Strategic Plan Part III: Balanced Scorecard and Communication Plan

Strategic Management, Ch. 7: Implementing Strategies: Management, Operations, and Human Resource Issues
Strategic Management, Ch. 10: Business Ethics, Social Responsibility, and Environmental Sustainability

Purpose of Assignment

Students will have the opportunity to develop a Balanced Scorecard. This, in turn, will allow them to create effective strategic objectives to be included as part of their overall strategic plan. They will also be presented with the task of creating a brief communication plan that will be used by their proposed division to efficiently distribute information with regard to their strategic initiatives.

Assignment Steps

Resources: Week 4 textbook readings

Create a minimum 1,050-word strategic objectives summary.

Include your balanced scorecard and its impact on all stakeholders, and the communication plan.

Identify key trends, assumptions, and risks in the context of your final business model.

Develop the strategic objectives for your new division of the existing business in a balanced scorecard format in the context of key trends, assumptions, and risks. 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, which includes strategic objectives in areas such as:
- Market share
- Revenues and costs
- Profitability
- Competitive position
Customer Value Perspective, which includes strategic objectives in areas such as:
- Customer retention or turnover
- Customer satisfaction
- Customer value
Process or Internal Operations Perspective, which includes strategic objectives in areas such as:
- Measure of process performance
- Productivity or productivity improvement
- Operations metrics
- Impact of change on the organization
Learning and Growth (Employee) Perspective, which includes strategic objectives in areas such as:
- Employee satisfaction
- Employee turnover or retention
- Level of organizational capability
- Nature of organizational culture or climate
- Technological innovation

Evaluate potential alternatives to the issues and/or opportunities identified in the SWOTT Analysis assignment and table you completed in Week 3.

Create at least three strategic objectives for each of the four balanced scorecard areas. Base your solutions on a ranking of alternative solutions including the following:

Identify potential risks and mitigation plans.
Analyze a stakeholder and include mitigation and contingency strategies.
Incorporate ethical implications.

Develop a specific metric and target for each strategic objective using a balanced scorecard format.

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.

Outline a brief communication plan discussing how you will communicate the company’s strategic objectives including the following:

Define the purpose.
Define the audience.
Identify the channel(s) of communication and why you selected that channel.

Format your assignment consistent with APA guidelines.

Strategic Plan Part II SWOTT Analysis ( Week 3 anlysis)

A business technique used to understand strength and weaknesses of your business and the opportunities and threats it faces in a business environment is called SWOTT analysis. According to Kerimov, SWOTT analysis summarizes the main concerns from the business setting and the planned competence of the organization that is most likely has an influence on strategy development. Therefore, opportunities and threats are forces from outside the business they form the external business environment. On the other hand, strength and weakness are forces within the business they are the internal business environment (Wheelen & Hunger, 2004).

The external and internal business environment factor have an impact on the success and failure of any business. Business has control over the internal business environment while it has no control over the external factors. Despite the fact that the business cannot control the external environment factors, it must be able to anticipate and adjust these factors to keep their organization in the right direction (“Internal and External Environment Factors that Influences Organizational Decision making”, 2018). To discuss SWOTT analysis in relation to XYZ Company which mainly deals with the retail business sector, also explain internal and external forces and trends. The external forces include; industry global, changes, innovation, social, technological, environmental, economic, and competitive analysis. The forces are discussed below in details and their impacts on the business:

Economic

The economic environment is collective of the nature of the economic system of the nation, business cycles, and the socio-economic infrastructure.Business premises cannot operate in a vacuum but in an economic system. The normal economic condition will have an impact on the purchasing patterns of the citizen within a country. An upward trend in interest rate brought by inflation will lower consumption of non-essential goods and services. When the interest rate is high, individuals are not borrowing money from a financial institution and the business will pay more when borrowing a loan. Companies tend to be selective about people they hire due to high unemployment rate thus the consumer purchasing power is reduced as only a few people are working (Patrakhina, 2015).

Technology

The method of converting resources into finished product or services, therefore, the technology embraced by the businesses determines the type and quality of goods and services to be produced. It has been changing rapidly over the past years and is an external factor that continuously exerts pressure on the business. The technology influences the business in terms of investment in the technology, constant application of technology. The business must adjust quickly to new technological change, so as to reduce the risk losing market segment.

Legal or Regularity

A favourable government rules and regulation governing business operations is vital to the economy. Taxation by-laws are changes is common that at times taxation rate changes occur overnight with little or no notice to the business. Apart from taxation rules, other regulations that affect business operations include; industrial relations environmental laws, consumer protection, and workplace health and safety.

Social

The social factor of a community in a country regulates the value system of the society which intern influence the operations of the business. Social factor such as costs structure customs and convections, the mobility of labour among others have an impact on the business. Social factors determine the individual working culture of employed groups.

Competitive analysis

Competition over the market share has become stiff by the growing number of upcoming industries. The Competitors come up with new product line new marketing strategies and fair prices of goods and services. Therefore as a business manager, you should be aware of what other competitors doing to have a large market share.

