Scenario Planning for the Great Italian Food Company - Essay Example

? Scenario Planning Table of Contents Assignment I 3 Background of the case 3 Recommendations 3 Assignment II 5 References 7 Assignment I Background of the case The Great Italian Food Company (GIFC) is an Italian restaurant. The company presently operates in the market place with 4 restaurants. It was established way back in the year 1960 by Joe Marconi, popularly known as Papa Joe. The company serves basic Italian dishes such as pasta. Now the company is in the process of improving the business and profitability. Traditionally Joe Papa was the only person who used to make strategic decisions regarding the future of the company. Nevertheless with the passage of time Joe Papa handed the responsibility of running the business to his eldest son. Now the elder son Little Joe now wants to expand the operations of the company and like to open outlets on parts of the St. Louis County and in the suburbs of St. Louis. The next half of the report will be presenting a list of recommendations that can be applied by the company to formulate their strategies for the next 5-10 years. Recommendations In order to have a sound strategic plan for the future the company at first needs to define its core products, services as well as the target group of customers. Defining target is important as the company exists because of its customers. In this process the company must also develop a mission and vision statement. This will clearly portray the intentions of the company about where it wants to go and what it wants to achieve in the near future. Now since the company wants to operate in other parts of the country it needs to have a proper strategy. The selection of place where it will be opening the outlet has to be at busy place. This will ensure steady flow of customers. After a shorter expansion and based on the feedbacks of the local customers regarding products and services, the company can take up international expansion. This will not only help the company to earn more revenue, but will also facilitate them to cater to a large number of segments. Prior taking the international expansion the company needs to ensure it maintains the highest quality of products and services. Also other factors such as customer relationship management and customer query management needs to strong. Depending upon the country of operation and its external environment the company may take up either FDI or joint venture to expand. It is important that within next few years the company develops a core competency for itself. Therefore in order to develop it the company must focus on a number of aspects. Some of the possible aspects on which competency can be achieved are variety in dishes, authenticity of the ingredients, ambience of the outlets, free home deliveries, specialized or localized menu etc. The company should implement information technology into their system of operations. By implementing IT into their system the company will be able to introduce various other options. For example it can introduce online order processing system, inventory management system, customer relationship management and also automation of a number of store activities. The company should promote itself with the help of television advertisement, fliers in the form of discount coupons and also promotion through newspaper will help to serve the purpose. Nevertheless strategic planning can also be an effective tool, if properly utilized by the company. In this context the board of directors for the company must consider one among single, standing and contingency plans. After determining the best possible solution and based on the evaluation, it should prioritize the plans in a systematic manner. The implementation of the plans should be the next step. The company should also consider controlling the implemented strategies. Assignment II Strategic planning is defined as the process by which organizations decides about the objectives of the company and also decides upon the appropriate courses of action required to achieve the objectives (Cambridge Dictionaries Online, n.d.). Strategic planning is an effective tool, if it is properly utilized by the company. Apart from this strategic planning is a management tool that ensures each employees of the organization are working towards the common objective (Namac, n.d.). It involves disciplined and deliberative work culture in the organization (Bryson, 2011, p.25). While on the other hand scenario development is a strategic planning method that is used by various organizations in order to formulate a long term and flexible plan. Scenario development is an essential part of strategic planning process. The primary reason behind developing scenarios in the strategic planning process is to avoid any issues with the strategy. Also developing scenarios offers a number of advantages to a company. Some of the evident benefits are as follows:- Developing a scenario helps a company to makes its strategies resilient, robust, innovative and flexible (Rhydderch, 2009, p.5). Since strategic planning is a long term plan, flexibility is of utmost importance. As depending upon the circumstances of future the company can modify the strategies. Furthermore companies develop scenarios in order to gauge the possible occurrences of the future. Depending upon that a set of possible strategies are developed and tested, so as to identify the best plan. It also acts as an early warning for the companies, thereby reducing the chances of future failure. `In order to cite an instance, a company namely XYZ can effectively utilize scenario development for the purpose of international expansion in the forthcoming years. The company if wants to expand into China within the next three years it has to develop a scenario and based on that planning can be done. The scenarios can be based on the political stability of China and rules & regulations of China. As the scenarios gets developed and based on the assumptions it can formulate the strategies. For example if China remains politically stable after 3 years, the company will use FDI in order to star operations in China. While after 3 years if it politically unstable, the company will use licensing strategies. In such a way company XYZ can effectively utilize scenario development in the process of strategic planning. References Bryson, J. M. (2011). Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations: A Guide to Strengthening and Sustaining Organizational Achievement (4th ed.). New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Cambridge Dictionaries Online. (No Date). Strategic Planning. Retrieved from http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/business-english/strategic-planning. Namac. (No Date). What is strategic planning. Retrieved from http://namac.org/strategic-planning-what. Rhydderch, A. (2009). Scenario Planning. Retrieved from http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/foresight/docs/horizon-scanning-centre/foresight_scenario_planning.pdf. Read More