Task 3 –
4.3 Construct an agreed strategy plan that includes resource implications
A strategic plan provides Coca Cola with the roadmap it needs to follow a specific strategic direction and set of performance goals, deliver customer value, and be successful. Implementing their strategic plan is as important, or even more important, than their strategy. Implementation is the process that turns strategies and plans into actions in order to accomplish strategic objectives and goals.
De Wit, R., and Meyer, R., (2010)
The strategic plan addresses the how and why of activities, but implementation addresses the, who, where, when, and how. The fact is that both pieces are critical to success. Actually, Coca Cola can gain competitive advantage through implementation if done effectively.
The four key components necessary to support implementation are:
People
Time
structure
Physical Resources
Physical resources are needed in the Coca Cola business to ensure the organisation has specific places/building efficiently. These resources need to be maintained so that Coca Cola can perform well in each of their activities and roles, this also assuring safety in the workplace. (Walsh, and Linton, 2011)
Human resources planning:
This a process that identifies current and future human resources needs for Coca Cola to achieve its goals. HR planning should serve as a link between human resources management and the overall strategic plan of an organization.
5.2 Develop appropriate vision and mission statements for an organisation
The Coca-Cola mission statement is “to refresh the world, to inspire moments of optimism and happiness, and to create value and make a difference.” (Coca Cola.ie)
The importance of this mission statement for Coca Cola Ireland is to keep the employees aware and motivated. The mission statement would help Coca Cola in building and communicating an effective strategic plan. Coca Cola Ireland should develop its mission to generate a brand value. Coca cola has so far reached its mission of making its value in the country. However, there is still potential in the market and buying power which needs to be catered for. (Rahman, and Areni, 2014)
Mission statement play three critical roles in Coca Cola:
It will communicate the purpose of the organization to its stakeholders
It will inform strategy development
And develop the measurable goals and objectives by which to gauge the success of the organization’s strategy.
A good mission statement answers a number of significant questions about Coca Cola:
What are the prospects or needs that the company addresses?
What is the business of the organization? How are these requirements being dealt with?
What level of service is provided to the customers?
What values or principles guide the organization?
Coca Cola’s vision is to be extremely effective and fast moving organisation and to continue to succeed.
Establish a working environment that employees are motivated and give their best to the company.
Produce and introduce the world’s best product of drinks so that the needs of the people could be satisfied. Moreover, the value would be created.
Consider the suppliers and buyers; give them motivation to work efficiently and effectively.
In today’s world, a global issue of environment should be taken into consideration. It is the company’s core vision to keep a sustainable environment.
Focus on the return on investment and keep a check and balance on the financial markets.
Be loyal to the partners and receive loyalty from them (Ireland, Hoskisson, and Hitt, 2012).
5.3 Produce agreed future management objectives for an organisation
When Coca Cola plan their business’ future, they will generate a list of potential achievements they want it to reach. These are goals. Goals are statements the managers make about the future for the business.
Coca Cola’s Goals for 2020
The company’s goal is to try to give back as much as possible, more, than they take. They promise to do this by dividing into three main areas of focus:
Women: Increase the female workforce by 2020
Water: Conserve water worldwide
Wellbeing: Helping their customers to be happy and healthy.
(Amienyo, Gujba, Stichnothe, and Azapagic, 2013)
Importance of goals
Goals should align Coca Cola’s mission and vision statements, which are even more general and abstract statements of the company’s values and aspirations.
Coco Cola’ Objectives.
To identify the target market and know the customer’s needs and requirements.
Provide diverse range of products to the customers in the future.
Making a recognition and respect in the country for self-influence.
To make the products available all over the world so the customers can get what they want on time.
Providing beverages, clean drinking water and juices to the customers.
Goals vs Objectives
|
|
Goals |
Objectives |
|
Plan |
Broad Plan |
Narrow Plan |
|
Action |
General action |
Detailed action |
|
Mission Statement |
Directly relates |
Indirectly relates |
|
Time frame |
Long Term |
Short to medium term |
Strategic alignment
Whatever important business purpose and business strategy Coca Cola highlights; customer relationship, technology optimization, cost optimization or disruptive innovation; workplace practices must reflect and vigorously drive performances to deliver on that purpose and strategy and the corresponding market positioning.
