week 2

What is strategy? Why is it important for any organization?

Strategy is a planned actions devised with the information from internal and external environment in a very systematic way to achieve a certain goal effectively and efficiently. Johnson and Scholes (2011) as cited by (Riley, 2012) describe strategy as the long term direction of an organization to achieve advantage utilizing its resources under a dynamic environment to meet the stakeholder and market expectations.

Hence a strategy is the process of analyzing the past and present environment to collect the information and utilize the resources to achieve organizational goal by setting different planned actions.

Strategy has been widely developed in all organization as it plays an important role in organization long term process. Strategy is essential to the success of any organization for the following reasons.

Strategy for unpredictable future

As we know future is unpredictable and if organization doesn't have any plan for the future problems then organization would fail in long term. Strategic planning helps to create different alternatives solutions by analyzing past and present environment. So for unpredictable future risk, having strategic planning is very important for any organization for long term. 

Strategy for understanding organization

Strategy helps organization to understand the key requirements for the success by providing the clear understanding of organization core potential and strength. It also addresses the weakness of organization and threats. Using strategic planning organization  can get information about its positions in market. Hence strategy helps organization to understand its capabilities which helps organizations to focus on the things which delivers their best performance, effectiveness and productivity.

Strategy for overall direction

Strategy provide an overall strategic direction to organization and its functional areas like finance, marketing, human resources management etc to achieve success. As every functional area is very important , strategic planning provide detail set of actions that need to be performed so that each functional area can give their best performance. Hence strategy is very important for any organization for overall direction.

How is business strategy similar to military strategy? How is it different?

Similarities between business strategy and military strategy

1.     Both organizations strategy need effective leadership.

2.     Both organizations strategy are concerned with competition and ways to succeed against opponents.

3.     Both organizations strategy require human resource to achieve the objective.

4.     Both business and military strategy main objective is to gain competitive advantage by utilizing competitor's weakness (Scribd., 2010). 

Difference between business strategy and military strategy

1.     Business strategy focuses on the stakeholder value but military strategy focus on country and people security.

2.     Business strategy focuses on the horizontal structure i.e. less defined chain of commands, but military strategy is vertical structure i.e. well defined chain of commands from top to bottom. 

3.     Business strategy developed, implemented and evaluated depending on the market competition, inflation, economic growth etc but military strategy is devised depending on he assumption of international conflict.

What do you understand by the terms "strategic analysis", "strategic development" and "strategic implementation"

Strategic analysis

It is the process of analyzing different external  and internal environment of an organization by conducting research using different strategic analysis tools like PEST, SWOT, PORTER Five force etc to develop the strategy.

PEST analysis provides the framework information of macro environment as it deal with political, economical, social and technological factor.

SWOT analysis is the strategic analysis method of evaluating the organization strength, weakness, opportunity and threats.

Porters five forces analysis help to understand the competition level in the business and helps in effective business strategy development.

Hence strategic analysis provides organization an effective path for the achievement of goal in the process of developing effective strategic plan.

Strategic development

It is the process where the strategy is developed using various external environment information. Organization uses their available resources, capabilities and design strategies that will help the organization achieve its goals.

Strategic development helps organization to set specific objective and in the process of development strategy, organization conduct different market research and competitive analysis using various strategic tools like SWOT. Hence strategic development enables organization to see as a whole, from inner position to market position.

Strategic implementation

It is the process of implementing the strategy plan into actions. It includes assigning the responsibility of specific task to specific departments so that each individual of each department can perform according to the assigned task. It also include managing the operation by monitoring results, comparing to benchmarks and best practices with the organizational standard standard objectives, evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of planned strategy, controlling for variation and making modification to the operation if necessary.

Write about your experience with week's case study. What answer would you give?

In the case study there were many towns but only three towns are more developed because those three towns analyzed their opportunities and used  their strengths strategically to develop their towns. 

Case study- Texas in the shires

Q.1. Why are Milton Keynes, Peterborough and Swindon growing rapidly? (List as many reason as you can)

1.     The cities was willing to growth and was not afraid of development.

2.     Peterborough, Milton Keynes and Swindon were chosen as locations for expansion in 1950s and 1960s.

3.     Three cities roadways were linked to London and have decent train links.

4.     Milton Keynes, the best performing of the three, is almost exactly half way between London and Birmingham. Swindon is between London and Bristol, and benefits from the vitality of nearby Oxford, just as Peterborough does from Cambridge.

5.     Both Milton Keynes and Peterborough used marketing strategy using TV advertisement campaigns to attract families and business in 1980.

6.     Milton Keynes used their resources like plot of lands to build roads and other infrastructures. In Swindon the edge of the city was marked by building sites and brand new houses.

7.     Three cities used cost leadership strategy resulting in cheap cost houses.

8.     To attract skilled staff and young human resources they planned to build decent bars, restaurants and universities on the center of cities.  

Q.2. Why might Their growth strategy be 'mad'?

       The cities are growing rapidly and population is also increasing, as much of the growth comes from immigrants. The cities are planning to build 14200-17500 houses in different area in decade. This growth and development might affect some long-standing residents as they are not comfortable about their increasing number which may check expansion. And not everyone like jungle of concrete so their growth strength strategy might be mad.

Q.3. What do you think -is it good strategy to continue with? (state your reasons)

Yes, it is good strategy to continue with, because of following reasons:

1.     It helps to develop nation economy and power.

2.     More people will be qualified as new universities will develop.

3.     Growth strategy helps nation to get modernized and continue with globalization process.

4.     As population will increase day by day, building new houses can provide shelter to people. 

Q.4. Would you live in any of these three towns? (list the reason why or why not)

        Yes, i would like to live in these towns because:

1.     These cities are all on motorways connected to London and have decent train links.

2.     Housing and commercial property costs much less as compared to other cities, i.e. compared to similar sized house in London these cities provide similar sized house in third of the lesser price.

3.     These cities are building university, so it can be beneficial to graduate from local university rather than going other counties for further study.

Reference list

Riley, J., 2012. Business Strategy. [Online]

Available at: http://tutor2u.net/business/strategy/what_is_strategy.htm

[Accessed 21 September 2014]. 

Scribd.,2010. Business vs Military Strategy.[Online]

Available at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/27131913/Business-vs-Military-Strategy