Conceptualizing a Business - Essay Example

 Introduction At one point in life everyone has been told, “eat healthier” because it is good for you but sometimes in the back of our head were thinking eating healthy does not taste good. Therefore, the circle of eating unhealthy food continues until something happen and we get a wakeup call from the doctor that’s say if you don’t change the way you’re eating you can have a heart attack at any moment. Some people will listen, start to do their research and try to eat better while others just say things like “we all got to go one day.” Health eating habits have significantly become a matter of concern across the globe. Eating healthy is significant because it reduces the risk for certain diseases, improves the physical well-being, weight management, strengthen immune systems and extended life expectancy. The federal government spends a lot of money on maintaining a healthy nation; thus, the need for addressing the healthy eating habits is crucial. Many scholars argue that the increased fast food restaurants in the United States have contributed to increased diseases such as obesity and other related diseases. This is because the food is cheap, but it has many calories that pose health risks to citizens. Therefore, this aspect brings the writer to the choice of opening up a restaurant that has nutrient facts and serves healthy food at affordable prices. Products/Services The restaurant will offer varied types of products, which will be served at different occasions. For instance, it will serve healthy products and services to customers such as colorful fruits and vegetables, which are rich in vitamins. It will also serve whole grains, and low fat dairy product and other products, which have rich carbohydrates. Other products include fish, groundnuts, starchy, lean poultry and unsaturated oils like olive oil and canola that have low calories, hence reducing increased risks for diseases. These are beneficial because they have low calories; hence, they will help customers to have sufficient energy; thus living a healthy lifestyle (McLaughlin pr.8). Therefore, the restaurant will target all categories of customers including students, civil servants and even tourists from varied parts of the globe. Mission Statement The mission of the restaurant is to offer customers nutritious products and services at affordable prices. This mission is significant because it will improve the health living standards of many people; thus maintaining a healthy nation. Vision Statement The vision of the restaurant is to be health oriented competitive restaurant through delivering quality and health services at the lowest possible price while striving to meet the needs of all customers effectively. The organization will strive to achieve this in the future through ensuring that customers consume healthy products. Therefore, they will train employees to serve customers health products in order to enable the restaurant to become competitive in the future. Business Strategic Core Values The company will employ effective business strategies that will enable it to achieve a competitive advantage in the competitive business environment. Therefore, one of the core business principles is to understand the purpose of the business. The aim of the business is delivering nutritious products and services at fordable prices; thus, it is the role of the company owner to ensure that employees work effectively towards delivering the required business aspects. Therefore, training employees will be an effective element that will enable them to deliver quality services that meet the mission and vision of the company. Another aspect is to understand the marketing environment and targeted customers. This is imperative because opening up a business requires effective marketing research in order to understand the cultural aspects of customers and competitors in the market. Culture is one of the significant aspects that should be taken into considerations when carrying out business activities (Schein 71). This is because it may impact business performance; hence, the company owner may emphasize on the importance of understating organization culture and the cultural beliefs of customers in an attempt of achieving its stated mission. Lastly, the organization will employ social corporate responsibility as a strategy for creating change in the business environment. This strategy is employed in the current business environment in addressing customer’s expectations and ethical values, as well as, employees’ needs in achieving the stated objectives of the company. The vision, mission and strategic values of the company will act as strategic direction for enabling the company to achieve their desired or intended goals. These are significant tools that serve as the road map for directing the way the company will carry out their business activities ; thus achieving effective business performance. They will direct the way the company perform business and manages customers in a way that will enable them to achieve the future objectives. This is through employing business strategies and analyzing the business environment through carrying out marketing research activities on the way of improving business performance. The organization will address the needs of customers through carrying out marketing research in order to determine the expectations of customers. Therefore, they will offer training of employees and emphasize on customer value and serving them in a manner that will meet their expectations. This is crucial because it will enable the company to achieve effective organization performance in the long-run effectively. Hence, the company will achieve a competitive advantage through employing Porter’s five forces analysis strategy of achieving a competitive advantage. For instance, they can employ SWOT analysis for scanning the internal and external business environment. This is through identifying strengths, weakness and opportunities as well as threats to the business; thus employing effective strategies for competitive with their competitors. Strategic Plan, Part III SWOT analysis in an effective tool for strategic planning because it enables the business