"<University><BUS3110M-1516 ASSIGNMENT> by<Your Name> <Date> <Lecturer’s Name and Course Number>2ContentsIntroduction ................................................................................................................................................... 3Background and context ........................................................................................................................... 3Aims of the essay ...................................................................................................................................... 3Main body ..................................................................................................................................................... 3Demonstrate how the two models can be applied in the car industry. ...................................................... 3Industry life cycle in BMW and Audi ....................................................................................................... 3Critically evaluate the 2 models, identifying their strengths and limitations ............................................ 7Provide some suggestions for dealing with these limitations. .................................................................. 8Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................... 9Recommendations to a car company currently developing a strategy to improve their competitivenessin this industry........................................................................................................................................... 9Provide an explanation of how these recommendations would improve their strategy. ........................... 9What have you learned about strategic analysis? .................................................................................... 10References ................................................................................................................................................... 113IntroductionThe major aim of this essay is to address the two models that are industry life cycle and thecultural web with respect to the car manufacturing companies that are BMW and Audi. Background and contextThere are a number of tools available that help an organization in understanding itscompetitiveness in the market. The industry for applying such concepts has been taken as carmanufacturing industries. The two specific companies are considered for these purposes areBMW and Audi.BMW and Audi are the big brands in the automobile industry and they also havetheir operations worldwide.For the purpose of this essay, all the models of the cars of both thecompanies will be taken. A general view would be created to understand the relevance ofindustry life cycle and cultural web (Absari & Sadri 2008).Thus, it would become very easy toanalyze their cultural web and industry life cycle.Aims of the essayThe major aim with which this study is undertaken is to practically utilize the models in carindustry. These models would be critically analyzed with reference to the two selected carcompanies. The analysis would be done on the basis of their strengths and weaknesses. Aftertaking into consideration all the aspects and applying these models, several suggestions andrecommendations are also provided so that the process can be improved and the models can beutilized in a better way (Andersen2010).Main bodyDemonstrate how the two models can be applied in the car industry.The two models that are industry life cycle and culture web can be applied to any industry;likewise, these models can also be applied to the car industry. The application of industry lifecycle and cultural web for BMW and Audi are discussed below:Industry life cycle in BMW and AudiThe industry life cycle is a term that defines the life cycle of a product. It starts right after theproduct is ready and is launched in the market. It is embraced with a number of stages that arepioneering phase, growth phase, maturity and decline phase. It clearly states that when a product 4is launched in the market the industry offers it a pioneer chance wherein it can advance its salesand reach to the maximum number of customers. In pioneering stage, the company is embracedwith high innovation and differentiation of available assets (Best2012). In the second phase, if acompany wants high growth, then it needs to give low bargaining power to the customers and thethreat of new entrants shall as below. The case here with Audi is that due to its strong brandvalue it is not required to exert efforts and the literature suggests that it directly reaches tomaturity phase. In this case, it can be observed that the concepts of industry life cycle are not trueto a very great extent. Thus, with Audi, the case is that it reaches the third stage right after thefirst stage. But the concept of industry life cycle claims that no product can reach to maturitystage without crossing growth stage. The analysis also suggests that the company is at itsmaturity stage. In case of BMW,the industry life cycle and its application are also different. Theindustry life cycle does not take into consideration many aspects, such as brand value, brandawareness and so on and thus, there are several problems with its applications part. There are anumber of models of BMW that have been discontinued to saturation in the market. Thecompany was following industry life cycle and the growth is said to be stagnant. But, due to itshigh brand value and market share, it could standardize its products (Daniel 2012). The majormodels that BMW standardized are 1, 3, 5 and 7 series. In spite of having so many barriers ofentry in maturity stage, BMW has enjoyed very good reputation and market share. Thus, theactual concepts of industry life cycle do not hold true for both the car companies. It is not onlythe case with these two companies, but, several other companies are also having the samerepresentation and application of industry life cycle. Consequently, it can also be concluded thatindustry life cycle for this industry has several issues. 