georgeTan

SWOT ANALYSIS

SWOT analysis is a critical assessment of the internal appraisal of the company's strengths and weaknesses and external appraisal of the opportunities and threats open to companies in competition within the industry.

In common business practice of strategy formulation, strategists usually draw up SWOT table informally. The SWOT table would establish an orgaisation's strategic pocition in its environment and vis-a-vis its competitors.

The SWOT table can help to
1. generate strategic alternatives
2. provide criteria to select among them

Strategies can be developed by:
1. overcome or convert weaknesses by/to strengths
2. convert threats to opportunities
3. match strengths and opportunities

SWOT analysis approach by Weirich puruse different strategies for each combination of strengths, weaknesses, opportunites and threats.
1. S-O strategies: puruse opportunities that are good fit to the organisational strengths
2. W-O strategies: puruse opportunities that can overcome weaknesses
3. S-T strategies: identify organisational stengths that can reduce its vulnerability to external threats
4. W-T strategies: establish defensive plan to prevent susceptible consequences due from organisational weaknesses and external threats

When to use SWOT analysis?
1. When the question ask for it
2. When the SWOT approach is suitable
3. When the scenario imply the need for SWOT analysis

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georgeTan

THE BALANCE SCORECARD

The balance scorecard (BSC) is a set of measures that gives top managers a fast but comprehensive view of the business. The BSC includes financial measures that tell the results of actions already taken, and it complements the financial measures with operational measures on customer satisfaction, internal processes, and the organisation;s innovation and improvement activities - operational measure that are the DRIVERS of future financial performance.

The BSC take a more holistic approach to measure or evaluate organisational performance. It is a holistic approach because
1. it take into consideration of financial and non-financial view
2. look into internal and external aspect
3. BSC measure short term and long term aspect

Four important perspectives:
1. Customer: How we appear to customers?
2. Financial: How we appear to shareholders?
3. Internal Business: Is our business processes meet the expectation?
4. Innovation and Learning: Can we continue to improve and create value?

When to use BSC:
1. When question ask for it
2. When a strategic control is required (based on context)
3. When strategist assess the company's position (based on context)

georgeTan

PROJECT MANAGEMENT: TIME, COST AND SPECIFICATION

Project management is the process by which a project is completed successfully.

A project is an endeavour in which human and financial resources are organised in a novel way, to undertake unique scope of work, of given specification, within constraints of cost, time, so as to achieve beneficial change defined by quantitative and qualitative objectives.

The primary project constraints are the trade-off among time, cost and specification. The constraints can further breakdown to:
1. Time: deadline and resource availability
2. Specification: certain series of tasks or activities and expected level of quality
3. Cost: a budget and a prove of benefits exceeds the costs

In order to deliver the project effectively, efficiently and economically, estimation skill is crucial.
1. Cost: breakdown the cost structure and make estimation from these breakdowns (similar to ABC technique)
2. Specification: interview the client or users
3. Time: use critical path analysis

When project management should be adopted?
1. When the project, event or activity has specified cost, time and specification
2. When there is beginning and an end
3. When there is a well defined objective
4. When the project is to some degree unique

Organisation structure cater for project management:
1. Matrix structure
2. Adhocrarcy (Mintzberg)

Organisation culture prevail:
1. Task culture (Charles Handy)

Stakeholders involved:
1. Project manager
2. Project members
3. Project sponsor
4. Project support team
5. Risk manager
6. Quality manager
7. Clients/users

georgeTan

DELIBERATE STRATEGIES VS EMERGENT STRATEGIES

In practice, no strategies that are purely deliberated or emerged, instead, realised strategies are likely to combine both deliberate and emergent strategies.

Deliberate Approach:
1. systematic, structured and orderly means and process of planing
2. deliberately planned for a desired outcome

Emergent Approach:
1. an opportunistic approach to planning
2. cautious of the emerging pattern of behaviour

Most common rational models:
1. Prof. J. C. Higgins
(i) setting corporate/strategic OBJECTIVES
(ii) From (i), establishing TARGETS for corporate performance in terms of returns
(iii) INTERNAL appraisal
(iv) EXTERNAL appraisal
(v) Forecasting FUTURE PERFORMANCE based on the information obtained from (iii) and (iv)
(vi) Analysing the GAP between (ii) and (v)
(vii) Identifying and evaluating various CHOICES of STRATEGIES
(viii) Choosing between ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES
(ix) Preparing the FINAL corporate plan
(x) IMPLEMENTING the chosen strategy/strategies
(xi) EVALUATING actual performance against the corporate plan
2. Johnson, Scholes and Whittington
(i) Strategic Analysis
(ii) Strategic Choice
(iii) Strategic Implementation/Action

Characteristics of Emergent Strategies:
1. arise on ad hoc basis
2. derive from lower levels
3. developed out of patterns of behaviour
4. may not recognised as strategic importance

georgeTan

CONFLICT

Conflict can exist:
1. WITHIN individual
2. BETWEEN individuals
3. BETWEEN individual and group
4. BETWEEN groups
5. BETWEEN individual and organisation
6. BETWEEN groups and organisation
7. BETWEEN organisation

Causes of conflict:
1. History
2. Differences of interests, objectives, priorities, ideologies
3. Role conflicts
4. Limited resources
5. 'Win/lose' situation
6. Interdependencies
7. Misunderstanding and communication failures

Type of conflict:
1. Constructive: +ve conflict
2. Destructive: -ve conflict

Conflict strategies:
1. Conflict Stimulation: encourage new ideas, approaches, knowledge, etc
2. Conflict Suppression: use threat, force to suppress conflict
3. Conflict Reduction: building agreement on common objectives
4. Conflict Resolution: eliminate the root causes by establish consensus
5. Conflict Orchestration: manage differences as a basis for innovation and learning

hassaniqbalbhatti

will follow this tech in coming papers ! can u also guide me which TEXT book to follow ?? BPP or FTC??

NMTS

hi, your strategy of option 2 to answer P3 is it workable?

c0251586

thank you guys for the tips

kennice

Really true to say time allocation really important ..
so must decide properly which question to attempt first..

dreamzpeace

thats a gud one.,