VRIO Analysis

Enhancing value chain within the organisation with strategic management tools  

The value chain of an organisation is associated with a set of activities to deliver valuable services and products. Value chain has the objective to recognise the activities which are most valuable for the organisation and improving the value chain provides a competitive advantage to the firm (Paras, Pal & Ekwall, 2018).

VRIO analysis

VRIO analysis is a technique to evaluate the resources of the organisation and it provides a competitive advantage of the organisation. The resources of the organisations must provide value, rareness, imitability and organisation (Charzoglou et al., 2018). Ansell Strategic provides support to Mark Moran Group to develop MMG as Mark Moran Vaucluse. MMG (Mark Moran Group) is famous in retirement living and residential aged care and it is striving to make contemporary living space for people. Human resources of MMG provide strength as the human capital includes the experience, training and intelligence of the employees. Financial resources of the organisation are the financings, invoicing, royalties and assets. Physical resources of MMG are the tangible goods like building, equipment, physical technologies and geographical location. Finally, organisational resources of MMG are associated with the organisational structure of the organisation and internal and external relationship.

McKinsey 7s Framework

The value chain can be enhanced by observing 7 key internal strengths to identify the objective of the organisation. McKinsey 7s framework aligns and allows improving the value chain of the organisation. The strategy of MMG is to achieve competitive advantage to compete in the market. MMG wants to create a new vision uplifting younger and longer environment. Structure refers to the way units and business divisions include the information. Systems procedure reveals the business activities which determine the process to do the business (Channon & Caldart, 2015) Skills show the ability to include competencies and capabilities of the employees. MMG shows the skills of the company which needs to reinforce new strategy and structure. Staffs of MMG are skilled and they are concerned with their responsibilities. The staffs of MMG are motivated, rewarded and trained. Style shares the way an organisation is managed by top level and management style is ruled by the company’s leaders. Shared values are the norms and standards which guide the employees’ behaviour and organisations’ actions.  

Examining and apply the techniques for developing, implementing and monitoring strategies 

 Mark Moran Group can set the monitoring plan and it would a long-term plan for addressing the platform performance. The monitoring plan is essential for acquiring the most benefit out of the monitoring data. If MMG implements strong monitoring practice, it would be easier to resolve disruptions of services. As stated by Mudambi & Puck (2016), business organisations generally include and identify the major stakeholders in the monitoring strategy in the primary stage and stakeholders of the organisations are associated to the quality assurance, IT, developers, owners and managers. Ansell Strategic can advise MMG to establish a secure platform which would be helpful to monitor within the mobile application and website. This platform can include transaction, viewing content and perform a search to determine the most common tasks to be monitored. Before developing the plan, the management team sets the performance benchmark which is also helpful to determine the criteria of the organisation (Chiarini & Vagnoni, 2015). MMG and Ansell Strategic can also establish the job to handle each part of the monitoring and process of evaluation.

McKinsey 7s Framework

First of all, MMG and Strategic Ansell can determine the organisational structure and process for implementing, communicating and evaluating the work process. In developing the action plans of the organisation, the management designs the specific objectives and activities. Before implementing any strategy, the organisation can also check the necessary and available resources which are to be identified. In the implementation stage, MMG needs to refine the action plans to identify the opportunity for combining and coordinating the resources. The committee needs to look for collaboration and opportunities to clarify the roles of the participants (El-Sayed, Dickson & El-Naggar, 2015). In the final stage, Ansell Strategic evaluates the implementation of strategies which assess the activities and progress toward meeting the goals in action plans.

Lastly, to monitor the strategies of MMG to contribute towards growth and prosperity, successful alert management strategy can provide MMG competitive advantage. Successful alert management strategy will be helpful for MMG to consider as it defines and adjust alert for optimal use and management will create criteria for alters which actually matter and it follows typical use.

Analysing the strategic management cycle and the leadership role of professional accountants in strategic management  

Mark Moran Group respects elders as the leaders, as the mentors and the guardians of the culture. Benefits of retirement accommodation are related to the level of care that the persons need. In high care residential care helps to accommodate people who are unable to look after themselves. Strategic Ansell can plan the strategic management cycle and this cycle has four elements into it; strategy formulation, implementation, planning and review. Strategy formulation defines the objectives of MMG and it is the set of objectives where the company wants to reach. MMG can do the horizontal scanning as it helps to look externally and internally. The organisations need to understand who the competitors are and how the partners of the organisations respond to strategic planning (Rotharmel, 2015). Before formulating the strategy for the organisations; the management must look into the political, legal, economic and technological factors which are associated with the industry. Within the strategy formulation, Strategic Ansell can brainstorm to gather people from different elements. MMG will have the purpose to think creatively so that the people can come up with the ideas to move the organisation forward.

