Assignment A
External Remote Environment Analysis
When planning a vacation, you may do research on a variety of external factors that can impact the
quality of your trip. Some of these factors, such as transportation costs and flight delays or road
construction, will have a similar impact on the plans of a large number of travelers. Others, such as the
expected weather conditions and location of attractions, are related to the specific area in which you plan
to vacation.
Like travelers planning for a trip, organizations must carefully monitor the external environment in which
they plan to operate. Organizations have a number of tools to aid them in doing this successfully. A
General Forces Analysis encourages organizations to examine broad trends and forecasts that could
potentially impact a broad range of organizations. Porter�s Five Forces Analysis allows organizations to
more closely examine external forces that may impact profitability, which are closer to the specific
organization. Taken together, the results of these analyses provide a comprehensive picture of the
external environment of a specific organization.
To prepare, review this week�s Learning Resources. Begin searching for scholarly peer-reviewed
resources on General Forces Analysis.
(Note: You will also use the General Forces Analysis and Porter�s Five Forces Analysis in Part I of your
SSP.)
By Day 5 of Week 2, read two of your colleagues ‘and respond to at least two of them individually in one
of the following ways:
�Critique your colleagues� analyses by identifying additional strengths and weaknesses of the analyses
and offering suggestions for addressing those weaknesses.
�Offer insight into additional potential forecasts and trends in the external environment of your
colleagues� chosen organizations to contribute to their General Force Analyses, and ask your
colleagues a question to expand their thinking on the subject.
�Offer additional insight on any of Porter�s Five Forces relative to the industries of your colleagues�
chosen organizations, and ask a question to expand their thinking on the subject.
�Answer one of the questions posed by your colleagues in their posts.
Business Strategies
BUSINESS STRATEGIES 2
Business Strategies
Colleague (Jay king ) #1
To win the trust of people is an important aspect of the banking industry that should be
considered keenly. New banks find it difficult to deal with their customers because they trust the
well-known big banks who they consider reliable. High initial investments, government
licensing, tight norms, and high entry barriers makes the threat of new entrants low. When
various organizations has dominated the market, it is hard for the competitors to surpass them
since they are trusted (Porter, 2008).
The banking industry needs to identify early signals of environmental changes and trends,
develop projects of expected outcomes based on supervised changes, and determine the timing of
external environmental changes and courses that impact on firms’ management. The question
that they need to ask is what if their major competitor lowered prices or brought out a
significantly new product (Chang, 2010).
Being more competitive and skillful today, is not an assurance that the company will be
the same in the future. To begin utilizing opportunities and strengths in the organization, one has
to relate the skills and capacities versus the following question: how important will these skills
and potentialities be to future competitiveness? (Wheelen, & Hunger, 2004). Meaning, will the
current skills and capabilities be essential to success elements for the future business?”
Identifying and understanding key success factors demands consideration of the relation of skills,
capacities analysis, understanding the quality of current business and future competitive
weapons, and evaluate the intentions of external threats and chances from the five forces analysis
(Porter, 2008).
BUSINESS STRATEGIES 3
Colleague #2 (Simone)
An additional strength to this analysis is that the organization should do an elaborate
research on the consumer target and identify how they want the binding to be done, the versions
and text fonts they need, which will give customers satisfaction and increase their profitability
since the government has also waived taxes on textbooks hence reducing the cost of publishing.
It can help them gain more customers over their competitors since they will have attracted more
people with their different binding styles, versions and text fonts for each targeted consumer
(Dasgupta, Gupta, & Sahay, 2011). The Bible Society has a weakness of not advertising their
products widely so that they can conquer the market. They are also not very flexible to the
changes that occur, for example, production in soft copy. This can cause a customer switch to
their rivals.
The Bible Society of Uganda has to expand by creating more companies to reach clients
in a wider rage, market itself widely to attract more customers through advertisements, produce
quality books at affordable prices and develop a system whereby they can even produce soft
copies. They should ask themselves how likely customers are to switch. The organization should
gather more information on how to understand its competitor objectives, assumptions and
capabilities. The organization should pay specific attention to complementary who add value
firm (Chang, 2010).
Shifting to soft copy access would mean that the organization should change their tactics
on how they advertise, publish, and sell their products to their customers, more so through the
internet. It will require more skilled employees and management for the firm to satisfy their
customers’ needs. If they do not change to producing the soft copy, they risk being eliminated
from the market by their competitors who are very much willing to do so.
BUSINESS STRATEGIES 4
Assignment #B
In order to remain competitive in the business industry, companies have to move from the
basic strategic planning to a strategic thinking. Strategic thinking discovers better imaginative,
elaborate, and systematic plan of action, which can alter the rules of a competition and picture
potential futures importantly different from the present. Strategic planning operationalizes
schemes developed through strategic thinking and supports the planning process. Both are the
two forms of strategic management (Li, 2008). Where the traditional view of strategy stresses on
the level of match between existing imaginations and current chances, strategic thinking, on the
other hand, makes an utmost misfit between imaginations and dreams. Strategic thinking is more
or less similar to strategic planning since strategic planning happens around the strategic thinking
by providing plans and inputs for controlling the execution of the strategies (Chang, 2010).
Some of the traditional notions of strategic planning are greatly challenged. For instance,
organizations are usually counseled to find a fit between their mission, external opportunities,
and their core competencies. This advice usually makes great sense. However, there is a danger:
one can run the risk of doing strategic planning that is not really strategic. The traditional advice
can result in the organization passing up innovative courses of action. This approach can result in
the decision to essentially remain the same organization doing a few new things or doing the
same things in a different way. Strategic thinking provides consistency to the short-run actions,
while creating ways for interpretation as new chances come fourth (Hofer, 1980).
BUSINESS STRATEGIES 5
References
Chang, C. (2010). E-Finance, Entry Deterrence, and Optimal Loan Rate of a Potential Entrant::
An Option-Based Valuation. Review Of Pacific Basin Financial Markets & Policies, 287-
307.
Dasgupta, M., Gupta, R. K., & Sahay, A. (2011). Linking technological innovation, technology
strategy and organizational factors: A review. Global Business Review, 12(2), 257–277.
Li, J. (2008). Asymmetric interactions between foreign and domestic banks: effects on market
entry. Strategic Management Journal, 873-893.
Porter, M. E. (2008). The five competitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard Business Review,
78-93.
Wheelen, T. L., & Hunger, J. D. (2004). Strategic management and business policy. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
