Social, Economical, Political and Technological Environment’s Impacts on A Company’s Strategic Direction: A Case Analysis in TURKEY

Executive Overview This paper is the result of a desire to examine the corporate strategy of one of the TURKEY’s leading group companies. My analysis takes a close look at Koc Group’s core competencies, their present strategy, and several directions it could take to become successful in the domestic and ever-changing global marketplace. Additionally my analysis includes the broad environment study. I separated the broad environment into two, TURKEY and World, in which Koc Group operates. These surroundings and their changes are the main factors for Koc Group to shape their main strategies to stay competitive. I chose Koc Group as a case study because of many reasons. First of all it meets my most important future career goal, when I turn back to Turkey I want to work for Koc Group especially in its “Strategic Planning Group” or “New Business Development Group”, this paper gave me the opportunity to understand the company more in detail and learn more about its core businesses. Secondly, Koc Group is a well-known and wellestablished company which helped me a lot to find the needed data and information to evaluate. My research for this analysis was primarily complied using web-based, qualitative information gathered from sources outside of Koc Group itself. Koc Group is one of the most closely watched players in its industry and in TURKEY, and I found that there is certainly no shortage of facts or opinions on its performance or future direction. The largest obstacle encountered in the preparation of this analysis was the digesting all the available data and literature on the company. By anyone’s standards the Turkish conglomerate, Koc Group, is an enormous company. Koc Group is the largest conglomerate in TURKEY and holds a uniquely influential position in the region. Its activities, accounting for 9% of GDP, have a significant effect upon the local economy and it is closely watched as thought leader and trendsetter. In 2001, Koc Group’s total revenues topped over $11 Billion and it employs nearly 43,000 people and is among the Top 500 global activities. Its activities stretch from automotive manufacturing to financial services and from the production of consumer durables to computer networking. Foreign competition with TURKEY’s current economic problems, have placed twin pressures on the conglomerate. Therefore in 2002 Koc Group had to think twice on their strategic plans and restructure their present strategies in order to fulfill their long term strategic goal which is becoming the first Turkish Enterprise to be a Top 200 Global company. TURKEY, and in general World has experienced dominant changes in Social, Economical, Political and Technological fields during 2002. These changes directly affected the Koc Group’s performance in 2002, and made the group move and change rapidly. I recommend that Koc Group needs to focus on exports to grow which I think is the only way to succeed when experiencing decrease in domestic market. Moreover I suggest that company can increase its efficiency and productivity by mergers close companies together, making them work under one roof. Also I believe that Koc Group can expand to new markets with new products by the help of foreign partners, in today\u27s single market economies strategic partnership is an important success factor. I will examine the further actions and steps Koc should take to achieve these goals in the Recommendation section