to determine the internal and external factors that can impact business. It is a framework for analyzing the strength and weakness as well as opportunities and threats to the business environment. The business will employ SWOT analysis in order to enable achieve a competitive advantage. It will also examine economic legal and regulatory forces in the business atmosphere where an organization operates. This will enable them to monitor and evaluate effective strategies for sustaining business activities in the competitive market. Effective strategies will create cultural change; thus enabling the company to adapt to change in the business environment. SWOT Table Summarizing the Findings Internal Forces Company Strengths Leadership The organization will train employees to enable them meet customers’ expectations effectively; thus achieving a competitive advantage. Organizational leaders should offer training programs and encourage leaders to apply effective leadership skills in the organization. For instance, leaders will motivate employees, communicate and listen to their followers, as this will create changes in an organization. Goals The organization will work towards achieving their stated goals of offering nutritious and affordable products; thus will serve as their strength to improve business performance. Stanley (62) argues that setting organizational goals are among the effective aspects in strategic planning process. Therefore, the company will implement strategic goals that will align with the mission and vision of the organization; hence achieving successful business performance. Weaknesses Culture The cultural aspects in the business environment may affect business activities. This is because culture is unavoidable in any business environment, and every organization has its own cultural aspects that determine the way they carry out business activities. However, given the current situation in the new business, the company can employ effective strategies for improving organizational behavior. Structures Given that the business is new, the organization may not be well structured; thus others will perceive it as a weakness in the organization. Therefore, the company will create consistent across the organizational structure. External Forces External Forces Opportunities Innovation The company will utilize technology in producing innovative products or services that differentiate them from other fast food industries. They will also utilize technology in product distribution, and carry out marketing research in order to determine the consumption behaviors, and the way customers will perceive their services in the new market. Threats Competition analysis Other industries offering similar products and services will employ unique strategies to compete with the business. This will impact business performance because of increased competition level, thus a threat to the company. Social The social trend in consumption patterns will impact the business performance. This is especially the social status of various customers towards consumption levels of different products. Economic Legal and Regulatory Forces Economic aspects are among the determinant factors for competition in the business atmosphere where an organization operates (Stanley 127). For instance, social aspects such as the employment, inflation rate and fiscal policies may determine the competitive level of business. For instance, unemployment level may hinder the company from achieving their stated goals because of increased poverty levels. The society can also consider the cost of economic activities that it may pose risks to the environment in case the company pollutes the environment. Thus, the environmental cost may augment or lead to increased price of maintaining the environment; thus increasing the production cost. This will affect the performance of the company because it will incur heavy economic cost of using technology at the cost of achieving a competitive advantage. Legal and regulatory aspects are among the external aspects that can pose risks or create challenges to business performance. The internal revenue service may implement legal and regulatory factors that may be difficult for the company to follow such as high tax refunds. This may hinder effective organization performance because they will lead to higher credit risk and higher tax rates. Moreover, limited access to the legal system may impact the performance of business in the environment where it operates business. Ways the Organization Can Adapt To Change One way that the company can adapt to change is to employ effective strategies for managing and creating cultural change. Establishing an atmosphere for cultural change and open communication will enable the company to adapt to change management (Stanley 32). This can be possible through building employee relations and sharing information with labor force as well developing effective communication strategy. It is also significant to involve the management team in effective strategic planning process and motivate them to adapt to change. This is through offering effective training programs, as it will also help employees to adapt to technology change. Lastly, they can be structurally consistent and introduce gradual organization change, as this will enable the company to achieve effective business performance. The Supply Chain Operations of the Organization For the company to achieve success in their supply chain operations, a significant factor they should take into considerations is the organizational alignment. In case the company matches the right organization model to their business strategy, they will realize the benefits; thus achieving a comparative advantage. Therefore, to realize these benefits and achieve organizational goals, the company should manage the chain events in the process well known as supply chain management. Effective management along the supply chain structure should take into account coordination of different aspects while keeping costs low. Therefore, the company will first need to obtain a customer order, which should be followed by production, storage as well as, distribution of products across the supply chains. The main