Global

Global is the amalgamation of the economy of a country within the world economy, this implies free movement of goods and services, capital, labour and technology across national boundaries. Organizations which have gone global enjoy reduced customs duties, removal of quotas on exports and imports. Companies will also increase their revenue with the expansion of market across the world.

Innovation

Innovation gives the business opportunity to centre on the customers’ diversity that will require the company to provide a variety of products appealing to everyone from different ethnicities. One weakness the organization will face is the challenge of proper marketing of the new products and services available to the public.

Internal forces include; technologies, strategy, goals, structures, strategic capabilities, processes and systems, resources, culture, intellectual property and leadership (“Internal and External Environment Factors that Influences Organizational Decision Making”, 2018).

Leadership

Competence of the administration group and leadership styles employed by leaders also have the main influence on organizational culture and the spirits of employees. Modern forms of management include stakeholders and employees in decision-making processes. Although bosses and junior staff have a different point of view in leadership, they mainly benefit by working together to achieve the business goals and objectives.

Organization structure

Organization structure is basically the arrangement of the level of operations in an organization and how they operate to meet the mission, goals and objective of the organization. A business with many levels of administration, decision making can be slow as information is carried up and down the hierarchy. For this reason, horizontal organization structure is more preferred.

Resources

The organization’s resources range from assets to employees, the information, understanding and skills of the labour force are defining the factor of its success. Organization’s major on a thorough process of staffing of new employees and also involve in staff continuous teaching program to build organization’s capability. Employees training is a vital aspect of a good business administration and it is achievable strategy despite hard financial crisis an organization is facing.

Organization culture

The culture of the organization is an important factor in corporate achievement. The attitude of the employees and their skills makes a significant difference in the organization. A positive attitude of the employee will not only make administration job easier but also valued by members of the organization and clients of the business. On the other hand, a negative attitude critically influences the organization’s ability to implement strategies for development even though there is systematic planning process.

Strategy

The strategy that gives the business a chance to raise, increase and offer products and services that the competitors are not able to produce. The management should choose a perfect location of the business for easier access by the general public.

	External forces and trends considerations
	Strength	Weakness	Opportunity	Threat	Trends
Economic	Growing economy	Changing regulations	New customers	Economy remaining constant	Growing GDP
Global	Stable business	Lack of business flexibility	The possibility of growth as the population grows.	Changes in immigration laws	Similar services
Technological	Differentiated technology	Out-dated	Assist in growth	Cutthroat rivalry	New systems of personal training
Legal/Regulatory	Local government stability	Many regulations like antitrust	Customer buying in family-oriented services	Additional regulations	In line with all regulations
Social
Innovation	Creativeness	Not implemented according to the competition	Improves corporate portfolio	Waste of capital and time	When used at the global level
Environmental
Competitive Analysis	A wide range of services	New company	Listening to customers	Stiff competition	To become the company for tax

	Internal forces and trends considerations
	Strength	Weakness	Opportunity	Threats	Trends
Goals	Strategic development	Deficiency of strategic intent	Growing the goodwill	Appropriately developed	Goal precise organization
Organizational culture	Business practices according to culture	Deficiency of proper knowledge about culture assumptions	Increasing awareness among the customers of different background	Cultural barriers.	Increasing cultural adoption
Resources	Adequate resources	Improper utilization	Optimum utilization	Competitive resources	Vital for increasing awareness
Structures	Well structured	Improperly managed	Growth in other business	Well-structured organization of competitors	Critical part
Technologies	Differentiated technology	Old fashioned	Assist in growth	Cutthroat competition	New techniques of personal training
System and processes	Effective systems	Ineffective administration	Use of promising techniques	Effectively integrated systems	Organized processes
Strategic capabilities	Well organized	Inadequate use	Assist in dealing with competitors	Market competition	Regular progress
Intellectual property	Advance position	Insufficient knowledge	Payment	Simulation	Off-shoring
Strategy	Planned management	Inadequate development	Attainment of goals	Strategic planning	Requisite component
Leadership	Skilled employees	Autocratic nature	Assist in minimizing the impact of obstacles	The effective leadership style of competitors	An essential part of the organization

Source (“SWOTT Analysis Paper and Table 8 SWOTT analysis of internal factors SWOTTFAC”, 2018)

References

Internal and External Environment Factors that Influences Organizational Decision Making. (2018). Retrieved from https://iedunote.com/organizational-environment-el…

Kerimov, V. (2016). The Use of a SWOT Analysis for Strategic Management Decisions in Agricultural Holdings. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2791093

Kurtz, D. (2016). Contemporary marketing. Boston: Cengage Learning.

Patrakhina, T. (2015). SWOT-analysis as a tool for strategic planning of an educational organization. On-Line Journal “Naukovedenie”, 7(2). doi: 10.15862/08pvn215

Strategic Planning: Environmental factors in strategic planning. (2018). Retrieved from http://www.leoisaac.com/planning/strat016.htm

SWOTT Analysis Paper and Table 8 SWOTT analysis of internal factors SWOTTFAC. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.coursehero.com/file/p59gve2/SWOTT-Anal…

Wheelen, T., & Hunger, J. (2004). Strategic management and business policy. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.