Background Information

Business strategy is defined as a collection of decisions about what goals to pursue, what actions to take, and how to use resources to achieve the defined goals.

Planning, strategy, and decision making are the processes by which managers respond to opportunities and threats by analyzing the options and making determinations, or decisions, about specific organizational goals and courses of action. Good planning, strategy and decisions result in the selection of appropriate goals and courses of action that increase organizational performance; inadequate planning, strategy, and poor decisions lower performance.

Organizing is the process by which managers establish the structure of working relationships among employees to allow them to achieve organizational goals efficiently and effectively. Organizational structure is the formal system of task and reporting relationships that determines how employees use resources to achieve organizational goals. Organizational design is the process by which managers make specific organizing choices that result in the construction of a particular organizational structure.

1. Analyzing a Company's Strategy

Pick a well-known business organization (company) that is currently receiving lots of media coverage and for which there is plenty of information available on the internet. For this organization:

1. What is the main industry that the company competes in and who are their main competitors?
2. Using annual reports, press releases, etc., identify the main strategies pursued over the last five (5) years
3. Why has the company pursued these strategies? In other words, what are the overall goals and objectives of the company?
4. What is the company's reputation regarding productivity, quality, innovation, and responsiveness to customers in the industry?