MEASURING THE SUCCESS OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES



   Assalamualaikum to the reader this is my fourth posts on the MGT 300.On this chapter I learn about Measuring the Success of Strategic Intiatives.

CHAPTER 4 : Measuring The Success Of Strategic Intiatives

There are four learning outcomes on this chapter :

- Compare effeciency IT metrics and effectiveness IT metrics.

- To list and describe five common types of efficiency IT metrics.

- List and describe four types of effectiveness IT metrics.

- Explain customer metrics and their importance to an organization.

Measuring Information Technology's Success

- Key performance indicator is measures that are tied to business drivers.

- Metrics are detailed measures that feed KPIs

- Performance metrics fall into the nebulos area of business intelligence that is neither technology,nor

  business centered,but requires input from both IT and business professionals.

Efficiency and Effectiveness

- Efficiency IT metric is measures the performance of the IT system itself including throughput,

  speed,and availability.

- Effectiveness IT metric is measures the impact IT has on business processes and activities

  including customer satisfaction,conversion rates,and sell-through increases.

Benchmarking-Baselining Metrics

- Benchmarks is baseline values the system seeks to attain.

- Benchmarking is process of continously measuring system results,comparing those results to

  optimal system performance(benchmark values),and identifying steps and procedures to

  improve system performance.

- E-government benchmarks.

      The Interrelationships Of Efficiency And Effectiveness IT Metrics

- Effectiveness IT metrics focus on an organization's goals,strategies,and objectives and include :

• Usability
• Customer satisfaction
• Conversion rates
• Financial

- Interrelationships between efficiency and effectiveness

 EFFICIENCY IT metrics focus on technology and include:

	Efficiency IT Metrics
Throughput	The amount of information that can travel through a system at any point.
Transaction speed	The amount of time a system takes to perform a transaction.
System availability	The number of hours at system is available for users.
Information accuracy	The extent to which a system generates the correct results when executing the same transaction numerous times.
Web traffic	Includes a host of benchmarks such as the number of page views, the number of unique visitors, and the average time spent viewing a web page.
Response time	The time it takes to respond to user interactions such as a mouse click.

EFFECTIVENESS IT metrics focus on an organization's goals, strategies, and objective and include:

	Effectiveness IT Metrics
Usability	The ease with which people perform transactions and/or find information. A popular usability metric on the Internet is degrees of freedom, which measures the number of clicks required to find desired information.
Customers satisfaction	Measured by such benchmarks as satisfaction surveys, percentage of existing customers retained, and increases in revenue dollars per customer.
Conversion rates	The number of customers an organization “touches” for the first time and persuades to purchase its products or services. This is a popular metric for evaluating the effectiveness of banner, pop-up, and pop-under ads on the Internet.
Financial	Such as return on investment (the earning power of an organization’s assets), cost-benefit analysis (the comparison of projected revenues and costs including development, maintenance, fixed and variable), and break-even analysis (the point at which content revenues equal ongoing costs).

Metrics For Strategic Initiatives

-Metrics for measuring and managing strategic initiatives include :

• Web site metrics
• Supply chain management (SCM) metrics.
• Customer relationship management (CRM) metrics.
• Business process reengineering (BPR) metrics.
• Enterprise resource planning (ERP) metrics.

Web Site Metrics

- Web site metrics are :

• Abandoned registrations.
• Abandoned shopping cards.
• Click-through.
• Conversion rate.
• Cost-per thousand.
• Page exposures.
• Total hits.
• Unique visitors.

Supply Chain Management Metrics

• Back order.
• Customer order promised cycle time.
• Customer order actual cycle time.
• Inventory replenishment cycle time.
• Inventory turns(inventory turnover)

Customer Relationship Management Metrics

- Customer relationship management metrics measure user satisfaction and interaction and include :

• Sales metrics.
• Service metrics.
• Marketing metrics.

BPR and ERP Metrics

- The balanced scorecard enables organizations to measure and manage strategic initiatives.



PAST YEAR EXAMINATION

MARCH 2013

QUESTION 1
 a)  Describe five (5) primary value activities.

 Answer :

   There are five primary value activities is inbound logistics,operations,outbound logistics,marketing and sales and service.First,inbound logistics in a quires raw material and resources and distributes to manufacturing as required.Second,operations is transforms raw materials or inputs into good and services.Third,outbound logistics is distributes good and services to customers.Fourth,marketing and sales is promotes,prices and sells products to customers.Lastly service is provides customer support after the sale of goods and services. 

OCTOBER 2012

QUESTION 2

a) Describe three(3) Porter Generic Strategies.Support your answer with example.

