DPSCS-DOC's External Environment Report-The instruction for the paper is attached below. Follow the paper thoroughly and complete it accordingly. This paper due on March 24th at 12 pm noon. APA in-tex
Maryland DPSCS-DOC’s External Environment Report
INSTRUCTIONS:
Complete an analysis of the key external factors that have implications for successful implementation of Maryland Department of Safety and Correctional Services-Division of Corrections (MDPSCS-DOC)’s Vision, Mission and Objective (VMO), strategy and goals/objectives. You will examine MDPSCS-DOC’s industry and the competitive conditions/positioning affecting it now or likely to do so in the future. Write an approximate 2,000- 2500 word double-spaced APA-formatted paper. The title page, reference list, and any appendices are not included in this suggested word count. You do not need to include an abstract.
Your paper should address these topics: Sub Headings
INTRODUCTION: A brief background/history of Maryland DPSCS-DOC and the introduction with a thesis statement of what to discuss in the entire paper.
DPSCS-DOC’s Current Positioning
A brief explanation of the industry (or industries) in which DPSCS-DOC operates as well as context for DPSCS-DOC’ current positioning.
DPSCS-DOC’s PESTEL Framework
Analyze the current conditions in DPSCS-DOC’s industry and in its relevant general environment and their likely implications for successful implementation of DPSCS-DOC’s strategic goals and related actions. Be sure to address the PESTEL framework. The framework looks at the “six most common macro-environmental factors (political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal)”
DPSCS-DOC’s Five-Forces Model
Apply Porter’s Five-Forces Model (suppliers, rivalry within an industry, substitute products, customers or buyers, and new entrants) to enrich your understanding of the environment in which DPSCS-DOC is now or may be operating. The Five Forces model should stress that this model is used to evaluate the industry, not your selected organization’s activities. The model should be used to isolate the dominant force(s) in the industry faced by all competitors and that produce the greatest threat to DPSCS-DOC’s profits and/or strategy. You should discuss how DPSCS-DOC can provide a defense against this threat or threats.
DPSCS-DOC’s Strategic Group
Describe DPSCS-DOC’s strategic group and construct a map to show its relative market position. Add in a discussion of your rationale for the grouping.
DPSCS-DOC’s Threats and Opportunities
Summarize the threats and opportunities facing DPSCS-DOC gleaned from your analysis. (SWOT analysis) Submit the SWOT format in Table form and add in some narrative to discuss the threats and opportunities in more detail. Explain in your discussion (not in the table) why you selected them and how they relate to the VMO and organization’s strategy.
| Threats |
|
| Opportunities |
|
Evaluation of DPSCS-DOC’s Current Strategy to Curb Contraband and Gang Activities
Evaluate the extent to which DPSCS-DOC’s current strategy appears a good match for the competitive conditions it confronts or any gaps that must be addressed.
Conclusion
Add in a strong conclusion that ensures the reader leaves your paper with a clear recap of your key points.
References
Use APA 6th edition style for your references
IMPORTANT: Do not just use someone else's SWOT, Five Forces, or other analysis. We want you to think for yourself. Critically analyze your firm and write about your original conclusions. Again, imagine you have been asked by the organization’s CEO or top leader to offer an assessment of the organization and how well it is positioned (or not) to deliver on the VMO and strategy in the external environment. This is a critical element, stand back and offer thoughtful criticism and recommendations. This Report due on Thursday, March 24, 2018 at 12 pm noon.
Note: You are advice to follow the above instructions accordingly and go through the readings for this assignment and the entire lecture below for better understanding of the paper. Use some of the references and include your references that you may come across during your research. A well organize paper is expected.
