Executive Summary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Executive Summary - Essay Example oxical upon close analysis by paying particular attention to the growth and development of the Smit Company which specialises in a range of ship based services. A brief historical overview of the company, founded in 1842 by Fop Smit, shows that it has a history filled with many remarkable achievements which were mainly inspired by the company’s long-time slogan ‘any job, any sea’. For instance in 1896, Smit was the first company in the world to tow a ship dock overseas, from Rotterdam to Angola, even though there were no suitable ocean-going tugboats available. More recently, it raised the Japanese Vessel which had sunk in deep waters. All these achievements bear testimony that the company has a remarkable success story in its operations. However, what is paradoxical in this case is that those who were responsible for running it had very little interest in doing extensive strategic analysis in their day to day operations. It can be noted that from 1921 to 1980, the period the company was run by two members of the Smit family, first Murk Lels and then Piet Kleyn van Willigen, it witnessed steady, lucrative growth from power to power. Though these had a strong entrepreneurial streak, they did not extensively invest in strategic analyses. In their own view, business was always potentially lucrative when it promised significant sales. They were motivated by the entrepreneurial attitude of ‘get up and go’ which has been the major factor driving the growth of Smith throughout most of the 20th century, leading the company to enter many new foreign markets and new lines of business. This is contrary to the widely held belief during the contemporary times that it is important to first do a strategic analysis of the market to determine if the business would be profitable in the future. A strategic analysis would involve establishing the potential of the business. This would take into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of a new market. After the last