Term Paper on "Importance of Strategic Planning for Training Companies"

Term Paper 55 pages (16101 words) Sources: 50 Style: Harvard

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Strategic Planning for Training Companies

The Case of SMEs in the UAE

Organisations are increasingly dependent upon it systems and infrastructure, but they also need good quality employees, and training them properly is crucial. Training companies exist, but the strategic planning of these companies does not always work well with the planning that other companies are engaging in. Eventually, organisations are subjected to many risks, so their business is inherently risky. How long can an organisation afford downtime because of a lack of strategic planning and business continuity? How long does it take to recover from a disaster; and, what does it cost? The purpose of strategic planning is to enable a business to continue operations in event of a disruption and/or to survive a disastrous interruption to their business. (Damianides, Parkinson, 2004, p.280).

In the training industry, keeping a good backup of information is considered to be only one issue for effective system recovery, and without considering other elements of a good business continuity plan, strategic planning can easily fail. Business continuity and disaster recovery are so vital to business success that they are no longer a concern of the it department alone, and the strategic planning that businesses are focusing on today must address all aspects of the business (Musaji, 2002). The purpose of this research is to provide a framework, and guidance to management, of good practices in the strategic planning area plan and to determine whether or not these companies are well prepared for the unexpected. To accomplish the objectives of this research a survey will be developed from the literatu

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re review and the survey will be given to various SMEs to get their views on strategic planning.

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Overview

Aims and Objectives

Statement of the research question

Chapter 2 - Background of the research

Chapter 3 - Literature Review

Chapter 4 -Methodology

Research strategy for primary research

Limits and restrictions to the study

Discussion - Specifics of the Proposed Methodology

References

Appendix 1: The Survey

Appendix 2: The List of Participating Companies:

Appendix 3: The Selection Criteria for the Companies in the Sample.

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Business in general is exposed to risk. "Risk and uncertainty are part of the everyday operating environment for all organisations. Occasionally the risks may be sufficient to generate a crisis which, if left unattended, can become a disaster." (Davies and Walters, 1998, p.5). Operating disruptions may occur with or without warning, and the outcomes may be devastating. According to the IIA-UK, business is exposed to different kind of threats, which stem from two sources i.e. internal and external. It is estimated that "10% of an organisation's problems stem from outside action, leaving approximately 90% being the result of insiders." (Silltow, 2002, p183). The disruptive event may also be intentional or unintentional security violations that suspend normal operations.

Even brief business interruptions can mean reduced revenues, lost customers or reduced market share," says Davies and Walters (1998, p.5). This is because even small and medium-sized businesses, in any country, play a major role in the economy; thus, it is important that their business operations are rigid and the effects of disruptions in a service are minimised in order to maintain public trust and confidence in the business world. Effective strategic planning establishes the basis for businesses to maintain and recover business processes when operations have been disrupted unexpectedly.

A large majority of what must be handled in strategic planning is business continuity planning (BCP). These kinds of plans are created to prevent interruptions to normal business activity. They are designed to protect critical business processes from natural or man-made failures or disasters and the resultant loss of capital due to unavailability of normal business processes. The aim of BCP is to minimise the effects of a disruptive event on a company. The business continuity plan should also help minimise the cost associated with the disruptive event and mitigate the risk associated with it.

New business practices, rapid changes in technology, and increased terrorism concerns have focused even greater attention on the need for effective Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and have changed the benchmarks of an effective plan. For example, an effective Business Continuity Planning should take into account the potential for wide-area disasters that could impact an entire region and for the consequential loss or accessibility of staff. It also should consider and address interdependencies, both market-based and geographic, among all business participants, as well as infrastructure service providers.

There are many surveys created to estimate the cost of a disaster. For example, "Research by IBM (Varcoe, 1993) showed that 80 per cent of organisations without relevant contingency plans who suffered a computer disaster went bankrupt within 18 months, with a further 10 per cent suffering the same fate within five years." (Davies and Walters, 1998, p.5). On the other hand, Kash and Darling (1998) highlighted that 85 per cent of all organisations acknowledge that crises within the business environment are inevitable. Few of these organisations, however, appear to have BCPs established. Hearnden (1995) identifies that where BCPs have been established the plans are largely focused on information technology (it) (Pitt, Goyal, 2004).