aspect for achieving success in the supply chain process is managing time and speeding up service delivery (Stanley 32). The company should also understand the marketing demand, transport, process and customer services; thus achieving effective organization performance. Issues and Opportunities in the Organization The major issues that the company faces include increased competition level from other fast food industries, which attempt to employ innovation and other means of sustaining their business in the competitive market. The hypothesis surrounding this issue is whether the company can employ SWOT analysis as a strategy in determining the way in which other companies operate their business. This will enable them to employ effective strategies for sustaining their business in the competitive market. Thus, the question is that, what measures will the company employ in measuring the performance level to that of their competitors? Moreover, the greatest opportunities include increased use of innovation that result to improved business performance, but innovation can pose risks in case it is poorly incorporated in the business process. The hypothesis surrounding this case is whether the company can continue to use innovative but train employees in order to manage technology change. Thus, the question is that, will the company manage technology changes through offering effective training programs to enable their employee manage technology change? These aspects are importance, and when being tested, the hypothesis is true; hence, they can both enable the company to achieve their stated goals successfully. Strategic Plan, Part III: Balanced Scorecard The balanced scorecard is vital when developing a strategic plan and management in a business. This is because it can help in aligning the company behind a shared mission, vision and values for success. It can also get people work on the right issues through focusing on the intended results. The fast food restaurant will implement strategic objectives that would base on the balanced scorecard for measuring the organization performance. The balanced scorecard will enable the company to monitor the performance of the company depending on the strategic objectives. It will also enable the restaurant to improve the internal and external environment as well as their financial performance. Thus, the paper provides a summary that reveals strategic objectives derived from the mission, vision, values and SWOT analysis of the fast food restaurant company. One of the strategic objectives of the company is to increase the financial or shareholders values in order to increase profits or revenues, market share; hence achieve competitive advantage. The company will derive this objective by basing on the mission and vision of the company that aims to offer nutritious high quality products to customers at affordable process. Therefore, for the company to achieve their strategic goals, they will measure the financial and market shares of their business in a particular period usually a year. This is through employing SWOT analysis in order to determine their financial performance; thus using the selected strategy for determining their competitive position. The target or aim is to enable them increase revenues by 2% for the following 2 years. The company can increase the market share by 10% and add market shares annually to 3% per sales location. The second strategic objective is measuring customer value in order to determine customer retention or turn over, customer value and their satisfaction level. David (34) argues that an effective strategy should incorporate views from the customer and stakeholder’s perception and include the needs of customers or the desired corporate image they want to portray. This is crucial because it will contribute to successful business performance in the long run. Therefore, fast food restaurant will use the balanced scorecard tool for measuring customer satisfaction level, customer needs and values as well as customer turnover. This will enable them to understand customer needs; hence analyzing the internal or external environment in order to improve their services in the next 3 years’ time. For the company to increase customer satisfaction, they can increase 2.5% discount on products or services offered to customers. They can even increase customer loyalty through adding value to products or reducing production cost to 3 %. This will enable them to reduce the cost of products to a certain amount less say 1% from the normal product prices in order to increase customer value; hence compete favorably with other fast food industries. The other strategic objective is training employees and encouraging them to learn organizational cultural attitudes interrelated to corporate or individual self-improvement. In the process of the training program, the company will concentrate on the key aspect areas such as employees’ satisfaction, employee turnover or retention and organizational capability level. It will also measure the levels of employees’ capabilities towards the use of innovative technology. This will be done through measuring their aptitude to utilize innovative technology; thus increase the level of the training program in a particular period. For instance, the company will increase the period of employee training by offering long term training programs that can take one to two months twice a year. Lastly, the company can measure the nature or organization culture and climate since this is vital in increasing the organizational growth. Culture is one of the critical aspects that can impact organizational performance; thus, the company will increase training time on managerial skills monthly. Lastly, the company will improve the internal operations through measuring the performance process in order to increase productivity levels. This will be done through measuring the performance process and use operation metric measures to augment the level of productivity. David (74) argues that organization leaders should link the organizational objectives and track the production progress toward desired strategic outcomes. They can also interpret performance data and transform this data into organization