UNDERSTANDING THE CHALLENGES OF A VUCA ENVIRONMENT: "Disruption is as great as we have ever seen it." says Joe DePinto, CEO of 7-Eleven. "We are seeing all aspects of VUCA." VUCA? Yes, VUCA. The acronym was coined by the U.S. Army in the 1990s to describe the post-Cold War world: volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. The idea of VUCA has since been embraced by leaders in all sectors of society to describe the nature of the world in which they operate: the accelerating rate of change (volatility), the lack of predictability (uncertainty), the interconnectedness, of cause-and-effect forces (complexity) and the strong potential for misreads (ambiguity). "There is no question that we are in a VUCA environment," says Bob Leduc, president of Pratt & Whitney, the $15.1 billion aircraft systems manufacturer. "When you think about our business, we've got a very complicated landscape. We have technology moving; we have commercial and military customers redefining what their business models are and what they value now versus what they previously did. So basically, the whole landscape is moving on us in many different directions. Because of that, we actually need to have an organization that can move quickly." We have to understand the challenges of a VUCA environment and devise strategic moves that will assure our company's sustainable competitive advantage and excellent performance. Required: a) Building a responsive culture is one of the prominent solutions that Pratt & Whitney should embrace in order to address the impact of VUCA environment. Discuss (10 Marks) b) What do you think would derail the company from moving in the right direction, thereby fail to deal with the challenges brought about by the VUCA environment? (10 Marks) d) Describe by use of relevant examples the benefits acquired by a business student by studying the unit Strategic Management at the university (10 Marks)