To be effective, however, these plans must focus on more than just the it section of a company. The people that are being trained and all other aspects of the business are just as important as whether the information technology infrastructure remains strong. Because of this, strategic planning must expand and address the whole of the company to truly be as effective as businesses would desire.

Overview

Strategic planning from a continuity sense is the method or process whereby businesses ensure the protection or recovery of operations, including services to customers, when confronted with adverse events such as natural disasters, technological failures, human error, or terrorism. The Business Continuity Institute (BCI) defines business continuity as "a proactive process which identifies the key functions of an organisation and the likely threats to those functions, from this information plans and procedures which ensure key functions can continue whatever the circumstances can be developed" (Silltow, 2002, p.247).

The objectives of a business continuity plan (BCP) are to reduce financial loss to the institution; provide a continuation of services to customers and financial market participants; and mitigate the negative effects of disruptions on its' strategic plans, reputation, operations, liquidity, credit quality, market position, and ability to remain in compliance with applicable laws and regulations. Establishment of an effective business continuity plan is needed for survival. For the plan to be effective it should, according to Fitzgerald (1995), "be matched to the business' true tolerance, be enterprise-wide, get the basics right, develop a business continuity ownership structure, establish a plan discipline, and not over-invest" (Fitzgerald, 1995, p.20).

Without proper planning, businesses cannot recover easily from a disaster. Pat Moore (1995), states that "we cannot expect to recover fully and continue our business or services without planning for the recovery of the facility which houses the business or service operations and which provides the environment in which the business units and processes operate" (p.22). "Planning is the primary responsibility of senior management, as they are entrusted with the safeguard of both the assets and the viability of the company" (Damianides, Parkinson, 2004, p.280). The plan should be comprehensive and flexible as well, but unfortunately these kinds of plans often leave out too much of what they should include, and include issues that are not a necessary part of the planning (Karakasidis, 1997, p.72).

Two specific types of strategic plans -- Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP) -- involve preparation, testing, and updating the actions required to protect critical business processes from the effects of major systems and network failures. These two concepts are so close as to allow combining them into one domain. There are some differences, however, and understanding them is important to knowing what strategic planning really is and what is best to address for a business. Basically, business continuity planning is the process of making the plans that will ensure that critical business functions can withstand a variety of emergencies. Disaster recovery planning involves making preparations for a disaster, but also addresses the procedure to be followed during and after a loss. DRP is a comprehensive statement of consistent actions to be taken before, during and after a disruptive event that causes a significant loss of information system resources.

According to Damianides and Parkinson (2004), the BCP process includes the following:

Business impact analysis"

Develop business strategies"

Develop detailed plan"

Test and maintain plan"

Most companies hesitate to develop a disaster recovery plan until a disaster occurs. However, according to another survey (Patrowicz, 1998), 85% of the Fortune 1,000 companies have disaster recovery plans. Within these companies, which have disaster recovery plans:

80 per cent have plans that protect their data centre resources;

50 per cent have plans that protect their networks; and Less than 35% have plans that protect their data on PC LANs.(Hawkins, et al., 2000).

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Quoted Instructions for "Importance of Strategic Planning for Training Companies" Assignment:

“

Hello, after trying another service and being really disappointed, the only thing I got was a waste of time, I have been referred to you by a freind who says you guys are VERY GOOD, I hope you guys can help me out so here we go.

I am writing a dissertation with very little time on my hand, I cannot take more time because of really tough situations, but I really appreciate your survice and hope you will do a great job for me.

The dissertation must be about 15,000 words long, Master Level, and is about strategic planning.

Remember that citation style is Harvard, and it's in British English.

I*****ve started writing sections of the dissertation(Below), but having no experience in Dissertation writing, I come to you as experts in academic writing to help me get an A. I have done a good part, I hope it*****s clear, the first section that I need your help in is writing the pre-interview section, meaning chapters 1 until 4 inclusive, linking those in a way that it focuses the dissertation on answering the question, some sections you will find good others maybe missing, and yet others can be in a different order, or may need to go altogether, you're the pros.

Meanwhile I will conduct the interviews with multiple companies and send the results of the transcripts to you for writing the remaining chapters.

