World Dot Singapore Strategy - Case Study Example

Terminology

A strategy is an organizational plan or plot that is unique to that organisation, well designed and given much thought which when followed the organisation is higly likely to achieve its intended objectives.

Performance is the accomplishment of a given job as measured against some sets of known standards of completeness, speed, accuracy and cost. Performance is where a performer is able to fulfill an obligation in a way that is efficient and free of unnecessary liabilities.

Public value describes the significance of an organization in the society. As Mark Moore suggests, public value is equivalent to a stakeholder’s value in public management. A stakeholder here means a person who is of interest to, or is interested in a company or organization.

Systemic is an issue that affects the whole organization and not just groups or individuals in the organization. “Long Term” is where an effect or change or something anticipated takes a considerably long time in order to be achieved.

A business environment comprises of all the internal and external factors that influence a business. Strategic alignment on the other hand is where an organization links its resources and structure to the business environment.

Change is what occurs after there are alterations in the normal organizational routine. Strategic transformation is where the change process is a strategy by the management and perspective change is where an organization experiences a change in ideas and perspective.

Culture is the traditional way of doing things that is unique to a particular group. The culture dictates the behavior and values of the individuals.

Organizational development is the advancement of the organizations policy that makes the origination viewed as successful. Individual development on the other hand is where an individual builds themselves by adding value to what they already are as far as the organization is concerned.

World dot Singapore strategy

`Singapore is a small country that has done much by itself. The government officials of Singapore refer to it as “a little red dot”. This is because of how the country appears on a large scale map. Singapore has gotten through the harsh treatment from her neighbors by staying focused and having only two goals in mind: a stable economy and a strong military. Singapore has made productive alliances with countries in Asia and in the west all in a bid to improve its financial and military strength. Singapore has managed to stay afloat and not drown in poor economy and debt despite there being very scares natural resources. This has been made possible by one key thing that the government of Singapore considers the most valuable – its citizens. Singapore has invested heavily in its people, the government empowers its people by education and reward for merit. Singapore has always strived to attract industrial investments and people who are educated to the island (Kennedy, 2007).

Singapore’s success is so far much owed to science and technology. All of the innovations for Singapore that are geared at security and other matters have been made possible by the Science and Technology policy. Other policies include planning and execution. Singapore is naturally positioned to excel in science and technology. This is due to the study culture and the strengths of the people in science and mathematics. Singapore wishes to be a global hub that attracts intelligent minds across the globe and also to provide the means and resources to do so (Kennedy, 2007). This would bring together vibrant communities of people who talented and are ready to handle a paper

Singapore are using science and technology. The new fields of interest include, water resources, interactive, digital media and biological engineering. Its initiative to be the central point for education in Asia will hit two birds with one stone. One, it will bring a lot of income to the country, two, it would bring smart people who have a study culture to Singapore and they will be here to stay. The economic strategies s or Singapore have to keep in synch with the dynamic global economic landscape. It has to ensure that it remains competitive so as to remain visible in the global economic map (Kennedy, 2007).

The stakeholder analysis

In project management, stakeholder analysis that looks at the individuals or groups that are likely to be affected or to affect a proposed action. They are then categorized according to the impact they will have or feel by the implementation of the proposed policy. The information is then used by the managerial tem to make decisions. The information obtained by the stakeholder analysis gives the management a clear picture of what are the needs of the stakeholders or what are the issues that should be addressed so that the proposed plan, program policy or any other action for that matter. One of the most important part of the stock holder management is what has just been described above (Missonier, & Loufrani-Fedida, 2014).

There are there types of stakeholders, these are: One, the Primary stakeholders- these are the subjects that are affected by the actions of the organization whether positively or negatively. Two, the secondary stakeholders are the ones who are not affected by the proposed policy but in an indirect manner. Three, the key stakeholders. These are key members of the organization as they are of high influence and importance. They maybe in the first or the second group. Stakeholder ensures the success of the project by creating coordination between all the stakeholder and the team that come up with project. There are many benefits of the stakeholder’s analysis. Key among the benefits are that they indicate the interests of the stakeholders, the potential risks involved in implementing a particular policy (The risks may involve: danger to the stake holders, losses to the organization, failure in the project, law suits etc.), ways that may be used to influence the other stakeholders, ensures that the key people in the project are notified and well informed in the proceedings of the project and most importantly during the implementation phase. The negative stakeholders are taken care of in accordance with the results of the stakeholder’s report (Missonier, & Loufrani-Fedida, 2014).

