Strategic Planning - Essay Example

A careful analysis of an organizations Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) helps in assessing the performance of current strategies, developing new ones to overcome the weaknesses, integrate new decisions to avoid threats and strategic decisions made to avail the opportunities. Strategic planning is the process whereby, organizations put the strategies and ideas developed by strategic thinking into action. Strategic thinking supports strategic planning which result in strategic decision making of an organization.

Strategic thinking is not merely an imaginative approach of thinking and analyzing situations which may arise as a result of a particular step, investment or change in the organization. Strategic thinking involves a goal oriented approach which is supported by critical analysis of the forces which surround the results of a particular decision and the ability to develop responses to those forces. Hence, strategic thinking is the first process of implementing strategic management concepts. Strategic planning is the process whereby, organizations struggle in order to integrate the strategies developed by strategic thinking.

Strategic planning is the struggle to practically apply concepts and ideas developed through strategic thinking in the business and assess the predictable future of the changes or strategies introduced. In order to implement the planned strategies, strategic leadership provides a vision and direction to successfully achieve the aims of an organization. Strategic leaders are responsible to direct the workforce with appropriate instructions, guidance and directions to achieve the goals which are developed through strategic planning process. (3)Present the Mozilla/Firefox SWOT analysis clearly, using a bullet, list, or tabular format with categorical headings, providing a clear delineation of individual items.

Strengths: Open-source community Faster in opening web pages Ability to resist hackers and viruses High-tech with many new technologies embedded such as the tabbed browsing system, the download manager attachment, etc. Command over 15% market share for browsers Open nature for discussion within the organization. Weaknesses: Revenues are dependent on Google (contractual basis) Highly dependent on external volunteers/developers The high dependence on external volunteer/developers may not be useful or highly innovative and may waste time of the organsation to pursue such ideas.

The company being a non-profit organization waits for voluntary investors, this may lead to untimely funding which may not be useful as the funds would not be available at times when the actual research/design is actually carried. Opportunities: Building a network of volunteers that would help in the provision of technical support through telephone, email, etc. Further innovation through technological advancement. Threats: High innovation requirements due to competition The company’s inability to cope with technological advancement at any point in time would lead other competitors to take over.

Lack of confidentiality issues. The success of Internet Explorer 7 or any other web browser. (Freedman, 2007) (4) Indicate the implications of your analysis for planning and implementation, including recommendations that seem to follow your analysis. Strategic management requires a three part structure for thinking about strategy: Strategic position, strategic choices and finally implementation of those strategies