Strategic planning is a very important concept in the world of business (Afsar, 2011). Sear’s organization should have embraced this concept from the onset, before venturing into the real business. Large companies such as Sears always maintain a competitive advantage by simply setting missions, visions, goals, and objectives prior to their operations. Besides, abiding by them faithfully makes them successful and free from the financial crisis.
Sear’s Company meets a lot of challenges during its operation, and this is because it fails to plan. Such inaction automatically leads to failing just as it did. Firstly, Sear’s company is unable to maintain its market segmentation and this greatly contributes to the many challenges it faces. It could have worked on how to improve the initial offering of goods to the rural population by extending the same services to the urban population and making the services better in terms of delivery, quality, and even pricing. This could have aided in increasing its income.
Sear’s company is confused in terms of what it should offer to its customers. It is a company that struggles with virtually everything. It wants to venture into every type of business that the management thinks of. Operating without specification does not lead to the growth of the company. On the contrary, it slowly leads to the fall and decline of the organization (Paramasivan & Subramanian, 2015). This is because when a company is not specialized, it has a lot of products to produce and services to offer, and if not skilled and committed, staff are not involved: the business in most cases collapses (Paramasivan & Subramanian, 2015).
Financially, the organization is not doing well. Its financial departments are not effectively and efficiently managing capital. There are constant and big losses that if not properly checked might lead to the collapse of the main company and the remaining branches. Sear’s company should retrench other staff from the accounts department. Unproductive employees or those staff that work only under supervision should be stopped from working while those that are productive should be retained. Unproductive employees can be eliminated through the assessment of their production and the recruitment of more professionals and qualified staff members.
In order for a business to thrive, there is a need to be proactive rather than being reactive. The management of the Sear’s company is reactive as it waits for a problem to arise before it can find a solution to it. For instance, it keeps on changing credit cards without considering their dark part. Worse still, they only discover mistakes on the cards when customers and investors complain. The credit cards they invented combined both retail and credit businesses, making it difficult for investors to use them. As a result, most investors quit leading to a decreased profit margin. This also shows that there is a problem with decision making at the company-perhaps because decisions are made by the topmost management without including other members, resulting in a lot of mistakes.
Sear’s company can improve its business through strategic formulation. This entails analyzing the environment in which the company is going to operate. This activity can be enhanced by first setting a mission, vision statement, objectives, and goals. However, this alone is not enough. The company must work towards achieving them.
Product segmentation is another key factor in a successful business venture. This entails specifying the kind of business you are going to deal with. It helps one in getting directly involved. One has to scan both the internal and external environments for a better understanding of the position their organization holds (Afsar, 2011). First, one must identify his/her weaknesses and strengths and try as much as possible to correct the weaknesses where necessary, improve, and continuously build on the strengths. For instance, Sear’s company should identify its strengths and try building on them.
Sears organization should also identify opportunities available for them and find ways of how they can utilize and make them part of their success. Threats are also part of business ventures, and knowing the sources of threats and how to manage them is important (Afsar, 2011). Competitors are examples of threats and conquering them should be an aim. This should not be done physically but by operating smart. An organization can use ploys to outwit its competitors.
The positioning of oneself as an organization will also help in gaining popularity and managing threats. Positioning entails locating brands and products within the market based on the conceptual framework of the consumers and stakeholders at large (Paramasivan & Subramanian, 2015).
Pattern as a strategy can also be used by Sear’s company to win its customers’ loyalty. This involves being consistent in offering quality service or delivery. When it comes to decision-making, every staff member should be involved (Afsar, 2011). Though it consumes a lot of time, it is worth the time as it benefits the organization in a lot of ways. First, the staff will feel like part of the organization, and this will boost their morale at work (Afsar, 2011). They will consider themselves worth in that organization. More so, they will be motivated to work towards making the company productive. Secondly, the decisions they make will be more useful and better compared to the ones made by the top management only.
References
Afsar, B. (2011). Strategic Management in Today’s Complex World. Business Intelligence Journal, 4(1), 143-149.
Paramasivan, C., & Subramanian, J. (2015). Financial Management. New Delhi, India: New Age International (P) Limited.