BUS 402 Week Three

Ashford 4: - Week 3 (Jun 09 - Jun 15)

Week Three Learning Outcomes This week students will:

· Assess the importance of creating strategic alternatives

· Evaluate strategic-alternative bundles based on certain criteria

· Develop meaningful triggers and contingencies

Overview

Assignment	Due Date	Format	Grading Percent
Strategic - Alternative Bundles	Day 3 (1st post)	Discussion	2.5
Triggers and Contingencies	Day 3 (1st post)	Discussion	2.5

Required Readings

Read the following chapters in Management Strategy Achieving Sustained Competitive Advantage:

· Chapter 6: Creating Strategic-Alternative Bundles

· Chapter 7: Choosing the Best StrategySupport

Recommended Resources

Articles

McLeod, L. E. (2014). Why killing the competition is not a noble purpose . Forbes. Retrieved form http://www.forbes.com/sites/lisaearlemcleod/2014/06/18/why-killing-the-competition-is-not-a-noble-purpose/ Sklar, H. (2011). Risk assessment: The most important effort you’re doing all wrong . Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/howardsklar/2011/11/22/risk-assessments-the-most-important-effort-youre-doing-all-wrong/

Multimedia

Cook, B. (2012, September 24). Strategic alternative analysis [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLLsGRZG4hM

Discussions To participate in the following discussions, go to this week's Discussion link in the left navigation.

1. Strategic-Alternative Bundles [CLOs: 5,6] Through the use of strategic alternatives, companies may compete in a marketplace, achieve its vision, or if no vision has been articulated, decide where it might go and what it might achieve. Strategic alternatives do not consist solely of strategies, but rather bundles. Explain what elements comprise strategic-alternative bundles and why creating more than a few bundles is extraordinary difficult. Describe the six criteria that strategic-alternative bundles should meet and discuss why it is essential that good bundles have addressed all of the key strategic issues. Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ posts in a substantive manner and provide recommendations to extend their thinking. Agree or disagree with your classmate’s post. Defend your position by using information from the text and this week’s lecture.

2. Triggers and Contingencies [CLO: 6] Due to the changing environment and external triggers, contingency planning is necessary. What qualities make a future issue a “trigger”? Consider you are on the strategic planning team for a soft drink company. Here is your company’s future trigger: “merger of our two major competitors next year”. Formulate the three-part trigger/contingency pair. Discuss the three guidelines that good contingency plans should follow. Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ posts in a substantive manner and provide recommendations to extend their thinking. Agree or disagree with your classmate’s post. Defend your position by using information from the text and this week’s lecture.

Weekly Lecture

Strategic Issues

In week two, we learned about how to conduct industry, organizational and market analyses. We were also exposed to the examination of organizational performance, where we learned about the SWOT analysis. In this week, we will explore key issues that organizations face and the possible best alternatives they should adopt to solve their issues.

Strategic issues may be defined as fundamental policies or serious challenges, which must be addressed for an organization to be able to accomplish or achieve its vision. According to (Kader, 2014), strategic management involves managing businesses and projects proactively with a “focus on long-term strategy, rather than reacting to day-to-day hiccups” (p.1). In your opinion, and based on your work experience, what are the itching issues that companies may face? What are the possible solutions that you would recommend to your organization? No company or organization is above strategic issues. Multinationals such as Microsoft were once faced with multiple issues such as improving standing as an innovator and navigating the new internal politics (Bishop, 2014). If left unchecked, strategic issues ruin the progress of an organization through loss of market share, profit margin, and even destruction of the brand.

Identifying strategic issues of an organization is pivotal to delivering the company from potential disaster. According to Abraham (2012), strategic planning may come from both external and internal sources. External issues may include company’s industry, competitors, customers, suppliers, opportunities and threats, and other environmental forces; while the internal strategic issues may be identified as key organizational resources, culture, technology, or strategic decisions that the company must address. It is difficult to deal with strategic issues without discussing the concept of strategic planning. It is an important concept to the success of any business.

