Globalization and Global Strategic Planning

Posted: November 27th, 2013

Globalization and Global Strategic Planning

Stora Enso Company is among the largest producers of newsprint and sawn soft timber and it is based in Europe. It a Finnish pulp and paper manufacturing company, which was started by a group of Swedish from mining and forestry companies. Stora and Enso were merged together in 1998 and it became Stora Enso Company. It has headquarters in Helsinki and it expanded its operations through acquiring business wood products and brought paper merchant in Europe. Its major role is to meet the requirement of the producers, advertisers, office suppliers, packagers and industrial goods for a variety of paper products. Stora Enso is a multinational company that operates its business in more than 35 countries globally. However, its sales facilities are concentrated in the main market. It is a wood-based company, which serves many people and other manufacturing companies worldwide.

The Stora Enso Company carries out its international activities in more than 35 countries including India, Brazil and China. They market a wider range of paper products from magazine, newsprint, and containerboard to book papers (Yahoo News, 2011). Their main interests are consumer board lines and magazine papers then followed by fine papers. They value their activities in mitigating reputation risks that are related to sustainability. Moreover, the company is seen as the global rethinker in packaging, paper production and wood products that they supplies to the overseas market. They always rethink on the old method and expand it to offer new verities of products to their customers. These products are innovative and they are based on renewable materials (Stora Enso, 2011).

There are entry modes that Stora Enso Company uses when considering entry into an overseas market. First, they organize events and invite anyone who is interested to join them and participate in that invent. Moreover, they have an international competition in which they a ward the best performers. This competition is a documentary film that talks about the Asian wild berry pickers that globalizes the berry industries and reactions of the locals living in Northern Finland. Moreover, they have diverse events that enable them to get entry into the global market. According to the new report, tonight the company has an event known as Lost in Globalization, which is about exploitation of people’s rights in Finland and its impacts to berry picking culture (Ungson and Wong, 2008). The events are about the local cultural heritage that will be held in Animex Fringe festival.

Secondly, this company initiated a change process known as rethink process and new company’s identity in last year and communicated the process internally in last year November (StoraEnso, 2011). However, this process is launched externally and the process is about innovative finishing products. Customers to the company’s stand will are shown the latest finishing technologies in the show that shape the label of their market. Rethink process is a model in which the Stora Enso Company uses in expanding business in various ways across the globe. They have tried to respond to the needs of the consumers and they have responsible in sustainable solutions thus opening an entry into the overseas market.

The Stora Enso Company’s major international strategy is standardized and it varies regionally. However, the major international strategy is the global responsibilities. The strategy is integrated into a company’s product, marketing, corporate positioning, communication and the company’s strategy. In addition, the company has an environmental and social policies and principles that aim in maintaining sustainability. The principles are put in practices through following principle specific programs and they are then integrated into the existing processes. The policy and principles are the same group-wide but they have their priorities followed depending on their realities at the local level (Segal-Horn and Faulkner, 2008).

The reasons that made the company to choose global responsibilities as a strategy is because this is accompany that deals with paper manufacturing and they depend largely on environmental resources such as trees. Thus, the forest industry accelerate much in climate change and they saw that the forest may disappear forever incase they will not adopt global responsibility as their strategy. Moreover, manufacturing paper products means cutting down rain forest and this may affect the environment and even lead to loss of cultural heritage. Thus, the company decided to adopt global responsibility strategy in order to enable them meet social, economic and environmental sustainability globally.

Consequently, the Stora Enso Company operates in diverse countries and it has extended the international finance supportive loan to some countries. For instance, it extended its financial loan facilities to China through an agreement that was made with the International Finance Corporation (IFC). IFC is one of the members of the World Bank organizations that help the private sectors to develop in the emerging and competitive markets in the globe. The loan was given to the company in order to finance and expand the Stora Enso’s existing and future investments in China. The company is now focusing on profitable expansion in China and this is in line with its growth markets strategy (Stora Enso, 2011).They target investments in developing markets through prioritizing local sustainable fibre supplies and this has enabled it to be among the leading companies globally.

The strategic choices differ depending on a certain country. This is because the decision-making processes and strategic leadership starts with environmental assessment within which the strategy choice occurs. Moreover, the strategic decisions sometimes may be compared to a plan depending on the long-term consideration in nature (Inkpen and Ramaswamy, 2006). Consequently, they may be limited due to constraints imposed on their environments. Actually, what makes strategic choices to differ from one region to another is the political climate. For instance, the state where political system is dominant, the strategic choices may be radically different. Therefore, environmental, economic and social factors in a certain state influence capabilities of strategic choices. However, the environmental factors are the most factors that contribute to differences in strategic decision-making.

In addition, the strategic choices differ depending on the company’s culture. The Stora Enso Company’s cultural driving force is devotion and continual improvement of the company. They insist on being the best through use of unique strategies through incorporating their old-fashioned spirit of the company and that of their employees. However, strategic decision-making is difficult and this varies from one region to another depending the company’s culture. Cultural issues are challenging especially when communication is poor. For instance, culture may make the company to lose entry in the global market. However, this company assigned priority to leadership issues in order to enable them communicates well because communication is usually a major challenge in most companies. Thus, the company assigned expert leaders and professional expertise and they depend on manager’s abilities in strategic decision-making.

In conclusion, globalization can be achieved in case companies can be able to formulate strategic planning models. The Stora Enso Company is one of the companies that have been performing well in the global market. This is because they have entry models that enable then to enter into the overseas market. They carry out events such as Lost in Globalization that enables them to communicate about their business. Nevertheless, they have a major international strategy and they operate in diverse countries. Their strategic choices vary from one region to another because of the political and environmental issues. In addition, this choice differs depending on the company’s culture. Thus, Stora Enso Company always uses rethinking process in order to expand and offer new verities of products to their customers.

References

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StoraEnso. (June 27, 2011). Rethink – a change process and a new corporate identity. Retrieved from http://www.packagingessentials.com/2011/06/27/rethink-a-change-process-and-a-new-corporate-identity/

Stora Enso (2011). Stora Enso extends maturity of International Finance Corporation loan

facility in China. Retrieved from http://www.storaenso.com/about-us/Pages/welcome-to-stora-enso.aspx

Segal-Horn, S., & Faulkner, D. (2008). International strategy. London: Thomson Learning.

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Yahoo News. (2011). Stora Enso Oyj Company Profile. Yahoo Finance. Retrieved on June from http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/90/90932.html