Strategic Planning/Management

Structuring for success
organizational structure & growth

A Company Develops a More Complex Structure as its Size Increases

Chandler concluded that a change in strategy for growth used by the company resulted in an adaptations in the organizations structure.

Functional organization:

  • single or dominant product market, if one product produces 70 - 90% to total sales
  • growth is reflected by an increase in volume of sales. or through vertical integration.
  • departmentalized by functional areas (specialization).
  • decision making is usually centralized
  • authority from the top down.

    Multi-Divisional:

  • diversification in related businesses
  • departments are separated by product, region, market.
  • allows for quicker reaction to market
  • all resources needed to product and sell product under divisional control
  • decentralize authority and responsibility.
  • divisions deal with short range planning and corporate office with long run planning

    Holding Company:

  • diversify in unrelated business
  • organized along product, market lines, cost centers, SBU's
  • authority and responsibility even more decentralized
  • the Corporate office is small, its function is capital allocation
  • division both long and short run strategic planning

    Matrix:

  • mixing of functional and organizational into team management
  • relaxing unity of command principle

    Network:

  • linking suppliers, manufacturers, distribution through a network managed from a central office.

    Quotes
    Joan Woodward - Different technologies impose different kinds of demands on individuals and organizations and these demands have to be met through appropriate structures.

    Alfred D. Chandler - growth strategy results in adaptation of organizational structures

    Lawrence & Lorsch - Key to organizational design was to structure the department to match challenges posed by external environment

    Burns & Stocker - External environment was related to internal management.

    Environment

  • Internal Environment
         --employees
         --culture
         --management

  • External
         Task (Specific)
            --labor market
            --customers
            --competition
            --suppliers
         General
            --legal/political
            --sociocultural
            --economic
            --international
            --technological

  • Internal Organization - the environment within the organization's boundaries.
  • External Organizational Environment: institutions or forces that are outside the organization and potentially can affect the organization's performance.
  • General - External everything outside the organization that affect it indirectly

    Legal/Political

  • Ways government influences businesses and other organizations, includes the general political stability of the country:

    Legal/Political

  • Law's; Regulations; Regulatory Agencies
  • Court
  • Taxes/ Spending - Fiscal Policy and State and local considerations
  • Government loans/subsidies
  • Government competition
  • Interest Rate - Monetary policy
  • Pressure Groups
  • Mergers / Acquisitions

    Pressure Groups

  • An interest group that works to influence companies to behave in socially responsible ways.
  • Ralph Nader - Center for Responsive Law

    Business reaction:

  • pro-active,
         --with lobbying activities to gain economic advantage.
         --direct political action through grass roots activities, and PAC's (political action committees

    Sociocultural
    represents the demographic characteristics, norms, customs, and values of the population within which the organization operates.

    Sociocultural Factors

  • Demographic trends
  • Gender roles
  • Leisure time
  • Educational levels

    Economic

  • represents the overall economic health of the country or region in which the organization functions.
  • Business cycles - the up and down movement of the economy's ability to generate wealth.
  • depression, recession, recovery, and prosperity.
  • Some businesses are more sensitive to business cycles than others.
  • watch economic indicators: leading, lagging, coincidental.

  • Recession Sensitive - sales parallel economic conditions
  • Reverse recession sensitive firms: most profitable when economic conditions are deteriorating
  • Recession resistant: sales which are not directly related to economic conditions

    Technology

  • All the tools and ideas available for expanding the natural, physical and mental reach of human kind.
  • includes scientific and technological developments.
  • Application of knowledge to help solve problems.

    Technology

  • of all factors this is the one changing the most rapidly. The automated work place.
  • technology always increases output (productivity) - provide a competitive edge.

    International

  • events originating in foreign countries as well as opportunities for American companies in other countries.
  • Results in increasing competition and consumer markets.
  • Borderless world, but the global environment is an uneven playing ground which often offers new rules to the game.

    Task - directly influence the achievement of an organizations goals i.e. affect organizations operation and performance.

  • Stakeholders that can positively or negatively influence an organizations effectiveness.
  • Each organizations specific environment is different (unique) and changes with situations.

  • Suppliers
  • Customers (clients)
  • Competitors
  • Labor Market

    Suppliers
    People and organizations who provide the raw materials the organization uses to produce its output.

  • provide :
         --materials
         --equipment
         --financial inputs
  • labor
  • includes sub-contractors
  • suppliers should be seen as a partner in the process
  • mutual benefit
  • Firms are using fewer suppliers

    Customers
    People who acquire goods or services from the organization.

