Asia Division Business Unit Strategy-Biotech Health and Life Products Inc. Management Plan-Part 2
Introduction
The growth and evolution of Biotech Health and Life Products Inc. over the years is a manifestation of how a brand combination within a given portfolio is in itself a critical attribute in understanding the competitive advantage a company has over its peers as well as how crucial it is to the growth and development of any given business entity. Established on unique corporate level strategies that include vertical and horizontal integration as well as strategic alliances, Biotech has continued to build on its brand image within different geographic markets which essentially explains the proposed market expansion strategy into Asia. Underscored by a strong research and development capability, the company has been able to maximize on its production output through a customer-centered approach thereby gaining significant competitive advantage over the years. Buoyed by a comprehensive outlook of the company’s corporate and marketing strategies as well as market analysis to its growth and development, the paper sets out to prepare a management plan to guide Biotech efforts to globalize and acquire new markets in the Asian continent. Thus, the paper begins by a description of the division’s organizational structure and culture before embarking on outlining a detailed communications plan that will inform the exchange of information between the division and its corporate headquarters as well as with other stakeholders including its suppliers and distributors as well as the other divisions of Biotech Health and Life Products Inc.
Organizational Structure of Biotech Health and Life Products Inc.
The organizational structure will be critical in determining the roles and functions of employees of the company within the context of its new project. The organizational structure thus promotes productivity through enhancing knowledge of individual roles and responsibilities. In the case of the Asia Division of Biotech, the Executive director will be reporting directly to the parent company’s Chief Executive Officer and will be responsible for the overall management, administration and oversight roles of the division. Thus, the role will include among others constantly assessing and ensuring that the division’s financial standing is sustainable while establishing programs that are in tandem with the overall mission and objectives of the organization. Beyond implementing the decisions made from the headquarters, the Research and Development (R&D) Unit at the divisional level will act as a channel of communication in terms of reporting on the consumer feedback as well as the prevailing changes in the Asian market depending on performance in sales and receptiveness of products. The Executive Division Director would be required to incorporate values, traditions, and culture into the Biotech. She will also be the face of marketing brand.
In addition, the R&D Unit will also take up a development role to speed up growth and presence of the company’s product in Asia while exploring options to introduce new products into the market. The R&D department of the Asian division will also be tasked with the role of establishing and maintaining a supply chain and external dependencies risk management framework. This will serve to enhance quality assurance procedures while addressing supply chain risks especially because Biotech will be outsourcing the raw products for manufacturing of the initial products. The Information Technology section will also serve a critical role in advising the company on the role of technology in the cosmetic market within their given jurisdictional boundaries and what technological approach would give the company a competitive edge over its peers at any particular time. Overall, the management of the division will be based on a matrix organizational structure with employees reporting to both the executive director and their departmental heads depending on the task at hand. The matrix organizational structure is intended to promote open communication and to enhance information sharing while promoting corporation between the different divisions and Biotech’s corporate headquarters. By allocating the different divisions to specific geographic zones, the company will be able to integrate its different operations into a multinational scale that would independently serve its consumers spread across different parts of the globe while remaining true to its vision of being become a triple bottom line company.
The human resource department at the company’s corporate headquarters will primarily work with other staff in the different divisions to undertake various business operations. While the HR unit at the divisional level functionally reports to the company’s headquarter, the executive director oversees their day-to-day activities and thus can only receive advice or recommendation as opposed to commands or instructions from the HR at the headquarters. In order to avoid any instances of ambiguity or conflict, the executive director will oversee the HR staff in the Asian division who will be responsible for recruiting and managing local employees. In terms of decision making, the company will be decentralized to specific divisional units since they are the units closer to the market and the prevailing dynamics. Although decisions affecting the functioning of all the business units will be made by the top-level management, each business unit will be assigned various decision-making responsibilities so as to empower the executive director and promote fast decision-making processes. Nonetheless, a balance shall be established between the decentralized and centralized decision-making approaches to ensure there is room for responsive marketing. For instance, in a decentralized system, a sales representative working for the Asian division is at liberty to consult the executive director when seeking to give price discounts on products as opposed to the centralized system where one would have to consult the top-level management even in the smallest of decisions. The hierarchical levels chosen should provide for greater levels of self-actualization amongst employees.
Organizational Culture in Biotech Health and Life Products Inc.
As the market for cosmetic products across the globe continues to evolve and grow, the critical role of consumer culture continues to influence product receptiveness and acceptance world over. Asia is predominantly known as a hub for many cultural and religious beliefs that will definitely influence the uptake of Biotech’s products in its new division. Hinduism, Islam and Jainism are among some of the most predominant religious affiliations in Asia and which have a great influence in the cultural practices of the Asian people. One cultural aspect that may present itself as a complexity or opportunity to the Asian division is the Warisan concept which greatly influences the Asian traditional and cultural principles. Further, Halal which is the Islamic concept of purity and cleanliness also equally closely linked to Buddhism must be taken into consideration when establishing the packaging, marketing and distribution options for Biotech’s new products. The cultural underpinnings influence by religion especially Islam in Asia will thus be critical in the branding of the cosmetic products on offer by Biotech. According to Yacob, Zainol, and Hussin (2018, p.105), the influence of the halal concept on the marketability of any type of beauty products in an Islamic environment is enormous and this explains the emergence of the halal cosmetics industry after the Islamic finance and halal food. In addition, Biotech will also have to contend with the issue of local cosmetic and beauty products enjoying a competitive edge over foreign products owing to their perceived originality in the context of halal which also explains the ease of acquiring the halal certification. The company will therefore need to extensively research on how best to approach the dilemmas that the cultural and religious principles in Asia will present to its quest of introducing new product lines (Yacob , Zainol, & Hussin, 2018, p.106).