Required Readings: For the assignments
Evaluating the industry. (2012). In Mastering strategic management. Washington, DC: Saylor Academy. Retrieved from https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_mastering-strategic-management/s07-03-evaluating-the-industry.html
The impact of external and internal factors on strategy. (2016, 31 May). In Boundless Management. Retrieved from https://www.boundless.com/management/textbooks/boundless-management-textbook/strategic-management-12/strategic-management-86/the-impact-of-external-and-internal-factors-on-strategy-419-1549/
Mapping strategic groups. (2012). In Mastering strategic management. Washington, DC: Saylor Academy. Retrieved from https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_mastering-strategic-management/s07-04-mapping-strategic-groups.html
The PESTEL and SCP frameworks. (2016, 26 May). In Boundless management. Retrieved from https://www.boundless.com/management/textbooks/boundless-management-textbook/strategic-management-12/external-inputs-to-strategy-87/the-pestel-and-scp-frameworks-422-4020/
Porter's Five-Forces model. (2009). In Encyclopedia of management (6th Ed., pp. 714-717). Retrieved from http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.umuc.edu/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX3273100234&v=2.1&u=umd_umuc&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w&asid=15b293cb106b6939bb8da821591db412
The relationship between an organization and its environment. (2012). In Mastering strategic management. Washington, DC: Saylor Academy. Retrieved from https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_mastering-strategic-management/s07-01-the-relationship-between-an-or.html
Strategic group mapping. (2010, October 5). MBA lectures. Retrieved from http://mba-lectures.com/management/strategic-management/1000/strategic-group-mapping.html
Supplementary Materials:
Anand, B. N. (2006). Crafting business strategy and environmental scanning [Video]. Harvard Business School Faculty Seminar Series. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=fsv&AN=8282c&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Arline, K. (2015, February 18). Porter's Five Forces: Analyzing the competition. Business News Daily. Retrieved from http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5446-porters-five-forces.html#sthash.td8NsV4u.dpuf
Dahab, S. (2008). Five forces. In S. R. Clegg & J. R. Bailey (Eds.), International encyclopedia of organization studies (Vol. 4, pp. 508-509). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd. doi: 10.4135/9781412956246.n178. Retrieved from http://sk.sagepub.com.ezproxy.umuc.edu/reference/organization/n178.xml
Evaluating the general environment. (2012). In Mastering strategic management. Washington, DC: Saylor Academy. Retrieved from https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_mastering-strategic-management/s07-02-evaluating-the-general-environ.html
Grundy, T. (2006). Rethinking and reinventing Michael Porter's five forces model. Strategic Change, 15(5), 213-229. doi:10.1002/jsc.764. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=psyh&AN=2006-21888-001&site=eds-live&scope=site
Harper, G. M. (2013). Porter's Five Forces. Salem Press encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=89550628&site=eds-live&scope=site
MindTools. (n.d.). Porter’s five forces: assessing the balance of power in a business situation. Retrieved from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_08.htm
Mullerbeck, E. (2015). SWOT and PESTEL. New York: UNICEF. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/knowledge-exchange/files/SWOT_and_PESTEL_production.pdf
Porter, M. E. (2008). The five competitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard Business Review, 86(1), 78-93. (Note that you must search for this article in the UMUC library; a persistent link is not available.)
Porter, M. (2015). Michael Porter on competitive strategy. [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu-cFbTsY8U
Rachapila, T., & Jansirisak, S. (2013). Using Porter’s Five Forces model for analysing the competitive environment of Thailand’s sweet corn industry. International Journal of Business and Social Research, 3(3). Retrieved from http://thejournalofbusiness.org/index.php/site/article/view/67 (case study)
Strategic group mapping: a mechanism for understanding the other players that operate in your field. (2016). Business Survival Toolkit. Retrieved from http://business-survival-toolkit.co.uk/stage-three/strategy-and-planning/strategic-group-mapping
SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats: tools. (2016). Community toolbox. Retrieved from http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/assessing-community-needs-and-resources/swot-analysis/tools
Lecture for the Assignments
Week 5 Continuation: External Environment of a Business: The students will study, in detail, the external environment of companies. They will analyze the threats and the opportunities facing a business, using a SWOT analysis. Then they will analyze the competition, using the Five Forces Model and a Strategic Group Map.
Learning Objectives:
Identify factors in a company’s macro environment that may have strategic significance.
Define and apply the PESTEL framework.
Use a SWOT analysis to examine external factors of an organization.
Apply the Five Forces Model to an organization.
Create a Strategic Group Map to analyze the business and its competition.
Introduction
We’ve looked at internal factors; now it’s time to look at the external factors that affect strategy. Anand (2006) contends that there are two times at which a company should perform an external analysis: (1) when entering a new market, and (2) when trying to position the company to successfully compete in the market in which it currently is.
The external environment is more complex than the internal environment, and we use the PESTEL framework, the SWOT analysis, the Five Forces model, and the Strategic Group Map to analyze the external factors of a business (“The impact of external and internal factors on strategy.” 2016). “The environment consists of the set of external conditions and forces that have the potential to influence the organization” (“The relationship between an organization and its environment,” 2012). Environment is much broader than simply the industry in which a company competes (Anand, 2006).
