...Business Policy and Strategy – Study Guide: Unit 1 Material from McGraw Hill website – Chapters 1 & 2 Chapter 1 What Is Strategy and Why Is It Important? Learning Objectives - After studying this chapter, you should be able to: LO 1. | Understand why every company needs a sound strategy to compete successfully, manage the conduct of its business, and strengthen its prospects for long-term success. | LO 2. | Develop an awareness of the four most dependable strategic approaches for setting a company apart from rivals and winning a sustainable competitive advantage. | LO 3. | Understand that a company's strategy tends to evolve over time because of changing circumstances and ongoing management efforts to improve the company's strategy. | LO 4. | Learn why it is important for a company to have a viable business model that outlines the company's customer value proposition and its profit formula. | LO 5. | Learn the three tests of a winning strategy. | Key Points: The tasks of crafting and executing company strategies are the heart and soul of managing a business enterprise and winning in the marketplace. The key points to take away from this chapter include the following: 1. A company's strategy is the game plan management is using to stake out a market position, conduct its operations, attract and please customers, compete successfully, and achieve the desired performance targets. 2. The central thrust of a company's strategy is undertaking moves...
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...FIRST PAGES Part One Overview of Strategic Management The first chapter of this book introduces strategic management, the set of decisions and actions that result in the design and activation of strategies to achieve the objectives of an organization. The chapter provides an overview of the nature, benefits, and terminology of and the need for strategic management. Subsequent chapters provide greater detail. The first major section of Chapter 1, “The Nature and Value of Strategic Management,” emphasizes the practical value and benefits of strategic management for a firm. It also distinguishes between a firm’s strategic decisions and its other planning tasks. The section stresses the key point that strategic management activities are undertaken at three levels: corporate, business, and functional. The distinctive characteristics of strategic decision making at each of these levels affect the impact of activities at these levels on company operations. Other topics dealt with in this section are the value of formality in strategic management and the alignment of strategy makers in strategy formulation and implementation. The section concludes with a review of the planning research on business, which demonstrates that the use of strategic management processes yields financial and behavioral benefits that justify their costs. The second major section of Chapter 1 presents a model of the strategic management process. The model, which will serve as an outline for...
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...Talent Management The process of determining staffing levels aims to identify the numbers and types of employees needed to be successful in solidifying the business plans and strategies for an organization. Organizations apply several different techniques to accomplish this task. However, there are ways to implement fundamental building blocks to set a baseline for success; but due to numerous variables, a step-by-step concrete solution for determining staffing levels cannot exist. Consistent within any stage of strategic staffing, it is crucial to understand the overall plans and strategies of the business and what factors are driving staffing. As discussed by Heneman, “organization effectiveness and staffing systems exist, and should be used, to contribute to the attainment of organizational goals such as survival, profitability, and growth. A macro view of staffing like this is often lost or ignored because most of the day-to-day operations of staffing systems involve micro activities that are procedural, transactional, and routine in nature. While these micro activities are essential for staffing systems, they must be viewed within the broader macro context of the positive impacts staffing can have on organization effectiveness” (6). Managers and Human Resources must share a common understanding of the business needs and react through implementing corresponding staffing levels. Only with a common perspective between management and human resources can staffing levels...
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...Final Business Model and Strategic Tanja Baca BUS 475 April 13, 2015 Daniel Magnole Table of Contents I. Executive Summary Pg. 3 II. Business Model and Strategic Plan Part I: Existing Business or New Business Division; Vision, Mission, and Value Proposition Pg. 4 III. Business Model and Strategic Plan Part II: SWOTT Analysis – Internal and External Environmental Analysis; Supply and Value Chain Analysis Pg. 9 IV. Business Model and Strategic Plan Part III: Assumptions, Risk and Change Management Plan; Summary of Strategic Objectives; Balanced Score Card and its impact on stakeholders; the Communication Plan Pg.14 V. Business Model and Strategic Plan Part IV: Monitoring and Control Strategies Pg.20 VI. References Pg.24 Executive Summary Pall Corporation, the world’s leading developer in filtration systems would formally like to present today the most advanced continuous glucose monitoring device; Truecose. We are working at finding the ways to better improve people’s lives with the most effective equipment. Truecose’s business model is to continue building the company’s name and trust of its customers by leading technologies in the market it serves. The company through all divisions will continue to make the “world safer, greener, better”. The acquisition of Dexcom has proven to be the most beneficial option in helping to improve new continuous glucose monitor. Pall has developed a strategic plan that has minimized risks, such as FDA regulations...
