Essay on "Company or Organization, Preferably"

Essay 15 pages (5736 words) Sources: 4 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

company or organization, preferably the organization or company you work for. All below questions must be addressed

Cincom Systems was founded in 1968 and is in the business of providing enterprise application software to the world's manufacturing, manufacturing services, and marketing services organizations globally. As a result of this primary business, Cincom has moved aggressively into offshore application development in conjunction with creating partnerships with Microsoft and SAP, an enterprise systems provider who is a leader in the field of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. The primary mission or purpose of the company is to create enterprise software applications that enable companies to be more efficient and profitable over time. This includes streamlining their quote-to-order process, manufacturing and execution systems, and service systems as well. The organizational culture is one that relies heavily on knowledge and in fact cherishes it; the company itself looks like a very large multistory library inside. The CEO and founder is an avid reader and therefore have one of the most extensive collections of books in all of the Cincinnati, OH area where the company is based. The primary strategic objectives and long-range plans of the organization are today focused on growing its Acquire Suite of channel management, sales configuration and product configuration applications in addition to growing the sales of its ERP systems as well. The role of partnerships within Cincom is to serve as the technological foundation of development, as evidenced by the heavy reliance on Microsoft for the core platform of the Acquire product line for example.

How well in your e

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stimation is the company's present strategy working?

At present, Cincom is struggling to gain the necessary traction in the smaller businesses that rely on channels for their majority of their revenue. The small and medium business (SMB) marketplace is difficult to penetrate as there are engrained approaches to managing channel partnerships and relationships that small business owners are reluctant to change from. There is significant resistance to change in smaller organizations as a result. Conversely, Cincom has excelled in the area of complex manufacturing processes where engineer-to-order workflows that are used for creating one-of-a-kind products are the dominant need. Companies including Trane Air Conditioning, American Power Conversion and others where the production and manufacture of highly customized capital equipment dominate their needs are where Cincom is excelling today with their Acquire suite of channel management and product configuration software. The reliance on manufacturing complexity as the pain point they based their unique value proposition on has helped Cincom weather the economic downturn better than its competitors as well. In addition to these markets, Cincom excels in the Aerospace & Defense market, where the ERP suite of applications known of as CONTROL are used for manufacturing resource planning (MRP), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and interlinking manufacturing workflows to pricing and logistics to deliver products. Cincom concentrates on the manufacturing workflows that are difficult to accomplish with off-the-shelf enterprise software. The Cincom suite of application is highly customizable for complex manufacturing processes, hence their success in more capital-intensive industries.

(NOTE I broke this into a separate question given its length)

What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of the organization? How strong, if applicable, is the company's competitive position? What strategic issues does this organization/company face in the next year? Next five years?

Cincom's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats emanate from their unique approach to defining customer engagements from a customer-centric approach first and then selectively applying software to areas where automation can provide the greatest financial impact. For Cincom their greatest strengths include a short delivery cycle for installing and implementing ERP systems, deep expertise in the areas of key success factors relating to ERP system integration success (Ngai, Law, Wat, 2008), and a solid methodology for mapping process performance to system implementation success over time, which has proven to be a critical success factor in the development of successful ERP systems (Law, Ngai, 2007). The weaknesses the company has include a difficulty in implementing ERP systems for small and medium enterprises or businesses, an area fraught with challenges due to change management and lack of system integration possibilities from a system design standpoint (Poba-Nzaou, Raymond, Fabi, 2008). Cincom also struggles to compete against open source-based ERP systems that have been able to catch on in small and medium enterprises and businesses (Johansson, Sudzina, 2008). Another weakness that Cincom has the lack of ability at managing competitive threats from vendors who rely on the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, as Cincom is entirely based on licensed, on-premise software. Despite these weaknesses the company has many opportunities, including the ability to quickly move into Web Services, which will drastically reduce implementation timeframes for ERP systems overall and also provide Cincom with entirely new revenue streams (Fei, Olson, 2007). There is also the opportunity to create distributed order management systems that can combine both services offerings and pricing in the same order as products, which is a key requirement of manufacturers who rely on indirect channels and resellers as well (McGaughey, Gunasekaran, 2007). Threats include the continued consolidation of the industry as evidenced by Oracle continuing to acquire companies, the latest being BEA Systems. There is also the threat of open source software taking more market share throughout the broader market segments Cincom excels in today (Johansson, Sudzina, 2008).