5Figure 1:Industry life cycleSource: (Sharp2010)The cultural web in BMW and AudiThe cultural web is a concept that is of recent origin and is applicable especially to thosecompanies that are operating in multiple countries with diversified cultures. It renders anapproach with the help of which an organization can change its culture. Culture is an integralpart of any company or organization. Every organization has a distinct culture and so is the casewith BMW and Audi. The cultural web has several elements that are stories, rituals and routines,symbols, control systems, organizational structure and power structures.These six elements helpin looking at the present culture of the organization in an effective manner. Then, it aids inlooking at the culture in the way it has to be. The final task of the cultural web is to identify thegaps between the two and make it in such a way that the culture of the organization becomeshigh performing culture. Accordingly, it gets started with analyzing the culture as it is at thepresent time. The first part that is the stories deals with the past stories. It takes intoconsideration the events when people talked about the organization, whether inside or outside.The case here with Audi is that the stories have made the company worthwhile (East et al. 2010).It had been able to choose the immortalize ones. For BMW, this part helps in perceiving thevalues. The second paradigm is rituals and routines; these help an organization in knowing thebehaviour of the employees. At the same time, it helps the employees in knowing the desires of 6management so that they shall act accordingly. In case of BMW, the employees are notconcerned with this paradigm because management has already set trends and employees havenot to investigate into rituals. The case with Audi is not that and employees in the company seekthe actions and values of management (Hillgren 2012).The third paradigm is the most importantparadigm that is the symbol. It is a visual representation of an organisation’s logo and the way inwhich offices of the company are established. It also covers the aspect of formal dressing codes.In BMW the company employees have dress codes. Besides that the company has created itssymbol in such a way that people are ready to pay huge fortunes for that. The same is the casewith the Audi. The symbol of Audi represents its unique brand value and gives customers a senseof belongingness. The fourth paradigm is organizational structure. It comprises of both theaspects that defined as well as that are undefined. It lets an organization know the contributionsthat are valued the most. The organizational structure of Audi is such that all the rules andregulations are written and predefined. There is no place of norms that are unwritten. This is themost important aspect of the organizational structure of Audi. The organizational structure of theBMW is such that it keeps a track on the performance of the employees according to theprescribed norms. The fifth paradigm is a control structure that is again a very important aspectof the car industry (Hall 2013).It takes into consideration rewards system, quality systems,financial systems and so on. It also comprises of the aspects related to their measurements anddistribution. The control system of the BMW is centralized and all the activities are reported toone boss. The control system of the Audi is decentralized sort of and does not take intodeliberation all the activities that are mentioned above. The final paradigm is power structures. Itcomprises of four-five senior executives or a whole department. The major aspect of this factor isthat key executives have high decision making powers with respect to the strategic andoperations direction. In Audi, the power structure is not like what has been mentioned in the textsrather it is like decentralized. Here, every team leader is having some exceptional powers andthat can be used by them to take disciplinary actions. The case with BMW is that in everydepartment there are 2 to 3 persons who have powers and they keep a track of employees withrespect to strategic direction of the company. This is the case with a number of organizationsthese days. Every employee is required to align their task and goals with the strategic direction ofthe company. 7Figure 2: The cultural webSource: (Slideshare.com)Critically evaluate the 2 models, identifying their strengths and limitationsOn the basis of the above analysis of the models and their applications in two car companies thatare BMW and Audi, a number of weaknesses and strengths have come intothe forefront. Theanalysis of BMW on the basis of industry life cycle suggests that it is in maturity phase and thatis followed by decline phase. But, in practical terms, if it is taken into consideration then it isfound out that BMW is in its growth phase. As compared to other brand, the market share ofBMW is not huge because of its price range. Same is the case with the Audi. The concepts ofindustry life cycle suggest that a company is in its maturity phase when its market share is veryhigh and the threat of substitutes is very low.But these assumptions are not holding true forBMW as well as Audi. Thus the practical implications of BMW and Audi are different in the carindustry and especially in the case of BMW and Audi. As far as the cultural web is concerned, ithas been a very great tool to understand the culture of the organization and make it according tothe desired norms.There are anumber of benefits that BMW and Audi are getting by 8implementing this concept in their organization (Irvin &Richard 2013).These benefits includeuniformity among employees, strict norms to be followed,and properrepresentation of the cultureof the company and so on. But then again, there is a dark side as well. The concepts of thecultural web are hampering the growth of the organization in many ways. The concept that is ofpower structure is not relevant in modern times. This is the time when the power is gettingdecentralized so as to increase the productivity. Another issue associated with the cultural web isthat of organizational structure and culture. A culture is made up of several aspects such asassumptions, behaviour, beliefs and values (as shown in fig. 3). But, one element that is taken forgranted assumptions are causing much harm to the reputation of any organization. In this waythese models are embarked with a number of strengths as well as weaknesses.Figure 3: The cultureSource: (Miller 2015)Provide some suggestions for dealing with these limitations.There are some ways in which an organization can comply with these limitations and make themtheir strengths. These suggestions are described as below: "