Management Chapter 5 Homework Perform Swot Analysis For The School University

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c. Deliver Value. Delivering value to the customer is at the heart of strategy. Value

IX. THE STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT PROCESS

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Exhibit 5.5: The Strategic Management Process

The strategic management process begins when executives evaluate their current position with

respect to mission, goals, and strategies. They scan the internal and external environments and

identify strategic factors that might require change. The process ends with implementation of the

new strategy.

A. Strategy Formulation versus Execution

1. Strategy formulation includes the planning and decision making that lead to

2. Strategy implementation involves the planning and decision making that lead to

establishment of the firm’s goals and development of a specific strategic plan. It is

B. SWOT Analysis

1. SWOT analysis includes a search for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and

threats—that affect organizational performance.

a. Internal Strengths and Weaknesses. Strengths are positive internal characteristics

an organization can exploit to achieve its strategic goals. Weaknesses are internal

Discussion Question #10: Perform a SWOT analysis for the school or university you attend.

Do you think university administrators consider the same factors when devising their strategy?

Exhibit 5.6: Audit Checklist for Analyzing Organizational Strengths and Weaknesses

Spotlight on Skills: Facebook, Inc.

Facebook has far outpaced former social networking market leader MySpace with its 400 million

users to 100 million for MySpace. CEO Mark Zuckerberg made strategic decisions that can be

understood by looking at the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

X. FORMULATING BUSINESS-LEVEL STRATEGY

INSTRUCTOR’S NOTES___________________________________________________________

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A. Porter’s Five Competitive Forces

Exhibit 5.7: Porter’s Five Forces Affecting Industry Competition

1. Michael Porter’s competitive strategies result from five competitive forces in the

environment. These forces determine a company’s position compared with industry

competitors.

a. Potential new entrants. Capital requirements and economies of scale are

examples of barriers to entry that can keep out new competitors.

b. Bargaining power of buyers. Informed customers become empowered customers.

The Internet provides easy access to a wide array of information about products,

B. Porter suggests a company can adopt one of the following competitive strategies:

Exhibit 5.8: Organizational Characteristics of Porter’s Competitive Strategies

1. Differentiation. A differentiation strategy is an attempt to distinguish the firm’s

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3. Focus. With a focus strategy, the organization concentrates on a specific regional

XI. STRATEGY EXECUTION

The final step in the strategic management process is strategy execution. Execution may be the

Exhibit 5.9: Six Silent Killers of Strategy

Exhibit 5.10: Tools for Putting Strategy into Action

A. Visible leadership

1. The primary key to successful strategy implementation is leadership. Leadership is

B. Clear roles and accountability

1. People need to understand how their individual actions can contribute to achieving

C. Candid communication

1. Managers openly and avidly promote their ideas, but they also listen to others and

D. Appropriate human resource practices

1. The human resource function recruits, selects, trains, compensates, transfers,

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Answers to Discussion Questions

1. Write a brief mission statement for a local business with which you are familiar. How might

having a clear, written mission statement benefit a small organization?

Student responses may vary; however, every small business should have a mission statement.

An example of a mission statement might be:

The purpose of this business is to create a quality product and service to its

2. What strategic plans could the college or university at which you are taking this management

course adopt to compete for students in the marketplace? Would these plans depend on the

school’s goals?

Yes, strategies will depend on the school’s goals. For example, if a university adopted a goal of

3. One of the benefits of a strategy map is that goals and how they are linked can be clearly

communicated to everyone in the organization. Does a minimum wage maintenance worker

in a hospital really need to understand any goals beyond keeping the place clean? Discuss.

A strategy map helps the minimum wage maintenance worker understand how the process goal

4. A new business venture must develop a comprehensive business plan to borrow money to get

started. Companies such as Federal Express, Nike, and Rolm Corporation say they did not

follow the original plan very closely. Does that mean developing the plan was a waste of

time for these eventually successful companies?

5. How do you think planning in today’s organizations compares to planning 25 years ago? Do

you think planning becomes more important or less important in a world where everything is

changing fast and crises are a regular part of organizational life? Why?

Planning is much more difficult in today’s organizations than it was 25 years ago due to

increased economic and political uncertainty as a result of globalization, an ever-increasing rate

6. Assume Southern University decides to: (1) raise its admission standards, and (2) initiate a

business fair to which local townspeople will be invited. What types of plans might it use to

carry out these two activities?

Raising admission standards would require a standing plan to provide guidance for admissions

7. Some people say an organization could never be “prepared” for a disaster such as the

massacre at Virginia Tech, which left 33 people dead, or the huge BP oil spill in the Gulf of

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Mexico. Discuss the potential value of crisis planning in situations like these, even if the

situations are difficult to plan for.

