Measuring market orientation of Muscle Pharm Corp. (MSLP:US) British American Tobacco South Africa | Page 12

British American Tobacco South Africa: Evaluating the role and substance of its strategy in achieving sustainable competitive advantage

3.

Enablers and constraints of strategic model and methodology used

The enablers and constraints of the strategic model of BATSA were mainly discussed under SWOT
analysis. To summarize, the six key enablers within BATSA business model are (1) Leadership (2)
resources: access to funding and people (3) knowledge & skill in the level of communicating, information
and skills related to tobacco (4) integrated supply chain. (5) ability to deploy new policies, processes
and tools across organisation and (6) ability to bring behavioural change which means to ensure good
corporate governance over the long term within the organisation (DuMoulin & Spalding). On the other
hand, the biggest constraints within BATSA business model are falling under the pillar growth which is
facing numerous challenges from the external environment that has been discussed on previous page.
The SWOT model was used to analyse the links between the external forces and the strategic capability
of BATSA, which led to the identification of crucial factors that determine new potential strategies as
well as delivering a platform for validating and trying of strategic initiatives. However, the constraint of
the analysis is that it is too mechanistic and potentially contradictory inputs lead to a rise in error. In
addition the model suggests that the threats must be external, meanwhile it is possible in reality that
some occur within the firm. The value chain analysis was a chain concept established by Porter to
provide an overview within and around the company and connecting them to the company’s competitive
strengths. The value chain analysis illustrated the sustainable competitive advantage of BATSA
however, it can also lead to the identification the operations that add value to customers. Another model
might have been considered for the strategic anaylsis is the MCKinsey 7S Framework model that
enables to see the key success elements of each S and finally enables to determine the gap between
each element and the strategic fit and therefore resulting in key recommendations for improvement.
(Ezendu, 2010).