Strategic Planning for Business Expansion

To enter a new market, it is essential to identify hazards by asking workers and employees at the workplace, as well as evaluating present market conditions. This process involves identifying elements of hazard, such as potential partners, competitors, and government policies. Additionally, management should develop strategies to manage risk associated with business expansion. To achieve this, roles and responsibilities must be allocated effectively among various departments, including human resources, finance, and materials management. A Gantt chart can be used to visualize the timeline for market analysis, competitor evaluation, partner identification, strategy development, and implementation.

Business Strategy
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................4
1 A) Description of stages of strategic planning process.............................................................4
B).................................................................................................................................................5
C ) Utility and application of BCG matrix as strategic positioning technique...........................8
TASK2.............................................................................................................................................9
A) Produce an organizational audit for organization .................................................................9
B) An environmental audit .......................................................................................................11
C) Significance of stakeholder analysis....................................................................................12
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................14
A) Alternative strategies...........................................................................................................14
B) Select an appropriate future strategy for the organization...................................................14
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................15
A) Comparison of roles and responsibilities for strategy implementation and evaluation of
resource requirements................................................................................................................15
B) Gantt Chart...........................................................................................................................16
........................................................................................................................................................18
Merits and distinction....................................................................................................................18
M1 Identifying and applying strategies to find appropriate solutions......................................18
M2 Applying markets and business strategy methods..............................................................19
M3 Presenting the appropriate findings....................................................................................19
D1Conduting critical reflection and justifying your conclusion ..............................................19
D3 Adopting creative approach and theoretical models to understanding of market ..............20
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................21
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INDEX OF TABLES
Table 1: BCG matrix........................................................................................................................8
Table 2: Time plan.........................................................................................................................16
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ILLUSTRATION INDEX
Illustration 1: Brochure of strategic planning..................................................................................7
Illustration 2: BCG Matrix of Apple................................................................................................9
Illustration 3: Ansoff Matrix for Coca Cola..................................................................................10
Illustration 4: Mendelow Matrix ...................................................................................................12
Illustration 5: Gantt Chart..............................................................................................................17
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INTRODUCTION
Business organizations are required to develop effective strategies for operational
activities in order to achieve their aims and objectives in an effective manner. By the
applicability of these strategies, organization can make significant improvement in their
performance for better growth and success. Present study is based on the description and
applicability of strategic planning process. For this aspect, various tools will be used such as
BCG matrix in organizational context.
TASK 1
1A) Description of stages of strategic planning process
In accordance with the Mintzberg, strategy is a plan formed to attain specific objective. It
involves decision for offering particular products to the particular markets. It is supported by
vision and direction. Further, strategic planning can be defined as process of specifying the
mission, vision and objectives of organization through a plan in order to make optimum
utilization of available resources. Steps of strategic planning is as follows
Mission
It provides improved level of understanding regarding key purpose of organization in the
market. It also facilitates business firm in diverse manner and provide correct direction to
business activities. For example, Apple key mission is to render computer and other services to
the society with improved consideration of quality standards and reliability factors. Company
key aim is to bring various innovations in its products in order to attract more and more
customers.
Vision
Initially organizations are required to create vision that must be followed by vision of
company. It is a statement which provides detailed information about the organizational needs. It
is considered as aspirational organizational description that assists in effective accomplishment
of organizational goals. It also provides great support to long term objective. For example, Apple
vision is to become leader at global computer and digital market.
Objective
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On this basis of vision, objectives for the plan are set out. These objectives are required to
be supported by SMART approach. For instance, the objective of Apple is to reduce the
pollution and non degradable waste resulting from its operations upto 10% by 2030. Smart
objectives are considered as combination of diverse factors that can amend the business
opportunities. In other aspect, SMART objectives are classified in five key factors such as
specific, measurable, achievable, result focused and time scale. Another key example of Smart
objectives can be an objective of Apple is to increase the sales up to 15% using online marketing
till the end of December 2015.
