Define strategy and describe how it is used in an organization. Discuss the methods you might use to identify whether or not an organization is using information as a strategic asset. Describe the three market disciplines an organization might use to attain market leadership. Describe the implications for information collection and prioritization for each.

Answer:

Strategy

Definition :

• It’s a process of planning the long term goals of the organization. A strategy is form that describes the vision and mission statements of the organization. Its explains the purpose of the organization and formulates plans to accomplish their goals and achieve their profit sales margins.

Need for a strategy :

• Strategy helps to facilitate effective communication in the organization.
• Increased efficiency and productivity of the company.
• Ensure the commitment and motivation levels of the employees.
• Allows the organization to influence , intiate and anticipate for future trends and fluctuations of the target market.

Advantages of having a strategy :

• Facilitates to allocate and optimum utilizations of resources.
• Helps to understand the flow of commands and orientation levels of the organization.
• Emphasis is laid out in the prioritizing the tasks and actions.
• It enables to integrate and coordinate with various departments in the organization.
• Focusses on the organization immediate issues of the organization.

The three market value disciplines an organization might use to attain market leadership are :

1. Operational excellence.
2. Product Leadership.
3. Customer Intimacy .

1.Operational Excellence : The main motto of this discipline is to focus on the cost leadership issues. It emphasis on more effective streamlined operations and work procedures to reduce costs. The strategy is best used in high volume production units and which has standardized production grounds.This may not much a differentiation for the product and works best when customers value quality over cost. This sidcpline is strongly centralized in nature and follows a rule-based operations.

2.Product Leadership : The strategy aims to be a competitive advantage to the company as it brings superior products to the target market. They emphasis on the premium products and market prices. The strategy main focus on the areas like :

• Research on the portfolio management.
• Marketing the product with the available budgetand reosurces.
• Talent retention and acquisition methodologies.

3.Customer Intimacy.: Customer intimacy works as magic and adds up to a core competitive advantage of the organization. This strategy believes maintaining good relations with the customers helps them to understand their preferences and tastes and design a plan accordingly. Customer –centric companies have a de-centralized organizational strategy. Main motto is to focus on the needs of the customers.

Information as a Strategic Asset

We need information to formulate a plan, to hire a candidate , design a new product. Information serves as a backbone in the organization, without the adequate knowledge , we are blind even with the excellent resources. We need accurate and reliable information to formulate a plan and implementation. Estimating and reviewing the results helps us in the understanding how successful we used ou resources to achieve our goals and profit margins. Infromation helps us to maintain the quality of the products.