Challenges and Opportunities in Strategy Implementation - Essay Example

Introduction Strategy and Strategy Implementation A strategy is a set of plans formulated by an organization to lead the organisation to achieve its expected results. For a company to be successful and achieve its expected results and full potential, it must have a way to guide it in following and adhering to set plans and prevent it from diverting to other processes that might hinder full utilization of organizational resources. These guidelines play a major role in ensuring effective and efficient organization processes and play major roles in running the organization. Future planning An organisation needs to set targets of what it needs to achieve both in the near future and far future. This plans need to be well included in the organisation strategy, followed by clear ways to implement the plans. They cover all organisation processes and highlight the areas of priority for the organisation. The set plans need to well communicated throughout the organisation to enable all the staff to work together to achieve the company’s expected future results. Gain Market Share Both new and existing organizations strive to get the biggest share of customers in the market. To acquire a big market share, organisation conduct different practices and activities to be more appealing and better placed in the market. There needs to be set procedures by the organizations that cover the whole field. An organisation that operates without set plans and procedures stand a chance to overlook other crucial areas needed to be better placed in the market. Organizations that set strategies and work towards implementing them are the ones that enjoy a greater market share. Achieving set results and targets Putting set plans to action is one of the most important parts of achieving expected results. The small actions carried out in an organisation on a day to day basis need to be well linked to each other so as to contribute to the expected organizational results. Small daily targets need to be structured to contribute to the strategy of the organisation. Uniformity of purpose and direction Organizations need to be well structured so that all the staff can respect the expected results of the organisation. Communicating the strategies to the staff is crucial to ensure all staff works with a uniform purpose, which is to achieve the expected results of their organisation. Consistency For customer retention, organizations need to learn from the market reaction to various processes. Organizations with good strategy implementation plans are better placed to ensure that successful processes are continuously carried out and the non-effective processes are replaced with more productive processes. This consistency in operations makes the customers and clients more comfortable with an organisation, compared to one that is always changing its processes and procedures. With all these beneficial importance of strategy implementation, many organizations have not managed to fully implement their strategic plans and this leaves them lagging behind in their industry. There are still many opportunities and challenges in implementing organizational strategic plans. Governance and Stakeholders Organizational governance is in charge of setting and regulating the interest of all stakeholders of an organization. They formulate the strategies as well as steps to be taken to achieve the set strategies that will lead the organization to achieving its targets. Governance system of a company can either be based on shareholder model or stakeholder model. In shareholder model, the management has a sense of independence in their operations unlike in the stakeholder model where there is allot of interference and protocols which slow decision making. According to Schermerhorn (2010) the governance of any business determines the state of a business by coming up with strategic plans and policies that will ensure the business maintains competitiveness and remains relevant in the market. Below are an n illustration of governance chain and the role of each stakeholder in a business or company. Final and limited reports concerning progress of the business Analysis of accounts and reports, and trading of shares Budgeting and setting of targets for the business Budgeting and setting of targets for the business Form simplified budgets and targets. Form simplified budgets and targets. Stakeholders on the other hand are people or groups of people who rely on an organisation to fulfil their personal targets and on whom the organization also relies on to achieve its results. They relate directly with the organisation and provide a basis for the formulation of a strategic plan so as to govern the way an organisation relates to them. Examples of stakeholders would include; managers, owners/shareholders, employees, competitors, suppliers, the government among other. There are many opportunities and challenges that arise from the organization governance and stakeholders. Opportunities Proper utilization of resources The governance and stakeholders affect directly the strategic plans of an organization. The governance sets the plans with the stakeholders in mind. As the plans are set, the governance ensures that the organizational resources are put to use in the best way possible so as to maximize returns and benefit all stakeholders. Setting targets By formulating the strategic plan with implementation steps, the organizational governance is able to break down the long term expectations to short term targets for the management, who form part of the organizations stakeholders. Lafferty (2007) says that as part of strategy implementation, businesses are able to formulate targets that concur with the long-term goals and objectives. High rate of returns Through strategy implementation, the organizational governance will be guaranteed of high returns so long as the plans are adhered to. They are able to balance various interests of different stakeholders and formulate a plan that will consider all the stakeholders as well as the organizations objectives. Challenges Limit entrepreneurial spirit among management When the management is directed to follow set strategies and plans to achieve a desired output, they are left with little chance of using entrepreneurial skills to achieve the same results using new innovations and technology. This in turn affects the organizations competitiveness with other organizations in the same industry. According to Taxman and Belenko (2012) strategy implementation may come with conditions that require certain procedures and steps to be followed. This can easily affect the efficiency of the management to some level. Reduced management independence The management ability t work independently becomes very affected when they are instructed to follow set strategies. This as a results stand leaves the management less motivated to carry out their task as compared to those who are not restricted by certain procedures. Slow decision making For any new innovation to be accepted and used in an organization, it has to go through a lot of processes and procedures so as to be approved for use in the organization. This result to delayed decision making that threatens to have a negative impact on the productivity of staff and management. Culture and Leadership Organization culture is the way stakeholders of an organization relate to each other, conduct different operations, communicate to each other and co-exist together. The culture of each business