Answer :

   The three generic strategies for entering a new market is broad cost leadership,broad differentiation and focused strategy.Broad strategies is to reach a large market segment,while focused strategies target a niche or unique market with either cost leadership or differentiation.There are four demonstrating the relationship among strategies and market segmentation is broad market and low cost,broad market and high cost,narrow market and high cost,and narrow market and high cost.

BROAD MARKET AND LOW COST

Walmart competes by offering a broad range products at low prices.Its business strategy is to be the low-cost provider of goods for the cost-conscious consumer.

BROAD MARKET AND HIGH COST

Neiman Marcus competes by offering a broad range differentiated products at high prices.Its a business strategy offers a variety of speciality and upscale product to affluent consumers.

NARROW MARKET AND LOW COST   

Payless competes by offering a specific product,shoes at low price.Its business strategy is to be the low cost provider of shoes.Payless competes with Walmart,which also sells low-cost,by offering a far bigger selection of sizes and styles.

NARROW MARKET AND HIGH COST

Tiffany&Co. competes by offering a differentiated product,jewellery,at high prices.Its business strategy allows it to be high-cost provider of premier designer jewellery to affluent consumers.

  

MARCH 2012

QUESTION 2

Porter's Five Forces Model is a one of common tools used in industry to analyse and develop competitive advantages.List and describe each of the five(5) forces in Porter's Five Forces Model.

Answer :

  There are five forces in Porter's Forces Model :

BUYER POWER.

   The ability of the buyers to affect the price.Buyer power high when buyers have many choices of whom to buy from and low when their choices are few.One way to reduce the buyer power is by manipulating switching cost,costs that make customers reluctant to switch to another product or service.Companies can also reduce buyer power with loyalty programs,which reward customers based on their spending.For example ,the airline industry is famous for its frequent-flyer programs the reward travellers receive(free airline tickets,upgrades,or hotel stays),they are more likely to be loyal to a give most of their business to a single company.

SUPPLIER POWER.

  A supply chain is consists of all parties involved,directly or indirectly,in obtaining raw materials or a product.Supplier power is high when buyers have few choices of whom to buy from and low when their choices are many.For example,the collective group of 30,000 students from a university has far more power over price when purchasing laptops than a single students.

THREATS OF SUBSTITUTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES.

   The threats of substitute products or services is high when there are many alternatives to a product or service and low when there few alternatives from which to choose.For example,iPhone include capabilities for games,video,and music making a traditional cell phone less of a substitute.

THREAT OF NEW ENTRANTS.

   Threat of new entrants is high when it is easy for new competitors to enter a market and low when there are significant entry barriers to joining a market.For example,a new bank must offer its customers an array of MIS-enabled services,including ATM's,online bill paying,and online account monitoring.

RIVALRY AMONG EXISTING COMPETITORS

   The rivalry among existing competitors is high when competition is fierce in market and low when competitors are more complacent.For example,while many companies sell books and videos on the internet,Amazon differentiates itself by using customer profiling .

        

Strategic Intiatives For Implementing Competitive Advantage

      Assalamualaikum,to the reader this is my third post on MGT 300.On the third post I want to share about Strategic Initiatives For Competitive Advantages in chapter 3 in this course.

Chapter 3 : Strategic Intiatives For Implementing Competitive Advantage.

On this chapter there are four learning outcome :

- To list and describe the four basic components ofsupply chain management.

- Explain customer relationship management systems and how they can help organizations 

  understand their customers.

- To summarize the importance of enterprise resource planning systems.

- Identify how an organization can use business process reengineering to improve its business.

Strategic Intiatives

Organizations can undertake high-profile strategic intiatives including :

- Supply chain management (SCM).

- Customer relationship management (CRM).

- Business process reengineering (BPR).

- Enterprise resource planning (ERP).

Supply Chain Management

Supply chain management involves the management of information flows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximize total supply chain effectiveness and profitability.Four basic components of supply chain management include :

- Supply chain strategy.

- Supply chain partner.

- Supply chain operation.

- Supply chain logistics.

Wal-mart and Procter & Gamble (P&G) SCM



Effective and efficient SCM system effect on Porter's Five Forces.

Customer Relationship Management

- Customer relationship management is involves managing all aspects of a customer's relationship

  with an organization to an increase customer loyalty and reterntion and an organization's

  profitability.

- CRM overview

Business Process Reengineering

- Business process is a standardized set of activities that accomplish a specific task,such as processing

  a customer's order.

- Business process reengineering (BPR) is the analysis and redesign of workflow within and between

  enterprises.

Finding Opprtunity Using BPR

- A company can improve the way it travels the road by moving from foot to horse and then horse to

  car. 

- BPR looks at taking a different path,such as an airplane which ignore the rood completely.



- Progressive Insurance Mobile Claims Process.

