Operation Strategy at maturity stage

Whichever might be the industry, the sharp rapid growth as witnessed in the initial stage does not continue permanently. At some point of time, a stage is encountered where it is not possible to expect rapid growth. A competition environment in the industry changes very widely in many cases during this maturity period.

For example, it becomes difficult to expect the appearance of new applications and new technology. The focus of competition shifts to cost and service. Furthermore, the share of competition including the international competition also becomes very severe and depending upon the case, trends like decline in profits are seen. Besides this, changes take place on various other points and in the methods including research and development, manufacturing, sales and marketing etc.

In this way, the competition environment changes fundamentally during the period of maturity and the enterprise has to adjust and modify its strategy matching these changes. There might be some mistakes in the strategy during the growth period, however, these did not pose big problem and the recovery was also very easy. However, it does not work in this manner during the maturity stage. Much finer aspects and deeper problems need attention during this period. Some of these problems are listed below.

· Organising and integrating the product line.
· Working out the steps for bringing down the cost for the product through standardisation and grouping the common features.
· To study once again in the cost system while maintaining the cost control more strictly.
· Laying more emphasis on improvement of production process rather than product innovation.

Of course, withdrawal is also one of the possibilities that can be selected. On the other hand, if the industrial environment can assure the limited profit, this type of confusion during the conversion stage can be a very good opportunity for those enterprises are considering the entry.

The internal organisational structure also calls for a change matching the change in the strategy. It is also important to carry out the coordination among different departments more strictly as compared to what has done do far in order to achieve cost competition edge. In order to do so, sometimes the directives of decentralization as formed under operation department based organisation is reserved and the centralised authority system is introduced.

During the maturity period, the pioneering spirit falls down. The promotion avenues and chance of rise in salary also become dull. The budget faces severe cuts. In this way, the control intensifies on various fronts. The employees also get a feeling of being deprived of their independence, therefore, it is natural that the desire to work gets affected. The resistance against the change also starts appearing.

Managers are expected to take due care of the feelings of the employees and promote motivation by establishing the promotion standards and reward and performance appraised system etc. The managers are expected to cope up with such sensitive aspects. Generally, it can be said that the capability and the quality as expected from the managers are different in the growth period and the maturity period.