Nevertheless, the indigenousness, suitability and quality have been found to override the dynamics of cultural or religious underpinnings in use of cosmetics and related products over the years as consumers continue to be more informed and exposed as a result of the advancements in technology (Yacob et al., 2018, p.106). In the spirit of embracing cultural diversity, the unit will include a small number of current Biotech employees leaving the larger portion for locals so as to promote the feeling of belonging for the local consumers. Cultural diversity will also help increase community relations so as to ensure effectiveness in communication and expose the company to a range of business solutions in the obviously competitive beauty industry. Notably, the Asian culture is greatly influenced by religion and in this case, the Asian Division of Biotech might need to reconsider their options regarding working days. For instances Muslims regard their weekend to begin from Thursday through to Saturday night while Sunday is considered a working day. Based on this, the company may need to tailor its business operations to fit the religious principles by for instance closing on Fridays to allow for its Muslim clients and employees time to pray. In a nutshell, the organizational culture in the context of the Asian division will in essence be founded on various principles including compassion, diversity and inclusivity, excellence, innovation and creativity as well as respect for everyone and the environment.
Breakdown of Products and Services of Biotech Health and Life Products Inc.
The chosen introductory product lines will be based on face cleanser and foundation makeup specifically targeting the female gender. The vision of being a triple bottom line within the framework of social, financial and environmental dynamics will be the driving power in determining the types of products and services that will be introduced into the Asian market. The production of the company’s products using natural substances that are environmentally friendly to the environment and efficient in their function will equally be integral to the creation of brand value thus increasing their market penetration. The same would also be integral in marketing the company by virtue of its commitment to the principles of corporate social responsibilities (CSRs). It is important to recognize that the adoption of naturally occurring material to prepare the products may be an expensive product which may be difficult to sustain in the future and it is for this reason that the company’s R&D unit must set out to establish alternative biotechnological means to obtain alternative ingredients for production that are inherently similar to the natural ingredients.
The main supplier of the company’s raw materials for manufacturing of the products and services will be Ichimaru Pharcos, Co. who world renowned developers of raw materials for cosmetics. The company researches and develops solutions to the cosmetic industry by exploring and developing ingredients from little known natural materials that are used in the making of various beauty products by different companies across the globe. The product and service distribution will be based on partnerships with other entities in the Asian beauty industry such as salons and barber shops as well as spas and relaxation centers. The manufacturing of the products will take place at headquarters so as to minimize on establishing new production units while enhancing quality assurance. In order to differentiate Biotech products from other products in the Asian market, the division’s products on offer at the initial launch will apart from getting halal certification, obtain approvals from other industry regulators in Asia with a view of capturing even the non-Asian consumers living in the target area. A range of other beauty products will be rolled overtime depending on the rate of market acceptance and consumer response based on brand loyalty dynamics. Manufacturing and the outsourcing of raw products and inputs will be founded on the principle of eco-sustainability especially with regard to green formulations and product packaging which will also serve to competitively differentiate the company’s products in the Asian market. Based on the ecological aspects of sustainability as outlined during the sustainable cosmetic summit, the manufacturing of the face cleanser and foundation will be based on organic and environmentally sustainable methods of production (Sahota, 2014, par.5).
Communication Plan for Biotech Health and Life Products Inc.
The importance of communication in an organization even from the standpoint of its simplest definition of being an act of sending and receiving messages cannot be underscored. The management framework for Biotech Health and Life Products and that proposed in the case of the Asian division necessitates the need to establish a strong internal and external organization communication. The primary goal of communication should be to keep all the stakeholders informed of the unit’s progress in terms of sales, finances and project needs among others while providing structured opportunities for feedback and opinion from consumers. Additionally, communication should be geared towards providing advisory opinion regard necessary actions or decision that needs to be taken by the company’s top management including the CEO and other executive directors of the different divisions of the company. The advancements in technology have resulted to a range of communication methods that will help in the exchange of information between the Asian Division and other divisions as well as the corporate headquarters and the suppliers. Among the alternative methods that could be considered in choosing a method of communication will include emails, online databases, teleconferencing, status reports, collaboration applications and surveys.
For information sharing and communication between the different divisions, a synchronous communication system will be adopted owing to the geographical distance between the different divisions unless otherwise stated. Internally, the executive director can adopt modern tools of communication that will allow for the preparation of quick and efficient timeline summaries based on real time data. The same system can be adopted to ensure efficiency in communication between the sub-departments at the Asian division and the headquarters. Such modern technologies as video calling and teleconferencing will thus be applicable in the aforementioned scenarios. Also, in response to the technological paradigm shift of online shopping, Biotech should focus on investing in its e-commerce platform while distinguishing its products and services from those offered by other industry players. Since the Asian market is a new project, the company should invest in online marketing campaigns with the primary goal of obtaining a certain market share within a given timeframe upon its entry into the Asian market.
References
Sahota, A. (2014). The Greening of the Cosmetics Industry. Chemviews.doi:
10.1002/chemv.201400118
Yacob, S., Zainol, R., &Hussin, H. (2018). Local branding strategies in Southeast Asian Islamic cultures. Jati-Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 23(1), 102-131.
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