- Types of changes an organization can achieve,along with the managnitudes of change and the

   potential business benefit.

Enterprise Resource Planning

- Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is integrates all departments and functions throughout an

  organization into a single IT system so that employees can make decisions by viewing

  enterprisewide information on all business operations. 

- ERP systems collect data from across an organization and correlates the data generating an

  enterprisewide view.

That all for today thank you for reading my information on this chapter.





 

 



 

Competitive Advantage

Welcome to the reader,this is my second post about what I study in MGT 300.Now I want to share some information what I learn on this week about Identifying Competitive Advantage.

Chapter 2 : Identifying Competitive Advantage.

On this Chapter there four learning outcome :
- To explain the competitive advantages are typically temporary.
- To list and describe each of the forces in Porter's Five Forces Model.
- To compare Porter's three generic strategies.
- Describe the relationship between business process and value chains.

Identifying Competitive Advantage.

- To survive and thrive an organization must create a competitive advantage.

• Competitive advantage - a product or service that an organization's customers place a greater value                                           on than similar offerings from a competitor. 
• First-mover advantage -  occurs when an organization can significantly impact its market share by                                             being first to market with a competitive advantage. 

- Organization watch their competition through environmental scanning.

• Environmental scanning - the acquisition and analysis of events and trends in the environment                                                      external to an organization.

- Three common tools used in industry to analyse and develop competitive advantage include :

• Porter's Five Forces Model.
• Porter's three generic strategies.
• Value chain.

The Five Forces Model - Evaluating Business Segment.

- Porter's Five Forces Model determine the relative attractiveness of an industry.

Buyer Power.

- Buyer power is high when buyers have many choices of whom to buy from and low their choices are few.

- One way to reduce buyer power is through loyalty programs.Example,reward customers based on the

   amount of business they do with particular organization.

Supplier Power.

- Supplier power is high when buyers have few choices of whom to buy from and low when their choices are

   many.

- Supply chain is consists of all parties involved in the procurement of a product or raw material.

Threat of Substitute Product or Services.

- Threat of substitute product or service is high when there are many alternative to a product or service and 

   low when there are few alternatives from which to choose.

- Switching cost is cost that can make customers reluctant to switch to another product or service.

Threat of New Entrants

- Threat of new product entrants is high when it is easy for new competitors to enter a market and low when 

   there are significant entry barriers to entering a market. 

- Entry barrier is a product or service feature that customers have to come to expect from organizations in a 

   particular industry and must be offered by an entering organization to complete and survive.

Rivalry Among Existing Competitors.

- Rivalry among existing competitors is high when competition is fierce in a market and low when competition    is more complacent.

The Three Generic Strategies-Creating a Business Focus.

- Organizations typically follow one of Porter's three generic strategies when entering a new market.

The Three Generic Strategies(Example)

Value Creation

- Once an organization chooses its strategy,it can use tools such as the value chain to determine the success 

   or failure of its chosen strategy.

• Business process is a standardized set of activities that accomplish a specific task,such as processing a customer's order.
• Value chain is views an organization as a series of process,each of which adds value to the product or service for each customer.

Okay that all for today,thank you for reading this blog.

                                                         

Learn about more information technology

      Assalamualaikum,my name is Sharifah Adila.Do you know what is information technology?Here, I want to give some information what is information technology that we know.Based on my studies on MGT 300 in semester 4 there are 19 Chapter on this course.

Chapter 1 : Business Driven Technology.

On this chapter there are four learning outcome :
 - To compare management information system (MIS) and information technology (IT).
 - Describe the relationships among people, information technology, and information.  
 - Identify four different departments in a typical business and explain how technology helps them to
   work together.
 - Compare the four different types of organizational information cultures and decide which culture
    applies to your school.

 

Information technology's role in business.

 

 





 

 

Information  technology is everywhere in business.According to picture above are example on information technology.

 

Information technology's  impact on business operation.

 



 

 

Information technology basics

 

- Information technology (IT) is a field concerned with the use of technology in managing and 

   processing information

 



 

- Management information system (MIS) is a general name for the business function and academic 

  discipline covering the application of people,technologies, and procedures to solve business

  problems.

- When beginning to learn about information technology it is important to understand:

  a) Data,information, and business intelligence.

  b) IT resources

  c) IT cultures 

Data, Information, and Business Intelligent.

 

- Data is raw facts that describe the characteristic of an event.

- Information is data coverted into a meaningful and useful context.

- Business intelligent is application and technologies that are used to support decision-making effort.

 

IT Resources

 

 

•  People use
•  Information technology to work with
•  Information

IT Cultures

 

Organizational information cultures include :

- Information-functional culture.

- Information-sharing culture.

- Information-inquiring culture.

- Information-discovery culture.