Nepal AIDS Strategy

Strategic Management Health Care I will use AIDSCAP Nepal as my organization. AIDSCAP has a mission to reduce the incidence of AIDS/HIV among Nepalese sex workers. The organization is not competitive in nature -- it is not a corporate but a not-for-profit entity. It is funded by USAID, so there might be some element of competition for funding that demand it show results for its efforts, but ultimately there is not much competitive posture for AIDSCAP at all.

Strategic thinking is essential to successful performance of any organization (Goldman, 2007), so the leaders of the organization must set a strategy that takes into account the external and internal environments. This is the case even when the organization is not engaged in active competitive, something that AIDSCAP as a not-for-profit entity does not engage in. An adaptive strategy is defined as one that deals with the environment and its challenges by expanding the scope of the organization, reducing the scope of the organization or maintaining the scope.

Martin (2014) argues that an adaptive strategy is essentially a cop-out, that there has always been complexity in the external environment. But for AIDSCAP, one of the major threats that it faces is a loss of funding, and in that USAID will set its budgets annually, so the program must justify its existence every year in order to maintain that funding. This does inherently require an adaptive strategy, every year.

For example, if AIDSCAP is able to succeed in its mission with sex workers, then it can expand its scope to include all Nepalese, thereby taking its operations to eliminate HIV / AIDS in Nepal altogether, or at least bring it under control. The organization is not looking to expand its scope outside of Nepal -- it is not seeking a market entry strategy as AIDSCAP continues to be concerned with its existing work in central Nepal.

In terms of competitive strategy, these simply do not apply to a not-for-profit research charity. There is room, however, for discussion of implementation strategies. Service delivery is a key aspect of what AIDSCAP does. How it approaches the delivery of its service is one of the key factors that affects the effectiveness of the service. Waits (2000) argues that service delivery can be a moving target, but by using clusters it is easier to understand the target market.

For AIDSCAP, this approach will be valuable when it needs to move beyond the sex workers and start targeting AIDS prevention for those who are not prostitutes or johns. By clustering the potential victims of AIDS/HIV, the organization can put itself into a better position to understand the drivers of risk-seeking behavior and therefore develop better strategies to either eliminate those behaviors or mitigate the damage thereof. Student #2. The strategic thinking map illustrates the different types of strategic thinking that are available to the organization.

One of the most important aspects of this for managers is that they need to understand which types of strategic thinking are most valuable for them at the given point in time. For example, AIDSCAP in Nepal does not need to think about competitive strategies, because it is not competing against anybody. It should consider, however, implementation strategies. It needs to set unit action plans. Action plans are defined as "project plans designed specifically to deliver an objective" (Poister, no date).

AIDSCAP has a clear objective, which is to reduce the incidence of HIV / AIDS in Nepal. The organization has begun its efforts by focusing on the most at-risk group, the migrant sex workers who often have no family, work in brothels, and are sometimes sent to India to work. These workers have basically on rights, so the organization seeks to boost their knowledge and confidence for them to protect themselves. They are also nodes for infections to spread, via their clients.

Arguably, AIDSCAP is looking at the different action plans, and will place more emphasis on the johns in the future, since they are likely to pass AIDS/HIV on to their unsuspecting wives, against making more victims. With annual funding, it is easy to see that AIDSCAP has to set timelines and targets, and when it does so then it is in a position where it can evaluate its success against these measures.

Thus far, AIDSCAP has enjoyed modest success -- they have internal performance measures that show they are not making all that much progress yet towards their goals, but they believe such progress will eventually come. Student #3. AIDSCAP is an aid agency in Nepal that has set for itself a set of objectives with respect to eradicating AIDS in that country. The organization has mission strategies, which are key to guiding what the organization wants to do, and how it wants to do it.

By beginning with a strong sense of mission, vision and values, AIDSCAP has a clear sense of purpose to its business, and has therefore been able to set some concrete goals for itself that derive from the mission (Hawthorne, 2014). Once the organization has its goals in mind, the next step is to look at the implementation strategies.

This means that the organization should create an organizational culture that will facilitate the pursuit of the objectives, and will build the internal structures and competencies to perform the tasks needed to get to the final objective. There will be action plans as well, such as taking surveys, taking out ads, distributing condoms and interviewing the target market of prostitutes in order to understand the dynamics at play in that industry that lead to the heightened risk of AIDS/HIV that workers in that industry face.

For many agencies, there is also the need to look at cooperation strategies as well, because these include things like joint ventures and alliances. There is the partnership with USAID, but often time charitable organizations will need to partner in order that their resources are used with utmost efficiency, and that key knowledge is shared. There is also the possibility, for AIDSCAP, to partner with government in order to gain more support for its work, in particular logistical support. Reflection. Normally, in the prior assignments, I.