Essay Example on Unlocking Success: A Comprehensive Exploration of Strategic Management Essentials

Introduction

An internal evaluation of a company is essential in assessing its competencies, comparative advantages, and resources. Conducting an internal analysis enables a company to identify its threats, strengths, and opportunities, therefore aiding in the management's decision-making. Through the analysis, the company gets a clear picture of the current gaps and therefore develops strategies to mitigate the identified weaknesses. The purpose of this discussion is to investigate the concept of evaluating the internal environment.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Process of Evaluating the Internal Environment

Before conducting the internal analysis, the organization needs to develop effective tools valuable for the process. It is important to measure the essential features of the organization to determine the success of a strategy. According to Gamble, a perfect company strategy involves competitive success and approaches that managers employ in growing the overall business attracting and pleasing customers, competing successfully as well as achieving overall target performance (Du, 2019). Organizations must secure their internal assets that tend to influence the success and performance of the company. Various tools can be used by the company to ascertain the competitive advantage in the market. According to Rumelt, a good strategy should be employed through an existing power source in an organization (Rumelt, 2012).

GAP Analysis

The Gap analysis involves an internal tool that enables companies to identify performance gaps by comparing the current state and the desired future state. The creation of various actions is undertaken to bridge the identified gap, therefore important as it clarifies the existing flaws in planning, production, and resource allocation (Doumi, 2019). Also, businesses may employ the VRIN test, which is important in the case of competitive advantage. It is the test of four attributes of the resources in the company that is Valuable, Rare, Non-Imitable, and Non-Substitutable. Therefore, it requires the resources to add value to the organization. It is rare since it is not common within competitors, Non-imitable as competitors are unable to copy, and the resources are not easily substitutable by using equivalent resources. The business value chain must identify the activities and resources that create customer value and maximize the business's competitive advantage.

Strategic Thinking: Discussion of a Key Source of Power and Weaknesses

Strategic thinking is paramount in assessing a company's internal environment, as the strengths and weaknesses must be taken into consideration in decision-making. It entails making decisions about the actions to be taken to become successful. The heart of strategic thinking is identifying emerging opportunities in the competitive market and coming up with various strategies for the overall success of the business (Zahra & Nambisan, 2018). For instance, in identifying resource limitations by the relevant specialists, strategic thinking enables the company to exploit the limited resources effectively towards achieving its major objectives. It enables the company to avoid expensive mistakes that may be evident in the planning stage.

Owners who make strategic thinking a central factor of management philosophy became successful due to improved decision-making. They easily predict the reaction of the competitors and therefore come up with essential strategies to implement them.

Decision Model

SWOT analysis is a perfect model that is essential in evaluating the internal environment of a company. It entails the identification of weaknesses, strengths, opportunities, and threats of a business. It is essential since it enables any organization to capitalize on its strengths, reduce threats, minimize the effects of its weaknesses, and exploit existing opportunities. Strengths entail things that an organization performs well compared to its competitors, like a strong manufacturing process and access to certain materials (Garipova, 2019). Also, weaknesses are inherent features of the organization, and the company should focus on resources, systems, procedures, and people if there need to be any improvement. Opportunities are the overall chances, and openings and companies should exploit them accordingly. SWOT analysis is considered since Weaknesses and Strengths are more internal than competitors, nor does the external business environment influence its performance.

Conclusion

The evaluation of the internal environment is considered an essential process of organizational strategy. The analysis is conducting an internal analysis that aids in the identification of the strengths and weaknesses of a company. Therefore, coming up with a perfect strategy when making a decision. The internal analysis focuses on key competencies, resources, and competitive advantage. The company's success depends on identifying its strengths and weaknesses and coming up with effective strategies to fill any current gaps. The SWOT analysis model is perfect as the strengths and weaknesses tend to be internal as the eternal business environment does not influence them. It is also important to determine a perfect tool for testing the evaluation of the business.

Annotated Bibliography

Gamble, J., Peteraf, M., & Thompson, A. (2019). Essentials of strategic management: The quest for competitive advantage (6th edition). McGraw - Hill Higher Education

According to Gamble, two measures must be considered in determining the performance of any implemented strategy. Competitive advantage and profitability is a key factor when evaluating any business. The perfect strategy entails competitive success and approaches that managers implement in growing the overall business, attract and pleasing customers, competing successfully, and achieving overall target performance. Strategic management requires strategic thinking by identifying emerging opportunities that must be exploited to improve the organization's overall performance. Analysis tools are very important in the evaluation of the internal system. For example, Gap analysis enables the business to identify existing gaps and take advantage of its strength for competitive success to be achieved.

Rumelt, R. (2011). Good strategy/bad strategy: The difference and why it matters. Crown Business, New York, NY.

Rumelt tends to argue that a good strategy is specific in overcoming the obstacles to progress. Rumelt debunks the element of bad strategy by awakening a good strategy's power through various sources of power. For instance, they are using leverage to focus on the growth of the company. Rumelt research focuses on corporate diversification of strategies and sources of sustainable advantage to individual strategies. The bottom line is that there is a good and bad strategies, and managers should be keen on selecting and implementing a business strategy that improves the overall performance of a business. Leaders tend to create vision and goals without planning, and they must work meticulously to build perfect strategies that are coherent with business elements.

References

Doumi, K. (2019). Evolution of Business It Alignment: Gap Analysis. Journal Of Engineering And Applied Sciences, 14(4), 1211-1218. doi: 10.36478/jeasci.2019.1211.1218

Du, J. (2019). Rethinking Competitive Advantage in Today’s Strategic Management. Academy Of Management Proceedings, 2019(1), 15762. doi: 10.5465/ambpp.2019.15762abstract

Garipova, A. (2019). strategies for applying swot-analysis in today's businessenvironment. National Association Of Scientists, 2(50), 56-58. doi: 10.31618/nas.2413-5291.2019.2.50.115

Rumelt, R. (2012). Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters. Strategic Direction, 28(8). doi: 10.1108/sd.2012.05628haa.002

Zahra, S., & Nambisan, S. (2018). Entrepreneurship and strategic thinking in businessecosystems. Business Horizons, 55(3), 219-229. doi: 10.1016/j.bushor.2011.12.004