MBA501 Dynamic Strategy and Disruptive Innovation Report Sample

MBA501 Dynamic Strategy and Disruptive Innovation

Your task

You are required to explore the Australian company Dicker Data (ASX: DDR) and develop a stakeholder engagement plan. You must identify the business level strategy adopted by one of the business units/ product groups in the context of Porter’s Five Generic Strategy framework. You will analyse the corporate-level strategic initiatives undertaken by Dicker Data (https://www.dickerdata.com.au)

Assessment Description

This assessment focuses on stakeholder engagement (workshop 05), business-level strategies (workshop 07) and corporate-level strategies (workshop 08). After identifying key stakeholders of Dicker Data, you need to develop a stakeholder engagement plan covering three stakeholders by incorporating the template discussed in workshop 05. Based on Porter’s five generic strategy framework, you need to identify the business level strategy adopted by one business unit/product  group from Dicker Data. You must provide an analysis of the suitability of this strategy. After that, you need to identify at least 2-3 corporate-level strategic initiatives undertaken by Dicker Data over the last decade. You must analyse the purpose of these corporate-level strategic initiatives in the context of the template discussed in workshop 08.

Assessment Instructions

A. Introduction to Dicker Data

Provided a concise introduction to Dicker Data. This introduction should include a brief history, scale of the operation (revenue, staff strength, etc.), products/ services, and industry dynamics. This section should not exceed 400 words.

B. Stakeholder engagement plan

Need to identify 7-9 stakeholders of Dicker Data and select three stakeholders for engagement planning. Provide a brief introduction to the stakeholders. You must utilise the stakeholder engagement planning template discussed in workshop 05: include the completed templates in the appendix. The report should contain a summary of the engagement plan for each stakeholder. This section should not exceed 600 words.

C. Business-level strategies adopted by Dicker Data

Based on Porter’s Five Generic Strategy framework discussed in workshop 05, identify the business-level strategy adopted by one business unit/ product group of Dicker Data. You need to indicate the rationale for determining the chosen strategy and critique the suitability. This section should not exceed 500 words. Please note: you are only expected to explore one business unit/ product group when analyzing the business-level strategies.

D. Corporate-level strategic initiatives Dicker Data

Analyse the corporate-level strategic initiatives of Dicker Data by exploring past activities –  greenfield expansions, joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers & acquisitions, etc., over the last ten years. You must identify at least three such initiatives discussed in workshop 08. You must incorporate the template used in workshop 08 to review these initiatives’ purpose: the completed template should be included in the appendix. This section should not exceed 700 words.

E. Recommendations

Based on your analysis, provide recommendations to Dicker Data management on stakeholder engagement, strategic initiatives that can defend the competitive position and stimulate growth. This section should not exceed 300 words. There is no need for a conclusion.

In preparing for this assessment, please note the following points:

o The report should contain an executive summary, not included in the word count.

o You need to include the stakeholder engagement template discussed in workshop 05. You also need to utilise the goals and approach template discussed in workshop 08 to complete part C.

o Need to refer to academically oriented articles and books when developing the report.

▪ Minimum of ten academically oriented articles and books apart from industry reports, credible online news sources, business magazines, websites, etc.

o Watch the assignment briefing webinar conducted by the Subject Coordinator – refer to the subject welcome message from the Coordinator for the date and time.

Solution

Introduction 

Dicker Data is an Australian company that belongs to the ICT industry, and they are the most trusted advisor of this industry. This experience of this company is over 40 years and its main mission is to educate, enable and inspire the reseller partners so that they can gain the potential through value-added services by delivering unparalleled technology and logistics. As per the MBA Assignment Experts, For 40 years, Dicker Data has provided services to all sizes and shapes of partners to configure, design, and implement the possible solutions they can use for their customers and transit the business with the help of technological changes (Dickerdata.com.au. 2022). This Australian company employs hundreds of local employees and provides support to the Australian economy. The number of employees in this company increased from 454 to 540. Till June 2021, Dicker Data improved their business in profit, revenue, and different business areas. The company's revenue increased to $1.07 billion which is by $63 million. The company focuses on different types of business growth where they focus on 5G growth and increase the potential of ML and AI (Moore, 2022). The demand for cloud services developed because companies shifted towards IaaS for better growth. From a recent report, it has also been found out that the company reached $2 billion in revenue in 2021 (Arnnet.com.au. 2022).  