Despite these threats however the competitive position of Cincom is exceptionally strong relative to the smaller enterprise software companies it faces throughout the complex manufacturing and Aerospace & Defense markets today. Their competitive position has been strengthened by their reliance on Microsoft as a partner for development of their Acquire enterprise sales portal and associated applications. The most pressing strategic issue for 2010 is the ability to stay continually focused on pricing and not drop licensing fees in light of open source and SaaS-based competition. This would significantly impact the company's financial viability and would be incredibly risky given its value. There are significant risks and opportunities in the coming five years, with the growth of Web Services for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) being the greatest potential threat and opportunity (Fei, Olson, 2007). Web Services in enterprise computing is without question the unifying aspect of how Web 2.0 technologies (O'Reilly, 2005) will impact the enterprise. Cincom will need to have solid strategic plans going forward to make this risk into an opportunity.

The impact of globalization and the Internet presents real challenges for corporate strategic planners across the world. What is the impact of globalization and the Internet on corporations? Why is astute strategic planning a must in today's competitive business world?

The Internet set the foundation for Web 2.0 technologies (O'Reilly, 2005) and with it the growth of the groundswell effect of anyone with access to a computer and the Web being able to voice their opinions of products and services either through blogs or social networks. This has been called "the groundswell effect" (Bernoff, Li, 2008) and has significantly leveled the playing field of how companies interact with their customers. For any strategic planner this aspect of globalization, in conjunction with the fact that many nations are reacting to both the pervasiveness of the Web and globalization with a retrenchment to their core values, especially in Islamic countries (Woodward, Skrbis, Bean, 2008) shows how complex, not simple, the world is becoming from a strategic planning standpoint. Globalization is as a result forcing strategic planners to concentrate more on how they manage to navigate the significant cultural differences between countries. The use of the Cultural Dimensions Model (Hofstede, Neuijen, Ohayv, Sanders, 1990) and its continued refinement by Dr. Geert Hofstede (1993) illustrate how deeply divided regions of the world are. For strategic planning these cultural dimensions must be taken into account, regardless of the product or service delivered. These concepts of cultural relevancy in conjunction with the pervasiveness of the Web and its egalitarian influence on customers being able to say whatever they like, whenever they choose to is significantly changing the competitive landscape of virtually every industry today. This translates into the most challenging times ever for a strategic planner.

Compare and contrast extrapolation with the writing of scenarios as forecasting techniques. Why is creative thinking using scenarios, extrapolation, brainstorming, the Delphi technique or statistical modeling helpful in the strategic management process?

For any organization there must be a balance between the intuitive and often unquantifiable on the one hand and the quantitatively based on the other. In the best run organizations this balance provides a measure of validation of perspective and strategic direction. To be overly focused on one vs. another is to lose significant insight the other approach can provide, or the insights gained from the synthesis of the two. The techniques of extrapolation using written scenarios are deliberately designed to bring out the more qualitative factors that would never be found in purely quantitative analysis. The use of the Delphi technique for assembling useful insights from industry experts has been used for decades to accomplish the same result… READ MORE

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Quoted Instructions for "Company or Organization, Preferably" Assignment:

“

All 15 questions require at least a 200 word APA response.

1. Pick a company or organization, preferably the organization or company you work for (***** can select choice of any company). All below questions must be addressed

What is the organization?

What is its primary business or services?

What is the organizational mission or purpose?

How would you characterize the organizational culture?

What are the primary strategic objectives or long range plans for the organization?

2. How well in your estimation is the company*****s present strategy working? (You can choose the company or organization that you work for, or you can select another company about which you can easily find information.)

What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of the organization?

How strong, if applicable, is the company*****s competitive position?

What strategic issues does this organization/company face in the next year? Next five years?

3. The impact of globalization and the Internet presents real challenges for corporate strategic planners across the world. What is the impact of globalization and the Internet on corporations? Why is astute strategic planning a must in today*****s competitive business world?

4. Compare and contrast extrapolation with the writing of scenarios as forecasting techniques. Why is creative thinking using scenarios, extrapolation, brainstorming, the Delphi technique or statistical modeling helpful in the strategic management process?

5. In what ways may a corporations***** structure and culture be internal strengths or weaknesses? Look at your organization analyze its***** structural and cultural strengths and weaknesses? How can the weaknesses be improved?

6. Discuss the value of the TOWS Matrix in strategy formulation. Do you agree with this way of generating strategic alternatives? Why or why not?

7. What are the tradeoffs (pros and cons) between an internal and an external growth strategy? Which approach is best as an international strategy? Why?

8. Compare and contrast action planning with Management by Objectives. How can MBO help improve the implementation of strategy.

9. The text pointed out the importance of assessing the strategy-culture compatibility, when implementing a new strategy. Do you feel that culture follows strategy or does strategy follow culture? Justify your answer.