In the planning step, MMG management can define the direction which is built into the governance framework of the organisation. Strategic Ansell can help MMG to specify the broad aim of the organisation to set the action plan so that the staffs can enact. Strategic aims of MMG are to improve the individual needs, lifestyle priorities and expectations when they are getting old. Planning helps to translate top-level strategy so that the staffs can do the actionable activities.

Examining and applying the techniques for developing, implementing and monitoring strategies

In the implementation step, the management and staffs enact to perform their best. In the implementation step, the staffs work based on the action plan and the real work happens. Real world problems arise during the implementation plan and the people need to manage this (Howieson et al., 2014).

In the final review step, it is a perfect time; the management can decide where the organisation wants to be in the future. Strategic Ansell can suggest understanding the external viewpoint to achieve the desired state. In the review phase, the organisation needs to understand what has been performed in the past and what is to perform in the future. The management can review what they learnt during the process and how the captured knowledge can be used in the future (El-Sayed et al., 2015).

                                                               

                                                                           Figure 1: Strategic Management Cycle

                                                                                          (Source: Renz, 2016)

Within MMG, the leaders play the role of communication medium between upper management and employees. Strategic management and its implementation start with setting the goal and reaching the objectives. The leaders help to prioritise the objectives and they transmit the vision to the team members. The leaders within an organisation also give out the tasks to the team members and the leaders sometimes to pick out the teams and people to move the project forward. The leaders also monitor the execution process to implement the strategies. The leaders ask questions to the employees to understand all the process involved in this. The leaders ask the employees about the progress update. Leadership process is associated with encouraging the staffs to work better and encouragement needs consistency as the leaders must be energetic to provide the best to the organisations.

The importance of professional accountants lies in the importance of ensuring the better quality financial report which cannot be emphasised. Professional accounting is important in strategic management as the professional accountants come in the forefront to safeguard the integrity of financial reporting (Turner et al., 2017). MMG will be benefited by the competent professional accountant as they create the basis of knowledge of the organisation’s financials. Professional accounts use their skills and understanding of the organisation; they try to operate in business understanding the challenges. Financial leaders have the oversight of the matters which are related to the organisation’s financial health (Hill, 2017). Strategic Ansell can ask MMG to recruit internal auditors to have the independent assurance so that they can have the internal control of the process.

Analysing the strategic management cycle and the leadership role of professional accountants in strategic management

Defining the role of organisation and industry value chain analysis and apply the analysis to the design and structure of value-adding activities, value drivers and value chains 

As stated by Mishra & Mohanty (2014), the value chain is the set of activities which an organisation carries out to make value for the customers. The management of an organisation examines all the activities of the organisation so that the organisation must be connected to the customers. In addition, the value chain is the activities of the firm operating in an industry perform to deliver the valuable service or product for the market to the customers. Industry value chain assists to analyse the internal activities of the organisation which engages the firm to produce and make services and goods. The value chain is created through primary activities which may add value to the final services and products directly and the organisations also do support activities which may add value indirectly (Hishe, Asfaw & Giday, 2016).  

Value chain analysis

The value chain of aged care and residential home consists of payers, providers and producers (Grant, 2016). For, MMG, payers are the government, insurance companies and individuals who pay for their expenses in an aged care home. Providers are the staffs and nurses in MMG along with specialities and pharmacies. Producers in MMG are the companies which manufacture the medicines and equipment which are used in the aged care home like MMG.

Primary activities:

• Primary activities are associated with admissionin MMG, admission activities are associated with the emergency room, pay treatment room, admitting and out-care department.
• Care activity in MMG is related to the clinical evaluation, diagnostic tests of the aged people, treatment and referral of the patients. In addition, marketing and sales activities of MMG are related to the services to the aged people and it is related to pricing.
• Marketing and sales are done by the insurance. MMG does the social media advertisement and the website campaigning to reach mass audiences.

Services provided by MMG are the ambulance service, innovative residential care home, professional advisor of aged care, contemporary local designing, monitoring of the aged people and follow-up services and the health education to the aged people.

                                           

Support activities

• Aged care administration in MMG is related to the department of The Board of Directors, Medical Dictator, Chief Nurse and Chief of Clinics.
• Information Services are associated to the Admitting and information along with Billing and Collection and Customer Service.
• Diagnostic and Therapeutic Services provided by MMG are the laboratory and diagnostic imaging centre and Emergency medicine.
• Aged care support services in MMG are related to the property and central supply, purchasing and procurement process. Aged care activities are related to the maintenance, housekeeping and security services.