Stakeholder Engagement Plan 

Dicker Data is one of the most famous distributors in the Australian market who prove all types of technological services to their customers related to software and hardware-related services and products. The two major segments areas of the company are New Zealand and Australia. This company distributes its products to resellers across Australia and New Zealand and the technology vendors such as Citrix, Lenovo, Cisco, Microsoft, and so on. However, this section is based on the engagement plan of the stakeholders and for this purpose, the major stakeholders of Dicker Data need to identify first. As stated Bahadorestani et al. (2020), stakeholders are generally two types, “internal stakeholders” and “external stakeholders”, and Dicker Data also has these two types of stakeholders in their business (Bundy et al. 2018). The “internal stakeholders” of the company are – Employees, Managers, Owners, and Board of members, and on the other hand, the “external stakeholders” are – customers, vendors, investors, and government. These are the major stakeholders of the company and they have a strong impact on the company and help in business growth and development. The company provides different types of technology-related services to their customers and for this purpose, stakeholders' role is crucial. For this reason, three specific stakeholders are identified and provide engagement for each of the stakeholders. The chosen three stakeholders are – Employees, Managers, and customers (Syvänen and Valentini, 2020). 

Employees: Employees are considered as one of the major stakeholders of the organisation Dicker Data because they work here for learning new things in the technological sector. The current number of employees is 525 and the company focuses on the local people because they would help the company provide more services to the customers easily (Marketscreener.com. 2022). The local people are used to the service provider's place so that it becomes easier for the company to reach the customers as early as possible. Based on the performance of the employees, the organisation can make growth in their business and motivate the employees they provide them with all types of benefits. 

Managers: The managers are considered stakeholders of the company Dicker Data because the role of managers is very important in the organisation. The main role of the managers is to manage the activities of the business and the employees and ensure that the customers’ requirements are fulfilled. With the help of the managers, the owner of the company operates the business and implements the changes in the business. The managers also participate in the recruitment of employees and the employees' motivation. Some managers of the company are – David John Dicker (Chairman  & CEO), Mary Stojcevski (CFO and Executive Director), and so on (Marketscreener.com. 2022). 

Customers: The customers are also considered as stakeholders of the business, and they are considered as external stakeholders. Through the customers, the company can understand the quality of their services and set out the value. The range of customers included New Zealand and Australia and all over these places. The major services that they offer to their customers are networking, recovery and backup, IoT services, cloud services, and so on (Marketscreener.com. 2022). [Referred to appendix 1]

Business level strategies 

Dicker Data Company offers different types of services to their customers, including hardware, software, and technological services. However, the major business unit areas of the company are “infrastructure services”, “software services”, “partner services”, “virtual services”, and “Dicker Data services”. One of the major business units of the company is “Partner services” and this unit adopts some strategies and among them, the most effective is “Partner-to-Partner Portal” (Furnari, 2022). This portal is for the “Microsoft Cloud” and through this portal; the organization offers solution services and products to their partners. To describe and evaluate this strategy, “Porter’s Generic Strategy Framework” has been used to determine the rationale and suitability of the strategy (Kader and Hossain, 2020). 
 

Figure 1: Porters’ generic strategies
(Source: Islami et al. 2020)

According to Firoz Suleman et al. (2019), the framework focuses on three factors, “cost leadership”, “differentiation”, and “Focus”. The “cost leadership” focuses on the “low-cost producer” in the industry. If an organisation becomes a “low-cost producer”, then they get the opportunity to exploit and find out the source of the “cost advantages”. The “differentiation” factor focuses on the fact that an organization is always looking for something unique that the buyer's value. The “focus strategy” has two types, “cost focus” and “differentiation focus” (Islami et al. 2020). “Cost focus” refers to the fact that when an organization is only seeking the cost advantage within their selected target market and the “differentiation focus” deals with the differentiation within the target segment. However, the strategy that the “partner service unit” adapts is indicated towards the “differentiation focus” because the strategy is for the particular service they serve to their partners within their business aspect. Besides this framework, the organization can use “BCG Matrix” which has four factors, “question mark”, “dogs”, “cash cows” and “stars” (Mckeown, 2019). Among these factors Dicker Data belongs to “Stars” because it referred to “high market share in high growth industry” and the company’s market growth is high in their industry and this unique strategy also help them to increase market share (Bhattarai, 2018). 