10. What are some examples of behavior controls, output controls, input controls? Is benchmarking just another fad or is it really useful for all firms? Why?

11. How can a company develop an entrepreneurial culture? In your mind, how important is creative thinking within an organization or business? How much is creativity valued in your organization?

12. Why are some entrepreneurial ventures successful almost immediately while others fail to even reach break even status? What considerations should small business entrepreneurs keep in mind when they are deciding whether a company should follow a growth or a stability strategy?

13. What are advantages and disadvantages of privatization of state-owned business? A number of not-for*****“profit organizations in the United States have been converting to profit-making. Why would a not-for-profit organization want to change its status to profit-making? What are the pros and cons of doing so?

14. If you were the CEO of Kmart what strategies would you recommend for the company? Should Kmart and Sears keep their own identities and have unique competitive strategies, or should they be combined in some way with a new overall corporate competitive strategy? Please defend your answer.

15. Read the short Kmart case study (see below) and carefully and answer the following questions:

What business competitive strategies were used by each of Kmart*****s major competitors? Please briefly explain these strategies.

Which strategies were most effective? Why?

Kmart case study

On January 22, 2002, Kmart Corporation became the largest retailer in U.S. history to seek bankruptcy protection. In Kmart*****s petition for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, Kmart management announced that they would outline a plan for repaying Kmart*****s creditors, reducing Kmart*****s size, and restructuring its business so that it could leave court protection as a viable competitor in discount mass-market retailing. Emerging from bankruptcy in May 2003, Kmart still lacked a business strategy to succeed in an extremely competitive marketplace.

By 2004, the discount department store industry had reached maturity, and Kmart no longer possessed a clearly defined position within that industry. Its primary competitors were Wal-Mart, Sears, Target, Kohl*****s and JCPenney, with secondary competitors in certain categories. Wal-Mart, an extremely efficient retailer, was known for consistently having the lowest costs (reflected in lower prices) and the highest sales in the industry. Having started in rural America, Wal-Mart was now actively growing internationally. Sears, with the second-highest annual sales, had a strong position in hard goods, such as home appliances and tools. Around 40% of all major home appliance sales continued to be controlled by Sears. Nevertheless, Sears was struggling with slumping sales as customers turned from Sears***** mall stores to stand-alone, big-box retailers, such as Lowe*****s and Home Depot, to busy their hard goods. Target, third in sales but second in profits, behind Wal-Mart, had distinguished itself as a merchandiser of stylish upscale products. Along with Wal-Mart, Target had flourished to such an extent that Dayton-Dudson, its parent company had changed its corporate name to Target, Kohl*****s, a relatively new entrant to the industry, operated 420 family ***** stores in 32 states. JCPenney operated more than 1,000 stores in all 50 states. Both Kohl*****s and JCPenney emphasized soft goods, such as clothing and related items.

Kmart was also challenged by category killers that competed in only one of or a few industry categories but in greater depth within any category than could any department store. Some of these were Toys R Us, Home Depot, Lowe*****s, and drug stores such as Rite Aid, VS, Eckerd, and Walgreens.

Kmart had been established in 1962 by its parent company S.S. Kresge as a discount department store offering the most variety of goods at the lowers prices. Unlike Sears, the company chose not to locate in shopping centers but to establish its discount stores in highly visible corner locations, During the 1960s, *****˜70s, and *****˜80s, Kmart prospered. By 1990, however, when Wal-Mart first surpassed Kmart in annual sales, Kmart*****s stores had become dated and lost their appeal. Other well-known discount stores, such as Korvette*****s, Grant*****s, Woolco, Ames, Bradlees, and Montgomery Ward, had gone out of business as the industry had consolidated and reached maturity. Attempting to avoid this fate, Kmart management updated and enlarged the stores, added name brands, and hired Martha Stewart as its lifestyle consultant. None of these changes improved Kmart*****s financial situation. By the times it declared bankruptcy, it had lost money in 5 of the past 10 years.

Out of bankruptcy, Kmart became profitable *****“primarily by closing or selling (to Sears and Home Depot) around 600 of its retail stores. Management had been unable to invigorate sales in its stores. Declared guilty of insider trading, Martha Stewart went to prison just before the 2004 Christmas season. In a surprise move, Edward Kampert, Kmart*****s Chairman of the Board and a major shareholder of Sears, initiated the acquisition of Sears by Kmart for 11 billion in November 2004. The new company was to be called Sears Holdings Corporation. Even though management predicted that the combine company*****s costs could be reduced by $500 million annually within three years through supplier and administrative economies, analysts wondered how these two struggling firms could ever be successful.

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