The crisis management plan is a detailed written plan that specifies the steps to be taken, and by

8. Based on your knowledge of the following companies, how effective would you say any one of

the following acquisitions were in terms of creating synergy: the purchase of MySpace by

News Corporation (owner of Fox Broadcasting)? Pepsi-Co’s purchase of Frito-Lay?

Ebay’s purchase of PayPal? Luby’s purchase of Fuddruckers? InBev’s acquisition of

Budweiser?

9. You are a middle manager helping to implement a new corporate cost-cutting strategy, and

you’re meeting skepticism, resistance, and in some cases, outright hostility from your

subordinates. In what ways might you or the company have been able to avoid this

situation? Where do you go from here?

Implementing a new strategy represents change, and change always involves the potential for

10. Perform a SWOT analysis for the school or university you attend. Do you think university

administrators consider the same factors when devising their strategy?

The following is a brief example of how SWOT analysis would apply to Texas A&M University.

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Texas A&M’s strengths are the loyalty of former students who contribute millions of dollars

each year, campus traditions that are good for the university and student body, high-quality

faculty concerned with both teaching and research, above-average students who are serious and

11. Using Porter’s competitive strategies, how would you describe the strategies of Wal-Mart,

Macy’s and Target?

This answer will depend on how students perceive these companies. A reasonable answer is that

Wal–Mart’s overall strategy can be characterized within the Porter model as a cost leadership

strategy. Wal-Mart has a well-controlled and tightly managed internal system, but it is

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TEACHING NOTES FOR LEARNING EXERCISES

Self Learning: Business School Ranking

This exercise enables students to brainstorm about how to improve their own business schools.

Group Learning: SWOT Analysis

This exercise asks each student to select a local eating establishment and write a statement of

what the student believes is the business’s current strategy, key strengths and weaknesses, and

Action Learning

Students reflect on courses they took in college or graduate school and select the ones in which

TEACHING NOTE FOR ETHICAL DILEMMA

Inspire Learning Corporation

1. Donate the $1,000 to Central High, and consider the $10,000 bonus a good return on your

gift.

2. Accept the fact you didn’t quite make your sales goal this year. Figure out ways to work

smarter next year to increase the odds of achieving your target.

3. Don’t make the donation, but investigate whether any other ways were available to help

Central High raise the funds that would allow them to purchase the much-needed

educational software.

CASE FOR CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Nielsen Media Research

1. Where do you think the problems lie at Nielsen? For example, are they primarily with the

company’s strategic goals and plans, tactical goals and plans, or operational goals and

plans? With alignment of goals and plans?

2. Do you think developing a strategy map would be a good idea for Nielsen? Why or why not?

3. If you were David Calhoun, what kind of planning processes might you implement right now

to fix this problem?

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ON THE JOB VIDEO CASE

Modern Shed: Managerial Planning and Goal Setting

1. What level of planning and goal setting does marketer Scott Pearl perform for Modern Shed?

Students will encounter some difficulty answering this question because Modern Shed is

organized as a vertical network, and assigning levels to the various types of plans and goals

2. Do Scott Pearl’s goals meet the criteria of effective goal setting as discussed in the chapter?

Explain.

3. What are some of the ways in which Scott Pearl’s plans and goals benefit Modern Shed as an

organization? Are there potential downsides to such planning?

Answers will vary, but goal setting and planning benefits organizations by providing legitimacy,

a guide to action, a source of motivation, a rationale for decisions, and a standard for

performance. This is especially important for a small startup company like Modern Shed, whose

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BIZFLIX VIDEO CASE: THE BOURNE IDENTITY

Inside Man

Video Case Synopsis

New York City detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) leads an effort to remove Dalton

Russell (Clive Owen) and his armed gang from the Manhattan Trust Bank building.

Complexities set in when bank chairman Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer) seeks the help of

power broker Madeline White (Jodie Foster) to prevent the thieves from getting a particular safe

deposit box. This fast-paced action film goes in many directions to reach its unexpected ending.

This BizFlix video case starts as Captain John Darius (Willem Dafoe) approaches the diner.

Detectives Keith Frazier and Bill Mitchell (Chiwetlel Ejiofor) leave the diner to join Captain

Darius. The scene ends after the three men enter the New York Police Department command

post. Captain Darius says, “Your call.” The film cuts to Madeline White and Arthur Case

walking along a river.

Video Case Discussion Questions and Suggested Answers

1. Does this scene show strategic or tactical planning?

2. What pieces of the planning type does it specifically show? Give examples from the scene.

3. Do you expect this plan to succeed? Why or why not?