![Types of Corporate Level Strategy [Examples]](/static/image?src=https%3A%2F%2Fcdnblog.unrubble.com%2Fpayload-unrubble-images%2F3c2314a5-36fe-4b9a-9194-8a8ccb0eb023_large.jpg&width=1440&height=540&fit=cover&position=center&quality=65&compressionLevel=9&loop=0&delay=100&crop=null&contentType=image%2Fwebp)
As a business owner, you want to ensure your company is always growing and moving forward. That means you need strategy at several different levels. However, perhaps you’ve never had an explanation of corporate strategy.
Your corporate level strategy is the overarching vision and goal set for your company. It’s the reason your business exists and it helps map out the overall direction that your organization is moving. From your corporate level strategy, you then create lower-level strategies, goals, and tactics.
For instance, your various corporate strategies will inform your business strategy, which takes the big picture ideas and puts action plans behind them. From there, you’ll be able to create functional strategies for each department and employee group.
What are the different types of corporate level strategy that you can take advantage of for your business? Here are several corporate strategy examples.
Growth or Expansion Goals
Growth is one of the key corporate-level goals that an organization pursues. There are a variety of ways to get there, which means there are several options for growth goals. Growth is an important strategy when the environment is volatile, or you want to reap advantages from your firm’s experience and scale of operations.
Vertical Growth
Vertical growth is an extremely common corporate level strategy in strategic management. It involves stretching your company’s capabilities so that you can take over more of supply chain and control your costs.
You may also use vertical growth to improve the quality of your products, allowing you to charge higher prices or build your brand’s reputation. On the other hand, you may decide to take over distribution, the way Amazon created their own delivery system to reduce reliance on FedEx and UPS.
Horizontal Growth
When you use this corporate level strategy example, you’re trying to expand into new markets. You’ll use your business and functional strategies and tactics to look for new target markets or demographics.
For instance, you might decide to open a new store in a new area, or to begin to market to a Spanish-speaking market. From there, you would follow through with your day-to-day business activities to achieve those goals.
Stability Strategies
Sometimes you’re happy with how your business is going, and you just want to keep the good times moving forward. There are a variety of ways you can maintain success without
Profitability
As many companies have discovered, you can’t just grow forever – you also need to maximize profits. One of the top reasons companies fail is because they run out of cash.
There are a lot of ways to grow your profits, including cutting costs, raising prices, or refining processes. You may be able to trim non-core components or reduce overstaffing as well.
Cost-cutting is never popular and sometimes a business can come under fire for cutting costs too abruptly or severely. As a result, it’s important to implement these types of corporate level strategy carefully.
Keep Things the Same – For Now
No company can afford to stagnate, but you can certainly continue successful business practices. If things are going smoothly, you may not need to change anything – yet.
Staying stable is a good way to keep costs low and reduce the risk of your business. However, you still need to continue to reinvest in the areas of your business that are successful, and continue R&D to find innovation opportunities.
At the same time keep your eyes open for signs that you may need to implement other parts of corporate level strategy.
Retrenchment Strategies
Sometimes things don’t go so well in the world of business, and companies have to figure out how to regroup. Retrenchment strategies are perfect for these times. There are a variety of corporate strategy examples of companies that laid off staff or even went into bankruptcy to save the company.
Turnaround
If nothing is going right, it’s time for a turnaround. This strategy focuses on efficiency so that you can eliminate the weaknesses that are holding your operation back from success.
This might require new leadership or a shakeup of departments. The leaders look to correct mistakes and fix problems that are causing the company to be unprofitable, lose customers, or waste money. The overall goal is to return the company to profitability.
Divestment
Sometimes there’s one part of the company that’s an albatross. It’s dragging the whole operation down, or it’s no longer a good fit with your business vision. That’s when it’s time to sell or spin off that division.
Selling off assets – whether they’re doing well or not – can help you raise capital for your core product or service. This can help your company get back on the track to success, and you can do well.
Liquidation
Sometimes there’s simply no way to keep your operations going. There’s no sense in throwing good money after bad, so it’s time to shut the doors and liquidate. This is a last-resort, of course, but it can help the stakeholders come out with at least something to show for their investment.
At time, as with Hostess, the original company liquidates but the business that buys the assets decides to put the products back into production. If the new owner has the brand name, consumers might not see much difference.
Why Use Corporate Level Strategy?
These corporate level strategy examples allow you to see what options are available as you chart the future of your company. But why should you worry about these big picture goals?
The biggest reason is that it allows you to be proactive and respond appropriately to market conditions. You can stay ahead of the curve and face less hardship if you plan to move forward in specific ways.
Having a strong strategy can also improve your efficiency and profitability. After all, having no plan means you don’t know where you’ll end up. If you plan to grow, increase profit, or even retrench, you’ll keep your company in the best possible position.
Finally, it will make you more successful. You will be able to enter new markets, launch new products, and boost your profitability. This will help your business be around – for employees and customers – for years to come.