The strategy is based on the “partner-to-partner portal”, which will help them to provide cloud-related solutions along with customer segment solutions. One of the reseller partners is “Vigilant. IT” who embraced this portal and by leveraging the experts of “Azure migration” with the partners of Dicker Data, allows them to increase their revenue. It helps the company to identify the cloud need of customers and with “Vigilant. IT” becomes the famous “Solution partners” in the portal (Furnari, 2022). Thus, the partner has experience of “Microsoft security, infrastructure, and networking”, and they also offer all types of IT planning and advice to the customers. With this partnership collaboration, they successfully implemented the portal and worked under it very effectively. 

Corporate Level Strategies 

The “corporate-level strategies” lead to the management approaches that direct and administer the concerning matter of an organisation. When a company has decided to defend or expand their business, position in the industry, for the value adjacent, and for diversifying several businesses. The major “corporate-level strategies” are “Acquisition and merger”, “strategic alliance”, “partnership”, “greenfield investment”, and “joint ventures”. Among these strategies, Dicker Data used some strategies in their business over the past ten years, which will identify here. It will help to understand how the company deals with their business after acquiring the strategies. [Referred to appendix 2]

1st Strategy: Dicker Data became a partner with “Veeam Software”, which is the leader of the “Backup Solution”, and they deliver “cloud data management” services to the business. This partnership relation occurred in 2020, 21st January, and Dicker Data became a distributor of Veeam Software and this agreement helps them to access the product portfolio of the company. Through this partnership, the company can offer different new solutions based on their acquired technologies for the new and existing vendor partners within the SMB, enterprise, and customer segment. This is considered as a strategic partnership that will help the company to manage the reliable backup process and replicate and recover data from all types of applications and ensure that those data are secured. It helps to improve the “cloud data management” practices and is considered the supportive solution of the business (Cameron, 2020). Through this strategy, the company is trying to expand its business and its position in the industry to become the first choice of every organisation. For maintaining the value chain of the industry, the position of the business should be strong and it is only possible by expanding the business by partnership initiative. 

2nd Strategy: Another initiative is the joint venture of Dicker Data with Microsoft for improving the “new cloud division”. In 2020, Dicker Data announced their expansion with Microsoft because of the cloud division, and they have been targeted to improvise their cloud services. The cloud business unit of Microsoft is well trained and their dedication towards the relationship with the vendors is very exception. They offer successful cloud technology services to their customers who inspire Dicker Data to expand their relationship with Microsoft and through this joint venture; they equally provide solutions to their customers (Channellife.com.au. 2020). Through this partnership, they can easily connect with the resellers and provide and acquire partnership opportunities. This joint venture initiative is for the expansion of the business towards cloud services. The organizations Dicker Data expand their services by including cloud solutions and in this case, Microsoft helps them. Through this collaboration, the team of Dicker Data can learn and communicate with the expertise of Microsoft and know about new things. 

3rd Strategy: Strategic alliance is one of the corporate strategy initiatives between Dicker Data and IGEL technology. This alliance happened because the company Dicker Data needs help with the “German endpoint management software vendor” within the channels of NZ and Australia. Through this alliance, the company has targeted to improve the business productivity for the customers and simplify the management endpoint and reduce the cost of desktop business. To improve the portfolio of Dicker Data, they align with this company and are expected to improve their virtual performance. They are also looking for more connections and partners who can join them in this alliance and offer more IGEL products to the customers. This alliance occurred to expand the value of the adjacent businesses and try their business into new platforms to increase their revenue and profit (Arnnet.com.au. 2022). 

