BUS208: Principles of Management

7a. Illustrate the components of business strategy

Business strategy - focuses on how a given business needs to compete to be effective.

Corporate strategy - looks at an organization as a portfolio of things. The logic behind corporate strategy is one of synergy and diversification.

 

 

SWOT Analysis

At the most basic level, you will need to gather information and analyze the organization's internal characteristics and external market conditions. This means an internal appraisal and an external appraisal. On the internal side, you will want to gain a sense of the organization's strengths and weaknesses. On the external side, you will want to develop some sense of the organization's opportunities and threats. Together, these four inputs into strategizing are often called SWOT Analysis, which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

 

7b. Explain how to develop and achieve organizational goals and objectives

The five elements for setting and achieving goals are:

1. Clarity. The first step in goal attainment is the need for a clear mission. When you have a clear mission, you will be able to achieve it. Once you have clearly stated your mission, you will be in a position to take advantage of opportunities that come your way. Creating a sense of urgency will ensure that all activities are connected to achieve your goals on time.
2. Focus. By focusing on what we want, we will become empowered. Individuals should write down their goals to enable the mind to create a picture of what success will look like. We should define our goals in writing, visualize them, and then prioritize them. By having a real awareness of our goals and defining where we want to go (i.e., focus), we will come to the right decisions, which will lead to better results.
3. Esteem means we allow ourselves to believe that we can achieve these goals. Esteem is the belief in who you are and the clear picture, or sense of certainty, about yourself. If you are unhappy with that picture of yourself, then you can create a better picture. By creating a better picture, you will attract even greater things. We must permit ourselves to celebrate our successes. Too often, we focus on our failures and do not take the time to enjoy our accomplishments. We should not obsess over our failures, and we should let go of them after they occur. We should have powerful conversations with ourselves and be honest about what those conversations tell us about improving our esteem. To feel powerful about ourselves, we should also listen to what others have to say; we should take the time to measure our progress; we should contribute to others' successes, and we should take the time to read and gain more knowledge.
4. Follow-Through is one of the most important aspects of staying the course when achieving goals is to share those goals with someone who has high expectations of you. In this way, you will be accountable for your actions. Another important aspect of follow-through is to revisit your goals often. We must understand that failure is part of achieving success, and that feedback we receive from failure is essential. In essence, giving up should not be an option. Rather we should take the lessons learned from failure to readdress how to achieve success.
5. Commitment is having firm goals and committing to them until the end.

 

Eight Characteristics of Appropriate Goals and Objectives

1. Fewer is better. Concentrate on measuring the vital few key variables rather than the trivial many.
2. Measures should be linked to the factors needed for success – key business drivers.
3. Measures should be a mix of past, present, and future to ensure the organization is concerned with all three perspectives.
4. Measures should be based on the needs of customers, shareholders, and other key stakeholders.
5. Measures should start at the top and flow down to all levels of employees in the organization.
6. Multiple indices can be combined into a single index to give a better overall assessment of performance.
7. Measures should be changed or at least adjusted as the environment and your strategy changes.
8. Measures need to have targets or objectives established that are based on research rather than arbitrary numbers.