Values of scenario planning.

Scenario planning is where managers create several realities that are likely to occur in the foreseeable future in the organization. These realities are then organized into thoughts and ideas that are handpicked until a desirable scenario is obtained. This helps the organization to prepare themselves for anything that might come their way. The appropriate responses are therefore what will be used in the event that one of the scenarios is present in the stakeholder’s report. The scenario planning technique is highly credited to the RAND Corporation as they were the first to come up with the idea of scenario planning. This was in the 1950’s where researchers devised a means to help the United States craft the cold war. The technique was later adopted and has been in use since then in major government facilities, business and academic institutions (Scenario planning, 2005).

The process of scenario planning maybe different as dictated by the needs of the organization. Basic scenario planning would include a session of simple answers like “what if …. Then …” The process can also include many factors and present the outcome in a complex manner. The idea of scenario planning is to simply anticipate what might happen and create a list of steps that one would take in order to handle the situation at that time. The steps for scenario planning include: setting up the scope of the planning exercise. Secondly, one should try to look for the things that keep the project or organization going. One should then try to formulate scenarios that one believes may happen. The scenarios are then analyzed and the possible outcomes are then to be considered. There are three key things that ensure effective planning. These include a good process design and a good facilitation. One should note however that scenario planning is not just a mere prediction of the future but as a wide spectrum of possible scenarios that may occur (Scenario planning, 2005).

Balanced score cards

The balanced scorecard is a management system. It allows for a company to visually see their strategies and visions and also turn them from the idea stage to the action stage. The balanced scorecards gives results that are around the internal business process and the external effects all in a bid to improve strategic performance and results the balanced scorecard is a tool for improvement. The introduction of the balanced score card completely changed the conventional thinking about the measurement of performance. With the balanced score cards, it was possible to monitor financial results as well as tracking the progress in building capacity for their growth (Smullen, 1997).

One key thing about the balanced scorecard is that it addresses one of the serious inadequacies of the previous traditional management systems (Smullen, 1997).. The previous systems were not able at all to connect their short term financial goals to their long term strategy. This important link is made possible by the following four processes:

• Translating the vision – allows the managerial team to have an agreement on the company’s strategy and is to be expressed in terms that it is allowed to guide action at the local level.
• Communicating and linking – ensures proper and constant communication in all the organizational levels. This communication is then connected to a unit’s or an individual’s goals.
• Business planning – thee financial plans are able to be integrated in the business plan
• Feedback and learning – collects responses, examines and analyses the hypothesis on which the strategies are based. Making the adjustments that are necessary.

Strategic Change

Change is something that is very regular and healthy in every company. Companies experience changes such as the launch of a new product or alterations in the organizational structure of the company. It would be very chaotic if companies just decided to make changes without having a clear and conscious plan to do so. The changes are well organized by the strategic change management. Strategic change management is a thoughtful and structured way of managing change. This process allows the realization of objectives, organizational goals and missions. Change allows a company to thrive, grow and exceed the competition of industry competitors(Drivers of Strategic Change, 2015).

There are several models that explain the strategic change. Of all thsese, two are the most known. These are Kurt Lewin’s Change Model and the John Kotter’s Change Model. Kotter’s Change Model stipulate that the organisations ought to take employees through 8 imporntant steps. The steps simple include: establishing a sense of urgency; coming up with a guiding coalition of people who can support the new change and are able to work together as a team; having bother strategy and vision; explaining to the employees these visions in a simple way that they can understand (Drivers of Strategic Change, 2015).

Change process

Change is a process. Change has never been instantaneous as most people think. Most people confuse the marker that initiate the change process for the change itself. For instance, people think that change occurs immediately after an announcement is made, or after one receives an email, or training. All of these are just but the beginning of what might be a short or long process of change. During the change process. One abandons the culture of knowledge as he /she knew it, and starts transitioning to the new actualities until eventually, the change sinks in and the person completely adopts the change (Armenakis, 1997).

