Week 4: Planning and Strategic Management

 Concept/ Mode/ Theory Definition:

_ Planning is defined as formal planning and specific goals covering a
period of years are written down and shared with organizational
members. Finally, specific action program exist for the achievement of
these goals (Robbins et al, 2006, p238)
_ There are five reasons why managers plan (Robbins et al, 2006,
p238)
o Planning gives direction to groups
o Planning reduces the negative impact of change
o Planning minimizes waste and duplication
o Planning sets the goals and standards used in control
o Overall, planning improves performance
_ According to the study (Robbins et al, 2006, p242) supports that
there are two types of plans:
o Strategic plans are plans that establish the organisation’s
overall goals and seek to position the organization in terms
of its environment. This include some characteristics:
 Long term
 Directional (Point A to Point B)
 Single use or one-time
o Operational plans are plans that specify the details of how
the overall goals are to be achieved. This include some
characteristics:
 Short term
 Specific (Path we will take between Point A and Point
B)
 Standing or ongoing
_ Management by Objectives (MBO) is a management system in which
specific performance goals are jointly determined by employees and
their managers, process towards accomplishing these goals is
periodically reviewed and rewards are allocated on the basis of this
process. However, there have some common elements of MBO
supported by the figure below: (Robbins et al, 2006, p246)

Goal Specificity
Participative
Management Decision-making
by Explicit Time
Objectives Period
(MBO) Performance
Feedback

_ The strategic management process is a six-step process that

encompasses strategic planning, implementation and evaluation
(Robbins et al, 2006, p246)
o Identify the organization’s current mission. vision,
objectives and strategies
o Analyze the environment
o Identify the opportunities and threats
o Analyze resources
o Identify strength and weaknesses
o Formulate strategies
o Implement strategies
o Evaluate results
_ There have two type of statements through the strategic
management process are (Gross, 2007, week 4, slide 22-3):
o Mission statement- a statement of the identify of an
organization and it’s the purpose
 o Vision statement- a statement of what the organization is
trying to achieve
_ According to Gross (2007, week 4, page 5) SWOT Analysis is divided
into two focuses:
o Internal Focus
 Strength is internal characteristic that improves
competitive advantage
 Weakness is internal characteristic that makes
organization vulnerable to competition
o External Focus
 Opportunity is external environmental condition that
offers hope for improving competitive advantage
 Threat is external environmental condition that may
undermine competitiveness
_ There have 5 competitive forces included many important ideas in
strategic management which have come from the work of Michael
Porter. Together, these five forces determine industry attractiveness
and profitability (Robbins et al, 2006, p275)
o Rivalry: how easy to lower competitor’s profits, such as
price war
o Bargaining Power of Customers: how easy to switch to
different product
o Bargain Power of Suppliers: how easy to switch to another
supplier
o Threat of New Entrants: how easy to enter industry, such
as set up costs, exit costs
o Threat of Substitutes: what else (outside of industry) can
do the same job as product or service
 Rich Description of Practice in Group:
On tutorial week 4, we had a meeting group on 15/08/2007 to
discuss about what we will do next for the rest of our assignment,
and review again our proposal before submitting in our tutorial.
Actually, we wrote so many words than its requirement, for
instance, we wrote 900 words while it just requires 400-500 works
for poster proposal. That is the reason why we had to meet and
found out which points in the proposal we should cut down to make
the proposal shorter and more relevant. The basic for doing this is
we just cut down or summarized some points that don’t cost too
many marks and focus more on the important point (point number
2). We all worked together to find the better and effectively way to
do so. After that Louiza gave us her new first idea on the poster
design, it was so fantastic idea. She designed it from the Photoshop
program, in this draft design, there have the picture of Sir Richard
Branson who invented Virgin group, the logo of Virgin group and one
important thing is the title of the poster “Leadership lost its
Virginity” that was put in the middle. Although it was just a draft
one, but I think it should be an amazing poster and obviously attract
lots of readers. Finally, we decide about what we will discuss and
prepare for the next week. James sent a timetable for preparation
for the whole assignment until week 7 as well. It contained specific
time, dates and what we should do for our assignment; certainly, it
divided by our responsibilities separately like Nick took role as text
editor so he asked Mac for whatever information he need for the
poster’s content, then Mac did the head researchers role, he gave
me and Jing that information. Therefore, I and Jing research
information on journal or website or books, summarize all of these
things and give to Mac later. Subsequently, James will review the
finished work for Nick and give them to Louiza to estimate the
space and put on the poster. Overall, James looks through the
 process and solves the problem if it occurs. The group timetable
was shown as below:
Date: Things need to be done