(Becker, & Huselid, 2001).
The McKinsey 7S framework
This framework can be used in a wide variety of situations where an alignment is useful;
Improve the performance of Coca Cola
Determine how best to implement a proposed strategy
Examine the likely effects of future changes within the company
McKinsey (2008)
Coca Cola’s 5 point action plan
Coca Cola finalises action plans to:
to reach each strategic goal
Includes numerous methods for verifying and evaluating the actual extent of implementation of the action plan.
Task 4 –
6.1 Schedules for Implementing the Plan in the Organisation
This section presents the schedule for implementing the plan in the organisation which includes the tasks, deliverables, and timescales, responsibilities and review points.
The Gantt chart below shows that implementing the strategy would take around 90 days. Following this, all the objectives are to be achieved in the particular time period as specified in the Gantt chart.
6.2 Create appropriate dissemination processes to gain commitment from stakeholders in an organisation
Stakeholders are the individuals and groups whose outlooks and actions have an influence on the success of Coca Cola.
Stakeholders in Coca Cola
Internal Stakeholders:
Employees
Managers
Owners
Connected Stakeholders:
Governments and regulatory authorities
Trade groups and industry and policy organizations
Customers
Suppliers
External or secondary stakeholders:
Communities
Stakeholder Communications
Communication is one of the most critical features of any change initiative. This means will help Coca Cola address significant questions around their communication effort:
Significant Questions
Who are the people who need to know about the change?
What are the likely concerns for each group?
How is Coca Cola going to make sure they understand it?
What are the main points that each group of people need to know?
Thompson, R (2013)
Stakeholder Analysis
A Stakeholder Analysis is a beneficial way to recognise the people who need to know about the change and their likely concerns.
Identify the company’s Stakeholders
Classify the Stakeholders
Kennon,N., Howden, P., & Hartley, M., (2013)
Communication Plan
Now Coca Cola has a better understanding of who their stakeholders are, they can develop a Communication Plan. The Communication Plan gives them a planned, structured approach to their communications and makes sure that all the important stakeholders are consulted on their areas of interest and concern.
Methods for communicating
Meetings: One of the most common ways to communicate. They can differ from only 1 person to100 based on message.
Lunch Meetings: These casual environments can be great for connecting, getting feedback, ideas, and work to build support.
Newsletters/ Email/ Posters: This strategy is one way communication and uses emailed updates, hard copy brochures, posters, newsletters mailed or emailed.
Phone Calls: This is the most common as it does not require the time and expense of travel.
Information Communication Technology (ICT) refers to the technology that helps in the transfer of information.
Thompson, R (2013)
Intranet
This is a private network available only to the staff of Coca Cola. Generally a wide range of information and services from the organization’s internal IT systems are available that would not be available to the public from the Internet.
Benefits:
Better internal communications
Improved customer service
Sharing of resources and best practice
6.3 Design monitoring and evaluation systems for the implementation of a strategy plan in an organisation
Strategic Evaluation:
Compares performance with desired results and gives feedback for management to assess and take corrective.
Alerts managers to problems in a suitable approach
Complications in Strategy Evaluation
Trouble forecasting the future with accuracy
Increasing number of variables
Rate of obsolescence of plans
National and global events
Reducing time duration for planning certainty
Evaluation and control process
This process guarantees that Coca Cola achieves what it was set out to achieve. It compares real with preferred performance and gives feedback that is required for the manager to evaluate results and take corrective action where necessary.
The process can be observed at in 5 stages:
Determine what to measure: The aims and objectives should be stated in clear terms that must include deadlines.
Establish standard of performance: requires accurate measurement by which the degree and quality of goal achievement can be determined
Measure Actual performance: This should be an ongoing repetitive process.
Compare actual performance against standards: This involves comparing measured results with established targets or standards previously set.
Take corrective action: If concrete results fall outside the chosen acceptance range, action must be taken to rectify the deviation.
