strategic management

Here is the Homework questions. Our team is focusing on “Dollar Tree company”.

4. Strategic Problems and Priorities (no more than one and a half pages) 4.1. Problem Statements Based on the summary findings of the strategic analysis, briefly list the top three strategic issues/problems/ opportunities/challenges revealed by the SWOT analysis, and the VRIS strategic assessment. Think strategically: what are the most critical and fundamental issues the company needs to grapple with to obtain and/or sustain a competitive advantage? Make sure the problem/issue statements are focused, concise, clear, and well written. Each problem statement should be communicated in one sentence and written in italics to make it easy to see. When writing each problem statement, please keep the following in mind: BAD problem statements are not firm-specific, meaning they are generic and could be said about any company. Moreover, problems like poor profitability and limited market share are often symptoms of more fundamental issues such as poor R&D, bad customer service, failing to leverage company resources/capabilities, improper management, etc.

• Bad Example

#1: ABC Inc. needs to internationalize to increase its market share. (This statement is superficial and not firm-specific.)

• Bad Example

#2: ADAMS Division of ACME Corp needs to increase profits or sales. (This statement identifies a symptom of a problem, not the problem itself.) GOOD examples of business-level problem statements are detailed and firm-specific:

• Good Example

#1: BETA Corp has failed to exploit its strong marketing capabilities to target college students with their digital notepad products, which convert pen-and-paper notes into digital format, resulting in severe declines in new and repeat sales from the college segment over the past five years. • Good Example

#2: The central problem with GAMMA Inc. is that its production facilities are geared for small, niche jobs in support of its product differentiation strategy despite the fact that the industry environment—especially intense rivalry—is generally better suited to a low-cost leadership strategy. Once listed, briefly discuss each problem statement. Use very specific information, facts, data, etc. to convey the relevance, significance, and importance of the problems/issues. Again, be as specific as possible—no vague or generic commentary here. For each statement, discuss the following: What is the magnitude of the problem? Is the problem/issue major or minor? Is the problem part of a bigger problem? Is the problem/issue “stand alone” or is it intertwined with more fundamental factors/problems/issues inside or outside the company? What happens if the problem/issue is ignored? If the problem/issue is inadequately resolved, are we talking about the end of the company as we know it or would it be a minor setback? (NOTE: the bigger the problem/issue, the more interesting and engaging the project will be.)

4.2. Strategic Priority Now look over your list of problem statements. Clearly state which of the core problem statements from the above list is the single most important problem/issue/challenge/opportunity for the company to address or resolve? Clearly explain why this is the strategic priority for the company. By the way, if you are convinced that your company is very well run and faces no major problems (this has to be justified), focus on any future problems/issues indicated by your situation analysis. Your problem statements should discuss any future problems/issues/opportunities/challenges the company will have to deal with to maintain its competitive advantage. Remember, no company—no matter how successful—can keep doing the same thing and remain competitive. Stated differently, "If it isn't broken, don't fix it" is not a valid conclusion for the strategic plan.

4.1+4.2 maximum 1.5pages single space

My idea:

4.1 a) One strategic problem I can think of is that one dollar policy is not sustainable because of the tariff policy and tariff war between china and US.

b) family dollar has been a drag on dollar tree’s earnings ?

c) ??

4.2 you can focus on tariff

This essay should be based on the SWOT analysis and so here is the

the SWOT analysis of our team

Strength:

Dollar Tree top resources strengths are their location selection, the unique experience of their executive group member, and their brand. They choose their stores location beside the Walmart, which need enormous funds to support. Their unique experience and brand build are not easy to imitate, it need time,money and chance. The top capability are their relationship with suppliers, reputation and advertising input. The relationship need much time and money to maintain. Dollar Tree has their own reputation had experienced half of century, the value cannot be estimated. They can put 1 billion on their advertising, which also a huge amounts for most of the discount retailers, even some of them can afford these money, but they have no channel to do the advertising.

Weakness:

Their product for selling and strategies to select a location are easy to learn by other competitors. Their capability weakness of Dollar Tree is even they has a complete training program, which are easy to steal by competitors, because they afford for every new employees. The selling products for Dollar Tree are just for cheap, so it easy to step into this market, if competitors can find more cheap goods. Dollar tree is less input on Product/Technology development, if a competitor pay more attention on it, it will easy to exceed.

Opportunities:

Due to trade War., the increase of tariff between China and U.S brings about more difficult to enter discount retailer market, which reduce the rivalry within the discount market. The higher tariff will also lead to some discount retailers companies bankrupt, Dollar Tree will have more chances to pick up a better location for their stores. In addition, trade war will help Dollar Tree transformation, they have more chance to learn other market in different countries.

Threats:

Dollar Tree has 42% goods import from other countries, and most of the commodities was imported from China, so the increase of tariff will increase their cost of import goods, and then lead to more expensive on their selling product. Even the value of U.S currency increase, but it still not exceed the increase of 10% tariff (cnbc.com). Beyond that, the trade war will hurt the relationship between chinese suppliers and Dollar Tree, which will limit the development of Dollar Tree in China.

Expect for the trade war negative influence, the raise of minimum wages will also be a threat for Dollar Tree in long term, because they have to pay more on employee wages in the future, it means their cost will increase, they are difficult to keep their goods in one dollar forever.