Internal Analysis as a part of strategic planning process of WRSX - Assignment Example

?WRSX REPORT Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Internal Analysis as a part of strategic planning process of WRSX 3 References 7 Internal Analysisas a part of strategic planning process of WRSX Strategic planning is a part of every organization that is developed by strategic managers of a company. It shows the way ahead for a company and gives a picture of the position of the company four to five years from now. Strategic planning is a means of planning at present about the desired future of the company using the knowledge and information about the company today (Special Libraries Association, 2001, p.1). WRSX is a global advertising company, which has been successfully delivering good fortunes in the advertising industry for the past 8 years. Until recently, for about a year, the company had been underperforming below what it is capable of. Failure in strategic management is the primary reason behind this situation. A well-defined, effective strategic plan is the key to success of the company in the near future. This study shows the benefits involved in including internal analysis as a part of the strategic management process and how it can bring WRSX in the right track towards its sustainability and success, in this changing world. Typically, a strategic management process consists of four broad areas. They are: Environmental Scanning, Strategy Formulation, Evaluation and Control (Akhafaji, 2003, p. 6). All these four components are inter-related to each other. Effective strategic planning helps the company to remain focused and achieve the future goals and objectives successfully. Basically a strategic planning process has four main purposes. They are: a. To help find prospective customers, attract then and retain them. b. Ensuring delivery of required products and services to the customers and keep them satisfied. c. Sustainability of the business. d. To take advantage of the weaknesses of the competitors and make effective utilization of the company’s own strengths. Strategic planning process is a continuous process and the strategic managers keep on updating or even change the existing strategies to outperform in the market and stay ahead of their competitors. The potential resources possessed by WRSX can help the company to achieve competitive advantage and sustainability in the market. The Resource Based View (RBV) approach to strategy management is a tool to identify the potential resources of a firm which can be utilized to achieve competitive advantage and can result in strong performance of the company in future (Barney, J & Penrose, E, 2011). Short-term competitive advantage created from use of available resources of WRSX productively can lead WRSX to sustaining that competitive advantage for a long term if these resources are not imitable or substitutable easily. WRSX needs to develop its resources into core competencies to create competitive advantage. For this VRIN model can be utilized. This model includes the following five attributes of resources: 1) Valuable, meaning the resources must be valuable to the company in creating the strategy, 2) Rare, meaning the resources must be scarcely available to others, in creating value to the company, 3) In-imitable, meaning it cannot be easily imitated, and 4) Non-substitutable, meaning that availability of substitutes are rare (Rothaermel, 2008, p.208-209). WRSX has always been known for creativity and innovation. These are the two key attributes which is very much valuable to the company. These can neither be imitated nor substituted because creations and innovations of WRSX are its own and developed by WRSX only. WRSX enjoys a core competency in developing creativity and is an absolute necessity for an advertising agency like WRSX to satisfy its customer requirements. This helps WRSX attaining competitive advantage over its rivals and must build on it and work for more and more creations and innovations and encourage it at all levels of the company. Development of strategic capabilities can also be a key to the success WRSX. The six factor model can help for such cause in providing a platform or framework in developing such capabilities. The six factors include: leadership, assessment, prioritization, learning objectives, measurement and design (Scheurer, 2005, p.4-5). It works in a cyclic way by continuous integration of each of these six factors. A capability is strategic, when it can bring change in the company (Johannesson, 2010, p.5). A proper assessment of the existing resources of WRSX and building them into strategic capabilities for the company can help WRSX in a big way. Appointment of a Chief Learning Officer (CLO), who will lead the functioning of capability strategy in WRSX, can help the company to get rid of its difficulties. The role of CLO would be to give a shape to the internal capability of the company in order to fit the various tactical changes in the company and keep the learning process moving. Next, Resource-based SWOT analysis can help identify WRSX its Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats and develop strategies based on it. This type of analysis helps removing some of the shortcomings of SWOT analysis which is done in a traditional way (Valentin, 2011, p.55). A worldwide presence, creating unique advertisements, people having innovative skills, etc. are some of the strengths of WRSX that can be identified. WRSX should utilize these strengths to create a competitive advantage in the market. Creativity and innovation is the cornerstone of any advertising agency. Some of the weaknesses that can be identified are: lack of proper corporate governance, inadequacy to adopt new technological changes, etc. WRSX should build up a strong corporate governance system which should be centrally regulated and strict actions must be imposed on people not complying with it. Creating customer value is the key, and this would help WRSX achieving customer satisfaction and prevent them from switching to other substitutes in the market. Advertising agency is experiencing a drastic change in the use of digital media (Kirchoff, 2009, p.12). WRSX should be up to the task of introducing digital media in advertising in the form of advertising in internet and through mobile phones. This is cost effective as well and can reach more and more people. It will give value to the customer requirements. Thus, it can be concluded that, internal analysis will play a vital role in the strategic management process of WRSX and it will help revive its position in the advertising world in a bigger way. References Akhafaji, A.F. (2003). Strategic management: formulation, implementation, and control in a dynamic environment. New York, NY: Routledge. Barney, J. & Penrose, E. (2011) Resource-based view of the firm [Online]. Available at: http://istheory.byu.edu/wiki/Resource-based_view_of_the_firm [Accessed on March 2, 2012]. Johannesson, J. (2010). The Dynamics of Strategic Capability. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.ccsnet.org/ibr. [Accessed on March 2, 2012]. Kirchoff, S.M. (2009). Advertising Industry in the Digital Age [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40908.pdf [Accessed on March 2, 2012]. Rothaermel, F.T. (2008). Competitive Advantage in Technology Intensive Industries [Pdf]. Available at: http://mgt.gatech.edu/directory/faculty/rothaermel/pubs/RothaermelCompetitiveAdvantageFinal.pdf. [Accessed on March 2, 2012]. Scheurer, W.T. (2005). A Model for Strategy and Tactical Steps that Create Enterprise Capability [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.csom.umn.edu/assets/42582.pdf [Accessed on March 2, 2012]. Special Libraries Association. (2001). Strategic Planning Handbook [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.sla.org/pdfs/sphand.pdf. [Accessed on March 1, 2012]. Valentin, E.K. (2001). SWOT Analysis from a Resource-Based View [Pdf]. Available at: http://academics.eckerd.edu/instructor/trasorrj/Marketing%20369/Articles/Swot%20Analysis%20from%20a%20Resource%20Based%20View.pdf. [Accessed on March 2, 2012]. Read More