or company distinguishes it from all the other competitors and can be used to give the business market share advantage. The culture involves both the customers as well as the employees of the business or the company. According to Hills and Jones (2013) organizational culture plays a key role in strategic planning as well as implementation as it sets the norms and standards expected in the organization. The organizational leadership is the people tasked to ensure productivity of the organization play a major role that directly affects the organizational culture. The culture of an organization in combination with its leadership affects the implementation of the organizations strategic plan. According to Harrison and John (2008) the leadership of any organization or business must work within the culture of the business or organization especially in strategic implementation. The culture of any business gives the guidelines on ethical issues and leadership is one of the most affected. Challenges Resistance During implementation of the strategic plan, the leadership of the organization may be reluctant to change the culture of how things have been running in the organization. This may be as a result of being used and accustomed to a traditional way of working, bureaucracy, being conservative and slow to adopt change, differences among organizations senior staff and some organization leaders may have experienced failed attempts to initiate change, thus being slow to adopt change. This affects the implementation of the strategic plan because some crucial procedures included in the plan may be overlooked by the leadership of the organization. Unpredictable changes The business environment changes rapidly in way that makes it hard for the organizational strategy to be able to consider. In normal scenario, organizational strategy implementation plans are formulated with assumption that all environmental factors will remain constant for the duration of implementing the strategy. This however is not the case as the organization faces many new changes when implementing its strategic plan. While formulating strategies, there are factors that may have been left out of consideration and this might turn out to be a short coming to the whole process of implementation. History The history of the organization to some extent dictates its culture and leadership. Many stakeholders become accustomed to the way an organization operates and become rigid to accept change. This as a result leaves the organization lagging behind when all other organizations have adopted change and the said organization has not. Uncertainty to the response to change also makes many organizations to prefer to remain with the normal and much more familiar processes and operations. This in turn affects the long term results of the organization. In many ways this will disadvantage the company since the rest of the computers are likely to be making progress. Opportunities Learning new practice With the ever changing business environment, organizations need to learn best practice in their industry and implement it in its operations. Leaders of these organizations need to be ready to learn, accept and champion for change. This will as a result improve the way the organization operates and make it more strategically placed to achieve its strategic implementation objectives. Organizations that are more ready to learn new approaches to carrying out different processes are the ones that achieve more than the rigid organizations. Knowledge of clients In order to have a better understanding of the effect and need for change in the organization culture, leaders must go deep to understanding the needs of their clients and the trends in the field. Some signs of change can be easily visible within the organization. However, there are factors that need to be studied beyond the information acquired within the organization. This process of establishing the market requirements and needs gives a business a good opportunity to understand their clients better. This will definitely benefit strategic planning and also to some significant way create bond between the business and the customer. New culture need to be structured to help achieve the organizational implementation objectives. Reconstruct culture There still is a big opportunity to achieve the organizational implementation objectives through reconstructing the culture of the organization. This however stands to be met with rejection from stake holders, but through proper change management it will end up benefiting the strategic objectives of the organization. New strategies within businesses aim primarily at improve the state of the business and its services delivery to the customer. If the culture of the business is in any way a hindrance, restructuring of the culture might be relevant. According to Theresa and Jurkowski (2013) business cultures are expected to be dynamic. This ensures that the business does not loss touch with its clients living in an ever changing environment. Competitors come with new services and products and in as much as business culture might be good, chances are high that the customers will walk to better services and products that just a mere good looking culture. The Business Model To be able to cope, survive and achieve maximum returns in the market, businesses choose to employ different business models. they include licensing - giving out permission for the use of organizations trademark with given terms and conditions, franchises - where an organization with an established product or service charges a fee to another organization for the use of its name, alliances - an agreement between different organizations to work together for mutual benefit, mergers - taking over another entity after purchasing it and acquisitions - taking over the control of an organization. Implementing organisational strategy for this type of organizations will have some challenges and opportunities Challenges Organization sub-culture For merger and acquisition, there are chances of having different sub-cultures among the organization. This may also result to staff grouping themselves according to the organization they were initially affiliated to. In this case, a pre-set strategy implementation plan will need to be revised so as to reconstruct or form a new culture of the organization to make everyone more comfortable to operate with each other. According to Ulijin, Duysters and Meijer (2010) Mergers may be faced with cultural conflict especially in strategic planning. To avoid this, the merging partners need to come up with well outlined procedures on how certain issues need to be handled. Resistance The organizational leadership may feel that the strategic plan does not cater for the organization due to change in business model. This will as a result slow the implementation of the strategic plan and hinder the organization from achieving its expected results. Change in flow of command also contributes to resistance of implementing the strategic plan because some managers feel that their influence will be contemplated with the change in business model. The employees of the business or the organization may also find it hard to work with the new strategy as they are used to previous flow of protocol. They may in return fall to resistance or hesitance in effectively work towards the implementation of the strategy. Knowledge of the organization There needs to be proper orientation and training prior to changing the business model. A change without orientation