Question

In our first discussion board, we will explore organizational strategies and competitive advantage. Please review the Discussion Board Grading Rubric in the Course Information tab prior to posting. Identify an organization (your current or previous employer or any other organization of your choice). What are the organization’s core strategies? Where is the organization now, where does it want to go, and what strategies will be imperative to achieve the strategic outcomes? What kinds of competitive advantages over competitors does the organization intend to try to build? What do you think are the best strategies to build its competitive advantage(s) and why?

Answer 1

The organization that I have chosen is my previous employer. The company is a multinational publishing company headquartered in Amsterdam. The company is involved in publishing scholarly journals and articles to cater to the educational institutes, researchers, scientists and other professionals.

The core strategy of the company is to publish information solutions to professionals offering high quality content and services to cater to the needs of the customers. The company has its presence in 40 countries globally which has made it imperative for the company to focus on providing accurate information in its journals and books.

The company is currently now a leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information by publishing journals related to health science, STM (Scientific, Technical, and Medical), business, data science, etc. The company wants to maintain its position as the leader in providing information solutions to its customers. Hence, the strategy to maintain its leadership position is to drive internet growth. The company’s competitors are publishing journals at a faster rate than the company. The traditional publishing time for the company is 28 days approximately. Hence, the company is now driving internet growth which reduces the online publication time to about 12 days.

The competitive advantage over its competitors that the company intends to build is to reduce the publishing time to just 24 hours. The authors, editors, publishers and other stakeholders believe that the articles’ final citation should be published online within 24 hours of the acceptance of the manuscript for publication.

I personally believe that the best strategies for the company to build its competitive advantage are – reduce the total publication time of even the print journals to 7 days and online publication to 24 hours. This can be achieved if the company seeks any technological workaround from its traditional publication process.