Please find below the work I*****ve done, I*****ve enclosed my comments between [square brackets]

Dissertation title:

The Importance of Strategic Planning for Training Companies *****“ the case of SMEs in the UAE

Title and content

1 Chapter 1 *****“ Introduction

1.1 Overview

1.2 Aims and Objectives

1.3 Statement of the research question

2 Chapter 2 *****“ Background and context of the research

2.1 Background

2.2 The theoretical base

3 Chapter 3 *****“ Literature review

3.1 The history and evolution of training services

3.2 Training services in the UAE

4 Chapter 4 *****“Methodology

4.1 Research strategy for primary research

4.2 Limits and restrictions to the study

4.3 The impact of strategic planning on the company*****s performance (the empirical study)

4.4 Overview of survey sample

4.5 Strategic planning in SMEs: The Questionnaire (go through questionnaire and explain the significance for each question)

5 Chapter 5: Discussion - Analysis and interpretation

5.1 Survey findings and results (also include Description on how the results were collected)

5.2 Defining success in strategic planning

5.3 Best practices

6 Chapter 6: Conclusion & Recommendations

References

Appendix 1: The Survey

Appendix 2: The list of participating companies:

Appendix 3: the selection criteria for the companies in the sample.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[Now in Detail ]

Abstract

Acknowledgment

1 *****“ Introduction

1.1 Overview

[overview of the and what it involves goes here.]

1.2 Aim and objectives

The aim of this paper is to determine the impact of strategic planning on the performance of small to medium size training companies in the UAE.

The objectives are:

- To identify the use of strategic planning with the company*****s performance (turnover, number of employees, number of customers);

- To relate the use of strategic planning with the international activity;

- To determine the use of strategic planning with the use of high tech methods;

- To correlate the use of strategic planning with the manager*****s characteristics (age, education, gender, foreign language proficiency, prior experience [general or specific]);

- To evaluate the use of strategic planning with the company*****s age and the mangers***** experience.

- Identify future development opportunities.

I am hoping that these objectives will be useful in determining what impact strategic planning has on the training companies chosen to participate in this study.

1.3 Statement of the research question

Is strategic planning essential for training companies (those that offer training for businesses) in order to remain competitive in providing relevant training for businesses with changing needs, from a sample of companies?

Chapter 2 *****“ Background and context of the research

2.1 Background

This will show a general background on the significance of the research, where the need became clear, and what promoted the research.

2.2 The theoretical base

What*****s the theory behind the research and in what context is it intended, critically evaluating different views on the subject along with the citations.

Chapter 3. Literature review

Literature review must be extensive and cover all grounds with regard to relevant literature in this field, it should also include personal planning, professional planning; how training is the better option to keep employees motivated and decrease employee replacement in general, specifically it should cover:

The history and evolution of training services:

How it all started, this section contains references from the learning organisation and the organisational learning, in addition to how corporate or company learning became popular in spite of the spending involved that the lack of training may be even more costly; highlights with regards to the emerging need for training in time.

Training services in the UAE:

If you don*****t have any references on this please write in general.

4. Methodology

4.1 Research strategy for primary research

Using data provided by the Ministry of Labour, a sample of 20 training companies across the UAE was defined, these companies***** profiles correspond the profile targeted by the dissertation (a comprehensive list is in Appendix2 Listing the companies that were included in the research), of those companies that request to remain anonymous will not be mentioned; however a place holder mentioning a code will be in the list to denote that a company did participate.

The option of purchasing data from industry associations was avoided due to the potential questionable nature of data that might be provided and it*****s effect on the research authenticity, instead direct collection of data will be used, through interviews with the companies***** leaders (GMs or other personnel directly involved in planning), through structured or semi-structured interviews; in order to make this proposition attractive to companies, I will offer the benefit of sharing the research findings as a thank you for your contribution.

Further relevant leads might be obtained from interviewees that appear adequately informed and it is assumed therefore that their referrals will also be as informed and therefore are likely to add very useful contributions to the study.

Once the data is collected it has to be an*****d. Excel was chosen for this task. Data from excel can be transported in a large number of statistical applications to be an*****d and it is easy to manipulate.