                                     

Value-adding activities

Value-adding activities of MMG are related to the physical therapy and medical psychiatry of the aged care. MMG does social inclusion along with social networks and it provides peace of mind to the aged people.

Value drivers

Value drivers of MMG are the philosophy of the organisation which provides maintenance-free living. The aged people who live in the residents also get the fresh and healthy food. Value drivers of MMG are well-articulated service facility, configured network to have the integrated services, contracting structure of value proposition and value-based services. The major programmes focus here on the physical wellness of the aged people and it also focuses on community as well.

Defining the role of organisation and industry value chain analysis and apply the analysis to the design and structure of value-adding activities, value drivers and value chains

Analysing the characteristics of effective strategic and corporate social responsibility related performance measurement and control systems 

Strategic Ansell can share the strategic and corporate responsibilities of MMG which is associated with the performance measurement and control system. MMG can be socially responsible by promoting and delivering sustainable and superior value to all people. CSR of aged care home must involve with the service users and management of MMG comes up with a list of alternatives. The organisation needs to seek assistance to bring old but usable technology. Another characteristic of CSR is creating the scorecard to make sure that the features of the organisation should be achievable and measurable. The management needs to be honest on the setback of the organisation and the organisational tone to be authentic, not just the promotional (Tai & Chuang, 2014). MMG can seek publicity by finding the media coverage for the business and it sends out the press release about any kinds of contests. MMG can release CSR report each year by highlighting what they are doing and what they are thinking to make the society and environment better (Suliman et al., 2016). Another characteristic of CSR is to bring positive publicity by increasing the corporate reputation so that the companies have better reputation model.

Many organisations have faced difficulties measuring the effect of social responsibilities and their initiatives. CSR provides the benefits of customer loyalty and develops a reputation for the brand. The CSR is hard to quantify and it makes difficult to assess the value of the organisation (Roy et al., 2015). CSR measurement is very important to the organisation as it enables to disclose the importance of activities to the customers along with stakeholders. Performance measurement regarding CSR can be tracked through benchmarking the business against the other organisations. Strategic Ansell can suggest seeking recognition for the CSR against the best practice, CSR Index Report. Performance of the organisation against CSR can be measured by using Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to measure the environmental performance (Roy et al., 2015). Finally, by using the third party, MMG can take help of the CommunityMark standard, a safety standard of the organisation to measure the community involvement.

Describing and apply strategic management accounting techniques to the selection, planning, implementation, control and monitoring of projects  

Strategic management accounting is the extension of traditional management accounting, mainly focusing on external information about competitors. Strategic management accounting helps to gain the competitive advantage by understanding the two ways to decrease the costs or to increase the differentiation of the firm’s products by exploiting the linkage (Maas, Crutzen & Schaltegger, 2014). Strategic management accounting strengthens the value chain by optimising the cost drivers also.

There are various techniques of Strategic Management Accounting so that the individuals can use different approaches to achieve the strategy execution.

Kaizen Costing: It is a cost reduction process and it is the maintenance of a present level of cost for the products being manufactured through systematic efforts to gain the desired level of costs (Otley, 2016). In MMG, asset and specific kaizen costing are planned through each deal and it adds emphasis on value analysis.

Benchmarking: It is a process of comparing performance and processes to another business performance metrics which is the industry best (Bennet & James, 2017). When an organisation sets the project, benchmarking supports the selection, planning and delivery of the project at right time. Strategic Ansell can suggest using the benchmarking to measure the quality of MMG’s services and policies.

Five functions of Management by Fayol 

Planning: Managers of MMG can plan for future situations which may help the organisation to develop strategic objectives to secure future goals. The managers of the organisations need to evaluate future contingencies which may affect the organisation to shape the operational and strategic landscape of the organisation.

Organising: Managers of MMG can organise the workforce inefficient manner with perfect stricture which aligns the activities of aged care and residential care home. Managers can train the HR staffs to recruit the right set of people who must know the needs of the aged people and the staffs should be educated and skilled.

Commanding: Strategic Ansell can ask the managers of MMG to supervise the subordinates on daily chores and it will inspire the managers to achieve the objectives. Similarly, it is the responsibility of the managers to communicate with subordinates so that the employees should know the policies and objectives.

Coordinating: Leaders in MMG harmonise the activities and procedures set by the managers. Therefore, the leaders can follow each activity to complement and enrich the workplace.

Controlling: As stated by Fayol (2016), managers can control the activities which are not in line with MMG’s policies. It is also the responsibilities of the managers to report and observe the deviation of the plan to make the initiative correct.

