STR/581 Version 12 Strategic Planning and Implementation Individual Assignment: Strategic Plan, Part 2: Internal Environmental Analysis Purpose of Assignment Part 2 of the Strategic Plan goes further into the internal and external environments of the company chosen in Week 2. Students can reference Part 1 of the assignment for information on the environmental scan, after which they have the opportunity to look at the internal workings of their company and also do some competitor analysis. Students are able to use these concepts to perform real tasks associated with SWOT analysis and developing a foundation for devising a strategy for the company. Resources Required Strategic Plan: Part 1 Grading Guide Content Met Partially Met Not Met Total Available Total Earned The paper uses the organization selected in Week 1. The paper includes an assessment of the organization’s internal environment. The paper includes the identification of the most important strengths and weaknesses of your organization including an assessment of the organization’s resources. The paper includes the identification of important internal environmental factors found in the analysis of the general, industry, and external environments. The paper includes a competitor analysis. The paper includes an assessment of the structure of the organization and the influence this has on its performance. The paper includes a determination of the organization’s competitive position and the possibilities this provides. The paper is a minimum of 1,050 words in length. Comments: Strategic Plan, Part 2: Internal Environmental Analysis Grading Guide STR/581 Version 12 Content Met Writing Guidelines Met Partially Met Not Met 85 #/85 Partially Met Not Met Total Available Total Earned 35 #/35 120 #/120 Organization The tone is appropriate to the content and assignment. The introduction provides a sufficient background on the topic and previews major points. Paragraph transitions are present, logical, and maintain the flow throughout the paper. The conclusion is logical, flows from the body of the paper, and reviews the major points. Mechanics The paper—including tables and graphs, headings, title page, and reference page—is consistent with APA formatting guidelines and meets course-level requirements. Intellectual property is recognized with in-text citations and a reference page. Sentences are complete, clear, and concise. Rules of grammar and usage are followed including spelling and punctuation. Assignment Total # Additional comments: Copyright © 2017 by University of Phoenix. All rights reserved. Comments: Comments: 2 Running Head: STRATEGIC PLAN: PART 1: ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN Strategic Plan: Part 1: Environmental Scan Institutional Affiliation Name 1 STRATEGIC PLAN: PART 1: ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN 2 Strategic Plan: Part 1: Environmental Scan Introduction They say a good strategic plan is vital and can determine organizational success, however; no matter how effective your strategic plan can be it is paramount to regularly evaluate its effectiveness based on changes in regards to external environmental changes. An environmental scan is a marketing evaluation tool that helps in identifying the changing trends in the global market whereby; employees, as well as executives, gather, analyze and share information for tactical and strategic purposes. The company that I have chosen for this assignment is American Greetings Corporation a privately-owned American company and the world’s second-largest greeting card producer behind Hallmark Cards. The company sells paper greeting cards, electronic greeting cards, party products, and electronic and is based in Westlake, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. According to the company’s CEO Zev Weiss, the need for a continuous environmental scan within the company is innate and can be cited as one of the main reasons why the company has been doing quite well in recent years. Analysis American Greetings has good strategic plans that allow the company to adapt to the changing environment in the paper greeting cards, electronic greeting cards, party products, as well as electronic industry whereas; many companies have failed to do so and therefore this can be cited as one of the strategies that help the company to create value and sustain competitive advantage. For example; American Greetings has built up the critical mechanism that coordinates the authoritative culture with morals and social obligations (Robert, et.al, 2017). STRATEGIC PLAN: PART 1: ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN 3 Morals are very noteworthy to take choices identified with hierarchical activities and therefore; this is an excellent example of how American Greetings has managed to create value as well as sustain competitive advantage using the environmental scanning strategy (Robert, et.al, 2017). Competitive advantage plays an integral role in an organization such as American Greetings. According to environmental scan analysis among other strategic factors, some of the major competitive advantages of American Greetings include but not limited to being innovative, motivating, better-quality services, exceptional performances, innovative rivalry strategies as well as a high level of trust in the target market. According to my analysis based on both internal and external environmental scan factors on American Greetings, one of the major objectives of this company is to be leading and innovative company in both food and beverage industry by boosting the value of the shareholders’ venture throughout incorporated working, devoting as well as business actions. Besides, the company (American Greetings) aspires to make more than a few acquisitions carefully as well as the desire to use these acquisitions as a major competitive tool against their main competitor (Robert, et.al, 2017). Some of the major environmental scan factors that have helped American Greetings to be ahead of her competitors and to increase