Editing paper Unit 10: The Strategic Plan
sunolk
lbellmt460unit10-final_project.pptxBusiness Strategic Plan
Latisha Bell
Kaplan University
MT460- Final Project :The Strategic Plan
Introduction
Businesses usually require strategic plans in order to manage market competition.
This calls for proper planning by the management team so as to achieve the planned.
This is usually done through a strategic plan document.
This is a document that is used to communicate the goals and actions needed to achieve them (Capon, Farley & Hulbert, 1987).
This document features Walmart stores for the strategic plan case.
To successfully implement a strategic plan, a corporate should define clearly their mission, vision, objectives , actions and strategies.
This helps the corporate produce a blueprint of what they are expecting to plan.
The above are mainly the cornerstones of strategic planning.
This is because if an organization clearly defines its vision, mission, objectives, strategies and actions, then it will be capable on focusing on short goals while still implementing the short goals.
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Background Information
Walmart is one of the r known retail giants in the world.
Walmart is a retail store that deals with a wide range of home use and general use items.
These product categories range form groceries to drugs and many more other general use items.
Its customers are generally the common people and citizens of the stores environs.
Walmart is distributed in different countries making it a common and popular brand.
Walmart is a brand that has a large client base.
It has existence in around 28 countries with 11,500 stores in operation.
The key strategic model used by Walmart is that they target on improving their consumers’ experience.
This has been achieved by offering services at consumer friendly retail prizes.
Through Walmart's journey, the brand has observed a great portion of success.
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Vision and Mission
Vision:
To be the best retailer in the hearts and minds of consumers and employees.
Mission:
Saving people money so they can live better.
Philosophy:
If we work together, we’ll lower the cost of living for everyone…we’ll give the world an opportunity to see what it’s like to save and have a better life.
The company’s vision aims at attracting its customers through winning their hearts with the best retail services ever.
The company’s mission aims at saving the customers money by offering the best retail services through subsidized offers.
This shows that Walmart keeps the value of integrity in its core business values.
The other value can be seen from Walmart’s philosophy that encourages teamwork.
This shows that team work is also a core business value for Walmart
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Leadership and organizational culture
Walmart’s success strategy is based on the Porter’s Model.
It keeps is generic strategic based on cost leadership.
The organization aims at keeping their product and service prices low.
It has been greatly known for offering market subsidized prices for its products.
This becomes that main selling point of the organization.
Since the Porter’s model is based on controlling the costs while beating the competitors, Walmart has extensively used this by integrating technology in its survives.
By using information technology in a retail business, operational efficiency is expected.
This is through its online purchasing portal.
This in turn increases the client base by beating the limitation of physical boundary.
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Social responsibility
The company aims at creating and building a strong economic opportunity to the business ecosystem.
It aims a t creating a rich lifestyle for the business workers who operate with Walmart
Walmart also aims at abuilding a strong inter-community relationship in its areas of operation.
Walmart also aims at providing retail services at the least affordable price to all consumers.
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External Analysis
Economic – Walmart’s revenue and store have increased in the past few years showing that the company is fairing well economically (Corporate.walmart.com, 2016).
Political – Walmart has been associated with different legal cases. This has led to a tainted reputation since most of its cases relate to discrimination and even poor working conditions.
Global - through multilateral and bilateral free trade agreements the organization’s market has greatly flourished.
Technological – Walmart is greatly known for its use of e-commerce. This has greatly opened its client base.
Internal Environment
Walmart is a company greatly known for its e-commerce services.
This is one of the key strategic areas that has caused the organization to have such an humungous growth.
One of the internal factors contributing to businesses growth is the use of its shopping cart software.
Through this the company has overcame the barrier of physical business boundaries.
This has helped the company attract a great market share through online services.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Innovation is the key thing that drives entrepreneurship.
Businesses need to provide innovative solution so as to attract customers.
The key thing that has popularized Walmart products is through the use of innovative technology.
One of these is the shopping cart.
This is usually an e-commerce interface that allows the purchase of commodities online hence breaking the physical barrier.
This is one of the innovative technology applied by Walmart when it changed from being only a physical store.
Strategic Analysis and Choice
Grand strategy are strategies that focus more on the business long term expansion goals.
They are more based on optimism rather that cutting costs and surviving in business.
A grand strategy is a more preferred course of action since it focuses on how to exploit greater potentials for growth.
This usually helps a business think of all the possibilities and this usually hatches out a business innovation.
Generic and Grand strategies
Technology is one of the ever growing business fields.
This is the reason why businesses need to invest much on their technological resources.
One of the most common and widely used methods is through increasing online presence. For the case of Walmart, since they already have an online presence, they can increase their productivity by strengthening their current platform.
This can be achieved by offering diverse services and commodities so as to serve a larger market .
Use of technology can also help Walmart reduce its operational costs .
Long Term Objectives and Strategies
Walmart has experienced a huge growth on the technology platform.
This came as a result of Walmart setting its own technological base in silicon valley.
This purposely was to help the retail giant increase its e-commerce sales.
Since technology shifts from day to day, Walmart should consider maximizing its online potential through the use of mobile device.
M-commerce is the rocking trend an this should form the long-term strategy by ensuring that consumers can do their purchases from their hand-held devices.
Short-term Objectives, Functional Tactics, and Implementation
For a goal to be achieved, a step-wise approach should be employed.
M-commerce can be implemented in chunks since it involves a lot of facets.
One way this can be achieved is by targeting the open market that has been presented by smartphones.
This can be done through designing mobile applications that can be downloaded since many people own smartphones.
By doing this, Walmart can greatly increase its current vast market.
Restructuring, Reengineering, and Refocusing
For the current business grand strategy to survive, the business can launch campaigns focusing on the use of M-commerce for its services.
One way of doing this is through enforcing the use of mobile money for international transactions.
The other way is by availing mobile applications to the users free of charge since if this gains stability then the company will reap vastly.
For this to be achieved successfully, the company should outsource the technical part of the strategy development from well experienced experts.
This will help in preventing project shortcomings.
References
Capon, N., Farley, J., & Hulbert, J. (1987). Corporate strategic planning. New York: Columbia University Press.
Cole, J. (2005). Using Moodle. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Community Press.
