Final Strategic Plan
STRATEGIC PLAN PART 2: SWOT ANALYSIS PAPER 14
Hello Melissa:
Thanks for presenting your Strategic Plan – Phase 2. The purpose of a SWOT analysis is to synthesize how environmental factors (internal and external) affect a company or product. This analysis is commonly called “situational analysis” because it portrays the current situation of an organization.
Very good coverage of this section of your business plan; particularly, the hypotheses section which are in alignment with the SWOT chart.
Perhaps, the recommendation is to condense the SWOT chart into the four quadrants of a standard chart (see below).
Strategic Plan Part 2: SWOT Analysis Paper
BUS/475
May 4, 2017
In this paper, internal and external environment analysis of Mars Hospitality Groups will be conducted. This will include an analysis of supply chain of the proposed new division and its business model. A SWOT table summarizing the findings of the analysis will be created. The economic, legal, regulatory forces and trends will be identified and how well the organization adapts to change. This will include an analysis of the supply chain of the new division of the current business and the arrangements to create and use center abilities and assets inside the supply chain with an end goal to have a beneficial outcome on the plan of action and the different partners. The significant issues or potentially openings that the company faces will be identified and a hypothesis surrounding each issue and research questions to use for conducting analysis will be generated. Finally, the circumstances surrounding each issue will be identified and classified, the importance of each classification will be explained and the accuracy of the importance for each classification will be tested.
The SWOT table summarizing the findings
| Strengths | Weaknesses | Opportunities | Threats | Trends | |
| EXTERNAL FORCES | |||||
| Legal and regulatory | It has a dedicated legal team | Faces constant litigation regarding intellectual property | Create a system that quickly patents new technologies | Potential future lawsuits | New regulations affecting hospitality industry. |
| Economic | Improving global economy will increase the demand of the product. |
| Building brand presence in emerging markets. | Uncertain economic changes might lead to lose of sales | Economic conditions are on the path to recovery in the global stage. |
| Technological | It has a robust technical team | Lags behind in some technological advancement | Employ highly-skilled software developers | Emerging of technological competitive firms in the industry | The marketing and sales of products online and on-mobile phones |
| Global | Good global image and presence | Culturally incompetent workforce | Growing global demand | Growing global competition in the industry. | Attracting overseas workforce |
| Innovation | Enjoys the sale of innovation and competitive products | Lack of consistency in innovation process | Developing innovation team to monitor this. | Very costly to develop innovative products | Increasing demand of innovative products. |
| Social | It has a well established Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) plan | Lack of follow-up of the success of CSR plan | Expanding CSR plan to cover many communities | Costly to undertake CSR plan | Emergence of more complex CSR plan to solve socioeconomic problems of communities. |
| Environmental | It has a robust environmental protection plan | In some instances it has failed to meet eco-tourism requirements | Employing a highly-skilled environmentalists | Changes in weather patterns are affecting its travel activities | The emphasis of eco-friendly tourism. |
| Competitive analysis | A leader in the industry because of offering cost-friendly products | Not considering costs when pricing | Focusing of making travel packages more competitive | Large and emerging companies taking over the market share | Developing cost-friendly and very attractive products |
| INTERNAL FORCES | |||||
| Strategy | Runs on a well-defined business strategy | Failure to constantly review the strategy | Borrowing business strategy ideas of industry leaders | Industry players with well-established strategy | Heavily emphasis on business strategy |
| Structures | It has a well-established corporate structure | Overlap of departmental roles | Rearranging corporate structures to be more distinct | Problems of undefined chain of command | Making continuous effort of improving corporate structure |
| Processes and Systems | Technologically supported Processes and Systems | Lack of consistency in Processes and Systems | Adopting product-oriented Processes and Systems | Failure to adopt Processes and Systems changes | Establishing Processes and Systems that designs the required product. |
| Resources | It has adequate resources in terms and human, capital and infrastructure | Slow growth of resource base | Souring funding and grants from external sources and employing highly-skilled workers | poor management of resources | Good cash flows and increased profitability. |
| Goals | It is a goal-oriented firm | Focusing mainly on short-term goals | Shifting focus to long-term goals | Underrating the goals of improving product quality | Focusing on short-term and long-term goals together. |
| Strategic capacities | It has a competent strategic team | Lags behind in implementation of strategic plans | Increasing strategic capacities for growth | The emphasis of strategic capacity growth by other firms | Searching for strategic teams and resources to build capacity. |
| Culture | Good corporate culture | Lack of good change managers | Instilling a good corporate culture on all employees | The changing culture in the workplace | Training employees on how to cope with corporate culture |
