Business Policy Assignment

By

Huyen Pham PGDM Marketing

Roll number: 061

K J Somaiya Institute of Management Studies & Research

16,July, 2013

Executive Summary I have completed summer internship at Spectrum LS Management Consultancy Pvt. Ltd which is established in 2009, Mumbai. This company is Indian Subsidiary of LS Partners Pvt. Ltd, based in Tokyo. I am unable to do financial analysis of the company due to undisclosed information. The research and analysis have been completed on the current services offer by the company and studied about their position in market. This will assist for the company future development. Indias consultancy sector analysis Lets look at five forces Porter for measuring attractiveness of industry (i) Risk of Entry by Potential competitors

A large number of consultants offer multiple services in various sectors such as IT, financial sector, rural development, social development, urban development, transportation, construction, tourism followed by corporate strategy, outsourcing services, Human resource management, operation management, Marketing. Henceforth, there is always initial resistance for newly firm consultant company to enter in this matured market. There are list of reputed companies in Indians consultancy market such as BCG, Mc Kinsey, Accenture, etc. Those brands are trustable for customer with brand loyalty is high. In terms of absolute cost advantages we can consider as positive factor for this firm as it is not require much capital paid up. (ii) Rivalry Among Established Companies

Indian is among fastest-growing markets for most global consulting firms. According to Assocham (The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India) consultancy business is cross Rs 22,000 crore, is poised to grow at CAGR of 30%. India is emerging market there are a big potential for foreign firm who want to expand their business in India. There are need consultancy in terms of strategy and business advisor services for companies. In India, there are two types of consulting firms. First are large consulting firms offering their services across function within a wide range of industries such as Boston consultancy group, Mc Kinsey.

Second is boutique firms that focused on specific areas or specific industry such as Spectrum consultancy company, etc. Following the above analysis the rivalry among established firm can be ranked from medium to risk. Its all about how you stand out from others and offer good services to your customers. (iii) The bargaining Power of Buyers

In this industry, you can say the buyers are clients who rely on the firm consultant to expand their business. The switching cost is low for buyers because the characteristic of contract mentioned that the buyers only pay for a successful fee. The client can choose another company if your company doesnt provide them good analysis and result. (iv) The bargaining Power of Suppliers/Complementors

In this industry, you can say its partnership of companies who are along with the company offer services to clients. There are number of players in this market, hence I ranked this as low bargaining power of suppliers. In conclusion, Indians consultancy sector is attractiveness sector for any companies who want to enter to the market. Company Profile LS Partners Pvt. Ltd is business consulting in emerging countries. There are a big potential in emerging market for any company. However, its not easy for the company enter to this market. There are two barriers for all company, a lack of local network and accurate and reliable information. Many companies has gone but unable achieve their goal. Understanding these facts, the company helps their clients achieve their goal by form a partnership with local consultants and give full support to their business expansion. As consultant firm, current the firm only implements vertical integration to offer their services to customer at the best.

The company provides end-to-end consulting services to organizations who wish to expand their business with trusted advisor to businesses of all size as well as local, regional and national governments. The Horizontal integration is that the company has local partnerships across 40 different countries that will support their clients achieve their goals. Company has subsidiary office in India offering the same services but within Indian market. The company hasnt disclosed their financial statement public yet. Company Strategy Analysis As the following is key services the Indian subsidiary company offers to their clients Advisory and consulting service offer clients in terms of Strategy, Legal, Financial, Processing consulting (like assessment, gap assessment and suggests business process reengineering), Consumer Research, advisory, Mergers & Acquisitions and Partnership. Value-added services: The Company helps foreign companies to incorporate their business in India and also helps Indian to set up business in. Company assists in setting up of local office, entering a Joint Venture (JV) undergoing Merger & Acquisition (M&A), Franchising, Outsourcing and licensing, Public Private Partnerships (PPP) and Greenfield Investments. They help clients in selling their products and services overseas and in India. Besides that, the company helps clients to arrange the meeting with potential local partnership, arrange event and workshop concerned project. In emerging market, it is important for developing technology, is keys of success business. Understanding this important, the company also offer technology search and R&D collaboration. Engagement Orientation service includes partnership model where spectrum partners will be provided professional services firms across the globe, full-time teams, risk/revenue share model, on-demand (one time) project execution for pilot projects, large projects or add-on to dedicated teams, business immigration support, country overview, PEST analysis etc. Post set-up services such as people management, operations monitoring, revenue tracking.

Factually, the company mostly has their profit from consulting service for Japanese companies who want to expand their business in emerging market such as India, ASEAN countries, Middle East, Africa The projects I worked on are market research to support senior consultancy present information about Indian market on the field our clients want to know. Then we will take necessary analysis on issue and consult client where should they go and how they will do. Much of our research focused on industry analysis, sector analysis, competitor analysis, financial analysis. The research conducted using professional databases and reports or articles illustrating current market trends, fact and figures, etc., we analyze those information and give to client about our view about market. LS Partners, the company currently concentrate on Japanese customers only. The advantages are company based from Japan. They understand their clients in terms of business culture, languages. Its really ease factors before entering into contract with any company. As the company is located in Japan, they understand much more about local market than others players hence also advantage for them to attract more clients from outside Japan who want to expand/sell their products and services in Japan.

Tangible

Resources Advantage Location

Intangible and Human

Partners

Languages Interns

Capabilities

Consulting Services

Competitive Advantages Head Office is located in Japan is advantage to serve Japanese clients. India Subsidiary office gives full support for clients achieving their goals in the most attractive emerging market such as India. Company has partners in nearly 100 companies in 40 countries around the world to support in expanding for clients business in emerging countries as a consulting firm (Fig. 1). Japanese, English, Hindi fully support for barriers about languages of clients. Use Interns from emerging market to help company do research about that market. Lower cost if compare with recruiting employee. Doing the research, collect data required to make the decision in response to the client's business in emerging market. Assist clients with personalized service.

(Fig. 1. Source from http://www.ls-partners.com/english/services/index.html) In current status of company, it succeeds in providing advisory services to Japaneses clients but the company has threshold resources and threshold capacities instead of core competencies. Core competencies helps the company stand out from the market where big player is doing well, especially for developing business in the future. We can say that this is area of improvement where the company has to care about. Defining opportunities for improvement (OFI) of SBUs is difficult as I dont know about much about financial statement of company. However, the firm like company should concentrate more on their services and increase their quality of research. Quality of research was limited in the secondary research. The company may create one team for primary research. This primary research will help senior consultancy understand accurately about the issues of each projects from can support clients is better. The Tetra Threat Model was proposed by Ghemawat. It tries to identify what factors are significant in each threat category and how their impact can be reduced. Here we will use it to analyse advisory services to look into what impact each threat category has on this business unit.

Imitation: This occurs due to the possibility of copying of the competitive advantage sources by the rival firm. As consultant firm, there are many players in the market. The way company is doing isnt different from other rival companies. In this industry, if the company expertise themselves in knowledge about clients business and market scenario plus good relationship with clients are most important advantages of firm and it also deter the imitation of rival firm. Substitution: One of advantages of company is partnership with host country. This is very important factor to take every party into win-win situation. Where we provides clients service and need support from partnership also. Holdup: Company provides clients added value services and post services to build trust to their customer and their partners. Some of contract apply term of payment is successful fee. This will build mutual trust from clients. Slack: The Company offers performance incentives to their employee for successful project. Besides that, Laptop and mobile was supported from company. Conclusion As above analysis, the company doesnt have core competencies. Requires lots of changing in the way company implement market research. The service company offers to clients become their competitive advantages but not core competencies.