The objective is to complete a written plan that will suggest a practical Strategic Direction for a company.
Term Project Description
This course requires the completion of a comprehensive Strategic Plan.
You have a choice to use either an existing company or a fictitious company. In either case, the Project is to complete a written plan that will suggest a practical Strategic Direction for the company.
The Plan will have 7 sections. The 6 sections will reflect each of the 6 TCOs plus a bibliography. Each section will be 2 – 3 pages in standard business proposal format.
The sections are:
- Strategy (TCO F)
- Core Competencies (TCO C)
- Industry Dynamics (TCO A)
- Technology Sourcing and Internal Innovation (TCO D)
- Product Development Strategy (TCO E)
- Strategy to protect innovations (TCO B)
- A bibliography listing your references for the project
Ideas to Help Prepare the Course Project
Section 1 – Strategy
TCO F – Given an organizational and industry context, identify and suggest a deployment strategy that will facilitate the success of a technologically driven organization.
This is the most important part of the project, because it sets the direction for all other sections. In this section, you establish the strategy for an organization.
Often people refer to this component as the “Vision” or “Mission” of a company, but it is not. The Vision for a company could be that you want to be a market leader. However, the technology strategy tells everyone how you will achieve that market leadership. The technology strategy tells the various stakeholders – employees, customers, community, and stockholders – what you are going to do to achieve that market leadership. This strategy should be very clear and easy to understand so that everyone will be “on the same page” when it comes to working together toward that goal.
In this section, you should describe what “SHOULD” be the strategy of a technologically driven company. You should focus specifically on the technology strategy. You should think about all the things we learned in the class that will determine a strategy that will help the company succeed.
Remember that you can use either an existing company or a fictitious company. If you choose to use an existing company, you can visit their web site to see if their strategy is listed. Or you can do a web search on their technology strategy to see if anyone has written any stories about their strategy. For a fictitious company, you should make up a technology strategy that fits that type of company.
Examples of a Technology Strategy:
- Verizon Wireless – Have the best network of all wireless carriers
- Honda – Build the best engines
- Keller – Deploy the best Internet based on-line and blended education technology, not build it, not own it, but use a 3rd party to provide it
- Intel – Have the fastest and most powerful CPUs
The key is to be able to describe the strategy in a 1 or 2 sentence summary and in detail as well. The description should start or end with the simple sentence statement of the technology strategy. However, there must be sufficient detail to explain why that is the right strategy.
Section 2 – Core Competencies
TCO C – Given an organizational and industry context, identify the core technological competencies of the organization.
Like all subsequent sections of the project, this section is based on the Strategy Section.
Example:
- Verizon Wireless Strategy is the having the best Network. Thus, the core competencies will be built around the network. Things like RF Engineers and wireless security experts would be detailed
- Intel’s strategy is to build the fastest most powerful CPUs. Thus their core competencies will be built around CPU engineering
- Keller’s strategy is to deploy the best on-line education technology. Thus their core competencies would be things like educational technology evaluation and on-line education curriculum development
The best way to do this section is to apply the three tests of a core competency (page 123) to the strategy that you detailed in the Strategy Section.
Section 3 Industry Dynamics
TCO A – Given a company situation be able to describe the industry dynamics of technological innovation.
Here you should take the strategy identified in Section 1 and describe in detail why that is the right strategy based on what is occurring in the industry. Provide as much detail as possible as to the industry trends and why you think those trends are important.
Section 4 – Technology Sourcing and Internal Innovation
TCO D – Given an organizational context, develop a plan to increase the innovative capabilities of the organization both through collaboration strategies and internal innovation.
Here you would offer ideas as to what is the best way to “Source” the technology that supports the strategy. A complete discussion about how best to manage the innovative capabilities of the company being described is required.
Section 5 – Product Development Strategy
TCO E – Given information about a company’s industry, and organization, formulate a technological innovation strategy through its new product development strategy.
Product Development is very important to an organization. This section will describe how the company will structure its product development. Obviously, the kind of structure will be determined directly by the technology strategy stated in Section 1.
