Strategic Choice and Evaluation - Research Paper Example

All organization across the world develops strategic plans. They tactfully come up with the organization’s vision, mission, mandate and strategies that will help the organization meet the vision as well as the goals and objectives. Due to lack of strategic plan, many of these organizations end up in failure and that they cannot deliver the expected strategic results. In other cases, top management cannot even pinpoint the major reasons for such dilemma thus this research proposal paper helps bring out strategies that if undertaken will bring success to the organization. Execution of these plans by Merifashion could bring better results (Roberts, 2004). The senior management of Merifashion must pay close attention not only to its strategic factors such as ‘where’, ‘how’, and ‘when’ but also to the role played by organizational factors that are responsible for transforming a strategy into reality. For instance, once they embark on promotional campaigns for its fashionable products, they should start this by setting up a strategic plan. Lack of these factors can dampen its growth plans, organizational structures and processes as well as be able to tackle the day-to-day challenges and problems it faces today. In addition, key personnel may lack the necessary skills and attributes for them to cope up with the complexities brought about by growth. There are certain strategies, which are recommended in this paper that could help Merifashion to deal with such stalemates (Roberts, 2004). The following are the strategies that could be followed by Merifashion to ensure continued growth in the market: Engagement One major strategy than Merifashion could follow to ensure continued success in the business of fashionable products is the engagement of all staff irrespective of their level throughout the organization. Strategic planning is not an event but a process. It has to take certain steps so as to ensure continued success and prosperity in the organization. Engagement of staff generates added input into the organization that helps t build and grow commitment among the staff members. It is of very high importance for Merifashion to involve employees in the strategy planning. Employee involvement in strategic planning helps ensure that an organization buys in new ideas that once they are executed, the will add inputs into the organization. It also helps provide insights on certain issues such as concerns, opportunities, challenges that may not have been fully known or understood. The senior management may not necessarily mean that it will execute all of them, but that can be allowed to undertake them by themselves and this could increase the rate of success dramatically (Roberts, 2004). Communication The process of strategic planning becomes successful when an organization maintains a bottom up and top down levels of communication. The top management first communicates to all members of staff informing them of the strategic plan or the objectives and the vision. If there is any new issue within the organization, it is the responsibility of the top management to communicate the whole thing to the lover levels of management including the subordinate staff (Roberts, 2004). On the other hand, bottom up communication involves giving out feedback on the progress of the strategic plan. Employers will give input to the strategic planning process through the processes of feedback, conducting research and surveys, attend meetings and provide ideas for the direction of the organization. Senior management is tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that the engagement process of employees is well explained on how it will help ensure that there is continued success in the implementation of these strategies. Thus, Merifashion should ensure proper communication amongst all departments thus ensuring that there is order and structure within the organization. Innovation Some strategic objectives include strategies that are aimed at developing a new product in the market or delivering a new service or even restructuring the organization or part of the organization such as in various departments. The top management of Merifashion should put individuals together in work so as to be able to complete the initiatives in time and ensure continued success to the organization. Merifashion should try something good and risky when implementing the strategic objectives and this cultivates the attribute of creativity and innovation within the organization. They should look for ways of cultivating creativity among employees. Most of them just create the strategies for new products and service without developing the culture and strategies for innovation. Such strategies may include encouraging a lot of research, reshaping the culture of the organization for innovation, come up with a strong implementation process for managing innovations among other factors (Roberts, 2004). Some organizations will tell you that they are very innovative in the way they market and advertise their products and services but most of them tend to lack clear goal and strategy for innovation. Thus, Merifashion should ensure that there is creativity and innovation amongst the employees to ensure continued success in the organization. Project management In a most devastating way, most employees of many companies do not even understand their organization’s strategy. Thus, they cannot execute a plan which they don’t understand of it. Once the strategic plan has been created, there are two important elements connected to project management that will ensure success to Merifashion. One is to identify the various projects that are crucial for the success of the implementation process of the strategy. The other one is to ensure that the Merifashion develops a prioritization procedure for these projects so as to ensure that high priority ones are undertaken first. They should ensure proper resourcing so as to ensure success. Employees should be committed to spend time on the various projects. High levels of involvement by employees ensure that they understand and comprehend the strategic plan. This increases their levels of commitment, loyalty and dedication to the organization to ensure the organization’s strategy is successfully implemented since they have an understanding of how their work helps the organization in achieving its vision, goals and strategies (Roberts, 2004). Culture Failure to comprehend the culture of an organization together with the failure to develop values and culture in support of the plans may lead to poor results for the organization. Organizational culture is the most common held values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors of the employees. The culture of an organization is always diverse and unique just like the personality of an individual. If for instance, the employees of Merifashion believe that change should be feared and avoided, then the execution of change is often reactive and haphazard instead of being proactive. If they believe that change should be implemented aggressively, then in this case, change becomes seldom supported. Nonetheless, if the organization’s employees believe that change is worthwhile and important and they consider it as every person’s responsibility, then change tends to grow and develop with relative ease. There are only few organizations who continue to excel in terms of culture, thus, organizations should try and ensure that the culture of the organization is clearly followed and implemented (Roberts, 2004). Organizational structure Organizational structures that are well-organized help establish the roles, responsibilities and norms that will enable organizations to get things done and ensure continued success. Therefore, when for instance, growth is needed in terms of expansion of the business into new geographical areas or additional products and services, then the top leadership should take time, examine the organizational structures, and ascertain whether they are flexible enough to support the new initiative. Organizations are faced with challenges as they grow depending on the growth strategies and the rate of growth. Thus, it is the responsibility of the Merifashion to manage such challenges, manage organizational complexity, and improve the odds that are brought about by growth plans. This will make it easy for things to be done. In conclusion, Merifashion should come up with the process of clear and meaningful strategic planning process, should engage all levels of employee personnel so as to ensure commitment and success, ensure continued and effective communication to employees, make use of the process of creativity and innovation for product development process, service delivery among other strategies. They should create projects so as to manage the strategies developed and prioritize all the projects aimed at ensuring that they are properly resourced. They should also reshape and modify the organization’s culture for it to be more adaptive to the changes and developments that are required by the strategic plan (Roberts, 2004). Merifashion should always target new recruits who are more adaptable to change and are creative to ensure effective promotional campaigns. References Roberts, J. (2004). The Modern Firm: Organizational Design for Performance and Growth. Oxford: Oxford University Press Read More