The first aspect of the strategy transformation was to become a global logistic operator based on th

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The main focus of this assignment will be the strategic choices made by COSCO Group that enabled the organization to transform into a world-class multinational conglomerate. I will begin with the brief description of the company's history and the changes it had gone through, and follow with the examination of these changes in terms of strategic designer outlet salzburg decisions that had been made or avoided upon them.
COSCO was the first in the history international shipping carrier in China, the government owned company founded in 1961. Throughout the years it has established its position in the global shipping industry by expanding its services into different countries and establishing several partnerships and joint ventures. In 1998 Asian financial crisis forced the COSCO's CEO Wei Jiafu to rethink the company's strategy, because the shipping industry, like many other industries in south Asia, was experiencing hard times.
Considering the previous strategy of COSCO, from before all the major transformations, the company was simply offering international liner service - strictly transactional operations. The organization therefore followed the intended strategy, carefully planned strategy to fill the gap in the shipping industry in China according to agreement with government. In 1980's the western developed countries became aware of the potential benefits of transferring the manufacturing eastward. This and other external and environmental changes as well as internal changes within that particular market encouraged the company to continuously extend the range of services that it was offering at the time. COSCO had realized these opportunities and established first COSCO America, followed by COSCO North America and purchasing the shares held by its business partner in UK  [ 1 ]  . These strategic moves emerged from changes in the industry and enabled the organization to follow the strategy designer outlet salzburg of providing services and operations in the international arena. It is the instrumentalism perspective on the strategy formulation, where the strategy is reconsidered upon the changes within the industry, designer outlet salzburg COSCO's strategy therefore every couple of years had expanded designer outlet salzburg to new countries, new partnerships and subsidiaries, and new services, whatever the management considered as essential and potentially profitable.
For the purpose of this essay let's examine and evaluate the major transformation of the organization that took place in 1998, when Wei Jiafu decided to introduce the "two transformation" designer outlet salzburg strategy at COSCO.
The first aspect of the strategy transformation was to become a global logistic operator based on the shipping business, rather than what COSCO introduced at first - being a global shipping carrier  [ 2 ]  . designer outlet salzburg In order to obtain that position company decided to offer a broader range of services from 'base level services' (something the customer would normally expect from the carrier) to 'value added services'(special, additional services available through 'One Stop Service' introduced in 1998)  [ 3 ]  . The second part of that transformation was the plan to evolve from cross-border business to a multinational conglomerate. The main activities of the 'two transformation' strategy were therefore moving business designer outlet salzburg to logistics, terminal operations, ship repair and building and entering international capital markets.
To analyze the strategy change that took place in COSCO's I would like to focus on the corporate level strategy, its definitions, frameworks and perspectives that can be linked to this particular case.
When the organization is facing tough times, like COSCO around year 1998, the management needs to decide how to sustain the position in the market, whether to extend the business in different directions (by offering new products or services or by serving new segments of the market) or to go even beyond thus to become Multi-business designer outlet salzburg Corporation. COSCO had entered new lines of business internally (by starting up new activities) as well by acquisition designer outlet salzburg (buying another firm e.g. COSCO Logistics had eight regional subsidiaries across the nation). This way of expanding the organization's activities is called diversification, designer outlet salzburg and can be either vertical or horizontal. The horizontal integration means entering other businesses but businesses within designer outlet salzburg the same industry. COSCO vertically integrated its businesses by offering new destinations as the shipping carrier, therefore serving more customers in different places in the world. The organization also chose to follow the horizontal diversification inside and outside of the industry. Expanding horizontally, firm entered new businesses like ship repairs and building and outside of the maritime industry into logistics, and therefore created value-added activities to its core business - global shipping carrier. designer outlet salzburg
I would like to point out that the multi-business designer outlet salzburg synergy is only justified when