and training may result to wastage of time and resources. Using the same mind set and procedures to run a changed business model may result to an ineffective and inefficient organization. A general overview together with an analysis of the current state of the organization and the market position of the business will help in the implementation and planning on the right stage to start with. Opportunities Market share Changing the business model will result to an increased market share for the organization. This will also result to increase in revenue. The organization will be better placed and will benefit with more clients. This will in return contribute to the larger strategic objective of the organization and fast track achievement of the expected result Cross learning The change in business model will create opportunity for staff to learn from each other and share best practice. Cross learning among the staff will enable them to interact among each other and create a better job environment. Staff working and learning from each other are more motivated and productive. Every employee comes with their unique experience and expertise, with a chance to share and learn from each other, the business is like to nourish and be stable in case of absence of one employee in the future. Profitability New business models that increase the market share of the organization and improve the work environment will be more profitable. An organization with the strategic objective of being increasing its revenue will benefit positively from such a change of business model. The change in business models during strategic implementation can create new lines of production and service delivery which in return contributes to the general revenue of the business. The Business Structure Business structure is the way departments and positions are grouped within an organization, the task they perform and the way they relate to other departments and positions in an organization. The structures dictate the roles of different positions in the organization. This in turn affects the strategy of the organization. There are different business structures and each may use different models of strategies. Functional structures, multidivisional structure, worldwide area division structure, Global matrix structure among others. According to Merchant and Chen (2010) business structures are likely to be affected by new strategies than any other aspect of a business. This is because the structure of any business is very instrumental in the day to day running of the business. Changes in the structure can cause positive or negative impact to the productivity of the business. Challenges Limiting creativity Some structures hinder staff from employing creativity in the organization. Organizational structure may also promote negative competition between its different levels and affect negatively the work environment. Some staff may also use unethical ways to try to get promotions. This will make it hard for the organization to achieve its objectives Costs Some business structures end up using more resources to reimburse the stuff for their contribution at the expense of the profitability of the organization. These structures make reinvestment of resources in the organization to be difficult. Organizations that are effectively run need to have a structure that is both sustainable and economic. Flow of command For organizations with more complex organizational structures, it may take more time than expected for a communication to reach the lower organizational levels from the top level of the organization. This will result to delayed results for the organization. Different departments of an organization need to work towards achieving specific results Opportunities Communication By communicating the organizational targets to everyone in the organization, the organization stands to achieve more. Staffs needs to know and appreciate that the organizational goal is bigger and paramount in the organization. To accomplish the organizations strategic plan, the management needs to enhance communication within the organization. Allocation of resources The management needs to allocate resources while considering the maximum returns from the allocation of these resources. Among the employees, the organizational leadership need to structure the operations of the organization to encourage the staff to use their creativity and innovations to tackle various challenges in the organization. As the employees feel that their knowledge and skills are appreciated and properly utilized, they will be more productive in their respective fields. Summary Strategies are very important for a business to survive in a competitive environment. They help the business rebrand them and restructure their operations. Both long-term and short-term strategies need proper planning before it is implemented. Strategy implementation is a process that takes the coordination and cooperation of all the stakeholders in an organization. Each division of the business has a part to play. The top management which is made up of the executives and the board of directors play a role in formulating the strategies before giving them down to the rest of the staff. According to Speculand (2009) the planning of business strategies is equally important as the implementation. There is no use of a good strategy that exists in boardrooms and has not been implemented. The process of implementing any strategy comes with extensive opportunities for the business as well as challenges. The challenges should not limit the sole purpose of the strategy which is to improve the productivity of a business. Implementation of new strategies offers new opportunities for all departments to improve their productivity as well as explore new fields in the industry. The governance of the business is able to set new standards and goals while the rest of the employees are able to practice new tasks that may lead to improvement of the services offered. Nonetheless, there are challenges that come with this; there are cases where some strategies are faced with opposition and rejection especially when it affects the employees in a way they may find "hostile". Despite that, if well implemented, new strategies bring more good than bad. Reference list: Top of Form Schermerhorn, J. R. (2010). Management Hoboken, N.J., Wiley Bottom of Form Lafferty, W.M. (2007). Governance for Sustainable Development the Challenge of Adapting Form to Function Edward Elgar Ltd Taxman, F. S., & Belenko, S. R. (2012) Implementing evidence-based practices in community corrections and addiction treatment. New York, NY, Springer Top of Form Hill, C. W. L., & Jones, G. R. (2013) Strategic management theory Mason, OH ; Australia ; Brazil ; Japan ; Korea ; Mexico ; Singapore ; Spain ; United Kingdom ; United States : South-Western, Cengage Learning, ©2013 Top of Form Harrison, J. S., & St. John, C. H. (2008) Foundations in strategic management Mason, OH, Thomson/South-Western. Top of Form Jurkowski, E. T. (2013). Implementing culture change in long-term care: benchmarks and strategies for management and practice New York, Springer. Bottom of Form Top of Form Merchant, K. A., & Chen, C. X. (2010) Strategy mapping: an interventionist examination of a homebuilder's performance measurement and incentive systems Amsterdam, Elsevier Bottom of Form Top of Form Speculand, R. (2009). Beyond strategy: the leader's role in successful implementation. Singapore, Jossey-Bass Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Read More