Strategic Management Able Corporation Wants

Strategic Management

Able Corporation wants to embark on international expansion. This paper gives a cursory overview of a selection of the steps they will need to undertake in order to prepare their business plan. These include defining a mission statement for the company; setting a philosophy for implementation; defining measures; and examining legal and ethical issues pertaining to an overseas expansion.

Able Corporation, with successful operation in the United States and Canada, wishes to embark on an international expansion. In order to undertake this venture, the company needs an appropriate strategy. This strategy will incorporate an assessment of where the firm stands today and where it wishes to be in the future. A strategy will need to be formulated with this knowledge in mind, and an implementation plan created in order to execute the plan. Additionally, the progress of the plan will need to be measured, and the cycle begun over again if the progress is not on track, or no longer in line with the firm's internal and external environments (.

Mission Statement

Before Able Corporation can embark on its expansion strategy, it must first have a sense of what it hopes to accomplish. The first step in this process is to define the company. The firm must have a sense of mission. Typically a mission statement is used to communicate the firm's mission both internally and externally. It is important to remember that the firm's mission may have changed from the time of its inception. Hence, it is important that each time a major strategic undertaking is begun, the mission statement should be renewed to ensure that it still reflects the company's mission (Radtke, 1998). The mission statement should reflect the distinctive nature of the business (David, 2008). For Able, the existing mission statement may be contained in the annual report, but if not it can be determined by looking at the nature of the company's business, and reflect where they want the business to go. Thus, we already know that the mission of the company is to market tools housewares around the world.

Implementation is the most difficult step in the strategic management process (David, 2008). Prioritization of implementation steps will be based on the principles of process design. Process design is the ideal method because it is based around harnessing limited resources within finite timeframes. The key resources in this case will be the employees at Able and the business processes that exist within the company (Boyce, 2007). Undertaking any complex endeavor requires skillful and timely deployment of scarce resources. This will require mapping out timeframes and resource requirements for each step. This will guide the implementation process from start to finish.

In this business plan I will include a variety of feedback loops to evaluate the effectiveness of the process. Each will be tied to different tactical objectives and timeframes. The effectiveness of the process will be measured in terms of adherence to time frames, cost and key market variables such as penetration and market share. Each variable should be quantitative to facilitate ease of measurement and evaluation.

A wide variety of legal issues will need to be considered. Doing business is foreign countries creates significant exposure to risk, in that the foreign legal environment can be substantially different from the domestic one. The nature and intensity of these differences will be considered. Also, it will be considered if there are any legal or ethical considerations domestically as a result of overseas expansion. To use an extreme example, setting up a factory in Cuba would create a host of legal and ethical concerns that would need to be accounted for in the option evaluation process. It will be critical to hire local legal experts to help sort out the myriad of potential issues. Issues that could affect the decision-making process include trade agreements, labor standards, tariff systems, administrative and technical barriers and the general robustness of the legal system (FAO, 2000).

With respect to ethics, a code of ethics must be drafted to avoid conflict between local and domestic ethical mores (Mitchell & Curry, 2003).

Conclusion

Able Corporation is at the precipice of a new strategic direction. Such moves cannot be taken lightly. It is imperative that all aspects of strategic planning are adhered to with respect to Able's move towards international expansion. The first step is to understand where the company is today and where it wants to be in the future. This will guide it towards a mission statement. That mission statement in turn will be the focal point of the entire strategic process. From there, the details must be worked out with respect to formulation, implementation and measurement. Numerous issues will need to be considered, including the legal and ethical ramifications of the strategy that has been decided on.