Core Competencies
Core Competencies of company are mostly considered as unique abilities that its
management acquires or develops by its hard work and it cannot be copied by any other firm.
Every firm has its own competencies which leads business to impressive success. In this support,
Apple’s core competency is to focus on differentiate strategy and offer unique features and
characteristics in its products. High prices of product also present innovative products as
premium product in the market. Enhanced level of customer service is also one of key core
competencies of firm.
Strategic planning
Furthermore, formed strategy is implemented in the organization as per the planning
process. In order to assure standard outcome, monitoring is done by managers and supervisors.
They evaluate the performance of employees to make corrective adjustments. This step is
essential because there is continuous change in environment and actual performance is not
always as per the expectation. By considering this aspect, suitable modification is done in
strategic planning.
Central idea of strategic planning is development of key areas of expertise that can be
used by commercial entity as competitive an understanding the position of organization in the
market. For example, Apple is continuously focusing on modifications in its policy to build better
relationships with supplier. Moreover, company is also looking forward to reduce supplier cost by
self production of key sources.
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B)
Promotional brochure about the role of strategy and issues involved in Strategic Planning
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Illustration 1: Brochure of strategic planning

C) Utility and application of BCG matrix as strategic positioning technique
BCG matrix is framework developed for the evaluation of strategic positioning by Boston
Consulting Group. Applicability of this model ensures long term value creation by business by
analysis of strengths and weaknesses of the company. Through this model, organizations are able
make their decision regarding investment and divestment. Furthermore, growth strategies are
developed by them through addition of new products in portfolio of business.
BCG matrix provides assessment of business products on the basis of two dimensions i.e.
growth and market share. Basically this matrix is bifurcated into 4 quadrants derived on factors
of market growth and relative market share.
Table 1: BCG matrix
Cash cows
 Products generating high profits
 Products generating high cash
 Established market for revenue
generation
Stars
 Market leader
 Good growth rate
 Large investment is required for growth
and profits
Dogs
 Static market
 Fewer opportunities of growth and
profitability
Question marks
 Good growth rate
 Low profits
 Large investment is required
 High risk
Furthermore, the dogs have low market share and minimum growth. Further, they does
not yield more profit or consume cash. Thereafter, by giving proper consideration on question
marks they can be converted into future cash cows or stars. The stars reflect the ability of
company to excel in its operations and thus generate significant amount of profits. Further, cash
cows states, products generating high cash and profits which are fruitful for business.
Organizations are required to have ideal mix of cash cows and stars in order to enhance strength
of their product portfolio. Furthermore, they should make high investment on these products in
order to make increase in their liquidity and profitability.
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Illustration 2: BCG Matrix of Apple
As per above example of Apple it can be said that the Iphone is considered as a star in the
market as it provides good opportunities to business such as advancement in profit margin ratio.
Laptops and Mac-book are taken into account as cash cows because it is a product generating
high cash and profits which are fruitful for business. Apple TV is refereed as question mark as it
has potential to be converted into future cash cows or stars. Moreover, IPod is categorized as dog
because it does not yield more profit.
TASK2
A) Produce an organizational audit for organization
Ansoff matrix
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Illustration 3: Ansoff Matrix for Coca Cola
(Source: Oakley, T., 2015)
It is a strategy which provides enhanced level of information regarding diverse
organizational products and services. It is a strategic tool which provides frameworks in order to
help the executives, senior managers and also the marketers for devising the strategies for the
future growth. There are 4 dimensions of this matrix that is market penetration, market
development, product development and diversification. Thus, this matrix helps company to draft
the strategies as per the given matrices. Therefore, in market penetration, Coca Cola is growing in
an existing market by increasing its market share in current market scenario. Further, in market
development, firm is planning to expand in the new market that is geographically by using its
existing offering that is diet coke and zero coke is offered in new emerging market. Moreover,
company is introducing new product in product development and targeted in existing markets in
order to achieve growth. In this, company has introduced coca cola cherry and coca cola vanilla,
however, company has extended its product line. Lastly, for diversification, this enterprise has
diversified its product into a new market. Thus, coca cola has diversified into related and unrelated
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goods that are healthy drinks are included in related diversification and merchandising in an
unrelated diversification.
