Integral Assessment of the Corporate Strategy Effectiveness in the Iron and Steel Industry

Abstract

The study of the domestic scientific literature, as well as official methods devoted to various issues of assessing the companies operation results, made it possible to conclude that these methods generally do not consider the branch-wise specific nature of production and commercial activities, as well as environmental factors. In the context of cumulative changes, the availability of strategic management tools that provide clear ranking of an enterprise position in the industrial segment, adjust the strategy, and thereby increase the economic effectiveness, is quite relevant. The research is based on the methodological premise that enterprises that have remained afloat in the face of crisis processes in the economy implement their corporate strategies effectively. For the first time, the authors have carried out an integral assessment of corporate strategy results from 28 enterprises in Russia’s iron and steel industry during the 2014 crisis. In the assessment, a methodological toolkit was used based on the benchmarking methodology, gap analysis, process approach, and the use key indicators characterizing the effectiveness of basic functional strategies. The basic functional strategies include financial, marketing, technical and technological strategies, as well as a strategy for human resource management. According to the authors, the successful implementation of these particular strategies is essential for ensuring the enterprise sustainability. In 2014, by ranking the top of the league ironworks and potential bankrupts, the “corridor” boundaries are defined, which allows identifying the current position of a particular enterprise in the studied industry segment. The following assessment considers the possibilities of existing approaches to strategic management: gaps found in the current integral indicator values based on the effectiveness of basic functional and corporate strategies in comparison with the top of the league enterprises and potential bankrupts. The proposed methodological toolkit makes it possible to increase the strategic flexibility in the real sector of the economy under high variability conditions of environmental factors.