It is useful to break the concept of the environment down into two components. The general environment (or macroenvironment) includes overall trends and events in society such as social trends, technological trends, demographics, and economic conditions. The industry (or competitive environment) consists of multiple organizations that collectively compete with one another by providing similar goods, services, or both. (“The relationship between an organization and its environment,” 2012)
Although internal factors are many and varied depending on the organization, management has some control over how these various internal conditions interact (“The impact of external and internal factors on strategy.” 2016). External factors are things that management has no control over. The key to managing external factors is to take advantage of external opportunities and avoid external threats.
PESTEL Framework
We will begin this week with a discussion of the PESTEL Framework (or PESTLE). The framework looks at the“six most common macro-environmental factors (political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal)” (“The PESTEL and SCP Frameworks,” 2016; “Evaluating the general environment,” 2012). “The basic premise behind this framework, from a strategy perspective, is to identify opportunities and threats in the market” (“The PESTEL and SCP Frameworks,” 2016). Although PESTEL and SWOT are often used together, PESTEL identifies specific significant relevant factors and SWOT then classifies them as either Opportunities or Threats (Mullerbeck, 2015). Therefore, it is to your advantage to use the PESTEL Framework before conducting a SWOT analysis.
SWOT Analysis
We have already talked about the S (strengths) and W (weaknesses) in the SWOT analysis. Now, let’s turn our attention to the Opportunities and Threats (O and T). Opportunities are “events and trends that create chances to improve an organization’s performance level” and threats are “events and trends that may undermine an organization’s performance” (“The relationship between an organization and its environment,” 2012). Remember that opportunities and threats are factors outside the company’s control. Opportunities are positive, and threats are negative.
Source: “SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats: tools,” 2016.
Five Forces Model
Michael E. Porter (2008), of Harvard University, developed the Five Forces Model, a “strategy framework that provides corporations with clear analysis of their competitive strategies” (“Porter’s Five-Forces model,” 2009, p. 714). The five forces include suppliers, rivalry within an industry, substitute products, customers or buyers, and new entrants. It is the most popular business analytic tool (“Evaluating the industry,” 2012). “The purpose of five forces analysis is to identify how much profit potential exists in an industry” (“Evaluating the industry,” 2012).
The six factors identified by Porter can be narrowed down into two major categories of barriers to entry; market barriers to entry and mobility barriers to entry. Market barriers to entry are the structural characteristics of a market, which favor established firms to the disadvantage of new entrants in the market in such a way that established firms enjoy the flexibility of raising prices over costs without attracting new entrants. Mobility barriers shield a firm operating in one segment of the market from entry by other firms operating in different segments of the same market. (“Porter’s Five-Forces model,” 2009, p. 716).
When performing a Five Forces analysis, it’s important to both identify the threat, but also to rank that threat. For example, is the threat of substitutes low, moderate, or high? MindTools (n.d.) provides a worksheet and examples to walk you through the process.
Some Caveats on the Five Forces
Some companies engage in more than one industry or marketplace. The five forces analysis is only appropriate for the analysis of an individual line of business, so when a business is engaged in multiple ventures in different industries, a five forces analysis should be done for each. A significant change to any of the five forces should serve as an opportunity to pause and consider the business’s strategy within that marketplace. (Harper, 2013).
Students in the military or the public sector sometimes struggle with the Five Forces analysis because they think they don’t have any competition. Your firm does compete, though. For example, if you are a police department, you compete for funding (state, federal, and grant funding), employees (they might choose the state police over your local department), and equipment. Try to think about what customers get from your firm and how else they might achieve the same results. For the police department, substitutes could include things like personal guns, security systems, and security personnel (all of those things “substitute” for one aspect of the police: keeping citizens and businesses safe). Be sure to check out the “Strategy in Nonprofits” resources in the Webliography. If you have trouble applying this or any of the concepts in this course, please reach out to your faculty member.
Although Porter’s model is taught extensively, and most business managers are at least familiar with it, some find it hard to implement. Grundy (2006) has critiqued and refined the model, and his article is worth reading. Porter’s model has also been criticized for failing to explain strategic alliances. “In the 1990s, Yale School of Management professors Adam Brandenbuger and Bare Nalebuff created the idea of a sixth force, "complementors," using the tools of game theory. In their model, complementors sell products and services that are best used in conjunction with a product or service from a competitor” (Arline, 2015).
