Contents

Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2

Discussion..............................................................................................................................................3

Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................5

Reference..............................................................................................................................................6
Introduction
Strategic management has been practiced by the corporates back in the year of 1960’s
and 1970’s to attain profitability and maintain the employee’s efficiency. The phrase strategy
here refers to the stack of action plan which the corporate uses to protect the business,
compete within the industry and develop their growth in the field (Beckman and Rosenfield,
2008) Strategic management is all about the organisation making decision and carrying out
action plan to meet the organisation goal. Analysing, decision making and taking action plays
a major role on how organisation’s performance would be either in internal or external
environment. In traditional strategic management, it was practised to focus on a single
element at a time which is either low cost or differentiation but to overcome a strong
competition, the adoption of hybrid strategy which has the element of both is highly required.
In every strategy being practiced, environment is an important factor to be consider where it
is a set of elements concise of legal, social, economic and political which could not be
controlled in affecting the business functions. While cost leadership is where a strategy
implementing by a company to project themselves an option of providing the goods or
services for a lower price or on a base price acting as a manufacturer. The best example can
be used to explain cost leadership is IKEA where they are known for the lowest price for all
furniture and house decorative items. This is not an easy strategy to work on where the board
of management should constantly work on the cost management to remain competitive within
the commodity’s market. On the other hand, differentiation is where a company works to
produce good or services which has its own uniqueness compared to other products in the
market. It also targets different segments of people that could be attracted with their products.
The example of the company which adapted this strategy are Apple Inc. Their mobile phone
is unique with their own iOS software compared to all other mobile companies has been
using Android. Apple Inc. has their own segment of loyal customer where they would eagerly
wait for their new releases and willing to purchase even is the price high compared to other
company mobiles. In the traditional method of strategic management, the either method has
been practiced ensuring the management would overcome all the business struggles within
the environment, but current environment badly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, and it
requires strong strategies to sustain. Hybrid model focuses on strategy as well as system
dynamic and agent-based elements inclusive of technology management to test the efficiency
of practised effects towards the company profitability. It helps to monitoring the internal and
external environment, developing a strategy with a vision and mission, setting the objective,

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designing and executing the strategy and not limited to reviewing the outcome the executed
strategy.

Discussion
The Covid-19 pandemic has hit a of its wave with irrecoverable situation for almost
two years and many industries are still struggling to survive in this situation. Current
situations explain better that a company should not only focus on a single strategy to sustain
for a long term. Surviving a business in the time of pandemic is being a hardest task for most
of the industries. Leaving earning profit alone, sustaining without suffering loss is already
considered as good enough in the current situation since many businesses and shops had to
closed due to the circumstances. There are industries has fully utilised the Covid-19
pandemic situation to come up with new strategies and making profit. In current situation,
managers should always initiate new ideas and change their methods of thinking in order to
keep the business excel. What happens to today’s business environment is totally unexpected
and not predicted by the any business analyst in the past as the pandemic hits out of sudden
and it leads to global economic crisis. The businesses started to struggle since lockdowns are
keep on being implemented by the local authorities’ time to time and consumers are unable to
go out for purchases. The restrictions of using traditional strategic management could be not
able to adapt with the current environment and get along with pace of changes in the market.
It is also could be inflexible for the range of the situation that the environment facing now,
and they are growing opportunity might be limited to the business. As the traditional method
just focusing on the investor’s return and playing trading safe and the environment needs
changes. Yet, there could be some advantages in maintaining traditional method where they
could not face any risk and it could sustain as it is by operating within its capabilities. Hybrid
model would be helpful if the company are currently growing from a smaller phase by
exploring into new opportunities. One of the badly effected industry in current pandemic is
airlines due to all country borders are closed for travelling and they have their aircrafts
parked for months. This is where the organisation should focus on new strategies and sustain
their businesses. AirAsia was one of the companies who was practicing cost leadership and
well known for their low-cost tickets. All they did was giving low prices of air fare and any
other facilities require additional charges and people would always tend to get items on a
cheaper rate and that was on the factor which was making the business successful. In current
situation, Tony Fernandes has adopted a hybrid strategy to focus on the food delivery
business which is one of the profitable in the current environment. Even they have the