Charts will be used to make the results more comprehensive for the reader, as this thesis is addressed to all training companies. Since some of the managers may not have experience with interpreting statistical results, pie and bar charts were chosen to help with this by presenting the results in a visual manner.

[Also mention how we took the sample and why? In appendix 2]

4.2 Limits and restrictions to the study

The main limitations are related to data collection as the timeline for this stage is quite short and because of that the response rate may to be low. That is why secondary sources were chosen to complement this task.

Also, given the size of the sample, it will be very unlikely to interview all the managers which would have been otherwise ideal to obtain more accurate data. to facilitate mitigating this effect, careful selection for personnel who are more likely to contribute relevant data will be set in a selection criteria document (see Appendix3), it will focus on those who will have the factors that will give them precedence over other candidates to be interviewed, such as experience in setting strategy, or implementing strategy... and etc.

One other challenge that may be encountered is the refusal of some companies from the sample to cooperate. Some companies refuse to disclose information about their internal processes because they think it may damage their activity, or it might be leaked to competitors for example. To address this problem, every measure will be taken to the extent of offering to sign a non-disclosure agreement with those companies if deemed necessary and requesting the University to treat my dissertation as Confidential.

4.3 The impact of strategic planning on the company*****s performance (the empirical study)

This section is going to:

+ Give more details on how the researcher is going to apply the techniques to the research

E.g., exactly which data is going to be collected and how is it going to be an*****d?

- collecting the data will depend primarily on the interviews with around 20 companies and this will allow to form a representative sample as the sizes of the companies will differ from small to medium to bigger companies.

+How will the findings help to address the stated research question?

4.4 Overview of survey sample

4.5 Strategic planning in SMEs: The Questionnaire (go through questionnaire and explain the significance for each question)

5 Chapter 5: Discussion - Analysis and interpretation

5.1 Survey findings and results (Description of the results and the findings)

5.2 Defining success in strategic planning

5.3 Best practices

6 Chapter 6: Conclusion & recommendations

7 References and bibliography

[The resources will be divided in two sections: one section for the theoretical part and the other is for the empirical part. The section for the theoretical part includes strategic planning related books and articles, such as:]

- Bamberg, R. & Layman, E.J. (2005). Environmental scanning and the health care manager. The Health Care Manager. 24, 200-208.

- *****, F (2005), *****Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases*****, 10th Edition, Prentice Hall.

- Goetsch, D (2006) *****Effective Strategic Planning for Competitive Advantage: Ten Steps for Technical Professions (NetEffect)*****, Prentice Hall.

- Hunger, J and Wheelen Tom (2007) *****Essentials of Strategic Management*****, 4th Edition, Prentice Hall.

- Kaufman, R, Oakley-Browne, H, Watkins, R and Leigh D (2003) *****Strategic Planning For Success: Aligning People, Performance, and Payoffs*****, Wiley&Sons.

- Mintzberg, H (1993), *****The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning*****, Free Press.

- Porter, M (1998), *****Competitive Strategy *****“ Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors*****, Free Press.

- Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art & practice of the learning organization. Santa Fe, New Mexico: Doubleday.

- more resources will be sent by email.

[Please add more resources and references as necessary]

[The section for the empirical part should include books and articles related to different methods of strategic planning and how to build the empirical part of an academic research, such as:]

- Gujarati, Damodar N. (1995) *****Basic Econometrics*****, 3rd Edition, McGraw-Hill International Editions.

- Kaplan, R and Norton, D (2001) *****The Strategy Focused Organization *****“ How balanced scorecard organizations thrive in the new business*****, Harvard Business School Press.

- Welkowitz, J, Cohen, B and Ewen, B (2006), *****Introductory Statistics for the Behavioural Sciences*****, 6th Edition, Wiley & Sons.

[Please add more resources and references as necessary]

Appendix 1: The Survey

[Important NOTE: Building the questionnaire must be based on the literature review and must be inter-linked with the rest of the dissertation, so that it makes a sound basis for data collection. The purpose of this is to run the interview by 20 different companies (some bigger others medium and smaller companies) in order to get a good cross-section analysis.