  • business exist to meet needs of the customer, business must react to changing needs, taste of customer.

    Competitors

  • Other organizations in the same industry or type of business that provide goods or services to the same set of customers

    competition takes place on three levels
    a) industry vs industry
    b) company vs company
    c) product vs product

    Complementary goods

  • type product such as complementary goods must worry not only with their competition, but the demand and supply of the complementary good. Products that go together.

    Substitutes
    Substitutes are goods which can be used in place of each other

    Labor Market:

  • Individuals available to be hired for a job. Affected by:
  • Unions
  • Labor Associations
  • availability of a pool of properly trained workers

    Labor Market Impacts organizations by:

  • require continuous investment in education and training to be competitive in a global market
  • shift in markets, automation and plant locations create pools of labor surpluses and shortages in certain areas

    Managers dealing with the environment do so in conditions of uncertainty.

  • Environmental uncertainty is defined as the degree of change and complexity in the organizations environment.

    Two Dimensions of Environmental uncertainty

  • Change      --dynamic (unstable) - environment changes frequently
         --stable - environment with a minimal amount of change
  • Complexity
         --number of factors in an organizations environment; and the extent of the knowledge the organization has about these factors
         --the amount of knowledge about the environmental factors that the organization needs to know

    Environmental Uncertainty
    Assessing Environmental Uncertainty

    Examples of Uncertainty

  • High uncertainty: external factors change rapidly, and high number of factors changing. Ex. Electronics, aerospace.
  • Low uncertainty: external factors relatively stable, and few in number. Ex. Corner grocery store, soft drink bottlers

    Two Strategies for Coping with High Uncertainty
    1. Adapt the organization to the changes in the environment
    2. Influence the environment to make it more compatible with organizational needs.

    Technology knowledge, tools, techniques, activities used to transform the organizations inputs into outputs can also affect the organizations structure. Joan Woodward was the first to link the technology as a determinant of structure.

    Joan Woodward
    Unit Production (job shop):

  • custom products
  • small batches or units
  • labor intensive

    Mass Production

  • assembly line
  • large batch production
  • standardized production runs
  • machine intensive

    Process production

  • continuous process such as with oil or chemical refiners
  • sophisticated and complex form of production technology
  • the entire work flow is mechanized
  • process runs continuously
  • human operators are not part of actual production

    Technical complexity: the degree to which machinery is involved in the production to the exclusion of people.

    Mission, Goals, Plans
    Mission
    Goals

  • Strategic
  • Tactical
  • Operational
    Plans
  • Strategic
  • Tactical
  • Operational

    Mission - statement of company vision, values, philosophy, fundamental purpose; broad statement
    Goals - refinement of mission statement into attainable objectives that will help to reach the mission.
    Plan - blue print, detailed course of action telling who, what, where and when

    Mission -
    a statement of a business's fundamental unique purpose, its reason to exist, what it wants to be and whom it wants to serve, its long term vision. The organizations values and aspirations. It identifies the scope of the business's operations.

    Three Primary Aspects of the Organization that Mission Statements should include

  • Its primary products or services
  • Its distinctive competitive advantages(s)
  • Its overall strategy ensuring long-term success

    A typical Mission Statement includes:

  • target market
  • principal product
  • product quality
  • geographic demand
  • core technologies
  • concern for growth,
  • company philosophy
  • company self-concept
  • desired public image
  • attitude toward employees

    Goals:
    A goal is a desired future state, an refinement of the mission statement.

  • Specific results needed to reach mission.
  • Specific desired performance.
  • Each goal has a set of very specific objectives of how the company will reach its goals.
  • Objective are targets to be reached, they must be stated in measurable terms.

    Type of Goals

  • Strategic: Broad general purpose statements of where the organization wants to be in the future, relate to the organization as a whole.
  • Tactical: Statements of how major divisions or departments will assist the organization in obtaining it's goals and mission.
  • Operational: specific, measurable actions needed by each department, work group etc to help the organization reach its goals.

