QuestionWeek One: Introduction to Strategic

1.2 Create an organizational mission and vision statement.

1.3 Analyze an organization in terms of its structure, culture, and purpose.

1.4 Develop a strategic plan.

Read Ch. 7 of Strategy: Winning in the Marketplace.

Review this week’s Electronic Reserve Readings.

2.1 Analyze the effect of the external and internal environments on the organization’s strategic plan.

Read Ch. 3 of Strategy: Winning in the Marketplace.

Review this week’s Electronic Reserve Readings.

Conceptualizing a Business

· Define the business, products or services, and customers by developing a mission statement. Ensure that you are differentiating your product or service.

· Create a vision for this organization that clearly demonstrates your decision on what you want the business to become in the future.

· Define your guiding principles or values for your selected business considering the topics of culture, social responsibility, and ethics.

· Analyze how the vision, mission, and values guide the organization’s strategic direction.

· Evaluate how the organization addresses customer needs and critique how they achieve competitive advantage.

Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.

Value Alignment

· Analyze the origin(s) and subsequent evolution of the workplace values.

· Analyze the degree of alignment between the organization’s stated values and the organization’s actual plans and actions.

· Explain the differences and analyze the degree of alignment between your values and the organization’s values as reflected by the organization’s plans and actions.

Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.

3.1 Conduct a SWOTT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats, and Trends) analysis.

3.2 Develop strategic objectives.

3.3 Create organizational objectives and goals.

Read Ch. 4 of Strategy: Winning in the Marketplace.

Review this week’s Electronic Reserve Readings.

SWOTT Analysis

Create a SWOTT table summarizing your findings. Your environmental analysis should take into account, at a minimum, the following factors. For each factor, identify the one primary strength, weakness, opportunity, threat, and trend, and include it in your table.

· External forces and trends considerations:

o Legal and regulatory

o Global

o Economic

o Technological

o Innovation

o Social

o Environmental

o Competitive analysis

· Internal forces and trends considerations:

o Strategy

o Structures

o Processes and systems

o Resources

o Goals

o Strategic capabilities

o Culture

o Technologies

o Innovations

o Intellectual property

o Leadership

Write a 750- to 900-word synopsis in which you analyze at least five of the forces and trends from the list above. Your analysis must include the following:

· Include economic as well as legal and regulatory forces and trends.

· Critique how well the organization adapts to change.

· Analyze the supply chain operations of the organization.

· Identify issues and/or opportunities:

o Identify the major issues and/or opportunities that the company faces based on your analysis above.

o Identify the circumstances surrounding each issue; classify the circumstances; attribute the importance of each classification; and test the accuracy of the importance for each classification.

Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.

Financial and Stakeholder Analysis

· Analyze the financial competitiveness of the industry

· Analyze the pricing strategy of the organization.

Analyze the financial health of the organization and identify any changes that need to be made.

· Identify the key stakeholders and their roles needed to achieve the organizational goals, and recommend the collaborative interactions among the key stakeholders to facilitate the organization’s success.

4.1 Recommend an implementation strategy for a strategic plan.

Read Ch. 8 of Strategy: Winning in the Marketplace.

Review this week’s Electronic Reserve Readings.

Balanced Scorecard

Based on the Team Meeting Held in Week 3, Develop the strategic objectives for the business in the format of a balanced scorecard.The strategic objectives are measures of attaining your vision and mission. As you develop them consider the vision, mission, and values for your business and the outcomes of your SWOTT analysis. Consider the following four quadrants of the balanced scorecard when developing your strategic objectives:

· Shareholder Value or Financial Perspective, includes strategic objectives in areas such as:

o Market share

o Revenues and costs

o Profitability

o Competitive position

· Customer Value Perspective, includes strategic objectives in areas such as:

o Customer retention or turnover

o Customer satisfaction

o Customer value

· Process or Internal Operations Perspective, includes strategic objectives in areas such as:

o Measure of process performance

o Productivity or productivity improvement

o Operations metrics

· Learning and Growth (Employee) Perspective, includes strategic objectives in areas such as:

o Employee satisfaction

o Employee turnover or retention

o Level of organizational capability

o Nature of organizational culture or climate

o Technological innovation

Develop at least three strategic objectives for each of the following four balanced scorecard areas identified above (Financial, Customer, Process, Learning and Growth). Your objectives should be selected, in part, based on an evaluation of a number of potential alternatives to the issues and/or opportunities identified in the SWOTT Analysis paper and table you completed in Week Three. Base your solutions on a ranking of alternative solutions that includes an identification of potential risks and mitigation plans, and a stakeholder analysis that includes mitigation and contingency strategies. You should also incorporate the ethical implications of your solutions into your selection.

· For each strategic objective, develop a metric and target using a balanced scorecard format. (For example, a strategic objective in the shareholder or Financial Perspective is to increase market share. A metric to actually measure this strategic objective of market share increase is, “The percentage of increase in market share.” The target is the specific number to be achieved in a particular time period. The target for the metric of “Increase market share” could be “Increase market share by 2% for each of the next 3 years” of an increase of 2% per year for 3 years.)

Write a 700- to 950-word summary that explains your critical thinking on how you derived your objectives from your vision, mission, values, and SWOTT analysis.

Format paper consistent with APA guidelines.

5.1 Develop methods to monitor and control the implementation of a strategic plan.

Review this week’s Electronic Reserve Readings.

Design and Present a Storyboardin which you complete the strategic plan. Add your strategies and tactics to implement and realize your strategic objectives, measures, and targets. Include marketing and information technology strategies and tactics. Develop at least three methods to monitor and control your proposed strategic plan, being sure to analyze how the measures will advance organizational goals financially and operationally. Finally, recommend actions needed to address ethical, legal, and regulatory issues faced by the organization, and how they can improve corporate citizenship.

Final Examination

Completethe final examination. Only one attempt is allowed, which is timed and must be completed in 3 hours. Results are auto-graded and sent to your instructor.