Business-level and Corporate-level Strategies
Business-level and corporate-level strategies for Space X Inc.
Business Admin. Capstone (BUS499)
A company’s choice of business level or corporate level strategy has a significant effect on the tone they set that will be a determinant for their failure or success. In most companies, a manager is given lead on the strategy put in place and they can determine the best strategy the company should use. The success of a company is dependent on their scrutiny of other competitors. The competitors dictate the best strategy for the corporation. After the determination of the corporation’s strategies, building a successful firm becomes the goal.
Space X is a company began in 2002 with the purpose of designing, manufacturing and launching both advanced rockets and spacecraft (Ismael &S., 2008). The company’s decision in 2002 to revolutionize space technology began with their idea to enable people to live on other planets which is the company’s current goal. The company came into the limelight for being the first private company to return a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit in 2010.
Space X’s primary business level strategy is the cost leadership strategy. The company aims to give an experience different from a majority of their competitors since they provide the dream to one day be able live on other planet while minding the costs for their cost conscious customers. The activities undertaken by the company are a mechanism to help accomplish this driving force. Their successful launch of the low Earth orbit rocket was the onset of their strategic plans to make the dreams set out come true. The company currently has four offices making it easier to operate within the United States and three launch pads reducing any losses likely to happen within their facilities.
The founder of Space X, Elon Musk started the company with huge dreams that he plans on achieving in the near future. His major goal is the development of rockets that are fully and rapidly reusable. This venture in an effort to transform the industry of space exploration through the delivery of highly reliable vehicles with costs that are radically reduced. Space X focuses on the growth of its business through a main focus on their potential clients. The major focus is on the provision of the lowest cost in launch as well as the increased reliability in comparison to their competitors. As Elon Musk founded the company, his main vision was dependent on the absence of a service in the industry that had low costs but provided high quality services. In no time, SpaceX plans on making their services less expensive and cost friendly for a majority of clients by drastically reducing their prices as their crafts are built to be reusable.
SpaceX is quite a young company in its first stages of development. The company’s growth, especially in research and development has advancements that are likely to affect their business level strategy. Their long term goal is the ultimate colonization of planet Mars through sending one million humans to the planet to avoid human extinction. The company is unlikely to contract the colony build and take up the initial transportation of goods and people as well as its construction. The company’s long term goal will lead to differentiating its services after it establishes the colony because SpaceX is not going to want to take on the full liability and risk of the managing, building, and transportation related to an extra-terrestrial colony. The decision is a good choice as it differentiates it from other spacecraft companies and is likely to reel in more clients.
Corporate level strategy helps an organization in the development and selection of the best markets the firm should compete (Grunig & Kuhn, 2010). SpaceX majorly deals in the spacecraft industry as well as exploration of space. The major question in the decision making process of a corporate strategy s answering the question, how diversified is the firm? SpaceX has made the decision to use the diversification corporate level strategy that means they majorly enter the new market of the space industry as they try and create reusable space crafts and colonize other planets.
Space X’s target clientele is majorly found through a specialty advertise mechanism since they are rare in comparison to normal spacecraft adventurers. The main mechanisms they explore is the use of showcasing of their offers to both private and open associations who require the transportation of goods to space. Their main specialties include business satellite dispatch, space station resupply, and government national security missions. Frequent customers include
OrbComm, the U.S. Aviation based armed forces, and MDA Corporation.
The major offers given by SpaceX are accessibility, performance, and brand/status. The company has made it their mission to offered availability through the empowerment of people to go to space by provision of generally reasonable means. The company offers transport chances to numerous association who need to explore outer space with exhibited solid execution as evidenced by its previous launches. It has accomplished various points of reference, including the subsidization of their rocket fluid that achieved a circle around Earth, becoming the first privately owned business to effectively dispatch, circle, and recuperate a space shuttle, send a rocket to the International Space Station, send a satellite into geosynchronous circle, direct the primary arrival of a first stage orbital able rocket, as well as, manage the main water arriving of a first stage orbital proficient rocket.
