Free Essay. WWE World Wrestling EntertainmentIntroduction

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is an American entertainment and integrated media corporation that was primarily famous for its professional wrestling. However, over the years, WWE has diversified into other fields: football, music, PC games, film, and other businesses (WWE, 2020). The WWE organization's mission is to offer family-friendly entertainment on television programming, publishing, digital media, and pay-per-view platforms. The organization has a WWE Network that is available in 180 countries. The WWE operations are divided across; the WWE studios segment, live events segments, product division segment, and media division. The organization has different levels of strategies; business-level, corporate-level, and international. The company utilizes a generic approach in the promotion of diversification initiatives through various modes such as; internal development, alliances, and M&A and international strategy implementation techniques in the various global markets. These strategies are aimed at propagating the company's organizational goals and internal and external environments. WWE utilizes corporate design, governance, and leadership, productive organizational culture, and structure.

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WWE Business-Level Strategies

Business-level strategies utilized by the company help it in achieving a competitive advantage in the marketplace. These strategies offer a way of providing value to clients by exploiting the organization's core competencies (Li & Dimitratos, 2014). WWE utilizes the business-level strategy theory that ensures two types of competitive advantage that the organization chooses from; cost leadership and differentiation. The company, through cost leadership, provides that its costs are less than those of the competitors. WWE differentiation has ensured that the company has products that are different from those offered by the competitors (Gaurav, 2017). Therefore, this generic strategy is the source of a competitive advantage, which is carefully reached based on the external environment, such as what the competitors are doing and strengthening core competencies. Therefore, the business-level strategies determine how the WWE organization competes with other players in the market.

Cost Leadership Strategy

Through the cost leadership strategy, WWE Company has been able to compete for a broader base based on its price. To sustain above-average returns and, at the same time, offer lower prices than the competitors, the company continually focuses on internal competencies. The two most important mechanisms used by the organization to drive down the costs of the products include establishing state-of-the-art facilities that enable production at a scale at a reduced price and the development of rigid cost controls. For this strategy to work, WWE has ensured that its products and services are standardized. The cost leadership strategy defends the organization against Porter's 5 forces; rivals, suppliers, substitutes, new entrants, and buyers (Expert Program Management, 2018).

Differentiation Strategy

WWE was initially known for its professional wrestling; however, over the years, the company has diversified to other fields such as; football, music, PC games, film, and other businesses. Differentiation into other areas has enabled the company to broaden its client base based on its uniqueness and services. Through this strategy, WWE focuses on building unique features to win in the marketplace. The organization's common mechanisms to ensure differentiation include; superior quality, design, efficient customer service, and uniqueness (Expert Program Management, 2018).

WWE Corporate-Level Strategies

A corporate-level strategy refers to a plan developed by a company to assess the external environment, such as the organizations that it interacts within a specific period. A corporate-strategy is utilized by large corporations to achieve complex goals such as expansion and new market entry. WWE Corporation is a publicly-traded company that also doubles as a successful media organization leading the universal entertainment platform. The organization possesses a business portfolio that develops and distributes original content each week throughout the year to the international market. The content that is created by the company is suitable for family viewing on the television as well as other platforms. The company has come up with corporate strategies that have helped it thrive and grow over the years. The revenue that the company acquires is through programs that are created for the television, publishing, digital media, and pay-per-view platforms. The company has ensured a wide range of markets by reaching many homesteads across the globe and translating it into more than 20 languages (WWE Corp Global, 2017). The main corporate-level strategy mechanisms utilized by WWE include; diversification into different fields, horizontal integration, and market penetration.

Through stability strategy, WWE has been able to propagate diversification to increase revenue through research, development, and product renovation to develop new products and services. Expansion strategies such as creating new products to reach new audiences have helped the company in horizontal integration, diversification, and diversification through the formation of alliances and internal development. As stated above, the most critical corporate strategy that fits the WWE goals, and external and internal environments, is diversification. Diversification entails the company noticing the need to change the current market and move into a new market hence creating new business opportunities. The organization should continue embracing this effective strategy to build a long-lasting relationship linked to the satisfaction and execution of services and products. The corporate-level strategies fit the organizational goals of the WWE of providing affordable family-friendly entertainment across the globe hence making use of its suitable internal and external environments.

