Strategic Management and Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Strategic Management and Marketing - Essay Example e practices of competitors and the financial potentials of the customers; the wise use of resources also helped to the limitation of the firm’s expenses and the increase of its profits – a practice used especially for the period from 2008 onwards. The critical assessment of the firm’s policies led to the conclusion that in the near future the update of existing organizational strategies would be required in order for the firm to keep its competitiveness at high levels; innovation in all organizational activities and change of current firm’s culture would be necessarily included in such a project. The expansion of financial crisis during the last two years led to the limitation of activities of firms operating in various industrial sectors; cruise and vacations industry has been an industrial sector strongly affected by the world recession – under the continuous decrease of their income people at all levels of society had to review all their expenses – the limitation of funds spent on cruises and vacations has been an expected outcome of the current recession. However, it seems that the business environment has been traditionally hostile towards the firms that operate in the specific sector; this view is clearly stated by Morris (1990, p. 317); at a next level, the strategies of the firms that operate in this sector have been often characterized as ineffective, wrongly designed and developed or not appropriately supervised (Bloor & Sampson 2009, p. 711); under these terms, the use of ‘McKinneys seven S factors of Structure, Strategy, System, Staff, Skill, Style (leadership), and Shared Values’ (Lee et al. 2001, p. 49) is often proposed as a successful method in order to develop effective organizational plans; however, other issues, like a firm’s environment, its competitors and the use of its resources would be also thoroughly examined before focusing on the design and the establishment of strategic business policies. Carnival Corporation & Plc