Importance of Business Strategy
In the intense competitive business environment, the organizations should embrace necessary changes in the internal operation to strengthen their position in the market. Hazen et al., (2018) opined that there lies the significance of business strategy which enables the firms to run their internal functionality smoothly. Present paper will highlight a development plan for accelerating the annual growth of BizOps Enterprises.
With the rapid development of technology, the customers are becoming extremely intended towards accessing internet in order to purchase products as per their own requirement. This is the most time effective way of completing the entire purchasing process. According to the case study, the managing director of BizOps Enterprises is aiming to change the structure of their retail operation with the intention of integrating online sales. As per Hopkin (2018) a comprehensive development plan is to be carried out in order to make such changes. The fundamental goal of the plan is to revise the structure if retail outlets in order to integrate retail sales. This is the way, through which the annual growth rate can be accelerated.
As the employees play a significant role in running the internal functionality of a firm with utmost efficiency, it is imperative for BizOps Enterprises to integrate employees within the development plan. The employees and their roles in implementing the plan is presented below:
Key personnel |
Roles |
Managing director |
Communicating the need of changing the retail structure upon the management |
Managing director- finance |
Making a budget to implement the plan in a cost effective manner. |
HR manager |
Hiring technical staffs for the sake of making necessary technological changes to integrate the online sales |
HR manager |
Hiring trainers to strengthen the ability to the staffs to cope up with the retail sales |
IT Manager |
Launching official social media page of BizOps Enterprises in order to promote the products. |
Project manager |
Implementing the final plan |
Risk analyst |
Exploring the possible risks of the proposed changes. |
Stakeholders play a pivotal role in the way of determining the outcome of business. There are both internal and external employees, who can have a firm impact on the internal functionality of a company (Durand, Grant & Madsen, 2017). As the managing director of BizOps Enterprises is aiming to change the structure of retail outlets, it is imperative to engage the stakeholders in an appropriate way. As the employees are the key factors of running any smooth outlets, it is imperative to communicate with them. Training is to be offered among the retail staffs to manage the online sales (Hill, Jones & Schilling, 2014). Comprehensive technical training is to be given to them for the sake of strengthening the technical skill among the staffs, which is very much needed in terms of handling the online shopping portals of BizOps Enterprises (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). The customers are one of the important stakeholders of a business, the management of BizOps Enterprises nectary steps to communicate proposed change with that of the customers.
Healthy interaction is needed to be maintained with both internal and external stakeholders. As the internal operational structure is going to be changed, the management of BizOps Enterprises must sent email among the individual staffs regarding the changes. The operation manager can also arrange meeting by including all the department. This is the way, through which the new business can be communicated with the stakeholders (Doz, 2017). In order to convey the new business plan with the customers, lucrative advertisement is needed to be made.
Integration of Online Sales with Retail Outlets
At the time of implementing the business plan, it is important to gather feedback from the stakeholders. This can serve the operation manager of BizOps Enterprises to measure the accountability of the plan in among the stakeholders. In order to gather feedback from the staffs, the HR department of BizOps Enterprises should arrange an open discussion session and allow them to express their belief and perception clearly. Formal meeting is also a great way to gather feedback (Wheelen et al., 2017). A comment section is to be integrated in the online shopping portal of BizOps Enterprises to gather feedback from the customers.
A comprehensive business plan for integrating online sales with that of the retail outlets is as follows:
Project milestone |
November, 2018 to December, 2018 |
January, 2019 to March 2019 |
April, 2019 to June 2019 |
July 2019 to August 2019 |
September 2019 to November, 2019 |
December, 2019 |
Selecting easy-to-use e-shopping cart |
yes |
|||||
Making necessary budget |
yes |
|||||
Communicate the new plan with every department |
yes |
|||||
Implementation of effective SEO strategy |
yes |
|||||
Selecting web developed |
yes |
|||||
Providing training among the staffs |
yes |
|||||
Running a trial of new online shopping portal |
yes |
|||||
Monitoring the trial |
yes |
|||||
Implementation of online shopping portal |
yes |
Table 1: Action plan for launching online shopping portal of BizOps Enterprises
(Source: As created by author)
Proper utilization of valuable resources is extremely significant factor in terms of executing a plan in a timely and cost effective manner. The resources required for propose plan is as follows:
Activities |
Required resources |
Selecting easy-to-use e-shopping cart |
Subscription based software |
Making necessary budget |
Information regarding the existing monetary resource, efficient finance department |
Communicate the new plan with every department |
Strong communication tool |
Implementation of effective SEO strategy |
Google’s Keyword Tool, keyword research tool |
Selecting web developer |
Highly proficient human resources |
Providing training among the staffs |
Expert trainer who hold strong technical skill, medium of providing the training |
Lack of skill among the staffs is the biggest issue, which the management of BizOps Enterprises can face in the way of launching the new business plan. This can hamper the consistency of their business process. In order to mitigate the issue, the HR department must offer the employee with technical training (Rothaermel, 2015). Training must also be given in order to enable the staffs to handle the official social media account of BizOps Enterprises. Excessive transaction fee is also a great barrier in the running the new system in a cost effective manner. A comprehensive financial planning is a great way, through which such issue can be mitigated. With the assistance of this financial planning, the issue related to excessive cost of software can also be mitigated (Bettis et al., 2015).
Negative attitude among the sales representatives is a great conflict in the way of designing online sales strategy. Lack of expertise among them is one of the greatest reason behind this issue. It is important to strengthen the skill among the staffs to perceive the way of accessing online data sheet (Morden, 2016). The dashboard of individual sales representatives is to be integrated with the e-commerce website in terms of evaluating the performance of online shopping portal.
A plan for mitigating the perceived issues systematically is presented below:
Problem |
Steps of resolving the problem |
Negative attitude among the staffs |
· Offering training to them · Creating learning environment at workplace |
Budgetary problem |
· Making comprehensive financial planning |
Operational challenge |
· Creation of strong organizational structure · Maintaining consistency in hierarchy · Identifying and refining the resources |
Attracting the most potential base of customers |
· Executing Google key work tool · Making lucrative advertisement. |
Table 2: Steps of resolving the perceived problem
(Source: As created by author)
Conclusion:
Based on the discussion, it can be said that appropriate execution of proposed business plan can help BizOps Enterprises to satisfy their aim of integrating online sales with that of the retail outlets in a timely and cost effective manner. This is the way, through which they can attain sustainable growth in their annual sales.
Reference:
Bettis, R. A., Gambardella, A., Helfat, C., & Mitchell, W. (2015). Qualitative empirical research in strategic management. Strategic Management Journal, 36(5), 637-639.
Doz, Y. L. (2017). Strategic management in multinational companies. Routledge.
Durand, R., Grant, R. M., & Madsen, T. L. (2017). The expanding domain of strategic management research and the quest for integration. Strategic Management Journal, 38(1), 4-16.
Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Hazen, B. T., Skipper, J. B., Boone, C. A., & Hill, R. R. (2018). Back in business: Operations research in support of big data analytics for operations and supply chain management. Annals of Operations Research, 270(1-2), 201-211.
Hill, C. W., Jones, G. R., & Schilling, M. A. (2014). Strategic management: theory: an integrated approach. Cengage Learning.
Hopkin, P. (2018). Fundamentals of risk management: understanding, evaluating and implementing effective risk management. Kogan Page Publishers.
Morden, T. (2016). Principles of strategic management. Routledge.
Rothaermel, F. T. (2015). Strategic management. McGraw-Hill Education.
Wheelen, T. L., Hunger, J. D., Hoffman, A. N., & Bamford, C. E. (2017). Strategic management and business policy. pearson.