intelligence. This is crucial because it will enable the company to improve their production level; thus achieving successful business performance. In order for the company to improve the internal operations, they can decrease employee attrition by 4% and increase their incentives to 2 %. This can be in the form of providing employee rewards depending on the product sales. For instance, the company can offer 2% of incentives as a commission to the total amount level of sales made on a particular product. This is vital because it will motivate employees to work hard in order to augment the organizational sales; thus increasing the profitability level of the company. Final Strategic Plan: Monitoring and Controlling Monitoring and controlling the strategic plan for the proposed business is an effective measure for business performance. Monitoring the business is one way of identifying in case the strategic issues, mission and vision align according the organizational requirements. Monitoring the implemented strategic business plan for the proposed business can help in conforming that every action is carried out as the intended business plan. It will also ensure that the results align with the strategic business values. Monitoring and control of the business can enable the organization manager to take corrective action. Controlling process will create improved day-to-day business performance; thus contributing to competitive business environment. Strategic Implementation and Tactics One way of implementing and realizing the strategic objectives, measures and targets of the proposed business plan is through creating brand loyalty and trust among customers in order to attract new customers into the company. The tactic for achieving this strategy is to offer appetizers at the customer desk in order to attract many customers. The business can also utilize information technology such as use of social media services, blogs and websites where clients can purchase online discounted products. Sending emails or postcards can also enable the company to communicate about their services; thus meet their strategic business values. Another strategy that can enable the business to realize their measures, values and targets are through product differentiation in order to make them appear unique or different from that of the competitors. Product differentiation is a significant market strategy because it will lead to increased consumption level; thus contributing to improved business performance (Pearlson and Saunders 59). The tactics behind this strategy is to provide categories of products that are different in colors and carry out marketing research in order to determine expectations of customers. The company can arrange for the follow-up interviews and host press conferences in order to address the issue of health eating habits. This can enable them to utilize the chance in revealing the products or services they offer to the public; hence increase their profitability level. Methods to Monitor and Control the Proposed Strategic Plan One of the effective methods for monitoring and controlling proposed business plan is through setting up effective business structure. This is crucial because it will ensure that the company meets the business objectives successfully. Setting up organizational structure can include functional structure in order to ensure that financial and other organizational resources are distributed equitably across the organizational departments. Secondly, recruiting the right human resources with qualified skills is vital for improving the output of the financial value. Providing proper time schedules for operating business and ensuring that all the business strategies are implemented within the time frame is vital. This will enable the company to operate efficiently; thus achieving their stated values. Recommendations for Address Ethical, Legal, Regulatory Issues and the Ways they can Improve Corporate Citizenship First, the company can choose to act ethically towards their stakeholders in order to make the society appreciate their business activities. The business can employ ethics, which is above the company interests since it is moral to act so; thus improving the corporate image. Secondly, the company can comply with the legal standards of the country where it operates its business. They can avoid ligation by making the society appreciate them; hence an indication that the company practices business probity. Lastly, the company can implement regulations that can govern business operations. They can choose to abide by such regulations; hence ensuring that they do not get into problems with regulatory business. This is vital because it will boost the image of the business in the society. Conclusion The research focused on the choice of opening up a restaurant that has nutrient facts and serves healthy food at affordable prices. It revealed the mission, vision and business core strategies effective for achieving successful business performance. These are valuable aspects for enabling the company to achieve a competitive advantage in the competitive business environment. It also essay provided a summary that revealed effective strategic objectives, which were derived from the mission, vision, values and SWOT analysis of the fast food restaurant company. One of the strategies is the increase of the financial or shareholders values in order to raise profits or revenues and market share. Secondly, measuring the customer value in order to determine customer retention or turn over, customer value and their satisfaction level. Thirdly, training employees and encouraging them to learn organizational cultural attitudes. Lastly, it focused on improving the internal operations through measuring the performance process in order to increase productivity levels. Work Cited David, F. R. Strategic management: Concepts and cases. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall, 2011. Print. Mard, Michael J. Driving Your Company's Value: Strategic Benchmarking for Value. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons, 2004. Print. McLaughlin, August. Why Is Eating Healthy Important? 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