Signature Assignment: Strategic Plan - Implementation Plan, Strategic Controls, and Contingency Plan Analysis

The significant components of strategic management include; conducting internal and external analysis which will be a guideline in setting up the vision, mission, strategies; Scanning the business environment; strategic formation; implementation of strategy and strategic evaluation the process follows POLC (planning, organization, leading and controlling)

Strategic management process

Hitt et al. (2014/01/01) state that the strategic management process is a phase whereby an organization has a full set of commitments, decision making, and actions that are detrimental for the firm’s ability to achieve strategic competitiveness and high revenues. Therefore, the organization needs to conduct both internal and external analyses to determine the firm’s resources competencies and capabilities thereof strategy will be based. The information gathered from the analysis will be used in formulating the firm’s vision, mission, and strategies.

The strategic management process begins by identifying the mission and vision of the organization and afterward setting attainable short-term goals, which will be the building blocks for the long-term objectives that align with the mission and vision of the company. Therefore, the mission and the vision statements of the company create a broader guideline for the organization.

Scanning the business environment by conducting the SWOT and PEST analysis is an important strategic tool to understand the intricacies of the business environment. Hitt al et explains the importance of understanding the business landscape; with challenging emergence of global economy and globalization, dynamic changes in market trends and the ever-changing technological innovations (Hitt, 2014/01/01) in the recent years business paradigms have shifted to sustainability; the challenges that have arisen in the recent years comprises of significant challenges associated with the environment, economic and social issues. Consumers are aware that natural resources are getting depleted, the rise in global poverty, climate changes, and economic injustices (Fairbrass, 2012).

The strategic formation is a phase where organizations decide on what actions to choose from multitudes available. These choices are carefully selected and deliberated; they are a product of the SWOT analysis influenced by the external analysis. Therefore, the main objective that spearheads an effective formulated strategy that marshals, integrates, and allocates organization resources, core competencies, and capabilities to align with the organization's vision and mission statement. A successful strategy will rationalize a firm’s vision and mission and actions taken to achieve them (Hitt, 2014/01/01). Also, while formulating strategies, it is essential to innovate; some corporate innovations include product, process, marketing, and management innovations. Innovations also include new leadership styles, organizational cultures, and commitment that impact employees directly and their willingness to work (Wu et al., 2011).

Strategic implementation is conducted at the organizational level where resources are delegated, human resources training, channel development, and the organizational culture is rectified or modified to suit the strategies; This is the phase where network partners are also involved in maximizing benefits.

Major Components of the Strategic Management Process for Southwest Airlines

Strategic management process for Southwest Airlines include environmental scanning, strategy implementation, formulations, and evaluation. Rothaermel (2015)South West airlines analyze relevant internal and external determinants of the firm through feed backs, reviews, information understudy, and scrutiny. Also, by conducting the analysis, the company is able to improve its services and conform to the market trends continually.

Strategic formulation

Southwest airlines prioritize its objectives and SMART goals by ensuring that their services are delivered as promised; that is, their services are rendered by a stipulated timeline with the highest efficiency and effectiveness. The strategy formulation of the company is following the environmental scanning After completing environment scanning, the strategic managers formulate functional strategy, corporate strategy, and business strategy, in order to enable the company to achieve the strategic goals and objectives (Rothaermel, 2015).

strategy implementation,

At strategy implementation, strategic managers, together with relevant stakeholders, create the organizational structure of the company, allocate and distribute resources, the design process of making decisions, and manage HR resources.

Strategic Evaluation

The last step of the strategic management process is strategy evaluation. POLC(planning, organizing, Leading, and controlling) is applied at this point; This the point the feedback, reviews, and other reports are scrutinized in-depth in relation to the strategies used. The company compares the anticipated results with actual results and mitigates to ensure that the strategic process is gearing towards the intended results for its goals and objectives. A strategy evaluation, strategic managers, use performance metrics to evaluate the entire strategy (Rothaermel, 2015). Some of the performance metrics used by the strategic managers include employee satisfaction, turnover rate, employee retention, and quality of services delivered by employees.