WWE International-Level Strategies

WWE Corporation is recognized as the largest wrestling organization in the United States of America. It has also gained its position in the wrestling entertainment throughout the entire world via international expansion. The company has employed the three most effective international level strategies to conquer the international market: standardization, transactional and transitional approaches. Through standardization, WWE company can put into consideration the cultural differences from all over the world to come up with products and services that are acceptable and suitable across all cultures hence promoting international markets. The organization can customize the programming to fit various parts of the world and employs people from different backgrounds to bring about diversity and translation into different languages hence having an international outlook (WWE Corp Global, 2017). Through a multidomestic strategy, the WWE organization sacrifices efficiency to favor responsiveness to local preferences and requirements in each of its markets. Transnational strategy finds a middle ground between global strategy and multidomestic strategy; hence WWE can balance the desire for local preferences within different countries.

Changes in the Strategies

Although the WWE Corporation has effectively employed business-level, corporate-level, and international strategies through the utilization of its favorable internal and external environments, some changes need to occur to ensure more success of these models. The proper application of these strategies has made the WWE recognized as the biggest wrestling entertainment provider hence earning a reputable position in the industry via a large customer base and strong brand developed through various mechanisms such as diversification and international expansion. For future brand strategy, the organization needs to propagate regional and national directors' appointments for the brand strategy for specific and different markets. Other strategies, such as a creative storyline, need to be developed further. The company must expand its entertainment services to developing countries by strengthening international-level strategies that involve culture integration for the new markets.

WWE Organizational Design

The WWE Corporation has a sophisticated organizational design with various components such as strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The balance between these elements, coupled with proper governance and leadership, and appropriate organizational culture, have made the company survive and expand to new markets.

SWOT Analysis of WWE

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES

• The most prominent strength of the WWE organization is that the company is involved in wrestling and provides the customers with a wide range of entertainment.
• It is involved in licensing the WWE video games, which is also a significant revenue source.
• It has a vast library of home-based videos.
• Pay per view policy is also another considerable strength. The wrestling industry is known to be very cyclical hence presenting numerous ups and downs.
• Lack of competition in the wrestling industry makes WWE lack motivation for creativity and innovation in its offering.

OPPORTUNITIES THREATS

• Home video library due to its existence for many decades in the wrestling business.
• International markets and expansion which translates to more profits Competition from close competitors such as the NWA.
• Low television ratings as compared to its early years as it lacks a proper storyline hence becoming boring and repetitive.

WWE Strategic Leadership and Governance

The WWE corporation's governance portrays a strategic leadership technique as its leaders can influence others to make decisions voluntarily, hence enhancing the prospects of the company, which ensures that there is a long-term success while still upholding short-term financial stability. The leadership style applied by the WWE organization positively impacts on the direction of growth, vision, and the potential success of the company. To ensure that there is the observed success in dealing with change, all the organization executives possess the tools and skills needed for strategy formulation and implementation. Vincent McMahon is the owner of the WWE, chairman, and CEO. He is said to be a third-generation promoter who has transformed the company into a global phenomenon. Stephanie McMahon is the Chief Brand Officer who is responsible for global brand growth and strength. Paul Levesque is the vice president of global talent strategy and development and oversees the talent development department's overall operations. Kevin Dunn is the vice president responsible for a television production (WWE, 2020).

Strategy Formulation

I would suggest the company to continue utilizing the business strategy that involves low cost, focus, and differentiation. The business strategy ensures that there are two types of competitive advantage that the organization chooses from; cost leadership and differentiation are hence maximizing profits and expanding markets.

Implementing the Strategy

To implement the business strategy effectively, the company would have to make a few changes to ensure maximum desirable results. The cost leadership strategy developed should have patent rights to ensure that the competitors do not copy it. More innovative approaches should be implemented while utilizing the focus and differentiation strategy to ensure that the developed uniqueness is worth the amount that the customer is expected to pay. There are various challenges faced by the two facets of the business strategy approach.