process as this would give the executive the confidence that such change will be bring tangib le benefits to the company. Moreover, Burton believed that gradual and logical business growth would help the company identify new ways of doing things. Executive Strategy After crafting a growth strategy, it has to be implemented to bring about sustainable positive change to the company. In such efforts, the company follows a series of activities which begins with organizational building, strategic leadership and resource allocation. The execution also involves addressing the organizational culture, evaluating and recognizing achievements and management of the operating systems of the company (Grudy 10). The first weakness addressed in the executive strategy