Media Management2304

Ekaterina Ignatyeva, 40192Individual assignment

Languagelab.com “Topic 1: What is Strategy?”

What is strategy?

• Strategy is the concrete idea that helps organization as well as people within organization to move forward and choose business model and tactical activities. Strategy helps to do that by stating clear measurable objective of business, defining its scope (customers, product category, competitors) and conveying clear competitive advantage .

What are the relationships between the concepts of vision, mission, strategy, and

business model?• They are all different types of «guiding lights» for the

organization, hierarchically going from the «loftiest» to the

most concrete [3]

• Mission is broadest concept, describing why business exists without going into

details, pointing out «the contribution to society that the firm aspires to make»

[3], it could be continuous process that could never achieve the end point

• Vision reflects what company wants to be in the future, combining core ideology

(core values with core purpose, or in other words mission) with envisioned future

(concrete reachable goals with description how it will look like to achieve them).

Vision stimulates progress.

• Strategy defines how company competes on the market, including final

objective, boundaries of operations, and competitive advantage

• Business Model is most concrete choice, following after strategy, defining logic of

the firm, it’s concrete operations and activities to create value. Business model

consists of customer value proposition, profit formula, key resources and processes

Languagelab.com

• Mission – Change people lives and remove barriers

• Vision – Transform language learning using the capabilities of virtual worlds

• Strategic sweet spot – Provide people from all over the world with possibilities to study and practice English in real life conversations and situations at lower costs without need to travel

Languagelab.com

• Business Model:• Customer value proposition – easy tool saving time and money to fast

learn language getting into national environment for any taste (breaking time, wealth and access barriers)

• Profit formula – ability to engage big volumes of customers comparing to off-line courses

• Key resources – technology to develop virtual space, teachers and coaches (not only people who like teaching but also interested in virtual space)

• Key processes – constant development of language platform, attracting teachers interested in their work, customer oriented approach

• Strategy statement – To grow up to 100 million visitors innovative virtual learning environment provider by 2021 for people who want to easily achieve fluency in foreign language with low costs and saving time by immersing them into target culture in virtual world

References

1. Casadesus-Masanell, R. & Ricart, J.E., From Strategy to Business Models and onto Tactics”

2. Collins, JC & Porras, JI, “Building Your Company’s Vision”

3. Collis, D & Rukstad, MG, “Can You Say What Your Strategy Is?”

4. Johnson, MW, Christensen, CM, & Kagermann, H, “Reinventing Your Business Model”

5. Languagelab.com, 2011