MBA600 Capstone: Strategy

Assessment 2 – Individual Report

CSL Limited

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Student ID:

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Word count: 2010

Referencing style: Harvard KBS

MBA600 Capstone: Strategy Student Name
Assessment 2 – Individual Report Student ID

Executive Summary
Business strategy plays an important role in an organisation to develop a robust competitive
edge and facilitate survival in a highly competitive marketplace based on a clear definition of
vision and effective prioritisation of strategic goals. This report aims to evaluate the business
strategy of CSL Limited specifically covering the business competitiveness, organisational
performance and strategic aspects contributing to the business success in a global
environment. The evaluation suggests that the governance framework supporting the
development of a robust culture and innovation greatly helps the company to deliver key
promises to patients while adopting a patient-driven approach to the core of its business
model. However, the company should focus on market penetration to expand the operation
while improving the innovation capabilities by harnessing the corporate governance structure
more appropriately. As a result, the business can achieve a greater share of the global market
while developing an immediate response to patient needs regarding critical medical
emergencies.

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MBA600 Capstone: Strategy Student Name
Assessment 2 – Individual Report Student ID

Table of Contents
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................1

Introduction................................................................................................................................3

Summary of the Organisation’s Strategy...................................................................................3

Outline of the Organisation’s Approach to Competition Strategy, Performance Measurement

and Balanced Scorecard.............................................................................................................4

Competition Strategy:............................................................................................................4

Performance Measurement:...................................................................................................5

Balanced Scorecard (BSC):....................................................................................................6

A Summary of Recommendations.............................................................................................7

Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8

References..................................................................................................................................9

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MBA600 Capstone: Strategy Student Name
Assessment 2 – Individual Report Student ID

Introduction
In a highly advanced and severely competitive business environment, business strategy plays
an important role in defining a clear vision and providing suitable direction to the
organisation, thereby achieving the desired competitive advantage in the chosen marketplace.
With the growing dominance of global organisations in the rapidly globalised marketing
sectors, it has become pivotal for businesses across all scale to invest adequately in the
workforce for inspiring employees not to lose their sights while remaining on the course of
achieving the ultimate aims of companies. Hence, the importance of business strategy can be
observed in setting a clear goal within the work environment while providing adequate
direction to employees to accomplish certain objectives, thus widening the achievement of
organisational vision and mission in an evolving business platform. The organisation’s choice
for business strategies for achieving the desired competitive position and counter the
competitive challenges leaves a significant mark on business performance, thereby giving rise
to certain adjustments in the performance measurement approaches. The choice between cost
leadership and differentiation strategies have vital implications on an organisation’s
competitive position alongside the financial status (Teeratansirikool et al. 2013). The
importance of such a scenario leads this paper to select an organisation, i.e. CSL Limited to
investigate the detailed business approach to competition by focusing on the organisation’s
strategy, business model and performance measurement.

Summary of the Organisation’s Strategy

With more than 22,000 employees spanning across in over 35 countries, CSL Limited has
become one of the globally popular organisations in the field of biotechnology, generating
organisational revenues worth USD 7.9 billion in the financial year ending 2017-18. The
remarkable success of the biotechnology player is principally attributed to the company’s
unbending commitment to providing high-quality products and services across substantial
markets by developing an effective collaboration between health and allied professionals
alongside customers. Notable, the business growth is propelled by the company’s research
and development (R&D) capabilities allowing the business to develop innovative
biotherapies addressing the unmet needs of the chosen marketplace, thus improving current
treatment facilities (Betterle, Hidalgo Martinez and Melis 2020). The R&D activities at the
global level serve as the underlying factor for the growth and commitment of the company to

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MBA600 Capstone: Strategy Student Name
Assessment 2 – Individual Report Student ID
fulfilling patient-oriented needs by accelerating innovation in new products, advanced
technologies, manufacturing expertise and service improvement.

The company’s vision is to deliver unmatched value in the field of biotechnology by

continuously meeting the unfulfilling demands and improving patient experience. The
business promise includes delivering highly sustainable financial returns to investors by
consistently performing operations in a patient-focused manner. The company mainly
achieves this by the suitable exposition of its business strategy focusing greatly on high-
quality, innovation-centred capabilities, global commercial strength and operational
excellence (Niosi and McKelvey 2018). Precisely, the formation of the business strategy of
CSL Limited is based on aligning with multiple aspects, including product growth,
operational efficiency, developing robust influenza solution, innovation, people & culture and
sustainability. With its multiple business divisions, principally including CSL Behring,
Seqirus and CSL Plasma, CSL Limited greatly exploits its existing value chain to enable
effective performance management across all the sustainability areas, thus contributing to the
strategic objectives and delivering promises to important stakeholders.