    Means- Ends Chain of Goals
    Top management   Goal:
    Corporate President   To increase corporate sales by $250 million by the end of the year
         
    Middle Management   Goal:
    Laundry products manager   To increase market share of Soapy Suds by 5 percent by July 1
         
    Lower Management   Goal:
    Area sales manager   To increase unit sales of Soapy Suds in Boston area by 100,000 units by April 1

    Criteria for effective goals

  • Specific - relate to a particular and easily defined performance area, specific as to what is to be measured.
  • Measurable - usually expressed in quantitative terms
  • Time-linked - to be achieved in a specific time period, deadline for achieving targeted performance
  • Realistic, but challenging - provide a challenge but attainable

    Planning is the process of establishing organizational goals and selecting a future course of action. It is a blueprint for how a goal is going to be achieved. Plans incorporate both ideas and means to reach the goal.

    A process of coping with uncertainty by formulating future courses of action.

    A Plan is a set of actions necessary to :

  • achieve the objectives, goals, mission of the company
  • a blue print of action
  • identify the needed resources
  • the task to be accomplished
  • the actions to be taken
  • the time table

    Two parts to planning:

  • Purpose: what you intend to accomplish (what is to be done)
  • Expression: who, how, where and when you intend to accomplish what you want to accomplish

    There are Eight reasons to plan:
    1. Provide direction and sense of purpose
    2. Helps to cope with change
    3. Sets standards used for control
    4. Minimizes waste and redundancy
    5. Helps an organization to succeed
    6. Source of motivation and commitment
    7. Legitimacy to external audiences
    8. Reduce uncertainty and clarifies what employees should accomplish

    Strategic - (top) (directional)

  • Broad, general issues which have an impact on where the organization want to be in the future
  • are applied to and impact over all objectives
  • deal with concerns such as resource allocation, priorities, long term needs of the company.
  • require a major commitment of the organizations resources.
  • Time span for strategic plans is usually five years in the future.
  • Thus they are often complex and deal with high degree of uncertainty and risk.

    Tactical (middle) -

  • define specific results for major divisions and departments
  • focus on how to operationalize strategic plans into actions to reach goals
  • specify resources
  • specify time frame.
  • time span is usually one to five years.
  • supervisory, emphasizing implementation and carrying out actions

    Operational - (lower)

  • define specific results expected from departments, work groups, and individuals
  • focus on specific details of how the overall objectives of the organization are to be achieved in each functional area.
  • an implementation plan; clearly defines what needs to be done, how often, in what quantity, by when and by whom.
  • specific and challenging,
  • are of limited (narrow) scope, usually deal with short term issues
  • thus the time frame is usually a few weeks to one year.

    Shewhart Cycle (PDCA)
    TQM

  • Plan a test or change in a specific process
  • Do the test or carry out the change
  • Check the results
  • Act to improve the process based on what you learn

    Peter Drucker discussed eight Key areas he felt management must plan for if the company was to be successful.

    Peter Drucker's Eight Areas of Focus
    1. Market standing relative to competitors
    2. Innovation of new methods or products
    3. Productivity or efficiency
    4. Resources, both physical and financial
    5. Profitability
    6. Managerial performance and development
    7. Worker performance and attitude
    8. Public responsibility to customers and society.

    Drucker's Key areas for planning:
    1. Market Shares - goals related to competition, compare share with market potential. (i.e... standing in market, new markets to enter, delete which products)
    2. Innovation - keep ahead in market, (both in product/service), technology -both innovation and improvement.
    3. productivity - increase goods and services with fewer inputs and decreasing costs. Concept of contributed value: the difference between gross revenue received by a company from sale of product and amount paid out to purchase of raw materials and service of outside suppliers.
    4. Physical and financial resources - goals regard use of resources: equipment, building, capital, inventory funding.
    5. Profitability - not merely in terms of money but equipment & people. Watch the hidden cost associated with old equipment, not book value but productivity effect.
    6. Managing performance and development - skills and training
    7. Employee performance and attitude (employee satisfaction): includes concepts of job rotation, job sharing, cross training. Drucker also talked much about unionization.
    8. Social responsibility

    "In what direction should I take my company?
    That is the question of strategic planning: the overall corporate planning.
    Strategic Planning Answers?
    1. Where do we want to go: (Objectives)
    2. What is our current situation (SWOT)
    3. How do we get there from here - action plan
    4. What changes and trends are occurring in the competitive market.

  • Strategic planning commits extensive resources to long term projects.
  • Develops a strategy: a plan of action that prescribes resource allocation and other activities for dealing with the environment and helping the organization attain its goals

    Corporate-Level Strategy
    ("What business are we in?")