When undertaking a strategy evaluation, the loyalty of the human capital is an important metric used to evaluate the success of the Strategic Management Process. To measure the loyalty of the customers, purchase ratio, upselling ratio, customer loyalty index, customer engagement numbers, and net promoter score are effective methods (Rothaermel, 2015). The purchase ratio involves measuring the ratio of repeat purchases over one-time purchasers. Upselling ratio involves calculating customers who have sought services for more than one type of product divided by customers who have sought for service only one. The customer loyalty index incorporates values of repurchasing, NPS, and upselling to evaluate customer loyalty.

How Strategic Management Process Components Create Value

Proper integration of f Strategic Management Process components helps in creating value. Through proper environment scanning, the company is in a position to understand the negative external and internal factors that inhibits the progress of the company and work towards correcting those negative triggers. As a result, it enables the company to innovate its service delivery to the customers (Scarborough, 2015). When there is a proper environment scanning, it makes it easier to undertake strategy formulation and implementation. As a result, it enhances a proper design of the course of actions that help to improve quality. When strategic managers undertake a proper strategy evaluation, it makes it easier to concentrate on value elements such as the safety of services, efficiency, and effectiveness (time management).

Southwest Airlines Summary

The mission statements

The mission statement of Southwest Airlines is "dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit" (Southwest Airlines, n.d). To improve on the quality of service delivery as stated in the mission statement, the company focuses on staff training in order to create awareness of how to offer quality services that boost the level of satisfaction of the customers.

The vision statements

The vision statement of Southwest Airlines is "To become the world's most loved, most flown, and most profitable airline." (Southwest Airlines, n.d)

According to the CEO of the company, the vision of the company is achieved by "providing employees with a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth" (Southwest Airlines, n.d). The CEO believes in creating a conducive work environment by providing equal opportunities for learning, and individual growth nurtures the spirit and teamwork that is grounded in social cohesiveness; human capital is the driving force for-profit motives of the company.

SouthWest airlines have incentives, benefits, free-flying passes. Also, employees have the opportunity of getting a stock purchase plan. Southwest Airlines has been ranked as one of the best companies in staff retention with the lowest turnover rate. The company's organizational cultures are grounded on improving service delivery to its customers. The people strategy of Southwest Airlines is to improve the livelihood of primary stakeholders such as customers, employees, investors, and communities.

Role of Ethics and Corporate, Social Responsibility in Strategic Planning

At Southwest Airlines, ethics and corporate social responsibilities are the compasses that assist the company to focus on the demands, aspirations, and plans of the primary stakeholders. Therefore, it gravitates to the company to make with the stakeholders' interest at heart while delivering the promises made to the customers. Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility assists the company to deliver informed decisions without neglecting corporate and business strategies (Scarborough, 2016). Also, ethics helps to leverage positive inputs of employees during strategic planning. Hence, it improves the credibility, reliability, and effectiveness of the entire strategic plan.

Ethics and corporate social responsibilities spearhead Southwest Airlines into implementing a strategic plan for moral values, respect to diversity, and principles of the society and the company; also, help in acknowledging the societal expectations and values of the primary stakeholders (Rosemann & vom Brocke, 2015). SouthWest achieves this by being transparent to its stakeholders on the changes and trends in the strategic plan and therefore increasing the credibility of the entire strategic plan.

References

Fairbrass, J., & Zueva-owens, A. (2012). Conceptualizing corporate social responsibility: 'relational governance' assessed, augmented, and adapted: JBE JBE. Journal of Business Ethics, 105(3), 321-335. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-0968-9

Hitt, M. A., Ireland, R. D., Hoskisson, R. E. (20140101). Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases: Competitiveness and Globalization, 11th Edition [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from vbk://9781305217188

Rosemann, M., & vom Brocke, J. (2015). The six core elements of business process management. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 105-122). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Rothaermel, F. T. (2015). Strategic management. McGraw-Hill Education.

Scarborough, N. M. (2016). Essentials of entrepreneurship and small business management. Pearson.