its competitive advantage include social forces, technological forces, consumer and political forces that I will be succinctly and critically analyzing in the following paragraphs. One of the major environmental scan forces that I find useful in analyzing American Greetings external as well as internal factors would be social forces. Social forces include determining the changing values as well as consumer attitude towards the company’s products. Based on this; American Greetings has been able to identify STRATEGIC PLAN: PART 1: ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN 4 major social forces which is why the company came up with paper greeting cards, electronic greeting cards, party products, as well as electronic that has continued to attract many people. Also, American Greetings has been able to identify that most customers want to have a sense of belonging which is why it came up with the idea of paper greeting cards, electronic greeting cards, party products, as well as electronic (Jack & Pilkington, 2018). Economic Forces which include both Macroeconomic, as well as Consumer Income, are yet another major environmental scan factor that has had a major impact on American Greetings. Based on the increasing costs for paper greeting cards, electronic greeting cards, party products, as well as electronic, American Greetings has realized that the price for other social networking methods are costly which is why they came up with paper greeting cards, electronic greeting cards, party products, as well as electronic. Other fundamental environmental factors that have had a major impact on American Greetings would be Technological Forces. Technology and most specifically social networks between consumers and social network companies have played a key role in influencing the success of many companies especially American Greetings. According to research; American Greetings use technological changes to keep up-to-date with their customers and to determine what their customers want which has proved to be indeed quite a powerful tool for the company’s brands towards generating as well as measuring buzz and the result is a wealth of online consumer conversations. Regulatory Forces play a pivotal role in the environmental scan of an organization such as American Greetings. According to regulatory forces targeting American Greetings, it has been STRATEGIC PLAN: PART 1: ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN 5 established that 2019 has been a hard year for the company because the government campaigns towards promoting paper greeting cards, electronic greeting cards, party products, as well as electronic have been said to have caused consumers to purchase less greeting cards. Based on this; it will be quite helpful for the company to come up with novel countermeasures in the near future to ensure customers continue buying their products (Singh & Rani, 2019). One of the best strategies that American Greetings is implementing is to try and produce more appealing greeting cards from their market cluster which would definitely attract more customers. Another environmental factor that greatly influences American Greetings’ success is the political force because within the paper greeting cards, electronic greeting cards, party products, as well as the electronic industry there are fewer political issues. On the contrary; some states may think banning of cards and letters will mitigate the menace of obesity and therefore; this may affect the company’s sales in such states because the decision to ban or not to ban paper greeting cards as well as electronic at state can have both pros and cons (Singh & Rani, 2019). Consumer Behavior within the paper greeting cards, electronic greeting cards, party products, as well as electronic industry has shifted to technology-based usage and this has been one of the strongest points of American Greetings and added advantage. Based on this; American Greetings has shifted its attention to new preferences impacts that favor as well as influences their consumer purchase decision process (Donald & Eric, 1988). Conclusion To sum it up; without complete market research and flawed strategic plan, an organization is likely to encounter embarrassing and humorous moments especially when it STRATEGIC PLAN: PART 1: ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN 6 comes to cultural environmental factors. Based on this; it is imperative for an organization such as American Greetings to regularly keep evaluating the company’s strategic plan effectiveness based on changes in regards to external environmental changes in order to be able to identify the changing trends in the global market whereby; employees, as well as executives, gather, analyze and share information for tactical and strategic purposes. Based on the fact that the world seems to e so focused on ecological factors in today’s environment, I find it incumbent for American Greetings to align itself with the majority which would only be achieved with an effective environmental scan. STRATEGIC PLAN: PART 1: ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN 7 References Donald P. Robin and R. Eric Reidenbach, (1988). Integrating Social Responsibility and Ethics into the Strategic Planning Process Vol. 7, No. 3/4, Selected Papers from the 1988 Meeting of the Society for Business Ethics (Fall-Winter, 1988), pp. 29-46 (18 pages). Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/27799983 Jack R. Meredith and Alan Pilkington, (2018). Assessing the exchange of knowledge between operations management and other fields: Some challenges and opportunities, Journal of Operations Management, 60, 1, (47-53). Robert Ebo Hinson, Frederick Avornyo, John Kuada and Felix Ankomah Asante, (2017). Corporate social responsibility and international business: examining the nexus and gaps from a developing economy perspective, International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, 10.1186/s40991-017-0016-x, 2, 1,
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