B) An environmental audit
PESTLE analysis is to analyze the external marketing environment of the business. It
includes Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental factors. PESTLE
analysis of organization is as follows-
 Political- Change in government causes the change in rules and policies which were laid
down by the previous government. This has a direct impact on the soft drink industry
because due to this, industry has to bring changes in the older policy and has to work
according to the new rules. Issues faced by the whole industry is that, every company has
to bring changes and if any firm resist this change may impact the complete industry.
 Economic- There is an economic crisis going on in UK market which has a greater
influence on the soft drink industry. Due to recession, consumer's purchasing power has
reduced and they are not willing to spent other than necessity goods. Thus, soft drink
industry has to reduce its prices in order to increase the sales. However, losses are faced by
the company which has resulted in the exit of a firm.
 Social- Social factors include changing lifestyle, education level, culture, etc. This industry
is facing the social issue that consumers have got aware and there is paradigm shift in a
lifestyle. Younger customers have become more conscious about the health and they have
reduced the consumption of soft drinks and moved towards healthy drinks that is juices.
Soft drink industry is facing such issues and its sales have been lower down.
 Technological- Technologies are growing at faster pace and every other day new
technology is getting introduced. Thus, industry has to adopt new technologies in order to
remain first in the growing competition. This has good as well as bad impact on the firms
of this industry that is new technologies shows the ways to improve the procedure and also
due to this cost of production have lower down. On the other hand, implementation of new
technology leads to the increase in cost.
 Legal- Soft drink industry had to operate in restricted environment due to legal forces
which are prevailing in a local, global and national environment. Laws implement new tax
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policy, other laws related to employment, wage policy, etc. Through this, exploitation of
labours has reduced but labour's demand has increased and the whole industry has got
impacted by this.
 Environment- Organization is making efforts to keep environment safe by focusing on
'REDUCE, RECYCLE, REUSE’ method by managing the wastage of products, packaging
and by recycling. Thus, industry of soft drink has to implement this rule in order to protect
the environment.
C) Significance of stakeholder analysis
Mendelow Matrix
During planning of project, it is necessary to understand what the stakeholders are
interested in and what satisfy them the most. Stakeholders have different power and different
interest. There are number of stakeholders which plays key role in decision making process of
coca-cola.
(Source: Setting the Goals of the Organization, 2006)
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Illustration 4: Mendelow Matrix

This stakeholder model for analysis is having four categories-
 Minimal effort- This analysis shows low power and low interest which is important to
monitor them and make them interested. In this support, it can be said that the supplier of
Coca-cola have low and less interest because there are number of suppliers who are
maintaining relation with business firm. On the other side, suppliers also have relation
with various other firms so they do not have much involvement in operations.
 Keep informed- As discussed in this analysis, it shows low power and a high interest.
Further, it means they are willing to contribute more and more and have a good ideas on
mind. Employees are considered as keep informed factor because they have high ratio of
interest in decision making process but management of Coca-cola does not allow them to
take part in decision making process.
 Keep satisfied- It mainly involves high power and low interest like central government,
media. As they have a high power but they do not want to know the updates about the
new organization products in detail so it is important to keep them updated. In this
government authorities are considered as key aspect because it is necessary for
management of coca-cola to maintain standards set by government.
 Key players- It involves high power and high interest like local district council who are
having the planning authority for organization. Customers and investors are considered as
key players in decision making process of coca-cola. It is because the management
always consider customer perception in decision making process and customers are
always attracted to know the process of operations. Moreover, investors always take key
participation in decision making process and they have high force over management.