The best way to see change as a process is by breaking it down into three states. The current, the transition and the future state. The current state stands for how things are at the moment. This is before the introduction of the change. This is the daily organizational routine without any alterations. This state is known. The transitional state is very unpredictable and is subject to change at any given time. The emotions involved in this state include anger, fear, anxiety and relief. This stage needs acceptance and patience as even productivity drops. This state is challenging. The future state is the anticipated state. The managers usually hope that the future is better than the current state. This state is never clearly defined. The outcome might not be as expected. The future state, is unknown (Armenakis, 1997).

Theories E of Change and Theories O of Change

Any organization’s success is dependent on two theories, theory E and theory O. importantly when dealing with failure and organizational transitions the two theories are useful as they guide on how to change effectively the organizational staff. More so, to reduce the human carnage and increase the chance of success, it is vital to understand the two theories.

Theory E has a major focus on structure and systems; however it is intertwined with another part of a business environment. The theory has a major purpose of ensuring that the organizations economic value which are normally viewed as the shareholder value is well generated. Formal Structure and systems become the major foundation programmatic change and planning, which are the major approaches that are used.

Theory O is mainly viewed at an organizational culture point of view; the theory argues that Organizational learning is an essential Human capability and a builder of corporate culture when the organization is aimed at growing through a change of strategies. The theory is dependent on the guarantee that change is not stagnant but rather emergent and continuous. It is based on the purpose of developing the human experience and capability so that the output can be important to the organizations development.

To have an organization that can overcome barriers to success, both theories, E and O must be combined, but it must be done carefully as the poor combination can lead to an unstable company. The combination is normally done by sequencing the two theories through “getting rid” of some units as well as having a substantial downsizing theory E. On the other hand, the initiatives to change the organizational culture follow which are mainly sourced from theory O, by looking at the open communication and feedback. At the end of considerations, the following dimension of change should be visible.

Goals; they should be able to embrace the absurdity between organizational capabilities and economic value.

Leadership; It should be able to engage people as well as set direction from the top.

Focus; should consider both corporate culture and structure and systems.

Process; it should plan for impulsiveness.

Reward system; they should not drive change but rather use incentives to reinforce it.

Leadership as a Complex Process

Assessing ones environment, particularly in leadership is an essential practice as it helps to know where one is starting, as most experts argue that leaders cannot achieve the set goals if the direction is not clear (Van Wart, 2008). Furthermore, a closer look of the current organization and how effective is essential especially when the process used is weak, in short a difficult process needs at identifying the major process of the company’ effectiveness. One’s limitation or constraints should also be thoroughly assessed, as they are vital in ensuring underachievement’s, missteps, and excessive frustrations are minimized.

Van Wart (2008) argues that complexity in leadership is ignited by the anticipated skills and traits that leaders must have. It is essential for leaders to develop and utilize natural talents and then refine the secondary acquired skills to an intelligible collection of leadership characteristics before they take any action. The traits include emotional maturity, integrity, the need for achievement, flexibility, energy, and self-confidence. The most common skills include the aptitude of having an exceptional communication, negotiate and influence, and unlimited learning triangle. Integrity important as it brings about honest exchanging of information and issues reporting between employees and top leaders, furthermore, effective communication are the basis of employee motivation and morale booster, which leads to increased productivity.

Nevertheless, the style of command in leadership should not be monotonous, but rather should be improved depending on the situation being addressed (Van Wart, 2008). This should not be taught but rather should be like an inter-personal character embedded in every leader. Even when a leader cannot change the style of command, he/she should be able to know the right and most effective judgment based on the skills and the outcome of the result to the organization. Experts argue that it is hard for a leader to master a single style, as it would require a sophisticated process and a lot of studies and continuous practice.

Transformational Theories of Leadership

Srivastava (2003) argues that productive organizational performance has increasingly become an important aspect of most organizations and to achieve it leaders should strategize the best approach to ensure that employees go beyond what their task requires. As a result of the the transformational theory reveals that the need to have workers go “beyond their task,” has led to the concept of having special kind of leadership that involves all organization department and leadership levels work together to bring the change. It requires leaders not only to stick to their acquired skills but also be, thoughtful thinkers, risk takers, daring, inspiring, and visionary. Having the charismatic appeal is essential but not enough to qualify effectively leaders to work alone, it also demand leaders to be have a transformational leadership as well as embrace the “full range theory”.