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...Introduction The aim of this report is to analyse the strategic change management in Business Development Club. This club is intended to bridge the gap between management, policy-making departments and the various levels of employees who are not directly involved in management discussions. This report addresses about models of strategic change and then discuss relevance models of change in the current economy. Furthermore intervention techniques these key areas which mentioned sequentially. This report mentions about the need for strategic change in the Club and also describes the factor which one driving for change. Furthermore, explains the resources implications which one not responding to the change. In addition, Moreover discuss about stakeholder strategy, the system to involve stakeholders in the planning of change and then evaluation. Finally, develop appropriate model for this change programme and plan the implementation of a model for change and look at the measures to monitor the progress of this change. Strategic Change Management A process involves developing an innovative vision for where the company needs to be, and then developing an equally innovative path for achieving the goals. This is a systematic approach to dealing with change both from perspectives of an organisation and on the individual level. Change management can be defined by three main components: adapting to change, handling the change and effectively putting...
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...First was Boeing, which hired him as an engineer in 1969. After nearly 30 years Mulally was made president of the company's Commercial Airplanes division and 3yrs later CEO of that division. – At Boeing, Mulally ran the team that created the company's first all-glass cockpit, with no traditional dials, and implemented a host of other technological advancements. – He was no stranger to pushing the tech envelope – Became president and CEO of Ford, in Sept 2006. 68 years old – 2006 Ford was on the brink of bankruptcy. Posting its the biggest annual loss in its 103-year history—$12.7 billion – When he entered company Ford exhibited the following based on the diagnostic Performance and Behaviour Model o Unattended Environment ( disconnected with industry trends, projections, lacked customer insight o Unclear Direction ( bec. Out of touch with dynamic car industry environment o Fragmented Operational Activities o Dysfunctional Behaviour ( Dysfunctional Work Culture) – His challenge was to find FORD’s competitive advantage (ability to outperform competitors or other organizations that provide similar goods and services) in the continuously changing global information environment....
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...a competitive price or acceptable value at a lower price. What is strategy? Strategy describes the goal – directed actions a firm intends to take in its quest to gain and sustain competitive advantage. Strategy is about creating superior value, while containing the cost to create it. Strategy is not a zero-sum game. It is not always the case that one party wins while all others lose. Win- win scenarios: when competitors cooperate, occasionally, with one another to achieve strategic objectives, we call this co-opetition. Strategic positioning is staking out a unique position in an industry that allows the firm to provide value to customers, while controlling costs. Strategy as a Theory of How to Compete. It provides managers with a roadmap to navigate the competitive territory. A firm´s strategy can be seen as its managers’ theory about how to gain and sustain competitive advantage. (A theory answers the questions, what causes what and why?) These theories have to reflect reality. The strategic management process, therefore, is a never-ending cycle of analysis, formulation, implementation and feedback. * It is the managers´ theories about how to gain and sustain competitive advantage. * It is...
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...Chapter 1 Mastering Strategy: Art and Science LEARNING OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter, you should be able to understand and articulate answers to the following questions: 1. What are strategic management and strategy? 2. Why does strategic management matter? 3. What elements determine firm performance? Strategic Management: A Core Concern for Apple The Opening of the Apple Store Image courtesy of Neil Bird, http://www.flickr.com/photos/nechbi/2058929337. March 2, 2011, was a huge day for Apple. The firm released its much-anticipated iPad2, a thinner and faster version of market-leading Apple’s iPad tablet device. Apple also announced that a leading publisher, Random House, had made all seventeen thousand of its books available through Apple’s iBookstore. Apple had enjoyed tremendous success for quite some time. Approximately fifteen million iPads were sold in 2010, and the price of Apple’s stock had more than tripled from early 2009 to early 2011. Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books Saylor.org 4 But future success was far from guaranteed. The firm’s visionary founder Steve Jobs was battling serious health problems. Apple’s performance had suffered when an earlier health crisis had forced Jobs to step away from the company. This raised serious questions. Would Jobs have to step away again? If so, how might Apple maintain its excellent performance without its leader? Meanwhile, the iPad2 faced daunting competition. Samsung...
