Vice president Myers on presentation preparation and strategic resources

Mr. Myers, Vice President

John, Allen, and Marketing Manager

"Strategic Resources needed to Start Social Networking Website"

Fundamental objective of this paper is to discuss the key resources critical to develop social networking and provide their linkages to competitiveness. Social networking is an online community of people interested in exploring and sharing the activities of others. Social networking provides avenue for users to communicate through email, voice chat, video conference, and blogging, file sharing, and discussion groups. However, an organization requires a quality website for the development of social networking and the key resources are required for the development of social networking website, which assist an organization to achieve competitiveness. (Shih, 2009).

"Role of Resources & capabilities in Strategy Formulation"

Resources are the productive assets, which a firm uses to achieve competitive market advantages, and firm's resources are the major strategy that drives firm's performances. Each firm is endowed with unique resources used to create value and deal with competitions in a dynamic business environment. On the other hand, capabilities are what firms can do, however, the level of firm's resources are the tools that creates capabilities. Within a competitive market environment, firms are being influenced with both internal and external environment, and when there is a rapid change within the external environment, the internal resources and capabilities offer a more secure basis for firm's strategy.

Strategy is the scope and direction of an organization, which assists firms to achieve competitive market advantages through configuration of resources within a changing business environment. The resources of a firm are categorized as tangible, intangible and human. The tangible asset consists of physical assets, which include equipment, plant, mineral reserves and land. Financial assets include securities, cash, and borrowing capacity. Intangible resources consist of patents, copyrights, R&D, trade secrets and technology. Human resources consist of expertise, skills, education, experience, training, adaptability and motivation.

A successful strategic formulation depends on the level of firm's resources endowment and firm's ability to combine the available resources to achieve organizational goals and objectives. Typically, firms are able to achieve the following strategic formulations using its available resources:

Ability to deliver value to customer

Ability to deploy resources to beat the competitors within the market environment.

Ability to deploy resources to increase profitability and decline the costs of operations.

Using resources to create differentiation advantages, market penetration, and product development.

Development of the website for social networking requires firm to deploy the key resources. The identification of the key resources for the development of social networking website is critical to assist organization to achieve competitiveness.

"Key Resources of a Social Networking Website"

An organization needs to identify and deploy the key resources for the successful development and implementation of social networking website. The intangible and human resources are the key resources needed to develop the social networking website. The key resources are categorized as follows:

Financial resources, which include adequate funds for the development of social networking website.

Human resources consist of key personnel skilled in IT and have ability to design the interface and layout of the website to attract audience.

More importantly, key personnel are required to design high quality website that should be acceptable to audience. The other resources needed to build social networking website are the technologies such as Ajax and Web services. The network resources such as bandwidth of corporate network are required to enhance social community activity. Moreover, there is a need to integrate DNS traffic to draw people to the website. The deployment of key resources is the tools that could assist organizations to achieve competitiveness.

"Method the key Resources are linked to Competitiveness"

Deployment of key resources for the development social networking is a critical tool to enhance competitiveness. Using resources to develop a social networking website is an effective method to develop marketing strategy, which will assist an organization to develop effective brand communication strategy. It is essential to realize that development of social media is an ideal marketing strategy to popularize the brand, and create effective brand identity. Ability of an organization to communicate its brand identity to target audience is an effective method to develop competitiveness. The key resources used to develop the social networking will assist the organization achieve market advantages. Social networking website such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter use both financial resources and technology to draw millions of visitors to their websites daily, and these websites are driving traffic to different organizations thereby assisting organization to enhance competitive market advantages. (Jothi, Neelamalar, & Prasad, 2011).

"Steps to put Resources and Capabilities to Work"

Putting resources and capabilities together is very critical to enhance competitiveness. Identification and evaluation of resources needed is very critical to achieve sustainable competitive advantages. The steps organizations could employ to put resources and capabilities at work are as follows:

First, there is a need to list all resources, which include tangible, intangible, and human resources. The next step is to divide these resources into two categories: Ordinary and extraordinary. Ordinary resources are the resources that need to be implemented however, the resources are not better than the standard of the industry. On the other hand, extraordinary resources are the resources that are:

Difficult to imitate

Rare

Valuable

Cannot be substituted and cannot be traded

One of the best methods to put resources and capabilities to work is to list the resources and capabilities in their level of importance. Thus, the resources and capabilities based on their level of importance are as follows:

RESOURCES

Level of Importance

Comments

Finance

6

The financial resources are rated as the highest because fund is needed to implement other resources.

Human

5

Human resources are rated second because human skills are needed to develop a quality website to enhance competitiveness.

Technology

4

Technology is required to develop social networking to enhance competitive market advantages

CAPABILITIES

Level of Importance

Comments

Social networking website

6

Essential to drive traffic to organization, which assists in enhancing market advantages.

Brand awareness

5

Assisting the organization to differentiate itself in the market environment.

Marketing and sales

6

Assisting the organization to enhance sales through brand awareness.