Joseph Sarkis R.P. Sundarri (2000)
Strategic Control
This is a process that needs to take into account the changing assumptions both internal and external to Coca Cola on which strategy is established, always assessing the strategy as it is been applied and taking corrective action to modify according to changing circumstances. Coca Cola may need to readjust strategy implementation for any of these 3 questions.
Is there any need to change the strategy?
Is the strategy being implemented correctly?
In the preparation of the strategy is the location correct?
If yes, what kind of change is needed for strategic efficiency
There are four types of strategic control:
Premise Control: Premise controls allow the company to look at whether this theory is correct once they actually put their ideas into action.
Implementation Control: When Coca Cola design a strategy for the business, the manager will be required to implement it. Two basic types of implementation controls are monitoring strategic thrusts and doing milestone reviews
Special Alert Control: Special alert controls allow the company to reconsider the relevancy of their strategy in light of these new events
Strategic Surveillance Control: Strategic surveillance controls allow them to monitor multiple sources for these threats.
Participants in Strategic Evaluation
Strategic evaluation and control of performance is a big percentage of strategic management process and strategic planning process, individuals who play a part in strategy formulation and implementation should also participate in strategic evaluation and control of performance.
The following groups can take part in Strategic Evaluation and Control of performance.
Shareholders
Board of directors
chief executive
other managers
corporate, planning staff
consultants
Joseph Sarkis R.P. Sundarri (2000)
Measuring performance is a vital part of monitoring Coca Cola’s progress. It involves measuring the actual performance results of the company against its intended goals. This requires a top-down approach to setting performance criteria rather than a bottom-up approach that I often see occurring in many organizations.
Reference
Becker, B. & Huselid, M. 2001. The Strategic Impact of HR. Harvard Business School Publishing, Balanced Scorecard, May – June 2001
De Wit, R., and Meyer, R., (2010) Strategy: Process, Content, Context 4th Edition, Cengage Ltd.
Joseph Sarkis R.P. Sundarri (2000) “Factors for strategic evaluation of enterprise information technologies“, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Vol. 30
Kennon,N., Howden, P., & Hartley, M., (2013) Who really matters? A stakeholder analysis tool, retrieved 5 June 2013
Rahman, K. and Areni, C.S., 2014. Generic, genuine, or completely new? Branding strategies to leverage new products. Journal of Strategic Marketing.
Thompson, R (2013) Stakeholder Analysis: Winning Support for Your Projects, retrieved 5 June 2013
Joseph Sarkis R.P. Sundarri (2000) “Factors for strategic evaluation of enterprise information technologies“, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Vol. 30
Walsh, S.T. and Linton, J.D., 2011. The strategy-technology firm fit audit: a guide to
opportunity assessment and selection. Technological Forecasting and Social Change.
http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/five-strategic-actions
| Strategic perspectives | Strategic Objectives | Strategic Outcome Measures (lag indicators) | Performance drivers |
(lead indicators) Time Frame in YrsExpected Budget( £ million)1234512345Total
Financial
F1: Grow (exceed product revenue goals)Increased Market share and ROEMaintain 3 x Quarterly revenue
4
4F2: SucceedQuarterly sales growthProgress in organizational structure
3
3F3: SurviveCash FlowNo of stakeholders engagement forums
1.51.51.5
4.5Customer (Sales team)C1: Improve sales ProductivityIncrease New SE first year revenueNo. of Legislation reviewed
5
5
5
5
20
C2: Responsive SupplyOn-time delivery defined by the customerNo. of policies reviewed
5
10
C3: New productsPercent of sales from new productNo. of staff training sessions conducted.
33
6Internal BusinessP1: Design ProductivityEngineering efficiencyProgress in designing reporting tools
6666630P2: New Product introductionActual introduction versus planProgress in Training all employees
44
8P3: Manufacturing ExcellenceCycle time, unit, ProfitNo. of materials produced
0.50.50.50.50.52.5Learning & Growth1: Product Focus Percent of products that equal 75% of salesProgress in undertaking capacity needs
0.50.50.50.5
22: Technology Leadership Time to develop new generationStay informed on industry trends
111
33: Time To Market New product introduction versus competitionNew training Programs
2.52.5
Appendix 5.4 Develop measures for evaluating a strategy plan