| Technologies | Employs the latest technologies in its business processes. | Poor transmission plan to a new technology | Benefiting from global technological transfers | Adopting inappropriate technology | Employing a team to track technological changes and advice accordingly. |
| Innovations | A leader in innovative products | inadequate innovative personnel | Continuous designing new products | Stiff competitive from innovative firms | Shifting focus on innovation of customer-oriented products |
| Intellectual property | It has a pool of quality intellectual property | Lack of continuous development of Intellectual property | Employing innovative team who can develop intellectual property | Lack of strict laws on Intellectual property | Quick registration and covering of Intellectual property |
| Leadership | Highly-qualified top management officials | High turnover in top managers of the company | Retain or extending terms for good managers | Self-interest by the top managers | Motivating and compensating performing managers |
Analysis of relevant forces and trends
The economic issues that my positively or negative affect Mars Hospitality Groups in the tourism and hospitality industry include economic conditions such as inflation rates, income level, unemployment rates and exchange rates . When these economic conditions are unfavorable, the business will perform poorly and when the inflation and unemployment rate is lower, income is increasing and the exchange rates are stable the business will perform better. According to Speth & Probert (2015), the legal and regulatory issues that the company is likely to confront include regulatory reforms that might help to protect business interest or limit the expansion of business to other territories. For example, patent protect will help in limiting unfair competition. The trends that are likely to be experienced by Mars Hospitality Groups in this industry include: some new regulations are expected that might have a great impact on the performance of the company and the entrants of new competitors in the industry is also expected.
Critique of how well the organization adapts to change
Mars Hospitality Groups have a good structure of managing and adapting to change in their operation systems and due to the dynamic business environment. It has employed change management team. This team ensures that the organization identify the necessary changes, manage and implement them with little disruption of the normal business operations.
Analysis of the supply chain of the new division of the existing business
The supply chain of the new division in the company involves managing and planning of activities and hospitality service operations from the support functions to the delivery of end-user services to the clients. Plan to vacation destination as a service for the new division of the company will have a well established service chain structure that will include off shoring and outsourcing of their services; this plan will ensure that the company increase its customer base and create brand loyalty among its customers. In an effort to make a positive impact on the business model and the various stakeholders, the company will ensure that make a plan which will develop and leverage core competencies and resources within the supply chain. This plan will include providing continuous training to its employees in order to create a very competitive and competent human capital that will increase the efficiency of human resources. .
The major issues and/or opportunities that the company faces
Haines (2007) argued that there are major issues and opportunities that the company faces in its operations. The major issues include: the legal and regulatory reforms that have been put in place to regulate activities in tourism sector and growing competition from new entrants in the industry. The opportunities that are available for the company include: merging with other companies to create synergy and using social media networks to look for clients and
Hypothesis and circumstances that surrounding each issue and research questions to use for conducting analysis
The hypotheses that surround each issue are:
If patent protection right bill is passed, then the company will benefit immensely from its innovation.
If there are new entrants into the industry, then the company’s profitability will fail.
The research questions that can be used in conducting the analysis include:
What impact will patent protection law have on the company’s innovation plans?
How will new entrants into the industry impact on the company’s profitability?
The circumstance that surrounds the patent right bill is the rise in cases of infringement of intellectual properties rights that are guaranteed for persons or businesses. On the other hand, Fine (2009) argued that the circumstance that surrounds the increase in new entrants into hospitality industry is the shift of consumers to the demand of magnificent destinations at affordable prices and good package of services. I classify both circumstances to be in the part of external forces as threats to company’s operation. The first one is an opportunity and the second one is a threat. The importance of the first classification is that it gives the company a chance to legally protect its business ideas and innovative products and the second enables the company to understand business disruptors and how the deal with them.
References
Fine, L. G. (2009). The SWOT analysis: Using your strength to overcome weaknesses, using opportunities to overcome threats. Place of publication not identified: Kick It.
Haines, S. (2007). Strategic planning simplified: The systems thinking approach to building high performance teams and organizations. San Diego, Calif: Systems Thinking Press.
Speth, C., & Probert, C. (2015). The SWOT analysis: Develop strengths to decrease the weaknesses of your business.
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