Q Project 2: Situation Audit Step 4: Analyze Organizational Strategy and Objectives While it is important to have a clearly defined and well-understood mission, along with key goals, vision, and values, success is unlikely without corresponding actions guided by an organizational strategy with measurable objectives. Your audit should include a brief overview of your organization's strategy. Remember, this report will be used in part to orient new employees to the company, so you don't need to conduct a detailed analysis. You will, however, have a chance to do a more thorough examination of these elements in future projects. Follow the guidelines below while working on this part of your report: • Find and analyze your organization's organizational strategy. For publicly traded companies, this should be relatively easy to locate, whichmay not be true for the organization where you work. • If possible, confirm the process used in creating, reviewing, and revising these objectives, as well as who contributes and how. • Include a preliminary evaluation of success in achieving objectives. • Cite the tools and methods you used to reach your conclusions, such as the balanced scorecard and key performance indicators (KPIs). When analyzing your organization's strategy and objectives and their implications for performance, it is useful to consider critics of strategic planning who point out that very successful ventures sometimes result from a series of unintended or unexpected activities. Therefore, you will also want to be on the lookout for evidence that some of the successes realized by your organization may not be the result of a rational strategic planning process. Next, proceed to Step 5, where you will examine strategy types and competitive advantage. Project 2: Situation Audit Step 5: Identify Strategy Types and Competitive Advantage Now that you have reviewed your organization's strategy and objectives, it is time to critically analyze the type or types of strategies your organization may be using, and include that analysis in your audit. Business Unit and Corporate Strategies First, review the major types of organizational strategies. Then, figure out which apply to your organization. Competitive Advantage Even if your organization is successfully implementing its strategic and financial objectives, its activities may not be contributing to competitive advantage. Try to identify what your organization's sources of competitive advantage are (if any) and present a preliminary assessment of the relative value of these advantages. You will have an opportunity to examine competitive advantage in greater depth later in your MBA program. Also, see if you can identify your organization's core competencies and reach any supportable conclusions about whether they are used to achieve competitive advantage, and how. After your review of strategy types and competitive advantage, continue to Step 6, which examines organizational size and structure. Project 2: Situation Audit Step 6: Determine Organizational Size and Structure Like strategy types and competitive advantage, organizational size and structure also have implications for accomplishing the organization’s mission, vision, goals, and objectives (MVGOs). Organizational Size Review your organization's size and determine how much it has changed over the last five years. Include in your audit an analysis of how your organization's size impacts its ability to accomplish its strategic objectives. Organizational Structure Organizational structure refers to the pathways that define who reports to whom. It is most easily discovered by studying an organizational chart. If your organization does not have a chart, or if the chart doesn't reflect reality, read Organizational Structure for help constructing an organizational chart. Having a chart for your organization will be helpful in determining which of the numerous structural types best apply. Include in your report an analysis of whether the current structure aligns with and impacts the organization's MVGOs and, if not, the likely consequences. When you have completed Steps 4, 5, and 6, follow the instructions in Step 12 to submit your organizational strategy and analysis to the Assignments folder for review and feedback. Then proceed to Step 7.