SWOT Analysis

Definition of Strategic Planning: It is a systematic process of envisioning the desired future and creating the necessary steps to achieve that future such as goals, objectives and the number of steps it needs to achieve it (WebFinance Inc., 2013).
It doesn’t matter the size, every company needs a plan to achieve their envisioned goals. By developing a strategic plan, the company will be more efficient in meeting the needs of its customers; also it will help it to know what the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities are and what challenges it may face (NCVO, 2013).
The steps in creating a strategic plan are as follows:
- Propose mission
- Propose goals
- Examine the internal issues
- Examine the external issues
- Collect the information and summarize it in a SWOT analysis
- Develop the strategy (SmartDraw LLC, 2013)
The role of IT in strategic planning in Siemens it is to improve the efficiency and performance of the company, to reduce the time of creating a plan from months to weeks or days, to identify potential problems and to create graphical information that will ease the comprehension of analysis and improve the quality of strategic planning. They do this by using a series of systems such as:
- Management Information System (MIS)
- Decision Support System (DSS)
- Transaction Process System (TPS)
- Office Automation System (OAS)
- Executive Information System (EIS)
Management Information System is a computer-based program which provides a database of financial information and creates reports of every operation conducted at regular intervals. Siemens is using this type of system to let the managers know how well they performed in their tasks and to compare the progress they achieved so far against the goals of they have impose...

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...e fact that they have heavily export goods from Europe to other countries. Furthermore the economy crisis which started from 2008, forced many companies to make budget cuts or reduce the workforce and Siemens company was no exception. That caused the company to acquire low investments partly because the people were not buying as much as before the crisis and partly because of the interest rates, which were going up (James, 2005).
Social factors have influence over the attitude of the population and what are their beliefs. These factors are comprised of age distribution, growth of the population, lifestyles, attitude toward ecological products, attitude toward renewable energy etc. (Professional Academy, 2013). In Siemens these factors are considered by the management in order to achieve a better image of the company and one of the strategies they used is Diversity