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business, “Santan” since 2015 but they fully utilized based on the situation. They have also
expected to open a minimum of 100 outlets by the end of quarter one in 2022. This shows
that they manager should also have a strategy to back up the business in unexpected
environment. Using the traditional method were focusing on the cost leadership are still
helpful where all are based on the market and industry as well. One of the platforms that has
been focusing on cost leadership is Lazada and it has been one of the successful platforms in
Malaysia. At the same time, Shopee uses hybrid strategy, and it has been also running
successfully compared to Lazada. This is because both competes in their unique methods.
Shopee do provide “Flash Sales” every day, focuses on their mobile app interface, has their
own gaming inside the application to collect coins and redeem it for shopping purposes,
constantly provides free shipping and discounts. They are always keep changing and
improving their features to attract more consumers to come and shop in the platform. While
Lazada focuses in pricing, free shipping and safety compared to the others. Both are equally
excelling and competing within the market. Anyhow, Shopee seems to be performing well
and attracting more consumer and this is alarming that Lazada should also focus on its
strategy for long term sustaining. Anyhow, strong company as Lazada are not reconsidering
to switch their strategy and manage to sustain successfully. Every strategy being carried out
does not meant that it would be rational to the firm, it could be overwhelming or over
engineered for the business. As a result, all strategic ideas should be viewed from the
organization's perspective rather than from the standpoint of specific functional areas.
Decision-making in strategic management involves various stakeholders. Managers must
incorporate the demands of many stakeholders when making decision. Stakeholders are those
individuals, groups, and organizations who have a "stake" in the success of the company.
They have the best interest towards the company. Shareholders in a publicly traded company,
employees, customers, suppliers, and others are all part of the organisation. Managers would
have challenges if they shifted their focus to a certain stakeholder. For example, if the focus
is solely on earning money for the owners, staff may feel neglected, resulting in poor
customer service and the organization's depreciation. Strategic management necessitates both
effectiveness and efficiency in companies, for instances doing the right thing" in
effectiveness. While managers must distribute and use resources wisely, they must also focus
their efforts on achieving the organization's broader goals. Besides that, entertainment
industry is also one of the most focused industry during this pandemic where everyone stays
home, and it plays a major role in keep everyone entertained. RTM is one entity that
practising the cost leadership strategy back from its entry up to current situation while there
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are many competitors has appeared then and now but Netflix and Disney plus Hot Star has
made its entry by using hybrid strategy into the market. RTM does not any mobile
application, still focuses on programmes with a lover budget and watching their channel does
not requires any fees but it has plenty of advertisement during broadcasting. While Netflix
and Disney Hot Star is an OTT (over-the-top) platform which has plenty of choices to be
watched and all new movies is available with a monthly fee in the form of subscription.
Along the duration of movies or series there will be no advertisement plus it can be watched
from anywhere at anytime with just a presence of mobile with application installed within.
This shows that the development of strategies and adapting of hybrid model is essential
specially to attract current generation. The company and management would not attain profit
by sustaining traditional method such as RTM. Apart from that, industries such as hotel are
playing a major sustaining method in order to stay “alive’ without shutting down business.
Hotel foods are one of the most hyped things in the market and many were willing to spend
money for hotel buffets and others. Now the hotels are coming out with the strategy of
focusing on food delivery, food stalls to attract more peoples and providing discounted rate of
room for future booking to earn and run the business. The well-known hotels such as Berjaya,
Rasa Sayang and a few others has landed into food delivery than focusing on room bookings.
Some hotels also have collaborated with the government entities to turn their hotels into
quarantine centres so that the business could keep going without any issues. This is also one
of the best strategies that they could adopt even its risky to maintain patients into their
premises, but necessary actions are being taken in terms of safety measures. Telco industries
are also one of the highly looked into sector during this pandemic since everything has turn
into online and internet usage are highly in demand during this time. The company such Digi
are still adapting cost leadership by proving internet plans at a lower price compared to the
other telco companies. They are attracting more and more consumers by widening their
coverage areas and developing more plans for their customers. Other than that, groceries are
one of the highly demanded items that was being searched in the current environment and to
look at the business that are achieving high profits are Mydin, Speed Mart and Tesco which
has been identified as Lotus now. Those entities are doing well as they are providing
groceries in a cheaper rate compared to other retailers. This is one of the industries that
requires traditional method based on the current situation in excelling. The retailers who have
adopted differentiation strategy now such as Family mart and Jaya Grocer does not fail yet
they are also doing well with the unique items that they are selling which could not obtained
from other normal vendors. The differentiation strategy could be doing well without the

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existence of pandemic and currently the que and social distancing are being a barrier for them
compared to normal circumstances. Regardless of strategies, the business requires growth and
development consistently to grab new opportunity based on their consumer’s needs and wants
to able to facilitate and at the same time make reasonable profit and sustain the business for a
longer term. All the industries are trying their best to sustain and grow even during the
pandemic and such industries that are facing biggest hurdle are also venturing into new ideas
and business by adopting new businesses.

Conclusion
As a conclusion, we can see that it is essential to always focus on every possible way
to improvise the organisation’s strategy to achieve its goal. The presence of flexibility in
analysis and adopting strategy is important in order to keep growing according to the
circumstances that we are facing. Traditional strategic management are not considered as
ineffective yet the focus on excelling within the environment must frequently analysed by the
organisation and management to adapt their company based on the current business world.
Everything has focused and changed to technology based especially during this pandemic
wave and all the transaction and purchases are just based on one click from their mobile
application. Everything requires changes and hybrid method would be helpful to plan a
strategy and executing it and monitor the results. At the same time, it is also based on the
industry and not all can sustain with hybrid strategy. An industry with less competitors could
adapt hybrid such as Shopee and Netflix would grow further. If Rolls Royce would adopt
hybrid strategy, it might lose its uniqueness and individuality. It is all based on how the
management and the decision-making authority of the firm helps to boost the company’s
effectiveness in overcome hurdles and competitors to sustain for a long term with its branding
and quality maintain with affordable prices for their consumers by considering their internal
and external environment plus the factors into the business. At the end of the day, how the
decision makers of the firm act and works make the differences and matters to boost the
company’s profit.

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