A fine example of a growth strategy is the snowmobile company Bombardier . They shifted their focus from the sole production of snowmobiles to include transportation, aerospace and consumer products. Because of their limited expertise in these other areas, Bombardier acquired flailing companies to assist them in gaining the competitive edge needed to conquer such a market.
Stability strategies are just that, implemented to keep an organisation in the same market position, while possibly increasing profits by refining certain areas of the organisation. It can also account for a slow, controlled growth in an organisation. A company will often .
Retrenchment strategies are only implemented to halt or reverse an unstoppable decline or stall in a company's position. This kind of strategy may involve layoffs across the board, or selling off of assets. Layoffs might include retrenching unnecessary staff, expenditure cuts, delaying production, and cost evaluation. Selling off assets, or liquidation, means that a business unit would be sold for the cash value. Divestiture is similar to liquidation, but involves business units that are not part of a company's core area of business, or a business that is performing poorly. Facing spirally costs for services, British National Health Services introduced cost cutting measures in the form of restructuring the company so as to separate business units and force them to function more efficiently. This resulted in most inefficient areas surfacing and being removed, thus increasing NHS's margins.
Multi-National organisations are a trend that has surfaced relatively recently when it is considered how long business and markets have been around. A global organisation has the ability to streamline and standardise its operations, as well as giving it greater buying power and a more improved capacity for strategy experimentation and implementation. Once an organisation expands to include a number of countries of operation, it must decide how it will manage; to focus on having one operations standard for an entire country, or to adapt to each country's environment, at a risk of losing a regulated and possibly workable global management system.