Recommendation 

Australian-based company Dicker Data provide all type of technology services to their customers all over Australia and New Zealand. This complete report is a strategic report based on the company Dicker Data and creates a “stakeholder engagement plan”. From the perspective of the company and from the information of the company, this entire report is structured. From a list of stakeholders, three specific stakeholders were identified and an engagement plan was provided for them. In this case, the organization should offer more opportunities to their stakeholders by involving them in different business activities and practices. The business-level strategy that the organization acquires is for strengthening its partnership relationship. The strategy is suitable for the business, and it gives them several opportunities through which reach to their customers as much as possible (Kamras and Matslova, 2018). However, to analyze the suitability of the strategy “porter’s generic strategy” used and it helps to understand that the organization belongs to differentiation strategy because their business strategy is different from their competitors. To improve their strategy, the organization should join with more partners who can help them in this process and make them successful in the portal. The corporate strategies identified and mentioned here are based on partnership, strategic alliance, and joint venture and all these strategies prove to be successful. Besides this, the organization should focus on investment and in this respect the “GE-Mckinsey Matrix” helps them to analyse where they can invest (Untoro and Siagian, 2021).  It will also help them to make the business process more flexible and look for better opportunities.  

References 

Books

Bahadorestani, A., Naderpajouh, N. and Sadiq, R., 2020. Planning for sustainable stakeholder engagement based on the assessment of conflicting interests in projects. Journal of Cleaner Production, 242, p.118402. DOI:10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118402

Bhattarai, D., 2018. Generic strategies and sustainability of financial performance of Nepalese Enterprises. Pravaha, 24(1), pp.39-49. https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/pravaha/article/view/20224 

Bundy, J., Vogel, R.M. and Zachary, M.A., 2018. Organization–stakeholder fit: A dynamic theory of cooperation, compromise, and conflict between an organization and its stakeholders. Strategic Management Journal, 39(2), pp.476-501. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/smj.2736 

Firoz Suleman, M., Rashidirad, M. and Firoz Suleman, S., 2019. The applicability of Porter's generic strategies in pure online firms: A case study approach. Strategic Change, 28(3), pp.167-176. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jsc.2258 

Islami, X., Mustafa, N. and Latkovikj, M.T., 2020. Linking Porter’s generic strategies to firm performance. Future Business Journal, 6(1), pp.1-15. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s43093-020-0009-1 

Kader, M.A. and Hossain, H., 2020. AN ANALYSIS ON BCG GROWTH SHARING MATRIX. International Journal of Economics, Business and Accounting Research (IJEBAR), 4(01). http://216.10.241.171/ijcrr.info/index.php/ijcrr/article/view/848 

Kamras, L. and Matslova, W., 2018. An approach to a Multi-Category Recommendation System using Machine Learning: With the caveat of having limited knowledge in related areas. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1189454&dswid=2646 

Syvänen, S. and Valentini, C., 2020. Conversational agents in online organization–stakeholder interactions: a state-of-the-art analysis and implications for further research. Journal of Communication Management. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JCOM-11-2019-0145/full/html 

Untoro, A.A. and Siagian, H.N., 2021, May. Quo vadis steam power plant in Indonesia? Implementation of GE-McKinsey matrix analysis on creating the strategy for steam power plant business entity. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 753, No. 1, p. 012025). IOP Publishing. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/753/1/012025/pdf 

Websites 

Arnnet.com.au. 2022. Dicker Data cracks A$2B in annual revenue. [online] Available at: [Accessed 5 January 2022].

Arnnet.com.au. 2022. IGEL Technology and Dicker Data strike A/NZ distribution deal. [online] Available at: [Accessed 5 January 2022].

Cameron, A., 2020. Dicker Data Partners with Veeam Software. [online] Dickerdata.com.au. Available at: [Accessed 5 January 2022].

Channellife.com.au. 2020. Dicker Data expands Microsoft partnership with new Cloud Division. [online] Available at: [Accessed 5 January 2022].

Dickerdata.com.au. 2022. Dicker Data | Australia's Most Trusted IT Distributor. [online] Available at: [Accessed 5 January 2022]. 

Furnari, M., 2022. Driving Revenue with Microsoft Cloud Partner2Partner Portal. [online] Dickerdata.com.au. Available at: [Accessed 5 January 2022].

Furnari, M., 2022. Unlocking opportunity with strategic partnerships makes good business sense. [online] Dickerdata.com.au. Available at: [Accessed 5 January 2022].

Marketscreener.com. 2022. DICKER DATA LIMITED : Shareholders Board Members Managers and Company Profile | AU000000DDR5 | MarketScreener. [online] Available at: [Accessed 5 January 2022].

Moore, B., 2022. Dicker Data posts $63m half year revenue jump. [online] Crn.com.au. Available at: [Accessed 5 January 2022].