24 Aug Research to be submitted to Text Editor

29 Aug *Group Meeting* 12:30, Library

Final submission of poster design to group meeting

31 Aug Text editor to submit finalised written work to Designer

05 Sept *Group Meeting* 12:30, Library

06 Sept Poster due

One important thing is that we did the Bedlin Test on this week
tutorial, it really useful to identify what each member in our group is
good at after doing all the part in this test. To understand more
clearly about this test, this is the explanations for this: each part is
a question with the some answer, our job was taking some of those
and gave the points for our choices, but we just had 10 points
allocation for each question. After all we calculated the total mark
we got for each answer, and then we could determine which roles in
group we should do well, it was up to two roles that we got the
highest points. For example, after finishing that, here is the result
that we took: I and Jing can do Resource Investigator role, for the
Team Worker role had Louiza, Jing and me. Louiza and James can do
Coordinator role, and only Nick can do Completer Finisher role. And
final thing was Shaper role that had Nick and James. There also had
two short answers that we had to complete as well. Anyway, by
doing this test, we can have a general view about team role working
and how to make it efficient and effective while working together.
 This test was analyzed exactly what we are doing role in our group
now.
 Analysis and Critical Reflection of relationship between
Theory and Practice in Group:
As mentioned on planning concept, our group was set a formal
planning which involved in clear goals and plans for our final poster
covered until week 7. It was discussed by all members and wrote
down in a timetable list to be shared for everyone in group. We all
know we can overcome all the weaknesses while doing in group and
set a clearly and specific goal for the group. In fact, we are planning
now is operational plan that we have specific details on it to achieve
our determined goals for about 7 weeks. As things are going on, our
group is managed by Management By Objective (MBO) system, we
have a specific goal to finish our poster completely in about 3 week
after submitting the poster proposal with the participation of all
members in our group for decide what we should do our poster in
the best way. Through out this process, we also have some feed
back from other member so that we can make it better. That is why
we have a meeting every week and several emails to discuss on our
poster. For the strategic management process, we follow all the
stages in the whole process, from identify our goal and strategies-
to finish the poster before week 7 with many task works, do the
SWOT analysis to determine our internal or external sources that
can affect our group . Here is our SWOT analysis: for poster group
assignment:
Leadership loses its virginity
Strengths
• Louiza’s high-level graphic design skills
• Nick’s forensic methods in completing academic work
Weaknesses
• Research organisation
• Initial task delegation
 • Initial task organisation and structure of what needed to be
completed
• Limited strategic planning
Opportunities
• What we need to achieve is identifiable through the subject
outline
• Tutor/Subject coordinator have also outlined their personal
expectations of what should be in the task: in identifying these
we can maximise our outcome (marks achieved)
Threats
• Limited time frame still remaining
• Under contribution by some group members
And before the final step is implement our strategic, and we are
currently standing at this stage now. We are deploying all the tasks for
each member in order to finish it soon and then we can evaluate the
outcomes.
And in our strategic management process, we have mission and vision
statements for group as well. For instance:
o Mission statement: is to complete the analysis of a management
issue through active collaboration in an environment that is
helpful and welcoming whilst still remaining academically
challenging.
o Vision statement: is to achieve full marks in the poster
assessment by creatively presenting our management issue
through using academically rigorous methodology and
outstanding artistic design.
 Reference:
Robbins S., Bergman R., Stagg I., and Coulter M., 2006, 4th edition,
Management, Pearson Education, Sydney.