Source: http://patimes.org/static-dynamic-choice/strategic-plan-cycle/

Strategic planning defines the objectives of an organization and evaluates the internal and external situation in order to formulate the strategy, implement the strategy, evaluate the progress of the organization and make necessary adjustments to remain on the right path. Once the strategic planning is done, presenting the gathered information is really important. To learn about some tips for preparing a strategic-analysis presentation, check the following link: http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/promo/strategic_planning/tips_for_strategic_analysis_pres.pdf Here is another interesting Forbes article that explains what really needs to be included in a strategic plan: http://www.forbes.com/sites/davelavinsky/2013/10/18/strategic-plan-template-what-to-include/

Creating the best strategic planning and strategic alternatives are major challenges to management. It is therefore important for management to often be engaged in strategic conversations concerning their organizations. According to Abraham (2012, p.188) “strategic alternatives did not consist solely of strategies but rather bundles”. He adds that strategic-alternative bundles may include “strategies, strategic intent, core competence, programs (which are an operational component of a strategy), financing method, geographic scope, and any other element that would help define and clarify a future course of action to an observer” (2012, p.188). It is crucial for organizations to create worthy bundles and to do so they have to look for six criteria to meet when it comes to creating strategic-alternative bundles: “be mutually exclusive (involve either/or decisions); contain significant variety; be feasible; lead to success; challenge the organization’s existing goals, aspirations, long-held assumptions, and beliefs; and have addressed all the strategic issues)” (Abraham, 2012, p.198).

When Starbucks realized dwindling sales in the United Sates market, due to market saturation, it decided to explore foreign markets (Allison, 2010). In order to be successful in the international market, it developed none-coffee products such as Frappuccino. Frappuccino was developed with one aim in mind to satisfy the needs of non-coffee drinking customers world-wide. The result of this alternative strategy was outstanding; the company enjoyed a higher sale and profit margin.

Choosing the Best Business Strategy

Identifying strategic issues and creating alternatives paves ways to the selection of the appropriate criteria for solving the organization’s potential problems. In this ever changing business environment, choosing the best alternative would enable the organization to adapt to these changes. Which alternative would give your organization the highest market share, or technological competiveness? Your choice must be relevant to your organization’s situations. It is necessary for management to have a brainstorm session in order to select the best alternative suitable to solve the organization’s strategic issues.

But, no matter how well they do on choosing the best strategy, it is always a great idea to consider what could potentially go wrong in the future and plan some actions to properly face it. This is called contingency planning for triggers . Great managers and successful organizations have learned to be proactive by developing well-prepared contingency plans for their organizations. Good contingencies should meet three criteria; Abraham (2012) explains that: first, contingencies should not renege on the adopted best strategy or strategic bundle. They should more focus on the operational changes rather than trying to modify the strategy. Second, managers should avoid make contingency as something the company is already doing. It is simply because if it was successful at the first place, it wouldn’t put the company in this situation. Lastly, the contingency should address the problem implied in the trigger and not something that is indirectly related to the trigger. To learn more about risk assessment, contingency planning and its challenges read the below article here: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_51.htm

References:

Abraham, S. (2012). Strategic management for organizations. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education. Allison, M. (2010). Starbucks has a new growth strategy more revenue with lower costs. The Seattle Times. Retrieved from http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2011861321_starbucksstrategy16.html Bishop, T. (2014). The top 5 challenges facing Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella - GeekWire. Retrieved from http://www.geekwire.com/2014/top-5-challenges-facing-microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella/ Kader, M. (2014). Strategic management. Retrieved from https://www.open2study.com/courses/strategic-management

Ashford 4: - Week 3 - Discussion 1

Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses. Reference the Discussion Forum Grading Rubric for guidance on how your discussion will be evaluated.

Strategic-Alternative Bundles [CLOs: 5,6]

Through the use of strategic alternatives, companies may compete in a marketplace, achieve its vision, or if no vision has been articulated, decide where it might go and what it might achieve. Strategic alternatives do not consist solely of strategies, but rather bundles. Explain what elements comprise strategic-alternative bundles and why creating more than a few bundles is extraordinary difficult. Describe the six criteria that strategic-alternative bundles should meet and discuss why it is essential that good bundles have addressed all of the key strategic issues. Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ posts in a substantive manner and provide recommendations to extend their thinking. Agree or disagree with your classmate’s post. Defend your position by using information from the text and this week’s lecture.

Ashford 4: - Week 3 - Discussion 2

Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses. Reference the Discussion Forum Grading Rubric for guidance on how your discussion will be evaluated.

Triggers and Contingencies [CLO: 6]

Due to the changing environment and external triggers, contingency planning is necessary. What qualities make a future issue a “trigger”? Consider you are on the strategic planning team for a soft drink company. Here is your company’s future trigger: “merger of our two major competitors next year”. Formulate the three-part trigger/contingency pair. Discuss the three guidelines that good contingency plans should follow. Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ posts in a substantive manner and provide recommendations to extend their thinking. Agree or disagree with your classmate’s post. Defend your position by using information from the text and this week’s lecture.