Stakeholder analysis is important as it requires regular updating about the key players of
organization. They are involved in making decisions of the Management of coco cola. They aim
to keep their customers satisfied by providing them qualitative products. Further, they consider
strategies of rivalry firms in order to attain competitive advantage. On suppliers they put minimal
efforts as they are various suppliers in the market.
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TASK 3
A) Alternative strategies
Alternative strategies are enumerated below: Substantive Growth: This strategy aims towards the growth of a company using various
elements that is Merger and Acquisition, joint venture, strategic alliance. Next Plc. can
adopt either to get merge with other fashion brand in order to expand its market share.
Further, company can adopt the other strategy of acquiring the already established fashion
brand which will help in gaining higher profits and also market share will get increase. Limited Growth: Strategies of limited growth are market penetration, market development,
product development and diversification. This strategy involves 4 dimensions that is
market development, market penetration, product development and diversification. Next
Plc. Can either go for market penetration in order to expand its market share or it can adopt
to introduce its product in a new market that is doing market development. Further,
company can also develop a new product that is introducing organic clothing so as to bring
innovations.
 Retrenchment: This strategy is utilized by the business entity in order to scale back the
methods of business. Objective of this scheme is to make change in operational activities
for better utilization of available resources. Company can discontinue the obsolete product
line that is adoption of turnaround strategy in order to cut down its cost as this will help in
maintaining the position of its brand in the minds of customers.
B) Select an appropriate future strategy for the organization
Next plc is performing well in the industry thus, among the given growth strategies;
company can adopt substantive growth strategy. Among that, company can go for merger or
acquisition. This is because, company is doing well and in order to expand it market share in a
short period of time, getting merge with a company or acquiring already established company is
a better strategy. The reason behind the adoption of this strategy is that Next is an already
established firm and any other brand will be ready to get merge with this firm in order to earn
maximum profit. However, there is a lot of risk involved in this because it is not necessary that
this decision will yield profitable result but company can take it as a challenge and adopt this
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strategy. It is done in order to get success in a shorter period of time which none of the strategy
can provide except merger and acquisition. This will also help the company in a monetary
measure because less cost need to be incurred as the firm has to do little legal formalities in a
new market and need not to build new premises for the establishment. This will attract the
customers of Next Plc. and the customers of established brand as well. This will help in
increasing the customer loyalty as well. Through this, competition level will also get reduce
because the competitors have already got merged. On the contrary, this might lead to reduction
in the innovations and also internal conflicts may get arise which will ultimately hamper the
performance and productivity of the firm. However, at the end, this strategy will be more
beneficial for the company and risk will get negligible if once it gets implemented.
TASK 4
A) Comparison of roles and responsibilities for strategy implementation and evaluation of
resource requirements
Three business activities that are necessary for proper implementation are as follows-
 Time planning- To entry in a new marketing strategy, proper planning of time and control
should be there to increase the efficiency, effectiveness and productivity of the company.
Delivery of meal should be fast so that customer get satisfy by it.
 Setting up teams- Commercial entities are required to select right team members to
complete a task for entering into a new market. There should have a proper mutual
understanding between the groups of people so that work get done at time and achieve a
common goal. For this aspect, organization can also give rewards to their team members
to encourage them for work better. Risk assessments- Risk assessments is very necessary for organization for entering in the
new market. It should identify hazards element by asking the workers and employees at
workplace and by evaluating present market conditions. Further, Management will able
to develop appropriate strategies in order to manage risk associated with business
expansion.
Roles and responsibilities & Evaluation of different resources
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 The roles and responsibilities of human resource management department in
implementing strategy is to manage people and how to implement the plans which was
discussed in a team. In addition to that management should have to support in innovation,
talent development and new approaches to increase the performance of people.
 The role of finance department is to see the capital structure of the company and to check
the financial risk in business to implement the strategy.
