How important it is to achieve strategic fit? (Baby Care Provision)

“Strategic fit” is an often-used term in strategic goals. It is a crucial part of strategic process management. Two important key factors that help organization achieve strategic fit are the planning and implementing strategy. Strategic fit portrays an organization’s ability to utilize its resources and depicts how well it is performing in making the most of the internal and external environmental issues as well as strengths and opportunities.
Strategic fit is linked to the effective utilization of resource by a business organization which implies that profitability cannot be only achieved through positioning and selecting the right industry for the organization but rather through focusing on internal factors that make use of the inimitable distinctiveness of the organization’s assortment of resources and competences(Grant, Robert M. 2007).


Strategy fit is all about managing and modifying strategies, which includes formation of business structure to support the way it operates through the progression and correlation; achieving success by the use of available resources, such as people, technology and information, and adjusting the strategy to face new challenging situations (G. Johnson, K. schools, and R. Whittington, 2005). By achieving strategic fit, a company ensures its ability to establish a balance between responsiveness and efficiency that fulfills the demands of its target customers. Lack of strategic fit, or not being able to execute the desired strategy by balancing the processes and resources of an organization can be a reason of failure for that organization. Some common obstacles businesses face when achieving strategic fit: increasing variety of products, decreasing product life cycles, increasingly demanding customers, fragmentation of supply chain ownership, globalization, competitive changes over time, and difficulty in executing new strategies.



Being strategic fit in the context of baby care product industry

The importance of achieving strategic fit
for the survival of medium-size businesses in the context of baby care product industry is extremely essential. According to Transparency Market Research “Baby Care Products Market – Global Industry Analysis, Market Size, Share, Growth and Forecast 2007 – 2017”, “Global baby care product market was worth USD 44.7 billion in 2011 and will reach USD 47.7 billion in 2012 and is further expected to reach USD 66.8 billion in 2017.”


Image: Revenue of the baby care products global market


The global baby care market size is expanding at a faster rate than ever. While most of the developed nations have been observing a decreasing birth rate, it is very common to monitor an increasing birth rate in developing countries. Moreover, the buying power of parents in developing countries has also been fueled in past few decades by the rapid economic growth. Empowerment of women in developing countries made it possible for more adult females to enter into workforce, earn money, and contribute to the improvement of their family’s economic condition. Thus, the overall disposable income of many families has increased. This has brought a new challenge for companies that are targeting to capture a position in the global baby product market.


References:

Grant, Robert M. (2007) "Contemporary Strategy Analysis: Concepts, Techniques, Applications, 6th Edition", Wiley-Blackwell
Johnson, G., Scholes, K., & Whittington, R. (2005). Exploring corporate strategy (7th ed.). New York: FT/Prentice Hall.



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