Strategic Plan Has Been Developed, the Next

¶ … strategic plan has been developed, the next step is to put that plan into action. Implementing the plan requires that the organization outline the different steps that need to be conducted in order to bring the plan to fruition. These steps can include resource acquisition and allocation, initiating projects, gathering information, providing work plans and direction and more. Once the organization has a sense of the work that needs to be done, it must allocate leadership resources to the project. Different leaders and functional heads will need to be appointed to specific tasks, such that every critical task has a specific chain of responsibility. Timelines will need to be set at this point, and adjustments made to the strategy. From there, work plans are created, again with specific chains of responsibility (Chapman, 2004).

Beyond the functional level, there also often requires a significant amount of work in terms of leadership and vision, in order to ensure stakeholder buy-in. This occurs through the use of champions who can explain the new direction or project throughout the company, even at the lower levels. Champions create a common sense of mission and inspiration, and this results in a higher level of buy-in. While this is occurring, management will be measuring the progress of the strategy towards quantifiable goals and making adjustments. The congruence between the activities of the lower-level employees and the ultimate goals of the strategy will help to determine how successful the implementation of the strategy is.

Information will generally be shared throughout the information about the end objectives of the strategy only. Managers will have a better sense of how the different components of the strategy fit together, but in general they will ensure that the lower-level employees are performing their set tasks. Each employee, however, will be communicated with in terms of how their own efforts contribute to the overall mission of the corporation. For this form of motivation to be effective, the intrinsic motivation must be towards something that is meaningful for the employee to have a genuine connection to it (Thomas, 2009).

A number of different stakeholders must be considered when implementing strategy, and additionally the interrelationships between the different stakeholders and the different interactions that are undertaken. Employees, managers, executives, partners, suppliers, the Board, customers, shareholders and regulators all must be taken into consideration when formulating and implementing strategy, since most major strategic initiatives will involve some sort of contribution from each.

2.

Porter elaborated on the idea of a generic strategy as a means of achieving success, and one company that has succeed through dedication to cost leadership is Wal-Mart. Cost leadership requires companies to have access to capital, tight controls, investments in process improvement, and a hierarchical structure (Power, n.d). Wal-Mart exhibits all of these characteristics of a cost leader.

The most important attribute for Wal-Mart is process improvement, something that it sells to the consumer as a game-changer ("Everyday low prices"). Wal-Mart invests heavily in logistics in particular. It adopts best practices like cross-docking in order to reduce total inventory, and it uses satellite tracking technology in order to monitor the progress of goods being shipped to its warehouses and stores. The company's culture features strict dedication to cost reductions, and that drives it to become innovative in supply chain management, as the company has identified that area as critical to becoming a cost leader.

Wal-Mart also uses a number of other tactics. It is strongly centralized and hierarchical, with lower-level managers having just enough leeway to make minor merchandising decisions at the store level. The high degree of centralization provides Wal-Mart with the control it feels it needs to have a strong level of company-wide discipline. By implementing the generic cost leadership strategy throughout all areas of the organization, Wal-Mart has been able to become the cost leader, and now has sustainable competitive advantage even over other large discounters.

3.

There are four grand strategies that can be used to dominate a market -- concentrated growth, market development, product development and innovation (Power, n.d). Apple has come to be a major player in consumer electronics through product development. At the heart of the strategy, the company sought to leverage the market share it gained with its hit iPod product to sell other consumer electronics. The company's strategy sought to sell to existing customers, with the hopes that new customers will eventually buy throughout Apple's integrated suite of products. The iPhone served exactly that purpose, and the iPad became a natural extension of the family line.