Unit 7: Business Strategy

Introduction and background notes (vocational context)

Aim of Assessment: The aim of this unit is to develop learners’ abilities to evaluate and select strategies appropriate to business organizations. This will involve an analysis of the impacts of the external operating business environment and the need to plan organizational strategies to ensure effective business performance. Learners will learn how to apply strategic positioning techniques to the analysis of given organization and prepare strategic plan based on previous analysis This unit will be assessed by Course Assignment and Time Constraint Assessment based on written Examination. Learning outcomes Understand the process of strategic planning Be able to formulate new strategy Understand approaches to strategy evaluation and selection Understand how to implement a chosen strategy

Tasks	What you must do	Grading Criteria
	Task 1 a )You are required to select a business organization which you are familiar with, preferably listed in the London stock market or stock market in your country of origin and research its business activities before writing a preliminary report based on following: a)  Company Profile b)  Mission and Vision statement c)  Goals and objectives d)  Core Competencies b)     Analyse the factors that have to be considered to formulate strategic plans. How does the Ansoff’s matrix help your chosen firm to manage the strategic decision to consider strategic plan. c)  Evaluate the effectiveness of strategic planning techniques to be used when developing strategic business plan. Task 2 a)   Conduct an organizational audit of the chosen business. How the evaluation of Porter’s five forces model in the perspective of your chosen organization is   useful for business environment and strategic positioning. b)   Explain the significance of stakeholders’ analysis while formulating new strategy of your chosen business. c)  Present a new strategy for the chosen business based on organizational change audit and stakeholders analysis Task 3 a)  Evaluate appropriateness of alternative strategies relating to market entry, substantive growth, limited growth or retrenchment of your chosen organization b)  Select an appropriate future strategy and justify why you selected that strategy for the chosen business organization Task 4 a) Analyse how you would plan for the implementation of the strategy in the perspective of following issues: i) The roles and responsibilities for strategy implementation in the chosen organization ii) Identify and evaluate resource requirements to implement a new strategy for the chosen organization b) Evaluate the contribution of SMART targets to the achievement of the strategy implementation of the chosen organization.	1/L01
		(1.1, 1.2,1.3)
		P/M/D
		2/L02 (2.1,
		2.2, 2.3)
		P/M/D
		3/LO3
		(3.1,3.2)
		P/M/D
		4/LO4
		(4.1, 4.2,4.3)
		P/M/D

Learning outcomes	Pass
L01. Understand the process of strategic planning	1.1  assess how business missions, visions, objective, goals and core competencies inform the strategic planning 1.2 analyse the factors that have to be considered when formulating strategic plan 1.3 evaluate the effectiveness of techniques used when developing strategic business plan
L02. Be able to formulate new strategy	2.1  analyse the strategic positioning of a given organization by carrying out an organization audit 2.2  carry out an environmental audit for a given organization 2.3  explain the significance of stake holder analysis when formulating new strategy 2.4  present a new strategy for a given organization
L03 Understand approaches to strategy evaluation and selection	3.1  analyse possible alternative strategies relating to market entry, substantive growth, limited growth or retrenchment for a given organization 3.2  select an appropriate future strategy for a given organization
L04. Understand how to implement a chosen strategy	4.1  Assess the roles and responsibilities for pf personnel who are in charged with strategy implementation 4.2   analyse the estimated resources requirements to implement a new strategy for a given organization 4.3   Evaluate the contribution of SMART targets to the achievement in a given organization's business management.

Business Strategy - Choosing a Business

LO 2 Be able to formulate new strategy

2.1 Carry out an environmental audit for a given organisation

 Environmental audit refers to the technique which is used to scan the different activities taking place around the business environment. It helps the business to investigate and identify the factors which affects the operations of the business.

Many factors like Political factors, Economical factors, technological facts, etc affects the business strategies and decisions. PEST analysis is one of the techniques to carry on environmental audit and it helps in getting the appropriate information about the macro factors which affect the business. (riccentre, 2015)

The organisation I work in is Mc Donald’s, which is the largest fast food chain across the world and it requires to adopt certain strategies to expand and grow its business. The PEST analysis of Mc Donald’s is explained below:

Political environment:

• It has to follow the strict laws and regulations by the government because of many acts related to health and hygiene. The business of Mc Donald's gets disturbed because of these rules and regulations.
• It has to follow the policies related to employment.
• It has to adhere to the local taxation rules of every country. (Donald's, 2015

Economic Environment:

• The business of Mc Donald’s operating through franchisees in different countries, so the franchisees have to pay the royalty fee to the parent company.
• The currency fluctuations in the countries affect the business and its profits.
• The economic conditions of the countries also affect the business because the purchasing power of the population determines the sales of the products of Mc Donald’s.

Socio- Cultural Environment:

• Mc Donald’s operated in many countries in the world so it has to follow the culture demands of every country. It respects the culture and offers those products to the customers which do not hurt their sentiments. For e.g. in Hindu religion beef is not used and in Muslim religion pork is not used. (riccentre, 2015)
• Mc Donald’s often criticized by the population of many countries for its unhealthy food because people are becoming more health conscious and most of the population is now moving towards healthy food to maintain health.

Technological environment:

• McDonalds is up to date with the latest technologies.
• It uses internet for advertising its brand name and products because most of the people are using internet nowadays and wide no of people can be reached thorough online advertisements.
• The company uses latest equipments and machinery for carrying its operations.
• Customer feedback can be easily taken with the help of internet.
• McDonalds’ has its own website which can be sued to reach more and more customers across the world. (Donalds, 2015)

Environmental Analysis:

• McDonald’s has to adhere to the environmental laws.
• People criticized the use of McDonalds’ products because it used plastic bags so now it uses paper packaging. (riccentre, 2015)

Legal analysis:

• Many legal laws and obligations has to be followed.
• In many countries it has to use the food and safety standards for example ISO.

References

Donalds, M. (2015). About us. Retrieved 12 10, 2015, from http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd.html Donald's, M. (2015). Our Company. Retrieved 12 01, 2015, from http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/our_company.html riccentre. (2015). SWOT analysis and PEST analysis. Retrieved 12 01, 2015, from http://riccentre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Session-1-Takeaways-Guidlines.pdf

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