Strategic Management-Tim Hortons
Strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of major policies and initiatives taken by an organization’s top management on behalf of the owners. Based on the available resources and the interests of the business, these decisions and policies are made. Tim Horton’s has implemented some of these plans, which have made the company create a unique and valuable position in the market, taking the lion’s share.
Social License to Operate
The social license to operate refers to the ongoing acceptance of the company’s standard practices as well as other operating procedures as carried out by its employees, the general public and the investors (Laskovic, 2016). It is created and maintained over time through the actions that the company undertakes in a bid to build trust with the community it operates within as well as other stakeholders involved in the business. For a company to protect the social license they are building, they have to do the right thing and be seen doing the right thing. This idea can be seen when problems do occur, or when the social license to operate is put in jeopardy. The company has to act fast to be able to resolve the issues.
Organizations need support from their key stakeholders, such as employees, owners, suppliers, and customers, to prosper. A mission statement that engages stakeholders will help develop an understanding of why they should support the organization and make clear what important role or purpose the organization plays in society – also called a social license to operate (Edwards, 2014). For instance, Google’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Google pursued this mission in its early days by building a very popular Internet search engine. The firm continues to serve its mission through various strategic actions, including offering its Internet browser Google Chrome to the online community, providing free email via its Gmail service, and making books available online for browsing.
Within the mission statements as well as other documents and corporate statements, the organizations engage stakeholders to communicate why they should support Tim’s. Tim Hortons aims to offer superior quality services and products for the community and its customers through partnerships, innovation, and leadership (Caira, n.d.). The company’s mission statement is to be the quality leader in everything they do.
Performance Assessment
A financial assessment is a measure of how well and effectively a firm has used assets from its primary mode of business to generate revenue. Financial measures of performance relate to organizational effectiveness and profits. Examples include financial ratios such as return on assets, return on investment and, return on equity. Other common financial measures include profits and stock prices. Such measures help answer the key question on How to look to shareholders. Such measures have long been of interest to senior management and investors (Edwards, 2014). Financial performance measures are commonly articulated and emphasized within an organization’s annual report to shareholders. To provide context, such measures should be objective and be coupled with meaningful referents, such as the firm’s past performance.
Tim’s Corporate Social Performance
Corporate social performance is the practices, principles, and outcomes of the relationship a business has with other organizations, institutions, societies, communities, and the earth in general (Schreck, 2009). This is in terms of the deliberate actions of a business towards stakeholders and the unintended externalities of business activity. Firms such as Tim Hortons exemplify a desire to improve corporate social performance, as can be seen in their initiatives (Edwards, 2014). The Tim Horton foundation is one of the company’s social performance initiatives that seeks to help kids and teens see a new perspective of a world where they can create their opportunities and have a successful future. Tim’s diversity strengths include progressive programs for disabled people’s employment and cautious environmental activities such as recycling of their coffee cups and other products.
Health and Value of Tim’s Brand
The concept of a healthy brand takes the notion of identity, sustainability, value, and communication authenticity into account. Tim’s can be considered as a healthy brand, for it was able to move away from being solely profit-focused and business-driven (Weintraub, n.d.). The consistency of Tim Hortons across all touchpoints, including the website, the product brochure, the sales team, and the customer service hotline, is what makes it a healthy brand. Like any other health organization, Tims’ creates powerful connections with consumers to leave a long-lasting impression.
Resource-Based Assessment
A strategic resource is an asset that is difficult to imitate, rare, and valuable. The possession of strategic resources can provide an organization with competitive advantages over its rivals (Edwards, 2014). Strategic resources are valuable due to the relatively high costs of acquiring them of their scarcity. Competitors often have a hard time replicating or finding the resources that are hard to come by. The resources could be legally protected by Intellectual Property laws such as copyrights, trademarks, and patents, which make it difficult for the competitor to imitate (Edwards, 2014). Such competitive advantages, in turn, can help the organization enjoy strong profits over time.
Tim Hortons has been in operation since 1960, and it has been in operation since 1964 and has positioned itself as a leader in the industry. The main reasons behind Tim’s success lie in their strategic resources, which give them an edge over their opponents (Musonera, 2019). Location, customer service, market segments brand reputation, as well as the costs, give Tim’s an advantage over their opponents. The company’s strategy can target a wider range of customers by having their presence in a great variety of locations and selling their products at affordable prices. Tim’s has also used its brand reputation as a tool for pushing their products and customer reach.
Tim’s possession of an advantage over their opponents can also be seen in the strategy the company follows to increase the customer’s willingness to pay (Musonera, 2019). This has been achieved by increasing the assortment as well as the quality of the products and redesigning some of their stores to attract more customers. These strategic resources have provided the foundation for developing firm capabilities, which have led to superior performances over time. Tim’s needed these capabilities to manage, bundle, and exploit resources in a way that provided value-added to their customers and created an advantage over the competitors.
Intellectual property Assessment
Intellectual property is the legal rights that result from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary, and artistic fields (Edwards, 2014). The inability of competitors to imitate a strategic resource is important in leveraging the resource to achieve long term competitive advantages. Effective imitation is often possible, and companies often have to develop intellectual property to eliminate the risk of being copies. Tim’s has adopted the four main types of intellectual patents-trade secrets, copyrights, trademarks, and patents-to protect and keep their brand unique.
References
Caira, M. Tim Hortons Mission, Vision & Values. Comparably. Retrieved from https://www.comparably.com/companies/tim-hortons/mission, 14 May 2020.
Edwards, J. (2014). Mastering Strategic Management – 1st Canadian Edition. Victoria, B.C.: BCcampus. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/strategicmanagement/.
Laskovic, T. (2016). Social license to operate: Practical understanding of the concept and processes to attain and maintain it. Journal Of Professional Communication, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.15173/jpc.v5i1.3098
Musonera, E. (2019). Merger of Burger King and Tim Hortons: analysis of marketing strategies in the quick service restaurants. International Journal Of Strategic Business Alliances, 6(4), 267. https://doi.org/10.1504/ijsba.2019.102650
Schreck, P. (2009). The business case for corporate social responsibility. Physica-Verlag.
Weintraub, L. The Healthy Brand. Retrieved from https://www.business2community.com/branding/healthy-brand-take-brand-good-great-0752508. 14 May 2020.