  • If an organization is engaged in more than one type of business or product lines it must identify and determine the roles of each of these businesses or product lines.
  • How is the corporation going to manage its "Portfolio of businesses"
  • Acquisition of new businesses
  • Additions or divestment of business units, plants, or product lines
  • Joint ventures with other companies in new areas
  • Manager portfolio of businesses

    Business-Level Strategy
    ("How do we compete?")

  • If the organization has only one business then the corporate and SBU are the same.
  • The Business unit must determine how to compete for each single business, group of related businesses, or each product line.
  • Each business unit or product line has its own mission, and its own competitors and strategy.

    Business-Level Strategy
    ("How do we compete?")

  • Advertising
  • Direction and extent of R&D
  • Product changes
  • New product development
  • Equipment and facilities
  • Expansion or contraction of product lines
  • Each business unit has its own mission, competitors, and strategy

    SBU's are based on:

  • Each SBU serves
         --a clearly defined product or market segment
  • Each SBU develops
         --strategy tailored to its capabilities and competitive needs
  • Total business "Portfolio":
         --is managed to serve the organization as a whole.

    Function-Level Strategy
    ("How do we support business-level strategy?")
    Action plans adopted by major departments to support the business-level strategy to achieve the organization's strategic goals

  • Production
  • Distribution
  • Finance

    Purpose of Strategy
    SYNERGY: when organizational parts interact to produce a joint effect that is greater than the sum of its parts acting alone.

    Steps in Strategic Planning:
    1. Identify mission; goals; strategies
    2. Analyze the environment
    3. identify the opportunities and threats
    4. analyze the organizational resources
    5. identify strengths and weaknesses
    6. formulate strategies
    7. implement strategies
    8. evaluate results

    SWOT Analysis
    (steps 2 - 5)
    SWOT analysis:

  • Purpose is to identify a strategic niche which the company can take advantage of.
  • A distinctive competency a special strength that gives an organization a competitive advantage
  • A strategic niche that the organization can exploit.

    Situation Analysis: SWOT

  • Strengths (Internal)
  • Weaknesses (Internal)
  • Opportunities (External)
  • Threats (External)

    Step 3: Identify Threats and Opportunities

  • Threats: negative external factors; characteristics in the external environment which may prevent the organization from reaching its objectives.
  • Opportunities: positive external factors which can be exploited; Characteristics with the potential to help reach objectives

    Keep in mind the environment will to an extent define the options available to management.

    Managers need to keep in mind such things as:

  • what the competition is doing
  • pending legislation which would affect the organization.

    Step 4: Analyze the organization's resources
    Step 5: Identify Strengths and Weaknesses

  • Strengths - Internal activities in which the firms excels; resources which are available in the organization
  • Weaknesses: Internal activities that does poorly in, or resources required but lacking in the current organization and inhibits or restricts its performance

    Core Competency or Distinctive Competence
    Business activities than an organization does particularly well in comparison to competitors. Skills or resources that are unique.

  • Superior research and development
  • Mastery of a technology
  • Superior customer service

    SWOT Analysis
    Models have been classified with regard to Corporate level strategic planning and SBU level strategic planning. We will begin with the Corporate level.

    Portfolio Analysis - early 1970's Boston Consulting Group Matrix (BCG Matrix) This is a 2 by 2 matrix which measures market growth rate and market share.

    It is a tool

  • which guides resource allocation decisions
  • based on market share and growth
  • in an effort to increase return on investment and increase profits

    The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix evaluates SBUs along two dimensions:

  • Business growth rate: how rapidly the entire industry is growing
  • Market share : if a SBU has a larger or smaller market share than competitors

    The Matrix provides four categories to judge SBUs

  • Market share - relative market share - high would indicate leader in the industry (as compared with competitors)
  • Business growth rate - how is the fast is market increasing, usually stated in terms of adjusted sales (for inflation). High market growth is usually measured in as annual rate of at least 10%.
  • Analysis will look at cash flow generated, share of the market and growth rate.

    Stars

  • Dominant competitive position in a growing industry.
  • Recommended strategy: growth; add resources and build the business further based upon market projections.

    Problem Children (Question Markets)

  • poor competitive position in a growing industry.
  • Recommended strategy: growth or retrenchment; apply resources to accomplish positive turnaround or pull back if outlook poor.

    Cash Cows

  • Dominant position in low-growth industry
  • Recommended strategy - stability or modest growth; maintain benefits of strong cash flow while keeping resource investment minimum

    Dogs (Cash Trap)

  • Poor competitive position in low-growth industry.
  • Recommended strategy - retrenchment; divest, sell, liquidate the business to eliminate resource drain.