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...Chapter 1 Strategic Leadership: Managing the Strategy-Making Process for Competitive Advantage Opening Case Wal-Mart Wal-Mart is one of the most extraordinary success stories in business history. Started in 1962 by Sam Walton, Wal-Mart has grown to become the world’s largest corporation. In the financial year ending January 31, 2004, the discount retailer whose mantra is “every day low prices” had sales of nearly $256 billion, five thousand stores in ten countries (almost three thousand are in the United States), and 1.3 million employees. Some 8 percent of all retail sales in the United States are made at a Wal-Mart store. Wal-Mart is not only large but also very profitable. In 2003, the company earned a return on invested capital of 14.7 percent, significantly better than rivals Costco and Target, which earned 9.4 percent and 10 percent, respectively (another major rival, Kmart, emerged from bankruptcy protection in 2004). As shown in the accompanying figure, Wal-Mart has been consistently more profitable than its rivals for years. Wal-Mart’s superior profitability reflects a competitive advantage that is based on the successful implementation of a number of strategies. In 1962 Wal-Mart was one of the first companies to apply the self-service supermarket business model developed by grocery chains to general merchandise (two of its rivals, Kmart and Target, were established in the same year). Unlike its rivals, who focused on urban and suburban locations, Sam Walton’s Wal-Mart...
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...businesses must address the central strategic question A. | Where are we now? | B. | Where do we want to go from here? | C. | How are we going to get there? | D. | When will we know we are there? | E. | All of these | | 2. | A company's strategy consists of A. | actions to develop a more appealing business model than rivals. | B. | plans involving alignment of organizational activities and strategic objectives. | C. | offensive and defensive moves to generate revenues and increase profit margins. | D. | competitive moves and approaches that managers have developed to grow the business, attract and please customers, conduct operations, and achieve targeted objectives. | E. | its strategic vision, its strategic objectives, and its strategic intent. | | 3. | The competitive moves and business approaches a company's management is using to grow the business, compete successfully, attract and please customers, conduct operations, respond to changing economic and market conditions, and achieve organizational objectives is referred to as its A. | strategy. | B. | mission statement. | C. | strategic intent. | D. | business model. | E. | strategic vision. | | 4. | A company's strategy is most accurately defined as A. | management's approaches to building revenues, controlling costs, and generating an attractive profit. | B. | management's game plan for growing the business, attracting and pleasing customers...
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...Article Review: McDonald and Leppard (1993) The Marketing Audit The Marketing Audit Model Any marketing plan will only be as good as the information on which it is based, and the marketing audit is the means by which information for planning is organised. A marketing audit is a systematic, critical and unbiased review and appraisal of all the external and internal factors that have affected an organisation’s commercial performance over a defined period. By providing an understanding of how the organisation relates to the environment in which it operates, the marketing audit enables management to select a position within that environment based on known factors. Any organisation carrying out an audit will be faced with two kinds of variable: those over which if has no direct control and those over which it has complete control. The former include economic and market factors, while the latter usually concern the organisation’s resources, or operational variables. This suggests that the marketing audit should be structured in two parts: * External audit—the uncontrollable variables (business and economic environment, the market, the competition). * Internal audit—the controllable variables (organisation’s strengths and weaknesses, operations and resources in relation to the environment and competitors). Chapters 1—6 McDonald and Leppard’s The Marketing Audit Model is a comprehensive set of exercises that a company can go through to develop insight into all aspects...
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...Strategic planning is more than ensuring your association will remain financially sound and be able to maintain its reserves—it’s projecting where your association expects to be in five, ten, or fifteen years—and how your association will get there. It is a systematic plan- ning process involving a number of steps that identify the current status of the association, including its mission, vision for the future, operating values, needs (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), goals, prioritized actions and strategies, action plans, and moni- toring plans. Strategic planning is the cornerstone of every common-interest community. Without strategic planning, the community will never know where it is going—much less know if it ever got there. An important concept of strategic planning is an understanding that in order for the community to flourish, everyone needs to work to ensure the team’s goals are met. Team members include all association homeowners, the board of direc- tors, professional management—whether onsite or through a management company— and various service professionals such as accountants and reserve professionals. This team needs to work as a collective body to be successful. Part of the team concept is the establishment of roles for the team players. Teams usually perform poorly if everyone or no one is trying to be the quarterback. Strategic planning is a relatively new genre of planning, adapted from primarily two sources. Business schools have equipped...