Outline of the Organisation’s Approach to Competition Strategy,

Performance Measurement and Balanced Scorecard
Competition Strategy:
The competitive strategy of CSL is based on the company’s capability to maintain a
successful history of comping up with new products, driven exceptionally by R&D activities
and innovation. The strategic objective of the company importantly covers the need for
delivering greater value to patients by fulfilling their latent needs and contributing to the high
degree of customer satisfaction. Such an objective also includes the necessity for enhancing
the skillsets of the workforce by exploiting the culture and people for providing with the
opportunities for successful training, learning and development to accelerate the emergence
of best talents (Stenard, Thursby and Fuller 2016). Driven by its strong cash flow and
superior experience to market development, CSL Limited principally penetrates to the new
market while maintaining excellent performance by building a reliable supply chain and
streamlining operations. Such an organisational approach to market development further
translates into the competitive edge of the business in the field of global biotechnology to
accelerate market growth.

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MBA600 Capstone: Strategy Student Name
Assessment 2 – Individual Report Student ID
The competitive strategy of CSL is further complemented by the robust intervention of the
Corporate Responsible Committee (CR Committee), which essentially promotes awareness,
continuous improvement and integration to support effective alignment between strategic
objectives and operational priorities (SHARP 2016). The specific body also sets up a Code of
Responsible Business Practices, which chiefly defines obligatory duties for all the employees
in the workplace thereby allowing them to attain the highest standard of conducts and enrich
commitment towards important stakeholders. Such a scenario positively contributes to the
stakeholder engagement to enrich the competitive position of the organisation against any
other rivals.

Performance Measurement:
The organisational performance of CSL is driven principally based on the significant
contribution of the governance structure, indicating the important approach to corporate
governance meeting requirement beyond the compliance obligations. The governance
framework fosters a high level of corporate performance by developing a respectful
organisational culture underpinning rapid collaboration, innovation, patient-oriented focus,
integrity and superior performance of core departments (Jaakson, Aljaste and Uusi-Kakkuri
2019). The Board of Directors of CSL plays the principal role in defining the corporate
governance framework, which embodies the corporate values, purpose and strategy to create
a foundation for achieving success. The responsibilities of CSL’s Board of Directors
essentially include overseeing the management and providing strategic direction for
maintaining the operational and financial performance while managing HRM policies and
practices by the effective utilisation of budgets and business plans (Shakeri and Radfar 2017).
With the day-to-day managerial activities are delegated by the board while approving the
implementation of business plans and strategies to the Managing Directors, the
responsibilities are further allocated to the senior management to maintain organisational
performance in line with strategic goals.

From the aspect of innovation, the company’s investment in R&D activities experienced a
gradual growth over the years, implying the increase in innovative performance by
consistently increasing the ability to meet unfulfilled needs of the target population. From the
aspect of safety and quality of operations, the company, however, require providing special
attention to the appointment of specialist audit, thereby enriching the reliability and
credibility of biotechnology products and advanced treatment procedures (Stezano and
Espinoza 2019). The performance of the company can be measured based on the economic

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MBA600 Capstone: Strategy Student Name
Assessment 2 – Individual Report Student ID
contribution of the business across economies, where CSL already distributed over USD 7.5
billion in 2017-18, an 8 percent increase from the previous financial year. The company
contributes chiefly the economies based on creating employment opportunities, supplier
payments, government taxations, shareholder returns and community contributions.

Balanced Scorecard (BSC):

As part of the management system, the balanced scorecard (BSC) plays a pivotal role by
prioritising on the important strategic goals and defining the key aspects facilitating the
achievement of such goals. Based on the application of BSC, the organisational vision and
strategy of CSL can be elaborated from four different perspectives, discussed below:

Learning and Growth – People and culture are one of the important strategic priorities of
CSL, allowing the organisation to create training and learning-oriented organisational culture
that attracts, retain and develop the best talent, thereby creating a superior competitive
advantage in the global markets. Career development opportunities lie in the core of its
learning-based organisational culture, providing an opportunity for every employee to
perform meaningful work, realise the full potential and achieve a high level of professional
growth.

Internal Business Processes – The internal business processes of CSL are maintained in a
manner to promote innovation for not only enhancing operational efficiency but also pursuing
new opportunities to maintain a diversified portfolio and achieve uninterrupted growth
(Gurău and Dana 2020). Operational integrity lies at the core of the internal business
processes of the company, allowing it to develop a business commitment to conducting every
aspect of business ethically and transparently.

Customer – CSL Limited is a globally operating specialist biotechnology company,

researching, manufacturing, developing and marketing biotechnology products and advanced
plasma treatment procedures for treating and prevent serious medical conditions of patients.
The global biotech player continuously strives to deliver innovative biotherapies and develop
influenza vaccines for saving the lives of people with life-threatening medical conditions.

