Louw and Venter (2013) state that “business strategies provide direction and represent roadmaps that the organization can use to achieve its strategic objectives.” An organization's top management or strategic leadership team is responsible for deciding which business strategy to use. Before selecting, it is crucial that managers collectively assess the strengths and weaknesses of their organization. The group must also assess, as empirically as possible, the organization's actual potential to take advantage of perceived market needs or its ability to manage associated risks (Foss, 2005). This decision can mean the difference between business prosperity and widespread failure and should therefore not be taken lightly. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay A range of factors influence the formulation of an organization's business strategy. That said, the choice of strategy ultimately depends on the organization's business objectives. It is either about developing the company or defending it when it finds itself in a weak position (Louw and Venter, 2013). Thus leading to the two main business strategy options: growth strategies and defensive strategies. According to Suttle (2018), when an organization wants to grow its business, it will implement growth strategies including market penetration, market development, product development, diversification and integration. On the other hand, as mentioned by Louw and Venter (2013), “defensive strategies are divided into two groups: recovery or end-of-game management”. The purpose of this essay is to critically discuss defensive strategies through research, using relevant examples. Focusing particularly on the two types of defensive strategies and the related corporate actions. When an organization's current business units face challenges in terms of growth potential, management may decide to implement defensive strategies (Gomes, 2010). The first type of defensive strategy, as mentioned above, is called reversal. “Turnaround, a ubiquitous concept in organizational decline, is described as the recovery of a company's performance after a serious decline” (Santana, Valle, & Galan, 2017). Common influences such as inefficiency, non-competitiveness and recession (Louw and Venter, 2013) incentivize recovery. Recovery strategies include withdrawal, recovery and revenue growth. These strategies target internal efforts to reverse organizational decline and therefore make the company more profitable. Restructuring strategies offer organizations the opportunity to regroup in response to persistent business unit decline. Management can deploy one or both of the securities measures associated with this approach, namely cost reduction and reduction of non-core assets (Louw and Venter, 2013). In accordance with Bravo and de Egaña (2017), cost reduction is defined as “a strategic alternative, which includes different combinations of reductions in the physical, human and organizational systems of a company, to adapt it to the competitive conditions of a commercial unit. Organizations should assess which of their business units are not viable for long-term competitiveness, and prioritize these for turnaround, before reducing the number of their employees (Louw and Venter, 2013). In fact, the, 2005).