Charismatic leadership; it is a type of leadership where the expertise or power is mainly dependent on the attractiveness or charisma portrayed by the leader (Srivastava, 2003). The leadership is most realistic when leaders can practice what they teach employees to do. It is where leaders act as role models resulting to followers seeking to emulate them, through expressing high ethical standards, the sacrifice of their personal interests, and more.

Transformational leadership; Srivastava (2003) argues that the type of leadership can be identified as the one through which leaders work closely with their followers, the leaders motivate employees and use them as the main foundation or need-of-change identifiers; the leadership ensures employees are provided with a proper sense of challenge and meaning.

Full range theory; It is viewed inside the transformational leadership and normally viewed as the major morale and motivation booster by linking the employees perception of individuality in a particular project to the collective aim of the organization. Transformational leadership and charismatic leadership are among the two out of four essential merits of a good leader that are included in a broader explosion of the theory. However, today’s leadership has deteriorated regarding performance and service delivery, the distance and cultural difference between the employees and leadership team have ignited the increase of low motivated and low morale employees (Srivastava, 2003). More so, most of the today leaders value employees on the academic basis with a notion that they will perform and underestimate the power of linking their personal abilities with the organizational objectives.

Systems Thinking

Systemic thinking is mostly discussed under systems theory as explained by Peter Senge’s approach in his piece “The Fifth Discipline”. In simple words, system thinking is defined as the conceptual framework, tools and the body of knowledge that aims at making full patterns clearer and assists in ensuring they are changed effectively (Forlizzi, 2011). Also, system thinking ensures fully examined interrelationship between the parts work well with the capability of fully addressing and comprehension of the theory perception. It is important in both the organizational performance and individuals to company relation. People can look further than their actions, and their outcomes based on their immediate context as well as appreciate the impacts that they bring to their counterparts (and vice versa). By doing so, individuals develop a more effective understanding between them, an activity that can result in more effective organizational models.

Evidently system thinking is focused on the long-term view. It insists importance of having a complete consideration of delays and feedback loops (Forlizzi, 2011). The feedback loops in organizations are designed to ensure that the learning process is fully utilized, and the outcomes are maximized. Also, delays are considered as they are the foundations that drive followers or employees to develop patience as they focus their energies. Considering the two sets a strong foundation that is essential in shaping the mental models and focusing on the creation of shared visions.

Forlizzi (2011), System thinking uses maps and diagram as essential tools to conceptualize ideas and visually show the flow or interrelationship between one process and the others. The process involves, first understanding the problem and developing it in a more than the normal theoretical simple way. The leaders or the staff then goes deep into the question and conceptualize best methods to represent it using maps or diagrams.

System thinking is composed of numerous elements, and they are all connected in one way or another. They range from, knowing interconnection to testing the policies (Forlizzi, 2011). All these components are not independent but rather require each other for them to complete successfully their obligations, therefore describing how close they are interconnected.

The shift of mind of seeing the world a new is what individuals require (Forlizzi, 2011). The shift is essential when a more promising and real originality of the fact and model is required. The process takes complexity especially when learning from different perspectives is put into consideration, the learning complexity is never insufficient, and the participants involved are still declared to “have a poor understanding.”

System Thinking Archetype

Thinking archetypes can be perceived as the operational perspectives through which balancing and reinforcing structures were developed. They are majorly the elaborations of Senge’s (1990) work. Here are some detailed description and examples of some archetypes.

Limits to growth; the structure that is commonly used to describe the archetype is composed of a reinforcing loop and development of which; balancing loop is the main offset after a success is identified. There is an interaction of the current state with the growing action, which results to a well promoted growing action (Forlizzi, 2011). However, a slowing action is experienced when the current state interacts with the limiting state.

Shifting the burden; Forlizzi (2011) suggests that the shifting burden operates under, reinforcing loop and two balancing loops. Evidently, both the structures end up moving the system in the undesired direction, as the two balancing loops behave as like they are one loop which ends up migrating the situation to the same direction as the reinforcing loop. Due to the behavior, the system is perceived to be annoying as the symptomatic solution results to a side effect that was not intended.