Financial – CSL promises to play sustainable returns to its stakeholders, mainly the
shareholders for their effective support contributing to the robust stakeholder engagement.
The 11-percent growth of net profit in 2019 compared to previous financial year signifies the
company’s gradually increasing profitable performance driven by innovation and R&D
expertise, contributing to the strong financial position of the business (Data 2017).
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MBA600 Capstone: Strategy Student Name
Assessment 2 – Individual Report Student ID

(Source: Created by the author)

A Summary of Recommendations
Based on the overall assessment of the business strategy based on some of the key
perspectives, including competitiveness, performance and innovation, the following
recommendations can be provided to CSL Limited:

Entering in new markets – Despite the company’s specialisation in coming up with highly
innovative biotherapies and new vaccines to prevent the impact of serious illnesses and
diseases, the operation is greatly limited to Australia and the Asia Pacific regions. Hence, the
company, with significant experience of market penetration must penetrate new
marketplaces, especially in the developing economies specifically based on its operational
excellence and highly integrated supply chain.

Enhancing sustainability performance – With the growing competitiveness of the global

environment, CSL requires aligning its strategic business goals more efficiently in line with
the greater application of green initiatives of the state, as well as federal governments, to
contribute richly to economic, social and community wellbeing. The CR Committee, driven
by the Board of Directors must provide managerial direction to ensure operational and
business sustainability, thereby increasing business credibility to generate benefits of a
diverse set of stakeholders (Sertyesilisik 2017).

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MBA600 Capstone: Strategy Student Name
Assessment 2 – Individual Report Student ID
Further improvement of diversity initiatives – CSL has already developed a positive work
environment that attracts, retains and develop best talents. However, the company should
further exploit its governance framework for building a highly engaging, flexible and diverse
workplace to gain the capability for accommodating a promising future (Ben-Amar, Chang
and McIlkenny 2017).

Exploiting the opportunities of rapid innovation – For delivering the promise of meeting
the unfulfilled patient needs, CSL requires providing a dedicated focus to the existing R&D
capabilities supporting innovation. However, corporate innovation must be improved given
the rapid fluctuations in the global healthcare environment marred by new diseases and
viruses. Hence, the governance framework, supporting clearly defined decision-making rights
and responsibilities is required for achieving the objective and making a significant
contribution.

Conclusion
CSL Limited is one of the globally recognised, patient-focused innovative players in the
global markets for biotherapy and plasma treatment for meeting the unsolved needs of
patients. Concerning the unpredictable nature of the global healthcare environment, the firm
must continue investing adequately in its R&D capabilities alongside the improvement of
existing skills and expertise for developing the ability to form immediate response, helping
the organisation to come up with effective solutions. From the operational perspective, the
organisational performance and business growth depend exceptionally on the corporate
governance framework of the company, necessitating the report to propose further
progression of the structure to aid the attainment of robust progress.

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MBA600 Capstone: Strategy Student Name
Assessment 2 – Individual Report Student ID

References
Ben-Amar, W., Chang, M. and McIlkenny, P., 2017. Board gender diversity and corporate
response to sustainability initiatives: Evidence from the carbon disclosure project. Journal of
business ethics, 142(2), pp.369-383.

Betterle, N., Hidalgo Martinez, D. and Melis, A., 2020. Cyanobacterial Production of
Biopharmaceutical and Biotherapeutic Proteins. Frontiers in plant science, 11, p.237.

Data, J., 2017. Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Sector Support of Research. In Clinical
and Translational Science (pp. 745-752). Academic Press.

Gurău, C. and Dana, L.P., 2020. Financing paths, firms’ governance and corporate
entrepreneurship: Accessing and applying operant and operand resources in biotechnology
firms. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 153, p.119935.

Jaakson, K., Aljaste, H.M. and Uusi-Kakkuri, P., 2019. Dimensions of organisational
innovativeness and company financial performance in the biotechnology sector. International
Journal of Manpower, 40(6), pp. 1110-1130.

Niosi, J. and McKelvey, M., 2018. Relating business model innovations and innovation
cascades: the case of biotechnology. Journal of evolutionary economics, 28(5), pp.1081-
1109.

Sertyesilisik, B., 2017. A preliminary study on the regenerative construction project

management concept for enhancing sustainability performance of the construction
industry. International Journal of Construction Management, 17(4), pp.293-309.

Shakeri, R. and Radfar, R., 2017. Antecedents of strategic alliances performance in

biopharmaceutical industry: A comprehensive model. Technological Forecasting and Social
Change, 122, pp.289-302.

SHARP, M., 2016. Competition: The Case of Biotechnology. The Management of Science:

Proceedings Of Section F (Economics) Of The British Association For, p.112.

Stenard, B.S., Thursby, M.C. and Fuller, A., 2016. Commercialization Strategies:
Cooperation versus Competition', Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results
(Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Economic Growth, Volume 26).

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MBA600 Capstone: Strategy Student Name
Assessment 2 – Individual Report Student ID
Stezano, F. and Espinoza, R.O., 2019. Innovation capabilities and performance of
biotechnology firms. Management Research: Journal of the Iberoamerican Academy of
Management, 17(4), pp. 445-473.

Teeratansirikool, L., Siengthai, S., Badir, Y. and Charoenngam, C., 2013. Competitive
strategies and firm performance: the mediating role of performance
measurement. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 62(2),
pp. 168-184.

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