EVALUATING COMPANY'S RESOURCES, CAPABILITIEAS, AND COMPETITIVENESS

           In this chapter we learn about company resources, capabilities, and competitiveness. This three element is very important for every company because this element is a main thing to have before we can start our business. Before we proceed to the main discussion, let me give the definition of resources, capabilities and competitiveness. 

          Resource means an economic or productive factor required to accomplish an activity, or as means to undertake an enterprise and achieve desired outcome. Three most basic resources are land, labor and capital. Other resources include energy. entrepreneurship, information, expertise, management and time. Capability means a measure of the ability of an entity (department, organization, person, system) to achieve its objectives, specially in relation to its overall mission. last but not least, competitive means good, service, or offer that can hold its own against competing product because its offer an attractive value for money proposition to its buyer. This three element need to be evaluate so that we can form a good and excellent business strategy. Starting a business by evaluating the firm's internal situation which include resources, capabilities and competitiveness as stated below:

1. How well is the firm's present strategy working?
2. What are the firm's competitively important resources and capabilities?
3. Is the firm able to take advantage of market opportunities and overcome external threats to its external well-being?
4. Are the firm's prices and cost competitive with those of key rivals, and does it have appealing customer value proposition?
5. Is the firm competitively stronger or weaker than key rivals?
6. What strategic issues and problems merit front burner managerial attention?

A success strategy comes from an excellent planning. How do we find out that our planning is success? there are specific indicators of strategic success which is growth in firm's sales and market share, increasing profit margins, net profits, ROI, growing financial strength and credit rating and many more.

In this chapter also we learnt about SWOT analysis which is powerful tool for sizing up a firm's. SWOT analysis stand for Strength Weakness Opportunity and Threats. Strengths and weaknesses analyze the internal factor of the company, for the external factor we analyze the threats that occur. An opportunities come from the business market.

Beside SWOT analysis, Miss Ummi also taught us about value chain. This is another way to analyze the company strategic management but in terms of internal activities happened. Value chain analysis examine the value chain of an enterprise to ascertain how much and at which stage value is added to its goods and/or services, and how it can be increased to enhance the product differentiation (competitive advantage).

Company Value Chain

Beside SWOT and value chain analysis, benchmarking also tools that we can use to evaluate the internal activities of company. Benchmarking is a measurement of the quality of an organization's policies, products, programs, strategies and their comparison with standard measurement or similar measurement of its peers. The objectives of benchmarking are:

1. to determine what and where the improvement
2. to analyze how other organizations achieve their high performance levels
3. to use this information to improve performance.

Evaluating A Company's External Environment

BISMILLAHIRRAHMANIRRAHIM

This is the third week of lecture for our Strategic Management subject. In this week I learn about the external environment that influence the business strategy. Every business will facing a different circumstances, so, in this topic, I learn how the company observe the environment so that they can improve their company or use their resources to the maximum. What is the definition of external environment? External environment is conditions, entities, events or factors surrounding an organization that influence it activities and choices and determine the opportunities and risks. There is two types of environment in terms of business, which is macro and micro. Macro-environment encompasses the broad environmental environmental context which the firm has no direct control. Question about what are the strategically relevant factors in the macro-environment.

Before we answer the question, we use PESTEL analysis to analyze relevant external factors in macro-environment. PESTEL analysis focuses on principal components.

• P olitical factors
• E conomic conditions (local to worldwide)
• S ociacultural forces
• T echnological factors
• E nvironmental factors (the natural environment)
• L egal/regulatory conditions

Beside PESTEL analysis, an organization also use The Five Competitive Forces to observe how strong are the industry's competitive forces. The Five Competitive Forces is:

• competition from rival sellers
• competition from potential new entrants
• competition from producers of substitute products
• supplier bargaining power 
• customer bargaining power
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

The Business Vision And Mission

Week 2 [Topic 2 : The Business Vision And Mission]

Vision and mission is very important in every aspect of our life. In this topic, we describe the nature and role of vision and mission statements in strategic management. Why is it the vision and mission of the company really important, the answer is because it will be like a guideline to achieve what are the purpose of the business. If we know clearly what are the vision and mission, and we as the worker or the president of the company will put our full effort to gain the benefit from the strategic management. Simple explanation for vision and mission is:

• Vision: should answer 'what do you want to become?', and should be short and clearly understand. 
• Mission: how to make vision come true. It also called creed statement and statement of purpose.

Example of vision statement from several company

The important of vision and mission statement

1) to ensure unanimity of purpose within the organization

2) to provide a basis, or standard for allocating organizational resources

3) to establish a general tone or organizational climate

4) to serve as a focal point for individuals to identify with  the organization's purpose and direction

5) to specify organizational purpose. 

The Nature of Strategic Management

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim

Week 2 [First Topic: The Nature of Strategic Management]

The first topic for this subject is The Nature of Strategic Management. We start our lecture by definition of Strategic management. What is Strategic Management??? Strategic Management can be define as the art and science of formulating, implementing, and evaluating cross-functional decisions that enable an organization to achieve its objectives.

This is the stage we can see through Strategic Management :

1) Strategy Formulation :
    develop vision and mission, identify an organization external and internal strength or weaknesses
2) Strategy Implementation :
    establish annual objectives, sometimes it also called 'action stage'
3) Strategy Evaluation :
    review external and internal factors that will give a good impact

There were several key terms that we always use in this subject, it is

• Competitive advantage
• Strategist
• Vision
• Mission
• External threats and external opportunities
• Internal strengths and internal weaknesses
• Objectives
• Strategies

Week 1 [First meeting, strategic management???]

A new day in a new semester for a third year in USIM, as a degree student of Muamalat Administration, my first class for this semester start with subject Strategic Management. My first expectation about this subject is that my brain will full of new formula!! but that was a great for me i guess :) usually what student set in their mind for the first class in the first week is that there is an ice breaking!! and that was awesome for me to hear from my friend to introduce them self over and over again.!

My lecturers' name for this subject is Dr. Ummi Salwa, she ask us to call her miss ummi, such a beautiful name. Our first task for the first week is to build the tallest tower by using newspaper provided by miss ummi. She also allowed us to use our own resources to make the tower. At the same time, i have no idea of doing the tower and the connection between the strategic management subject. we are given 20 minutes to build up the tower. When the times up, she ask us to bring it down to the stage to do an examination to that tower. First of all, she will examine which group build the tallest and later she examine the strength of the tower base itself.

After the task end, she ask us about what we have learn based on the task given. Miss ummi always use cordless mic, because she love to move around, up and down. Sometimes it make me panic and nervous, because I dont really like to be the people attention. Fuhhh, luckly I'm not the chosen one to briefly tell what we learnt from the task. But, what I learn from the task is to find the best strategy. In every group, we need to have someone that can lead the task. Someone that have a good leadership. The leader will discuss with other members on how to achieve their goal, to make the tallest tower. Miss ummi explain that in achieving any goal that we have set up, we need to have a knowledge on that particular thing. After we have the knowledge, only then we know how to achive it.

After the ice breaking, she briefly explain about the subject and what we will learn from this subject. Before she end the class, she told us to make a blog that we will use as our place to share what we learn from the lecture. So, here I am, my FIRST experience as a BLOGGER... hoooyaaa... hehe