Planning Function
Planning is the process of finding out and establishing strategies for achieving the organization’s objectives, and developing plans on how to accomplish them, and then finally, coordinate the work.
Type of Plans
Strategic Planning
According to Ahoy (1998), strategic planning is a process with definite objective that gives a clear direction, continuity, effective staffing and leadership to influence the future of an organization. The mission of Walmart is “Save money. Live better.”. Walmart (2014) states that they prioritize customer satisfaction before revenue. Hence, they can create a next generation customer proposition via the combination of what they do with price, assortment, access and experience. Besides, their main focus will be the growth of the organization. Driving demand is the only justifiable way to make returns over time. Last but not least, they promise to manage capital in a disciplined, thoughtful manner.
Tactical Planning
Tactical Planning is short term planning that emphasized the current
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This method tends to be the most efficient amongst all three controls as it prevents the various complications rather than curing them after they have occurred. For example, Wal-Mart developed the Sustainability Index to deliver sustainable goods to their customers. It is launched in 2009 where the Walmart started collaborating with The Sustainability Consortium (TSC). With this index, Walmart’s retailers and their suppliers were able to improve the sustainability of the customers’ best-loved products, integrate sustainability into the business of trading merchandise, lowering the cost, improve the quality of the products and create a stronger supply chain network. Lastly, the index could also increase their customers’ confidence in merchandisers with the brands that Walmart carry on
There is a lot that goes into being a successful company, and making the Fortune 500 list is most every business owner’s dream. Sam Walton is credited with being the founder and first Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Wal-Mart. Walton and other CEO’s of the company were able to shape the success of Wal-Mart by implementing strategies that would revolutionize the way retail stores do business, all while pushing Wal-Mart to the top spot on the Fortune 500 list. This paper looks at a few different strategies Walton implemented that ultimately benefitted the company to increase revenue. How did Wal-Mart become the retail giant that it is today? T.A. Frank of Washington Monthly gives a brief history of Wal-Mart in his article Everyday Low Vices.
Wal-Mart’s competitive environment is quite unique. Although Wal-Mart’s primary competition comes from general merchandise retailers, warehouse clubs and supermarket retailers also present competitive pressure. The discount retail industry is substantial in size and is constantly experiencing growth and change. The top competitors compete both nationally and internationally. There is extensive competition on pricing, location, store size, layout and environment, merchandise mix, technology and innovation, and overall image. The market is definitely characterized by economies of scale. Top retailers vertically integrate many functions, such as purchasing, manufacturing, advertising, and shipping. Large scale functions such as these give the top competitors a significant cost advantage over small-scale competition.
With that, Walmart are able to provides products that are beneficial to the environment and customers can be aware that how much impact the products they bought can do to the environment. Walmart buy products from more than 60,000 supplies from 70 countries. With the Sustainability Index, Walmart can make sure that the products bought from the suppliers do not harm the environment. When Walmart are able to reduce the waste products from the organization, they can cut the cost and provides lower prices for customers. By reducing the waste of the products, Walmart can save millions
Wal-Mart has been one of the most successful companies in the world. The success of Wal-Mart can be traced with its vision statement concerning globalization. According to Hitt, Ireland, and Hoskisson in their text book, "Strategic Management," a vision statement is a statement that describes the organization and points out what the organization wants to get in the future (19). Thus, vision statements focus on implementation of strategies and decisions which pave the way to a successful business in the future.
Strategic planning consist of four steps starting from defining the company’s mission. When talking about a mission were talking about a certain phrase or slogan for say, that is intended to draw attention to customers and make them want to be even more loyal to the company. For example Walmart says, “Save money. Live Better”. Therefore, Walmart’s mission would be to let people know that they have low prices all day every day, insinuating that their products are affordable for everyone. This is a good mission because it gets the majority of the people in this world to want to go out and save money on their everyday necessities and even luxuries. The second step would be to set certain objectives and goals for the company as well. For example, CVS did use “Health is everything” as their mission and this didn’t just set out for a name it became a goal as well. Sooner or later you must set goals on your mission to understand the level that you need to get to and reach. Another example of a goal that I believe CVS set was to start selling healthier products. In the chapter it says that CVS stopped selling tobacco and other products that
Wal-Mart follows a lower cost competitive strategy and cost leadership. For Wal-Mart, strategic thinking is the process of continuously redefining its objectives. Competitive advantage over its competitors both actual and potential and management of risk to levels regarded as acceptable by the corporation’s main stakeholders.
Wal-mart has been able to achieve respectable leadership in the retail industry because of its focus on supply chain management. Discuss in detail the distribution and logistics system adopted by Wal-Mart.
Generally, strategic management is a set of managerial decisions and actions that determines the long-term performance of a company, involving both internal and external environmental scanning, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and evaluation and control. According to the study of strategic management, the corporation should concentrate on monitoring and appraising outside opportunities and threats based on an organization’s strengths and weaknesses (Thomas Wheelen and David Hunger, 2012).
Planning is a way to respond to the changes occurring in the environment around a person systematically. Planning is an approach towards the problem solving rationally. It can be taken as a remedial tool for creating change in the current situation in systematic and efficient way.
Wal-mart has a reputation for caring for its customers, of course their employees, and for the prospective public. So Wal-Mart can be an industrial leader for the world of shoppers with an eye for lower affordable prices, company decision makers would continue it's systematic strategies that it's founder and president established years ago. Sam Walton believed in three guiding principles in his strategy planning they were to provide the customer with good value and service, to have a good relationship with its associates, and to be involved with the community.
Strategic planning directs every movement in a business and is very essential to business performance (London 2002, pp.26-33). The strategic plan and operational plan are extracted from Best Buy Form 10K to better clarify the current situation and future direction of Best Buy.
Many factors influence Walmart's strategic, tactical, operational and contingency planning. In Walmart's strategic planning stage, they are highly regarded as visionaries and one thing that Walmart can pride themselves on is the fact that they develop their planning processes that enables the company to understand where they want to go, how they want to get there, and the goals they must focus on along the way to drive this plan. Walmart's drive to always make sure that they are first and foremost a value driven company is one thing that has never lost focus. Walmart continues to push the value button by leveraging the size of the company to force vendors for better costs of goods which enabled them to maintain its image as value driven. Part of Walmart's tactical planning was to figure out how to get customers to buy more products once they were in the store.
If asked what strategic planning is one could interpret it as simply a road map that can guide the organization in the right direction. It is very unlikely that an organization would know which direction to take without a sense of direction. Managers are faced every day with decisions that have a major impact on the direction the organization must take, therefore, strategic planning can play an important role in guiding managers in the right direction. In other words strategic planning is a tool that management can use to give them a sense of direction that will guide them in doing a better job and to ensure that all the members of the organization are working toward the same goals
Strategic planning is an organizational process in which it looks towards developing and sustaining success or balance in its ever changing environment.
Strategic planning is the continuous and systematic process of guiding members of an organization to make decisions about its future, develop the necessary procedures and operations to achieve that future, and determine how success will be achieved.