Respond to two or more of your colleagues’ posts in one or more of the following ways: (100 words or more each Colleague)
• Ask a question about or relate your own experiences to the scenario your colleague described.
• Offer an insight you gained from your colleague’s proposal of which validation tool would support the best results if applied to their scenario.
• Provide an alternate suggestion, along with a rationale, of how another validation tool could be applied effectively to your colleague’s scenario.
Return to this Discussion in a few days to read the responses to your initial posting. Note what you have learned or any insights you have gained as a result of the comments your colleagues made.
1st Colleague to Respond to:
Improvement Through Strategic Planning
My sister is a barber and hair stylist. She rented a booth in a barbershop but decided to open her own private salon suite in November 2021. When she worked at the barbershop, essential items were supplied by the owner for her immediate use. Starting her own operation required that she have a deposit, purchase supplies, materials, decor, and transition to paying monthly rent. She also had to consider the timing of her operations and try to keep loyal customers during the transition. If she had a strategic plan, she could have improved the outcomes of her business.
A strategic plan will help a business explore the internal and external environment. This process will help managers analyze the information logically and make the best decisions to utilize the strategy. Businesses can use the information to determine how resources will be allocated to achieve goals (Gray, 2021).
Validation Tools
A political, Economic, Socio-Cultural, and Technological (PEST) analysis is a tool to evaluate, assess and observe external factors in the strategic analysis. This analysis provides a better understanding of the market, industry position, and possible direction for performance. These factors will give an idea of potential risks, threats, or opportunities (Emerald Works Limited, n.d.).
She could have gained a better perspective of risks using the PEST analysis. For example, there was an opportunity to gain more customers if salons or barbershops closed and couldn’t re-open their doors. This unfortunate situation of other businesses may have increased potential customers. However, this opportunity was also a threat due to economic instability, as many businesses closed their doors. Political factors were intertwined with this threat as the government mandated non-essential businesses to close. These closures likely led to lifestyle changes; people were at home and did not need a haircut.
Unfortunately, she sustained an injury and had other factors that caused her to close the doors. If she had considered the threats, she could have saved a little more money and considered opening later.
Reference:
Emerald Works Limited. (n.d.). PEST analysis: Identifying “big picture” opportunities and threats Download PEST analysis: Identifying “big picture” opportunities and threats. MindTools. https://www.mindtools.com/community/pages/article/newTMC_09.php?route=pages/article/newTMC_09.php
Gray, D. (2021, April 29). What makes successful frameworks rise above the rest. MIT Sloan Management Review. http://hbr.org
2nd Colleague to Respond to:
The situation I will use for this example is a training trip that was put together in a two-week timeframe before the start of the training trip. The training trip was short-fused to be planned in two weeks because of a change in policies in procedures from new leadership that interpreted needed change for the workplace. Generally, with most training trips, the amount of planning can vary from almost a year to several months from the start of the training trip. More time invested in the journey would have benefited the overall quality and quantity of the training trip.
The five forces model is the validation tool I chose to support the best results if applied to the scenario. According to Lumen Learning, The five forces model is as follows: the threat of new entrants, the threat of substitute products, the bargaining power of suppliers, the bargaining power of customers, and a competitive rivalry within an industry (Lumen Learning, n.d.). I chose this because, in this example, if the time were allotted for the trip like other trips, it would’ve changed many things for the better. The time constraint benefited the outside entities we needed for the training. The suppliers had more power because we needed someone to help conduct the training, limiting who we could select. Our bargaining power as a customer was decreased because we’re in a short fuse, so we didn’t have the same power as other training trips.