Space X has come up with a solid brand known to be the first privately owned company to effectively venture into space travel and has become entrenched and surely understood. The trust created by the organization to its users is strengthened further by its founder Elon Musk who successfully helped in the established of two prominent businesses worldwide, PayPal and
Tesla making him a prominent business visionary. The main business revenue model adopted by SpaceX is its improvement business group (Grunig & Kuhn, 2010). The group helps the organization acquire clients in a simpler manner through an advancement of their sites and webbased social networking groups. Their client value relationship consist of value addition to the experience of their most committed clients. The organization works at value creation for clients at all sections of the business especially at the recuperation, circling and dispatch of the space shuttles. Their business strategy model key activities revolves around the propelling, assembly, and outlining of satellites and rockets. Their venture into the exploration and conquering of other planets begins with availability of key accomplices which provide different parts for se n the different sections of the organization.
Currently, SpaceX boasts of more than 3000 key accomplices of space shuttle and satellite parts with 1100 of them doing weekly provisions. Space X’s main competitive structure is hinged in its innovative staff. Their staff are majorly trained on impetus design, basic design, equipment handling, and programming to ensure they are all rounded and can give their best in their sections within the organization. The staff is stationed in the different offices and stations throughout the United States. Some are stationed at the company’s central station located in Hawthorne, California while others are at the rocket advancement office in McGregor, Texas, their dispatch offices in the Kennedy Space Center, the Vandenberg Air Force base, and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base, their rocket testing offices in New Mexico and Texas or their satellite improvement office and provincial offices in Redmond Washington, Washington, D.C, Texas and
Virginia respectively. In addition to its advantage, the company boasts of a startup capability of $1.25 billion from 11 spectators by January 2015.
Furthermore, the business model incorporated is esteem driven with their greatest cost driver being the low cost of merchandise. Their singular revenue stream of offers in stock it fabricates, satellites and rockets attracts a huge number of clientele. Their products are diversified however to improve on the services and ensure their revenue generation is active and profitable.
Space X’s biggest competitor is Virgin Galactic. Virgin Galactic is a company set out for the development of space crafts and its main mission is the provision of affordable spaceflights for those interested in travelling space as well as launching suborbital space crafts for space science missions (Virgin Atlantic, 2018). One of its missions is to provide a tour of the moon. In terms of its business level strategy, Virgin Atlantic has adopted the autonomous business level strategy. The company endeavors to sacrifice short term profits for long term growth. The management team has adopted the identification of complacency in the market of space crafts and offer more for less in the tourism industry. Their diversification strategy is adopted in their decision to venture into the space tourism platform and offer a service they can easily set standards for. Their fleet management structure is set out to encourage innovation as well as promote flexibility for their partners and clientele alike.
The most significant corporate level strategy adopted by Virgin Atlantic is the unrelated diversification (Furrer, 2016). As Virgin Atlantic is a part of a large group of companies that gets into business during a time they feel is downtime. Virgin Atlantic sets out to different from other space companies by providing a new dimension to the field through an introduction of tourism and exploration. Their core strength roots from their need to prevent obsolesce of a venture. They seek to provide services that give the clients value for their money, is fun, is of good quality and the innovation and customer service is nothing short of brilliant.
A comparison of the strategies adopted by Virgin Atlantic and Space X, it is quite likely that Space X will be more successful. The strategies adopted for the short-term are quite evidently boosting Space X as shown by their successful launches in the recent past. This choice would, however, change in a slow cycle market since Virgin Atlantic will likely have come up with strategies to remedy their recent fails and improve their service delivery. The company is set out for long term success which they will best achieve and probably surpass SpaceX in a slow cycle market.
Business and corporate level strategies are important within the decision making process of an organization as they help with the determination of direction. The strategies adopted are dependent on the competitors and the market cycle. A comparison of Virgin Atlantic and Spaces reveals the impact of different strategies on company growth and development. Additionally, these strategies have boosted SpaceX's position within the niche industry and improved the brand performance
References
Furrer, O. (2016). Corporate level strategy: Theory and applications. London: Routledge.
Grünig, R., & Kühn, R. (2010). Specifying business strategies at the level of resources. Processbased Strategic Planning, 265-278. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-16715-7_16
Ismail, N., & Iskandar, S. (2008). Space X. PTS One.
Virgin Atlantic. (2018) Purpose. Retrieved from http://www.virgingalactic.com/purpose/
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