A strategic plan is a carefully crafted set of steps that a

A strategic plan is a carefully crafted set of steps that a firm intends to follow in order to be successful. The business model is a central element of a firm’s strategic plan and describes the process whereby a company hopes to earn profits and outperform the competition. The importance of an effective strategy cannot be overstated. With this in mind provide a substantive response to the questions below: Think about the best and worst companies you know. What is extraordinary (or extraordinarily bad) about these firms? Are their strategies clear and focused or difficult to define? Explain

Solution

Best company I know: Apple

Apple had a clear strategic plan to become the most important company of the world. They created something out of nothing, they created the necessity for people to purchase their products (IPhone, IPod, etc.) but road to success wasn’t easy, Steve Jobs had a hard time initiating the company in California, and even though he was fired from his own company, he returned 10 years later to change it.

Apple is Apple because they know exactly where they want to go and how to do it, their supply chain system is an example for all modern companies.

All of their users are always making lines to authorized distributors or Apple Stores to purchase the next version of IPad, IPhone or IPod, there are times that even though the update is not making a big differences but people will still pay it.

Worst Company I know: Zynga.

Zynga is the company that produced online games, most famous are FarmVille, Mafia Wars, FrontierVille etc.

The company had a great start and millions of users start playing their games, a big % of the online community were elder people who don’t see their family much and found new friends through Zynga Games.

The problem with this is that the company didn’t invest the right amount of money on the developers and games had many recurring issues called “known issues” and customer service didn’t have much to do because it was the fault of the developers.

Another bad decision that Zynga did was going public, the expectation was high when the company announced they would be public but the price of their stock was below the expectations, the result was that many people lost their job because the company didn’t plan strategically, they didn’t prepare the next steps and most of their gamers switched to other games.