Competitive Strategic Management - Assignment Example

? Final Exam Final Exam Question Some organizations have a strategic management processin place while many don’t. Suppose you are working as a consultant, how would you convince an organization that a strategic management system will help them improve public services? According to Lamb (1984), strategic management is a continuous process that controls and evaluates the business undertaken by the organization, evaluates the potential of its competitors of the organization, and it specifies goals and strategies for the organization in order to enable it to face the threats posed by the competitors, and then re-evaluates the efficiency and effectiveness of the strategy on a periodic basis. Strategic management also assumes the responsibility of determining whether the strategy requires any modification due the change in the external environment of the entity. Thus, it can be inferred strategic management system is highly important for an organization’s survival in a competitive industry. In order to increase its share in the overall market, an organization needs to increase its customer base. Consumers are highly important for an organization because it is the end consumer that determines the success of an organization. If the organization manages to maintain goodwill among the consumers, it would be successful in acquiring the market share otherwise the organization might not be able to face the threats posed by its competitors. Strategic management system helps an organization conduct periodic evaluation of the external factors that affect the organization’s strategy and one of those factors is the consumer’s demand. Thus, by using strategic management system, an organization can assess the social trends and the demand for its products among consumers. An organization can also receive feedback from consumers with regard to its products. In this manner, an organization can provide better public services by using strategic management system and designing its strategy in accordance with the consumer demand. Thus, it can be concluded that strategic management system is very important for an organization because it helps the organization formulate strategies after assessing the external environment of the organization. Therefore, the strategy determined by the organization would be in conformity with the consumer trends and the organization would be able to provide better public services. This would in turn help the organization in building its goodwill among the consumers as well. Question 2 Please identify and describe five (5) key environmental changes that can influence strategic management. An organization is always affected by the environment it operates in. It can never be isolated from its environment therefore it needs to continuously adapt to its external environment. There are certain external factors that affect the strategic management of an organization. The environmental changes that can influence the strategic management are; Political, Economic, Social, Technological and Legal. Political changes depend upon extent to which the governmental authorities take part in the economy of the country. The political changes that may influence an organization’s strategic management are changes in tax policy, corporate laws related to social responsibility, changes in environmental laws, restrictions upon trade and tariffs. All these factors can affect the organization in accordance with the business of the organization. If the organization is a trading company and it imports goods in bulk quantities, it can be highly affected by import restrictions and tariffs on imports imposed by the government. Therefore, the organization may have to modify its strategy accordingly. Economic changes may be changes in interest rates, inflation rate and the exchange rates. If the organization conducts business in international market, any change in exchange rates can influence its business transactions. Social changes that may affect the strategic management may be the change in the attitude of consumers; such as, increased consciousness about health. If the organization is engaged in the business of production of food and the consumers start considering the food unhealthy, it can affect the organization’s business and its strategic management. Technological changes that influence the strategic management are; an improved technology developed or acquired by the competitors of the organization and the increase in Research & Development activity. Technology change is happening so rapidly and any organization that does not adapt to the technological change ultimately falls back in the race of acquiring market share. Legal changes include changes in relevant laws such as corporate law, consumer law, employment law etc. Any change in the legislation may influence an organization’s strategic management in accordance with its business. For example; if an organization conducts a business which is subsequently declared as illegal by a change in legislation, it might cause the organization to crash. Therefore, provision for change is legislation should be made while designing the strategy. Question 3 What is SWOT(C) Analysis and what are some of the critical elements of this process? What should be the result (benefit) when the SWOT(C) analysis is completed? SWOT analysis is used to assess the effectiveness of an already implemented strategy as well (Armstrong et al 2009). It assesses the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of an organization. This analysis is highly important for the strategic core of an organization as it provides critical information regarding the environment in which the organization operates. By having such information, the management would be able to design such strategy that would help the organization survive in the industry amidst the competition posed by its competitors (Cole, 2006). Assessment of strength and weaknesses is also known as internal analysis of an organization. Internal analysis of an organization includes the evaluation of the resources possessed by the organization and the internal processes of an organization. The management evaluates the resources possessed by the organization as compared to other organizations in the industry (Dallas, 2006). If the organization possesses a resource that is available to that and that organization only, it can be given the status of the competitive advantage of the organization. Through the internal analysis, the organization can also identify its weaknesses along with its strengths. By identifying the strengths, the organization can modify the strategy in such a manner that it capitalizes over its strengths; and by identifying its weaknesses, the organization may be able to make policies and processes that aim at removing those weaknesses from the system of the organization (Bryson, 2004). Assessment of opportunities and threats is also known as external analysis of the organization. The external analysis of an organization includes the assessment of the competitors of an organization, laws and regulations of the region in which the organization operates, the size of the market and the scope of the business undertaken by the organization and the social trends and demand for the products made by the organization. External analysis is highly important for the determination of a successful strategy because an organization cannot survive in an industry without acclimatizing with the trends of the industry (Brown 2005). References Armstrong, G., Harket, M., Kotler, P., Brennan, R. (2009). Marketing: An Introduction. Financial Times Prentice Hall. Brown, S. (2005). Strategic Operations Management, 2nd Edition. Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann Bryson, J. M. (2004). Strategic Planning for Public and Non-Profit Organizations, 3rd Edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Cole, M. I. (2006). Unlocking Public Value. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Dallas, M. (2006). Value and Risk Management. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Lamb, R. (1984). Competitive strategic management. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Read More