Strategic Group Map
The last tool we’ll be looking at to examine external forces is the Strategic Group Map. A Strategic Group Map displays the relative competitive positions of rival firms in the industry (“Strategic group mapping,” 2010). “Strategic groups are sets of firms that follow similar strategies to one another” (“Mapping strategic groups,” 2012). There are several reasons to create a Strategic Group Map: (1) These firms are usually the company’s closest rivals, (2) the strategies pursued other by firms within the strategic groups show alternative paths to success, and (3) analysis of rivals can reveal gaps in the industry that are untapped opportunities (“Mapping strategic groups,” 2012).
The map is constructed by choosing two variables and then comparing the company with its rivals within that industry. It is important to choose variables that are not correlated, are discrete, and have a big difference (“Strategic group mapping,” 2010). The Business Survival Toolkit (“Strategic group mapping: a mechanism for understanding the other players that operate in your field,” 2016) includes a downloadable tool you can use to help you construct a Strategic Group Map.
Source: Strategic group mapping. (2010, October 5). MBA lectures. Retrieved from http://mba-lectures.com/management/strategic-management/1000/strategic-group-mapping.html
Conclusion
An effective analysis of external factors will include all of these tools. They all have strengths and weaknesses, but a manager who uses all of them will have extensive knowledge of a firm’s external environment.
References
Anand, B. N. (2006). Crafting business strategy and environmental scanning [Video]. Harvard Business School Faculty Seminar Series. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=fsv&AN=8282c&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Arline, K. (2015, February 18). Porter's Five Forces: Analyzing the Competition. Business News Daily. Retrieved from http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5446-porters-five-forces.html#sthash.td8NsV4u.dpuf
Evaluating the general environment. (2012). In Mastering strategic management. Washington, DC: Saylor Academy. Retrieved from https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_mastering-strategic-management/s07-02-evaluating-the-general-environ.html
Evaluating the industry. (2012). In Mastering strategic management. Washington, DC: Saylor Academy. Retrieved from https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_mastering-strategic-management/s07-03-evaluating-the-industry.html
Grundy, T. (2006). Rethinking and reinventing Michael Porter's five forces model. Strategic Change, 15(5), 213-229. doi:10.1002/jsc.764. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=psyh&AN=2006-21888-001&site=eds-live&scope=site
Harper, G. M. (2013). Porter's Five Forces. Salem Press Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=89550628&site=eds-live&scope=site
The impact of external and internal factors on strategy. (2016, 31 May). In Boundless Management. Retrieved from https://www.boundless.com/management/textbooks/boundless-management-textbook/strategic-management-12/strategic-management-86/the-impact-of-external-and-internal-factors-on-strategy-419-1549/
Mapping strategic groups. (2012). In Mastering strategic management. Washington, DC: Saylor Academy. Retrieved from https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_mastering-strategic-management/s07-04-mapping-strategic-groups.html
MindTools. (n.d.). Porter’s five forces: assessing the balance of power in a business situation. Retrieved from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_08.htm
Mullerbeck, E. (2015). SWOT and PESTEL. New York: UNICEF. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/knowledge-exchange/files/SWOT_and_PESTEL_production.pdf
The PESTEL and SCP frameworks. (2016, 26 May). In Boundless Management. Retrieved from https://www.boundless.com/management/textbooks/boundless-management-textbook/strategic-management-12/external-inputs-to-strategy-87/the-pestel-and-scp-frameworks-422-4020/
Porter, M. E. (2008). The five competitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard Business Review, 86(1), 78-93. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=28000138&site=eds-live&scope=site
Porter's Five-Forces model. (2009). In Encyclopedia of Management (6th Ed., pp. 714-717). Retrieved from http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.umuc.edu/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX3273100234&v=2.1&u=umd_umuc&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w&asid=15b293cb106b6939bb8da821591db412
The relationship between an organization and its environment. (2012). In Mastering strategic management. Washington, DC: Saylor Academy. Retrieved from https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_mastering-strategic-management/s07-01-the-relationship-between-an-or.html
Strategic group mapping. (2010, October 5). MBA lectures. Retrieved from http://mba-lectures.com/management/strategic-management/1000/strategic-group-mapping.html
Strategic group mapping: a mechanism for understanding the other players that operate in your field. (2016). Business Survival Toolkit. Retrieved from http://business-survival-toolkit.co.uk/stage-three/strategy-and-planning/strategic-group-mapping
SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats: tools. (2016). Community toolbox. Retrieved from http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/assessing-community-needs-and-resources/swot-analysis/tools
