Question

Strategic planning is nothing but the process by which the organization define its strategy and allocate its resources appropriately to proceed with the strategy. Strategic control is the process of controlling the formation and execution of strategic plan. Strategic control system helps in handling uncertainty and ambiguity in the control process. Strategic planning is done based on the following:-

The current status of the organization in terms of profits, success, reputation, etc. • The long term goals of the organization. • How to achieve the long term goals.

The importance of employees knowing the strategic plan of their place of work are: -

• It increase employees' commitment towards the organization. • Employees loyalty towards the organization make them to perform better and provide exceptional customer service. • Employees will behave in acceptable manner and work as per the organization values and culture. • Employees will focus on growth of the organization and will drive growth strategy. • Employees give highest level of performance and helps in creating a high performance team.

Are you aware of an organization that has used some or all of the list that you discussed within your posting. If so, what was their plan of action?

Answer 1

Walmart's Strategic Plan of Action

Walmart as an organization grew from $44 million in sales to $44 billion under the careful guidance of Sam Walmart. The key factor in turning a strategic plan into a reality is to focus on execution as much as you focus on planing. To focus on operational innovation at the grassroots level and that's exactly what Sam Walmart did. He had a brilliant strategy to make Walmart successful, it had to do with optimizing logistics, supply chain, and storage. This allowed goods to be shipped to a distribution center where they are quickly inbound to the store saving precious storage and inventory space and costs. This helped Walmart gain a competitive edge in the market in terms of price, availability of products and smooth operational efficiency.

Walmart's Logistics is distinctively better than the competition through strategic planning

Since Walmart is a retailer, its biggest factor of production was not manufacturing but it was logistics and supply chain management. Sam Walton turned strategic planning into reality by focusing on operations and execution of strategic planning and implementation of the strategy, He did this by studying and auditing every level of logistics and supply chain and worked closely with vendors to optimize his supply chain seamlessly on a regular basis. By monitoring progress on a real-time basis, he was able to ensure that the implementation of the strategy is aligned with its vision and layout.