Escalation; In this structure, there is a single reinforcing loop which is created by two interacting balancing loops. For instance, assuming we have two results, termed Result of A and Relative to B, with the loops moving on opposite directions., and both A and B have separate actions. It means then that Action by B is influenced by positive change of the Results of A relative to B. On the other hand, results of A relative to B are reduced as B’s result increase. Simply, the parties are involving in threatening activities which intensify their retaliation as they attempt to up each other (Forlizzi, 2011).

Success to successful; according to Forlizzi (2011), the structure is different from the above as it is buildup of a pair of reinforcing loops which function as a single reinforcing loop. In short, the structure’s two or more efforts are placed in a competition of a one finite resource. There is an excessively enormous resource distribution to damage of others as the efforts become more successful.

Fixes that fail; the structure is evident when an urgent problem occurs, and there is an immediate solution that is applied to curb it. One setback of the structure is that the quick fixes are not so accurate, and they mainly result to consequences that are not palpable at first, but they accumulate to the symptoms. For instance, when explained in loops dimension, it contains reinforcing loop and balancing loop (Forlizzi, 2011). And their actions are in a way that the results are produced by the balancing loop.

Culture and Change

Culture and change can be defined by separating the two terms. According to Nohria, & Beer (2000), culture is a certain kind of a shared norms and values that brings or drives certain behaviors. Change is the act of continually becoming different from the earlier change. Adaptive cultures can therefore be viewed as those systems or elements that encourage.

Adaptive culture; Nohria, & Beer (2000) view the terms as the values that can make, say cultural awareness and values to be more visible , when they are more noticeable then they are adaptable, achieving such limpidity is known as adaptive culture. Discussed below are six values and assumptions that can foster a more adaptive culture in an organization (Nohria, & Beer, 2000).

The legitimacy of multiple stakeholders; as described in the continuity of stakeholders theory, adaptive culture, and positive organizational change are dependent on how the organization involves their stakeholders at different levels of decision-making. The involvement should help me more practical and less passive as the stakeholders are major contributors to how the entire staff behaves and react to matters (Nohria, & Beer, 2000).

The motivation and development of potential people; it is a value that fosters the employees performance and morale levels. Experts argue that happy employees are more productive and careful not to violate organizational ethics. Motivated people mostly develop positive work culture and attitude which end up positively changing the organizational performance.

Performance expectation; it is normally argued to be derived from, actions and behaviors combined with the outcomes (Nohria, & Beer, 2000). Importantly, employees or the staff should know what they are expected to do in their respective organizations. They should depict the ability to know more than what is in the job description, for example, most organizations will assume employees know how to behave during certain activities, like meetings.

Employees participation; it is a process in which decision-making processes are not independent to leaders or managers only, but rather employees are involved (Nohria, & Beer, 2000). Experts argue that doing so encourages and builds an honest and transparency environment, more so, it encourages employees to be submissive to their duties as they were part of designing policies and decisions regarding actions taken to poorly performing employees.

Learning; Change is derived from a continuous learning process, business organizational structures keep changing and only through learning that leaders, employees, and managers can transform from belief to sustainable knowledge (Nohria, & Beer, 2000). Besides, learning enables staff to go beyond beliefs and assumptions to a process of knowing the root that recognizes them.

Diversity; Adaptive culture constitutes of a transformative process or change and organization should embrace the different cultures and thoughts that they perceive. It is evident that an environment where people embrace diversity, people relate well and respect each other as well (Nohria, & Beer, 2000).

Reengineering Process in an Organization

Sun, & Li (2011) define business reengineering as the process of reconstructing the normal business processes so that to achieve a change in one or different determinants of business performance. It is normally achieved by going back to the basics and performs a total reinvention rather than concentrating on improvements. Below is the most accepted process of business reengineering.

Reengineering process description (Sun, & Li, 2011)

• Requires organizing outcomes rather than changing the tasks. Focus on the customers views rather that affecting their schedules.
• Outline all the organizations process and arrange them in order of urgency. Can be achieved by knowing the process that the company uses to know customers reaction, for example, adverts, customer care.
• Assimilate the main of information with the information processing work. Take their response and compare with the change process, is it effective?
• Consider the geographically diverse resources like they were consolidated. Take into account whether how customers can be brought closer to the business and how it will affect performance.
• Not only integrate results of parallel activities but also link them to the work flow.
• Ensure that the decision point and place of work performance are close, so that to have effective process control. Measure the output of the new process.
• Use the source to capture the information.