    BCG Matrix assumes that increases in production result in decreases in cost. Thus the business with the largest market share should have the lowest cost.

    BCG lost favor in the 1990's; however, it is a good way to visualize the size and competitive position of the firms various businesses.

    Grand Strategy
    General plan of action to achieve long-term objectives
    1. Growth
         --concentration
         --diversification
    2. Stability
    3. Retrenchment
         --harvesting
         --turnaround
         --divestiture
         --liquidation
    4. Globalization

    Growth Strategies
    Can be promoted:

  • internally by investing in expansion (increase level of operations)
  • externally by acquiring additional business divisions (mergers and acquisitions)

  • Growth by Concentration: Internal direct expansion, concentrate on expertise and play on market reputation
  • Diversification: new goods or services, new fields, allows organization to reduce risks
  • Mergers - two or more firms, usually similar in size combine into one firm.
  • Acquisition when one company acquires another company

    Merger's & Acquisitions
    1881-1911 merger's to stop competition (horizontal mergers
    1920's vertical mergers
    1960-70's conglomerate mergers to diversify risk, today seeing many of these dismantled
    1980's merger to make a quick profit - leverage buyouts, sell off pieces of company
    1990's mergers made for strategic purposes, enhance position of company in market

    Combinations:

  • Horizontal - combine like businesses
  • Vertical - combine businesses at different stages in the distribution process; either backward or forward.
  • Unrelated - combine businesses entirely unrelated.

    Stability : (pause)

  • Steady slow improvements
  • Keep the status quo
  • NO significant change
  • Grow in a controlled fashion

    Retrenchment Strategy:
    Reduce the size or diversity to move back to the core competencies. Downsizing; either by:

  • harvesting
  • turnaround - restructure; stream line
  • divestiture - units sold off
  • liquidation - sell off assets

    Retrenchment
    Reasons companies are following this policy:

  • global competition
  • deregulation
  • increases in technology

    Global Strategy

  • Globalization: product design and advertising strategies are standardized around the world
  • Multidomestic: adapt product and promotion for each country
  • Transnational: combine global coordination with flexibility to meet specific needs in various countries

    BCG and Grand Strategies are Corporate level strategic models. The following are SBU level strategies:

  • Miles and Snow's Adaptive Strategies
  • Porter's Competitive Strategies

    Raymond Miles and Charles Snow - Adaptive strategies:
    four strategic types

  • success could be achieved with the first three if there is a good fit between strategy and the SBU's environment, internal structure, and managerial process.
  • the fourth called the Reactor often results in failure.

    Miles & Snow
    Adaptive Strategies
    Defender:

  • Seeks stability with limited number of products in a well defined industry.
    Prospector:
  • seek new opportunities
  • experiment with innovations
  • Risk Takers
    Analyzer :
  • imitators, copy success of prospectors
  • the ability to respond to prospectors initiatives and maintain operating efficiency in current markets.
    Reactors:
  • react to survive

    Porters Business level strategies are a result of five competitive factors:
    Five factors which determine the level of competition in turn the industries profitability because they directly influence the prices and individual firm must charge the firms cost structure, and capital investment requirements.

    Porter's Five Competitive Forces:

  • Potential new entrants - what types of barriers of entry into the market exist?
  • Threat of substitutes - how likely are customers to switch products?
  • Bargaining powers of buyers - empowered consumer.
  • Bargaining power of suppliers - availability of substitute inputs
  • Rivalry among competitors - "Advertising slugfest"

    Porter's Competitive Strategies

  • Differentiation
  • Cost Leadership
  • Focus
  • low cost
  • differentiation

    Porter's Competitive Advantage Strategies

  • Cost Leadership - operating efficiencies, low cost
  • Differentiation - unique (perceived differentiation of product. Create a positive image.
  • Focus - specific segment of market which the firm fell they can serve more effectively and efficiently combined with one of the above.
  • Stuck in the middle - firms unable to gain a competitive advantage

    Product Life Cycle
    Seven Traps of Strategic Planning

  • failing to recognize changing conditions in the competitive environment
  • basing strategies on a flawed set of assumptions
  • failing to create or sustain a long run competitive advantage
  • diversifying for all the wrong reasons
  • failing to coordinate processes and key functions across functional areas
  • setting arbitrary and inflexible goals and controls that do not consider culture and rewards
  • failing to provide leadership to implement strategic change