please rewrite in your own words and add some research into each thought with your own references 19

Discuss how your SSM company strategy guides your company in Resource Allocation.

Our SSM company developed a strategy that focused primarily on the family and economy vehicle segments, and primarily invested in innovating quality and safety features. We utilized innovation as a resource to drive our market share in the two vehicle segments. In addition, we as a company expanded dealerships and technological dealership qualities to expand our reach to customers and improve the customer experience. In order to do both large investment activities, we as a team had to allocate resources within our financial segment to ensure there was enough capital for us to use to invest. We did so by paying down debts weekly and buying CDs to gain capital. This strategy allowed us to generate revenue to fund the innovations.

Our strategy dictated how our firm made decisions around resource allocation. It’s important for a firm to incorporate resource allocation strategies in order to make wiser prioritized decisions for the business (Jakovljevic, 2013). Since investing in numerous innovations was expensive, we as a company focused on the key features that we knew were important to customers. Later in the game we had to strategically decide what would be a smart investment in terms of innovation, what aligned with our strategy, and what needed to be adjusted as the SSM markets shifted. “Both the misallocation of resources and the failure to make hard investment choices often result from a firm basing its resource allocation on that of its competitors.” (Carpenter & Sanders, 2008, p. 256). Although our SSM company monitored competitor activities each week, and what competitors were upgrading, we didn’t activity upgrade all vehicles in all segments weekly. We stuck to our strategic plan of growing our market share in the family and economy vehicle markets and focused on quality and safety.

Another element that consumed our resources was advertising investments. We invested in direct and social media advertising, as well as regional and corporate advertising. Promotional advertising themes were focused around quality and safety, which we used to draw customers to our vehicles. This resource allocation strategy took weekly analysis to ensure proper decisions and investments were being made to increase our vehicle sales.

Just in time inventory was also a strategy we utilized, which needed to be monitored weekly. Some weeks our forecasts were off, other weeks we were very accurate. This type of resource allocation required the team to monitor inventory levels on hand, past week sales, and future forecasts. This strategy was helpful in keeping inventory at manage levels not only from a consumable standpoint but also from a financial standpoint.

“Remember that resource allocation is ultimately about creating a unique, sustainable competitive advantage.” (Carpenter & Sanders, 2008, p. 257). The various strategies and resource allocation techniques our SSM company used helped our firm stay aligned to our mission and vision statement and overall objective. Our strategy formulated held economic logic that was effective. The downside was that the family vehicle market was heavily saturated with competition, limiting our ability to be differentiated solely on quality and safety.

Discuss the need for your Communicating with Key Stakeholders.

Communicating with key stakeholders is an essential step in strategy formation and ensures the strategy is a success or failure (Carpenter & Sanders, 2008). There are three different communication tactics to use when persuading a stakeholder: communicating upward, communicating downward, and communicating across and outward.

Communicating upwards is a bottom up approach where communication starts from lower levels and moves up towards executives and then stakeholders. “Communicating upward means that someone or some group has championed the strategy internally and has succeeded in convincing top management of its metrics and feasibility.” (Carpenter & Sanders, 2008, p. 257). This can be an effective strategy because communication is developed from employees carrying out the task who have first hand experience with what is occurring daily. It provides an accurate perspective for stakeholders.

The second tactic is communicating downward, and that is the tactic of communicating the strategy from the top to the bottom in a corporation. “Communicating downward means enlisting the support of the people who’ll be needed to implement the strategy.” (Carpenter & Sanders, 2008, p. 257). By communicating downward, managers are ensuring that open communication of the strategy is occurring, which generates trust from employees carrying out the strategy. By communicating early a firm is avoiding any miscommunications, confusion, or obstacles that may arise (Carpenter & Sanders, 2008).

The third tactic is communicating across and outward, which incorporates external constituents and their role in carrying out a strategy. External parties hold a role and can influence the implementation of a strategy, which is why it’s important to communicate to outside players to ensure everyone involved is on the same page when it comes to the strategy being formulated. An example of an outside constituent would be customers, capital providers, or complementors (Carpenter & Sanders, 2008). At my firm we incorporate customer perspectives in our strategy because it allows us to take into account what the customer is needing from a market and product standpoint, which allows us to innovate or make strategic decisions that will directly impact the customer’s needs.

Carpenter, M.A. & Sanders, Wm., G. (2008). Strategic management: A dynamic perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Jakovljevic, M. B. (2013). Resource allocation strategies in southeastern European health policy. The European Journal of Health Economics, 14(2), 153-159. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23357786

 

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