Conclusion

It is to conclude that strategic management accounting is the provision to analyse management accounting data to monitor the strategy of the business. Strategic Ansell has made a partnership with MMG to provide the strategic management accounting technique so that the business must support the overall competitive strategy. MMG has the power to use information technology to develop refined service for the aged people. Strategic Ansell provides the basic strategies to induce values to MMG which will help the organisation to reach large numbers of target audiences.

Strategic management accounting is related to mainly external information of the competitors, current trends, policies which may affect the market and shares and costs (Dashtbayaz, Mohammadi & Mohammadi, 2014). Mark Moran Group is one of Australia’s innovative and prestigious aged care and retirement living place. Ansell Strategic is a professional advisor to the retirement living sector and aged care in Australia. Ansell Strategic has been engaged to work with MMG to improve the condition regarding architects and builders to create a contemporary living. This paper focuses to improve key service area of strategic management accounting like value chain, corporate social responsibility, leadership and control and monitoring of projects.  

Reference: 

Bennett, M., & James, P. (2017). The Green bottom line: environmental accounting for management: current practice and future trends. Abingdon: Routledge.

Channon, D. F., & Caldart, A. A. (2015). McKinsey 7S model. Wiley Encyclopedia of Management, 1-1.

Chatzoglou, P., Chatzoudes, D., Sarigiannidis, L., & Theriou, G. (2018). The role of firm-specific factors in the strategy-performance relationship: Revisiting the resource-based view of the firm and the VRIO framework. Management Research Review, 41(1), 46-73.

Chiarini, A., & Vagnoni, E. (2015). World-class manufacturing by Fiat. Comparison with Toyota production system from a strategic management, management accounting, operations management and performance measurement dimension. International Journal of Production Research, 53(2), 590-606.

Dashtbayaz, M. L., Mohammadi, S., & Mohammadi, A. (2014). Strategic Management Accounting. Research Journal of Finance and Accounting, 5(23), 17-21.

El-Sayed, A. F. M., Dickson, M. W., & El-Naggar, G. O. (2015). Value chain analysis of the aquaculture feed sector in Egypt. Aquaculture, 437, 92-101.

Fayol, H. (2016). General and industrial management. Raven Books.

Grant, R. M. (2016). Contemporary strategy analysis: Text and cases edition. John Wiley & Sons.

Hill, T. (2017). Manufacturing strategy: the strategic management of the manufacturing function. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Hishe, M., Asfaw, Z., & Giday, M. (2016). Review of value chain analysis of Medicinal Plants and the associated challenges. Journal of Medicinal Plants Studies, 4(3), 45-55.

Howieson, B., Hancock, P., Segal, N., Kavanagh, M., Tempone, I., & Kent, J. (2014). Who should teach what? Australian perceptions of the roles of universities and practice in the education of professional accountants. Journal of Accounting Education, 32(3), 259-275.

Maas, K., Crutzen, N., & Schaltegger, S. (2014). Special volume of the Journal of Cleaner Production on “Integrating corporate sustainability performance measurement, management control and reporting” Call for Papers. Journal of cleaner production, 65, 7-8.

Melnyk, S. A., Bititci, U., Platts, K., Tobias, J., & Andersen, B. (2014). Are performance measurement and management fit for the future?. Management Accounting Research, 25(2), 173-186.

Mishra, S., & Mohanty, P. (2014). Corporate governance as a value driver for firm performance: evidence from India. Corporate Governance, 14(2), 265-280.

Mudambi, R., & Puck, J. (2016). A global value chain analysis of the ‘regional strategy’perspective. Journal of Management Studies, 53(6), 1076-1093.

Otley, D. (2016). The contingency theory of management accounting and control: 1980–2014. Management accounting research, 31, 45-62.

Paras, M. K., Pal, R., & Ekwall, D. (2018). Systematic literature review to develop a conceptual framework for a reuse-based clothing value chain. The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 28(3), 231-258.

Renz, D. O. (2016). The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management. John Wiley & Sons.

Rothaermel, F. T. (2015). Strategic management. McGraw-Hill Education.

Roy, S. K., Roy, S., Mubeen, R., Brindha, N., Abirami, A., Leve, S. L., … & Mahadevi, S. (2015). Corporate social responsibility. EduPedia Publications Pvt. Ltd..

Suliman, A. M., Al-Khatib, H. T., & Thomas, S. E. (2016). Corporate social responsibility. Corporate Social Performance: Reflecting on the Past and Investing in the Future, 15.

Tai, F. M., & Chuang, S. H. (2014). Corporate social responsibility. Business, 6(03), 117.

Turner, M. J., Way, S. A., Hodari, D., & Witteman, W. (2017). Hotel property performance: The role of strategic management accounting. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 63, 33-43.