Acting on a Strategic Mission Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Acting on a Strategic Mission - Case Study Example EA should have utilized this human resource advantage to grow its market share by providing the developers with attractive incentives that would help to retain them and prevent them from switching to competitors such as Activision Blizzard (Griffin, 37). One of the weaknesses that a SWOT analysis would have revealed is the disparity between objectives of the management and those of developers. Management focused on maximizing productivity and profit whereas developers were motivated by imagination and creativity. EA could have easily eliminated this weakness by allowing developers more autonomy and, therefore, harmonized objectives of management and developers. The major opportunity and threat include a growing market and strong competitors respectively. EA should have realized early on that the video game industry market was on a steady growth pattern and sought new ways of tapping into this market. For example, EA should have developed games tailored for new market segments such as adults. EA could minimize the threat of strong competition by producing high quality games that would improve its brand name (Griffin, 36 – 41). ... Although this strategy resulted in high asset turnover and lower costs than its rivals, it killed developer autonomy and motivation (Eldring, 56). Activision Blizzard identified this niche and set on gaining competitive advantage over EA by focusing on promoting developer autonomy and providing them with financial and distribution muscle that enabled them to benefit more than previously from their innovations. This approach basically meant that Activision Blizzard now focused on the product differentiation strategy. Developer autonomy promoted product differentiation by facilitating the creation of very popular games with a high level of uniqueness that drastically increased Activision’s market share. Furthermore, it helped Activision to attract the industry’s best developers, including those working for EA. Consequently, EA lost the most important resource in the gaming industry to EA, creative talent (Eldring, 62). Q3 The Miles-Snow typology is a classification of bus iness strategies into four main categories: prospector, defender, analyzer, and reactor strategies. The strategy that Activision Blizzard ought to adopt should have a strong basis on market dynamics and strength of the competition. The video-game industry is characterized by a very dynamic and unpredictable market environment, with new market opportunities constantly arising. Developers keep on coming up with new ideas based on prevailing events and situations. Games that have a connection with current or recent events that customers are familiar with tend to be very popular and they take advantage of new market opportunities. In order for Activision Blizzard to maintain its market leadership, it should operate with an

Critical analysis of inadequate childcare Term Paper

Critical analysis of inadequate childcare - Term Paper Example Even now, the country seeks to increase the population growth rate, and has resorted to attracting immigrants and permanent residents. It is therefore to Canada’s interest for the nation’s birth rate to rise, in order to spur a natural increment in the population. It is for this reason that the state gives careful attention to the childcare benefits that are supposed to encourage established and healthy adults to have and raise children. The media report The media report relates the plight of several mothers who find the Toronto childcare subsidy program sorely deficient for the purpose of enabling them to work or study. Jennifer (student), Elise (work-at-home) and Sarah (career woman) found childcare either inaccessible or unaffordable, and believe that the 237,000 licensed child care spaces in Ontario inadequate to accommodate the roughly 1.2 million children under 12 in need of child care. The situation has created a gender disadvantage against women, since most sing le parents with young children in need of child care are women. ... Analysis in light of gender studies The dilemma faced by those mothers featured in the media report is supported by academic inquiry. Studies on childcare and parental benefits have been found to be gender discriminatory. For instance, the delivery of maternity and parental leave benefits through unemployment insurance tends to reinforce the gendered nature of the benefit, since maternity is not a form of unemployment and is not accorded its own recognition as such; likewise in the case of parental leave benefit being made contingent on labor force attachment of a specific kind which may discriminate against some women without the requisite affiliation (Calder 99). Tax and benefits laws contribute to the problems of unequal treatment between two-parent families and one-parent (usually headed by the mother) families, with the latter being discriminated against (Battle, et al. 2). Lost in the discussion on gender equality in social benefits is the realization that the effect on many mo thers of not finding full-time gainful employment confines her and her young offspring to a life of poverty. There is an inherent disconnect in the ideals associated with motherhood – of being at home for young children to provide proper nutrition, instruction, and emotional support – and the imperative of finding a job to sustain the family (Zeytinoglu, et al. 178). In the sixties, the Canadian federal government provided half of the welfare costs per province, and mandated that beneficiaries need not work for them to claim their benefits. This made benefits an absolute right. At present, this approach had been modified; the federal government had halved their subsidy, and allowed provinces to adopt work-for-welfare programs. For most of