60 words response each to student 1 and 2 as it pertains to original question

ORIGINALQUESTION:

DiscussionTopic: VCA, RBV, and SWOT Analyses

Discuss how you can use VCA, RBV, and SWOT analyses togain a stronger sense of what might be a firm’s key building blocks are for asuccessful strategy.

Choose a Fortune 1000 company to demonstrate theseaforementioned analyses.

STUDENTNUMBER 1 RESPONSE:

Professor and class,

Value Chain Analysis (VCA), is what company’s use tofind out how they can add more value to their customers. The activity to carrythis out is broken into 2 categories; Support and Primary.  Primary is thebehind the scenes, such as, operations, sales and marketing. The supportcategory is the people and tools to get the job done. Resource Based View (RBV)analysis, is when a company looks at its resources as the key to theirperformance. Resources in a company include employees (knowledge andexpertise), capabilities and intangibles (J. Pearce & R. Robinson,Strategic Management, 13th edition, chapter 6). SWOT analysis is the waycompany’s can see the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats withinthe organization including employees, operations and competition.

Take Lowe’s as a fortune 1000 company. To add value tothe customer they need to look at services provided. Delivery, credit programs,project specialists for both interior and exterior applications and web basedordering, product Q&A and how to guides. To look at the resource base, itis the employees and their skills. For many employees Lowe’s is just a basicretail job but there are many in each store that are experts in the field. Youmay find certified electricians and plumbers, people who have been in theconstruction industry for decades, painters, landscapers and so on. Having thislevel of expertise in the store helps set the bar for service and success inthe company. SWOT, of course, looks at the strengths and weaknesses at Lowe's,but more importantly their opportunities and threats. These two categoriesreally reflect on competitive advantage, their responsibility in the communityand towards the staff and how the operations process is working for the goalsthat are set out.

Reference:

J. Pearce & R. Robinson, Strategic Management,13th edition, chapter 6, page 149 – 165

STUDENTNUMBER 2 RESPONSE:

Prof and class,

VCA is how a business attempts to analyze how abusiness can create customer values. This is done by examining using differentactivities that is in the business. RBV is the method of determining thecompany’s strategic advantages and examining the company’s skills, assets,capabilities, and intangibles. SWOT or Strengths, Weakness, Opportunity andThreats. It identifies the company’s strengths and weaknesses as well as theopportunities and threats the company may face. It is used to determine thecompany’s strategic situations (Pearson & Robinson, 2013).

Walmart, a fortune 1000 company, can use theseanalysis to help them learn about their customer’s values and be able toaccommodate those values. They are able to determine what the strengths arewithin the company and using their strategic advantages like; skills, assets,capabilities and intangibles to accomplish their goals. And the use of SWOTanalysis is important to the company in that management is able to see whatthose strengths are as well as point out the areas the company may be week in.It helps to determine what future opportunities the company may have and alsoalert of the threats that may need to be tackled while trying to gain some ofthese opportunities.

Reference

Pearce, J. A., & Robinson, R. B. (2013). Strategicmanagement: Planning for domestic & global competition (13th ed.). NewYork, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Smithson, Nathanial. (August 15, 2015) Walmart SWOTAnalysis & Recommendations: Business Management. Panmore Institute.Retrieved from http://panmore.com/walmart-swot-analysis-recommendations-case-study