Date: March 18, 2022
To: Steve Wilford, President
From: Joe Rousseau, Business Consultant
Subject: Strategic Plan
Please see the following answers to the questions posted regarding the 10-year
strategic plan for Pauls Discount Tire & Repair:
A. What is wrong with this strategy?
The strategic plan lacks in specifics. f The basic message taken from the proposed
strategy is that business continues as usual and is really not a strategy. f The
business has grown well using the current model however a strategy will require
more specific steps that must be followed to gain success (Mastering Strategic
Management, 2014, p.8). Those could often take the form of one of five possible
activities, known as the 5 P’s, of a plan, a ploy, a pattern, a position, or a
perspective (Mastering Strategic Management, 2014, p.6). f The strategy lacks a
vision for all employees to work toward to collectively gain success (Mastering
Strategic Management, 2014, p. 40).
B. What is right about this strategy?
The strategy provides a great basis for creating a vision and strategy for the
company however this it remains incomplete. f The current plan could be viewed
more as a business model which will be a key aspect to developing a successful
plan (Mastering Strategic Management, 2014, p. 8). f The strategy itself is solid but
lacks depth and the business model could easily be used to develop SMART goals
(specific, measurable, aggressive, realistic, and time-bound) (Mastering Strategic
Management, 2014, p. 43-44) to help motivate employees towards the success of
the strategy.
C. Will Paul’s maintain their competitive advantage with this strategy?
As the strategy is currently written, Paul’s could maintain their competitive
advantage due to their current realized strategy (Mastering Strategic Management,
2014, p. 20). f The market has been relatively stable and predictable over time
(Mastering Strategic Management, 2014, p.17) and this is working for Paul’s.
However, Paul’s must be constantly watching external factors when creating a
strategy (Mastering Strategic Management, 2014, p.33) and the pandemic has
shown that sticking to the core values and cutting costs may not be enough. f
Customers are expecting greater levels of service as well as higher standards of
protection when waiting for car repairs to be performed.
f f f D. f What is one thing that could be done to improve this strategy?
One thing that could be done would be to turn that business model into an
actionable plan. f The model is currently to “beat its competitors by providing the
lowest price discount tires, vehicle repairs, exceptional customer service, and
quality work.” f The strategy can be formulated to specific actions that would define
how this would be done. f The lowest price can be done by price matching for equal
products and services. f Exceptional customer service could be the focus of an
intended strategy (Mastering Strategic Management, 2014, p.17) to really go the
extra mile by diagnosing certain vehicle problems at the customer’s home. f This
could also include the service to take the car back to the shop, perform the repairs,
and return to the customer. f Quality work could be assured through a guarantee that
if an issue arises this will be taken care of in whatever way is most convenient for
the customer, again in a way that provides the exceptional customer service
mentioned above. f A return visit due to an error by an employee should be as easy
for them as possible and include the pickup service if requested. f These levels of
service must remain flexible (Mastering Strategic Management, 2014, p. 9) to
changing customer demands. f
Reference
Mastering Strategic Management. (2014). Adapted by the Saylor Foundation under
a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-sharealike 3.0 license.
