Resource: Implementation, Strategic Controls, and Contingency Plans assignment with facilitator feedback

Kizell Brown III (KB)

STR / 581

August 30, 2015

Professor Brian Rowland

The strategic plan is necessary for an organization because it serves as a guideline on how they carry out activities to ensure that, core organizational values, vision, and mission are realized (Pearce & Robinson, 2005). In this case, the core elements of strategic plan that will be discussed regarding ConAgra Foods company are the implementation plan, changes in the management to ensure that this strategy is successfully implemented; creation of budget and forecasted financial statements. And finally, for the risks that will be identified; a risk management and contingency plans will be developed.

Implementation Plan

Since ConAgra Foods Company has several smaller companies working under the umbrella group; there should be a way in which the new strategic plan will be communicated to all enterprises so that everyone will be striving towards attainment of the common goals. A circular containing the new strategies will be disseminated to all companies. The managers will be responsible for explaining what is included in the strategic plan and the methodologies that will be used in implementing the strategic plan.

The primary objective of coming up with the implementation plan is to make sure that, the strategic plan of the organization is implemented in a manner that is aligned with goals and core values of the organization. With this, since employees play a significant role in the achievement of strategies, they need to be enlightened on the function tactics and action items contained in the strategic plan. Teamwork will be much emphasized during the implementation of the strategic plan. The other objectives of coming up with the implementation plan are; awareness of all parties concerned, and setting up of feasible priorities and goals to be achieved within a specific timeframe (Dess, 2012).

As mentioned earlier, employees are the integral pillars of an organization, and thus their job satisfaction will determine if the organization will realize its goals or not. In this regard, therefore, a functional tactic of ensuring that employees are compensated for their hard work will be included in the strategic plan. The best performers will receive rewards in the form of payoff, bonuses, awards, trips to prestigious places while mediocre workers will not receive any rewards. This will be a way of communicating to employees that ConAgra Foods Company acknowledges their contributions towards growth, success and achievement strategic goals of the company (Dess, 2012).

The new strategic plan will have action items that need to be accomplished. First, there will be rigorous recruitment process of employees that will be carried out by a human resource management department. This is because the company is anticipating to expand its business to other regions by establishing new firms in those areas, and therefore, it needs the human resource to manage these new businesses. Recruitment process will be done based on merit, and only the highly qualified and experienced will be selected and employed. During this process recruits from the regions where the company will be established will highly be considered for employment, this business strategy will be used for the enterprise to gain recognition in those regions. Second, there will be intensive training for both the newly employed and the current employees; this is aimed at ensuring that the employees are well versed with the strategies of the company. The responsible people for carrying out this training are those from the strategic team; made up of heads of each department and their assistants. Another action item is purchasing of the of the new transportation equipment for ConAgra Foods Company, to gather for the increased products that need to be transported to the market (Dess, 2012).

Decision-making will be highly centralized, whereby all changes and actions completed will come from the executive, and tasks divided amongst employees. Every employee will be responsible for carrying out an individual work to completion. These tasks will be assigned to employees by the head of each department and his assistant, the tasks will be ensured that they are consistent with the strategic goals. The workers will be made to understand that it is their duty and responsibility to carry out any given task to completion, and thus they own the job.

The resources will be allocated to each department depending on what activities they are to carry out to meet the strategic goals. A lot of financial resources will be allocated to contractors of the new firms. Also, the inventory department will receive a fair share of financial resources; to purchase the necessary equipment required for implementation of the strategic plan. Human resource department will also receive an increased budget to meet the demands of the restructured compensation technique. In a nutshell, the distribution of the resources will be carried out in a manner that reflect the workload of each department.

In any strategic plan, there is need to set deadlines and milestones, and thus ConAgra Foods Company is no exception. There will be deadlines for carrying out each task. This is meant to ensure that the tasks needed for the achievement of the strategic goals are done within a given specified timeframe. Precisely, this strategic plan is set to begin on October 2015 and end on October 2016. There will be a quarterly assessment of achievements within this period. The need for performance measurement is to ensure that; tasks are being executed as it is stipulated, and any mishap is rectified as soon as possible before it escalates. Another reason for this is to ensure that each milestone is achieved as it was planned since the strategic goals will be broken down into feasible milestones that need to be accomplished bit by bit. If all this are done; it is projected that ,by the end of October 2016 ConAgra Foods Company among other things will have expanded its business venture to other regions of the world and running its business smoothly, and above all, being the leader among its competitors (Dess, 2012).

Organizational Change to Enhance Successful Implementation

There will be restructuring of the executive powers. The executive powers and decisions will not be vested in one body as initially been. This is because the establishment of the new firms in other countries means that, these companies will be subjected to different environments and regulatory procedures that are different from those operating in the USA. Therefore, each company from countries other than The US will have a different executive body who will ensure that the enterprise conducts its business as per the strategic goals. This organizational change, on the other hand, has the advantage of close monitoring and supervision of the company by the executive.

Key Success Factors

There are critical success factors that are required for the implementation of the strategic plan. There should be an effective channel of communication. The set of strategic objectives should be well communicated from the top management to the lower level of employees. This will make sure that the management and employees are on the same page in striving to achieve organizational goals. Equally important, the executive should come up with feasible strategic objectives that can easily be understood and implemented by the employees. Another crucial success factor is, the middle-level managers should be held responsible for their omissions and commissions; this is meant to ensure that the decisions they make regarding their job is aligned with the company’s vision and mission; this will regularly be checked by the executive (Williams, 2009).

Budget and Forecasted Financial Statements

This forecasted financial statement shows that the company’s net income has been increasing for the past two years. And with the implementation of the market development and cost leadership strategies it is even expected that the net revenue will almost double that of the previous years at the end of the fiscal year 2016. Though, the budget expense has also been increasing, it has not negatively impacted on the profits generated.

The implementation of the new strategies requires an increase in capital expenditure, but for it to become a viable venture; the profits generated forecast to grow even further.

Break-Even chart table