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...Edexcel Level 7EDSMLASSESSMENT ACTIVITY | | Unit Name: | STRATEGIC CHANGE MANAGEMENT | Unit Number: | 03 | Credits: | 10 | Assessor: | Prof. Krishna Mohan .M | Internal Verifier: | | Aim: Strategic change impacts on the human resources structure of the organization and this often means a restructuring of the workforce or changes in working practices. Almost inevitably, change will generate resistance from some, particularly those who feel that the change will have no positive benefits for them. Other people may resist change simply because they prefer status quo. Organizations need to ensure that they have strategies in place to manage resistance to change and this should be part of the overall model that they adopt for managing the change. Once in place, progress towards change will need to be monitored. Strategic change management is most effective when an organization actively seeks the participation of all relevant stakeholders. A change management strategy will be effective only if it has the support of all stakeholders. If they are to have a sense of ownership, stakeholders need to have the opportunity to contribute to the development of the change strategy. Learners will develop an understanding of the models of strategic change and the role that stakeholders play in this process. They will then examine the need for change in a selected organization and plan the implementation of a model for change. Summary of learning outcomes To achieve this...
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...Chapter 2—Strategic Planning for Competitive Advantage TRUE/FALSE 1. The manufacturer of Macho brand martial arts products was implementing a strategic plan when it sponsored a local karate tournament for teenagers. ANS: F Such a short-range decision is typically a tactical plan or operating decision, not a strategic plan. PTS: 1 REF: 35 OBJ: 02-1 TYPE: App TOP: AACSB Reflective Thinking | TB&E Model Strategy 2. The marketing plan is a written document that acts as a guidebook of marketing activities for a marketing manager. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 36 OBJ: 02-1 TYPE: Def TOP: AACSB Reflective Thinking | TB&E Model Marketing Plan 3. A firm's mission statement should answer the question, "What products do we produce best?" ANS: F Mission statements should not focus on specific product offerings but on the market or markets served. PTS: 1 REF: 37 OBJ: 02-2 TYPE: Comp TOP: AACSB Reflective Thinking | TB&E Model Strategy 4. A production costs analysis could be a part of a company’s SWOT analysis. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 38 OBJ: 02-3 TYPE: Comp TOP: AACSB Reflective Thinking | TB&E Model Strategy 5. Environmental scanning entails the collection and analysis of information about factors that may affect the organization as well as the identification of market opportunities and threats. ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 39 OBJ: 02-3 TYPE: Def TOP: AACSB Reflective Thinking | TB&E Model Strategy 6. To be useful, marketing objectives should meet four criteria:...
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...provided by them in their respective fields. I am grateful for their cooperation during the period of my assignment. And also my lecturer Mr. Weerathunga Who provide best knowledge, advise & courage to success the case study & as well as our lives also. Lastly, a special thanks to my family. I thank almighty, my parents, sister and friends for their constant encouragement without which this assignment would not be possible. Index Serial No | Chapter | Page No | 01 | Executive Summary | 04 | 02 | Literature Review | 05-09 | 03 | Introduction | 10-11 | 04 | The way the strategic management involve into this case study | 12-14 | 05 | Few appropriate models that suit this case study and demonstrate an accurate understanding of the business models used and relate them to this case study | 15-19 | 06 | Produce a clear analysis | 20 | 07 | Findings | 21 | 08 | Reflexive Report | 22 | 09 | Reference | 23 | Executive Summary Sanasa Development bank is a company duly incorporated under the Companies Act No. 17 of 1982 and registered under the companies Act No 07 of 2007. SDBL presently functions as a Licensed Specialized Bank under a banking license dated 21st August 1997 issued by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. This bank is an outcome of a visionary leader Dr.Kiriwandeniya who initiated a world recognized movement SANASA. (Sekasuruwm ha nayaganudenu...
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