Strategy paper

There are a gazillion companies out there, but some stand out. Whether it is because of their popularity, affiliations, history, profile or service, one factor simply makes or breaks a company; it’s strategy management process.

‘Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term, which achieves advantage in a changing environment through it’

There has been a large amount of research into what strategy is, since Michael Porter’s perennial work in the 1980s. Studies done on the execution of strategy have been far less numerous. However, there is one major understanding about the execution of strategy. The execution of strategy is a vital part of success in business. A summary of many myths surrounding various strategic executions will be outlined, along with their subsequent analyses.

Communicate: Communications laterally, up and down is essential to ensure we are operating as a team in the operational and strategic environment. Gaps in communication create chaos. Pro-active communications create an environment of transparency and a foundation of trust. I need the good news along with the bad news to have a holistic view to make effective decisions. Your honest approach to

Ok! My Staff! Like I mentioned, I have sat down with my Staff, Section and Division Chiefs. We have had a few good discussions. On top of us developing the “Vision” together, they also are in a 100% agreement with my ‘Expectations’ and my ‘initial projects’ that we are going to focus our energy towards.

There are many communication channels available for TD's leaders to communicate corporate strategy, updates to the mission and purpose. Some of the channels are direct e-mail communications, leadership hosted town hall type meetings, intranet posting and internal chain of command communications. When delivering vision and strategy, TD keeps the message very simple keeping in mind the customer and the employees. The relevance is always explained within the communication embedding a deep meaning.

Not involving those responsible for execution in the planning process threatens knowledge transfer, commitment to sought-after outcomes, and the entire implementation process (Hrebiniak, 2010). In his interviews with a number of chief executive officers (CEOs), Sterling (2010) concluded that involving people directly in strategy development paid off. However, Sterling and other researchers have not expounded on the relationship that might exist between strategy formulation and implementation. To that point, more research in this field is required and needed so that the link between the two will prove this relationship exists.

Change in one of the market risk may result in changes in another, which can affect how Walmart price the product for consumers and it also affect the value of the cost leadership initiatives. By using cost leadership to leverage operating expenses, increasing productivity and sourcing goods globally at low, low cost will maximize returns on capital invested. Walmart execute a tight financial expense control and a strong inventory management along with cost leadership and financial discipline will gives Walmart more profitable returns (Walmart 2010 annual report).

This paper begins with a summary view to develop the concept of strategy and why its implementation is difficult. The following sections then cover the core discussion of this paper to support the aforementioned

The first step to analyse strategy is to perform a SWOT analysis. As Daft and Marcic (2011) believe “Formulating strategy often begins with an assessment of the internal and external factors that will affect the organisation’s competitive situation.” (Daft and Marcic, 2011, p.155). So this is where I will begin the analysis.

An organisation’s strategy plays an important role of providing direction of where company wants to be and how best to allocate the company’s resources to meet its objectives. The formulation of business strategies has evolved over the years and has been made more difficult in recent by the uncertain operating environments and global financial crises.

Alfred Chandler(1963) defines strategy as ‘ the determination of the long-run goals and objectives of an enterprise and the adoption of courses of action of an enterprise and the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary for carrying out these goals’. And Michael porter(1996) sees it as ‘Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value’.

‘Strategic Management’ is a very complex term as many eminent researchers and scholars have had different views and conclusions on strategy. According to White (2004), “Strategic Management involves both systematically developing an idea together with its implications and testing the empirical validity & usefulness of that idea against the real world.” Thus strategy is not only about planning for future but also about confirming the validity of the hypothesis considered and implementing it successfully. Strategy formation may take various forms such as implicit, explicit or emergent. Implicit strategy is a strategy formed by intuitions of an individual. As per implicit strategists, strategic management is about reading the environment

Johnson, Wittington, Scholes, Angwin and Regnér (2014, p. 3) defines strategy as ‘the long-term direction of an organisation’.

A strategy, according to Robbins and Barnwell (2002, p. 139) is “the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary to achieve the organisation’s goals”.