 The role of material resource is to check the time delivery, shortage of inventory to check
the incorrect bills of products which was delivered to customer.
B) Gantt Chart
Table 2: Time plan
Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors
Market analysis 3 wks Tue 08-12-
15
Mon 28-12-
15
Evaluation of domestic and international
competitors in new target market 5 wks Tue 29-12-
15
Mon 01-02-
16 1
Identify potential partners 2 wks Tue 02-02-
16
Mon 15-02-
16 2
Plan preview 6 wks Tue 02-02-
16
Mon 14-03-
16 2
Draft requirements for retail organization 3 wks Tue 16-02-
16
Mon 07-03-
16 3
Allocation of roles and responsibilities 2 wks Tue 08-03-
16
Mon 21-03-
16 5
Development of monitoring and planning
system 2 wks Tue 22-03-
16
Mon 04-04-
16 6
Assessment of potential suppliers 3 wks Tue 05-04-
16
Mon 25-04-
16 4,7
Evaluation of government policies 2 wks Tue 26-04-
16
Mon 09-05-
16 8
Implementation of market entry 1 wk Tue 10-05-
16
Mon 16-05-
16 7,9
Final Project 1 wk Tue 17-05-
16
Mon 23-05-
16 9,10
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Illustration 5: Gantt chart

MERITS AND DISTINCTION
M1. Identifying and applying strategies to find appropriate solutions
Different business strategy methods are used for understanding the prevailing scenario of market. At this juncture,
stakeholder’s analysis has been done with the help of Mendelow matrix wherein corporation can come to know about potential
impact of strategy on associated parties. In the same way, organizational audit is done with the help of Ansoff Martix which
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leads to extract valid information for growth and development of company. Furthermore, Substantive growth strategy is selected
for appropriate solution of corporation and determines its long run growth at the marketplace.
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M2. Applying markets and business strategy methods
Strategic business process has been explained in the context of company through which objectives and aim of
corporation can be fulfilled. However, here, management assesses overall information related to positive and negative aspects of
corporation. At this juncture, Mintzberg strategy is applied for effective planning. In addition to this, alternative business
strategy methods like limited growth and retrenchment has been explained in order to find out the optimal solution for prevailing
issues of company.
M3. Presenting appropriate findings
In order to present the findings of study, effective mode of communication has been used. Here, appropriate report
format has been used for providing information to senior management. On the other hand, information related to findings will be
delivered to external investor by using power point presentation. These two mediums have been chosen as per the convenience
of both parties.
D1. Conducting critical reflection and justifying your conclusion
The report consists of creative and innovative approach in assessing the issues of corporation and accordingly, its
solution has been done. It will help the management to resolve problems faced by organization and increase its overall rate of
return. Furthermore, I used different business strategies and models through which in-depth analysis has been done in context of
company. In this way, it can be concluded that application of substantive growth strategy is appropriate for Next plc. The reason
behind selecting this strategy is that company is already operating in the market with greater profitability. This aids to beat the
competition and to create strong goodwill of the same at the marketplace.
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D3. Adopting creative approach and theoretical models for understanding of market
There are several approaches and models have been used in the study. It consists of BCG matrix, Pestle analysis and
SWOT analysis and porter's five forces analysis. These models have been applied for understanding external and internal factors
which has a direct impact on the performance of corporation. In addition to this, creative approach as Boucher has been used
thereby customers can be attracted towards products and services of corporation.
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CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded that strategic planning process is a
combination of various business strategies in which management uses different tool such as BCG
matrix, SWOT and PESTLE framework. This report has found that Mendelow Matrix has played
important role to carry out stakeholders mapping by using four categories i.e., minimal effort,
keep informed, key players and keep satisfied. It has become clear about the topic that by
describing the roles and responsibilities and business activities associated with human, financial
and other material resources, management ensures success in strategy implementation process.
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