When asking these questions, the questionnaire will be produced in two versions; one will remain with the researcher which will contain probing questions while the questionnaire given to the interviewee will contain open ended questions in general to allow the interviewee to *****speak his/her mind*****. The purpose of this is to allow the interview to answer the questions as spontaneous as possible without interference and will allow the interviewer to probe further with questions that will reveal a wealth of information.

[Here is an example of the questions I would ask in the interviews:

Following is my thinking on my questionnaire building so that takes into consideration it all standard practices and regulations to conducting surveys, since this is my first time to do such a survey, please help out constructing a structured interview questionnaire here are the sections I thought of, please modify add/remove as necessary in accordance with what is accepted and correct academically]

Section One - About the company:

(Company Name: Address: Website: contact: please introduce yourself:

When was it established?

Where was it established?

Is the company International or local?

How many branches?

How many Staff members?

How many years in operation?

Who are your specific target markets-Sectors (finance, construction, etc.)?

Is the company authorised by the Ministry of Education?

How many clients do you have?

Can you share any declared and publicly available records on the performance of the company?)

What is the company turnover year to year? And since implementing strategic planning if it were not before?

Section two *****“ About your services?

(Do you offer any other services or products besides training?

What is your training portfolio? What courses do you offer?

Who are your courses directed to/prepared for?

How many trainers/ lecturers work in each branch?

If the company is international and has branches in the UAE, then the questions follow: do you operate the branches in the UAE with the same way you do in other locations world wide?)

Section three *****“ About your standard running of the business:

(What are the most popular means of communicating internally or with your clients, [meaning email, and online or paper and interoffice memo circulation?]

Where does the demand come from? Does it come from supply bases (what we have to deliver) or is it does it come in response to customer requests in designing custom made courses according to special requests, or have a portfolio of courses that customers can choose from?

Section four *****“ About the manager interviewed:

(Tell me about your responsibility? What do you do?

How long have you been there?

Do you have previous experience in planning? Please mention?

Would you say that the experience you have is relevant and directly or indirectly applicable to your role here?

Are you currently directly involved in Strategic planning?

Who else would you recommend that I see in this organisation who is also involved in Strategic Planning?

If you don*****t mind please state your age, education, foreign languages you know fluently speak that you use at work?)

Section five *****“ About strategic planning:

How does your organisation understand planning? [Looking for definition]

(Can I obtain a copy of your vision and mission statements?

Does the company have a strategic plan?

If so, can you share it with me, I assure you of complete confidentiality and am prepared to sign a non-disclosure agreement

How is the organisation*****s strategy created?

How often is the strategic plan revisited/updated?

What determines the re-evaluation of the strategic plan? [periodic or based on events])

Can you describe the process?)

- What potential training can you incorporate in the future?

Miscellaneous questions:

- What key areas does implementing your strategic plans make a significant impact in your organisation success?

- Were those key areas different in the past? And if so, how did they change?

- Looking at the trend of change of the effect of strategic planning from its early implementations to date, what will the key areas be in the future, in your view?

- When implementing the strategy, what measures do you employ to ensure things are going as planned?

- What are the challenges that face your organisation when implementing strategic planning, and how does your organisation deal with them?

- Based on your organisation*****s experience, should strategic planning be given a more important role or a less important role in deciding the future of the organisation?

Appendix 2: The list of participating companies:

[please ignore this section as I will provide this information]

Appendix 3: the selection criteria for the companies in the sample.

Selection Criteria:

- All companies in the sample selected for our study must possess the following criteria:

o Company is registered in the Ministry of Education

o Company offers training to other companies.

o Has more than one employee.

o Has training facilities

o Does training on more than one subject

o Has been in operation for at least one year.

- All candidates chosen for the interviews must posses the following criteria:

o Member of the board of directors,

o Contributes to setting the strategy

o A Prominent decision maker in the company

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What*****s really very important is:

- Ensuring that the statement of area, objective(s) is Precise. And assessing the boundaries of the dissertation.

- Searching a wide range of sources methodically. Identifying and referring most relevant texts. Pinpointing references in Harvard style.

- Having a detailed discussion of methodology

- Focusing on originality of the idea; giving objective evidence relevant to the area

- Analysis consistent with evidence.

please let me know if you have any questions or need any clarifications,

Best regards,

George

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