Section 6 Strategy to protect innovations
TCO B – Given a company situation be able to determine whether and how to protect its technological innovations.
Using the things learned in the class, describe how you would use patents, trade secrets, copyrights, etc. to protect the Intellectual Property (IP) required to support the strategy.
See the Syllabus section “Due Dates for Assignments & Exams” for due date information. Submit your assignment to the Dropbox located on the silver tab at the top of this page.
Final Paper Rubric
| Content 50% | Points | % |
| Depth of Research | 25 | 25% |
| Scope of Research | 25 | 25% |
| Illustrations | 25 | 25% |
| Use of sound logic | 25 | 25% |
| Total | 100 | 50% |
| Editing 15% | Points Deduction (per occurrence) | % |
| Spelling Error | -2 | – |
| Punctuation/Grammatical Error | -1 | – |
| Sentence Meaning Unclear | -2 | – |
| Misstatement of Fact | -5 | – |
| Total (not to exceed) | 30 | 15% |
| Organization 20% | Points | % |
| Introduction; Thesis statement contains at least two main points | 16 | 8% |
| Body text follows order of topics and main points derived from the thesis statement | 8 | 4% |
| Content subdivisions follow outline | 8 | 4% |
| Conclusion summarizes; complements thesis; contains no new information | 8 | 4% |
| Total (not to exceed) | 40 points | 20% |
| Documentation 15% Incorrectly cited or missing | Points Deduction (per occurrence) | % |
| Title page | -2 | – |
| Abstract | -1 | – |
| References in text | -2 | – |
| Bibliography/Works Cited | -5 | – |
| Total (not to exceed) | 30 points | 15% |
| Category Totals | Possible Points | % |
| Content | 100 | 50% |
| Organization and Cohesiveness | 40 | 20% |
| Editing | 30 | 15% |
| Documentation and Formatting | 20 | 15% |
| Total | 200 | 100% |
Citation Help
Don’t forget to cite your sources properly, both parenthetically and in your bibliography/works cited. If you need assistance with proper citation, the following web site may be beneficial:
http://www.apastyle.org/faqs.html
Be certain to review the “APA Style Guidelines” Tutorial available from THE HUB’s Library Port.
TO BE RE-WRITTEN FROM THE SCRATCH
An Evaluation of Microsoft’s Practical Strategic Plan
Laying out a desired future, a strategic plan translates an organization’s mission and vision into stipulated goal, objectives and actions. Hence the strategic plan is a document that communicates an organization’s strategy, core competencies as well as the industry dynamics. The document also stipulates the company’s sourcing, innovation and its protection as well as product development strategy. This strategic plan will map out Microsoft’s strategic direction.
Founded in 1975 by Bill Gates to sell a version of BASIC programming language, Microsoft is one of the pioneers in the technology industry and has been one of the leading technological companies for a few decades; being number one in the software market.
- Strategy
Microsoft’s strategy is“to build best-in-class platforms and productivity services for a mobile-first, cloud-first world. Our platforms willharmonize the interests of end users, developers and IT better than any competing ecosystem or platform” said Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft during launch of the company’s new mission, vision and strategy in 2015 (Bishop, 2015).
By building “best-in-class platforms and productivity services”, Microsoft aims to maintain its position as a leader in the technology industry. But unlike when it was a market leader because of Windows operating system (hereafter referred to as Windows) which was ubiquitous, the new strategy looks to identify certain niches in which it will be the “best-in-class”(Liqouri, 2011).
The niches the company is targetingthus far in terms of platforms are tablets, mobile phones, play consoles, and fitness bands. Notably, all these products are “mobile-first”, meaning that they are easy to carry around. They are also “cloud-first” in that they can easily be connected to the internet.
In so doing, Microsoft has consolidated its strengths which are productivity services. It has also taken advantage of opportunities emerging in the industry, namely mobile and cloud. Windows has faced stiff competition from such operating systems as Linux, Android and iOS; increasingly becoming a weak area for Microsoft. Hence its decision to offer Windows free is timely. On the other hand, Microsoft has not been making the traditional office platforms such as mainframes, desktops and even laptops(Mitt et al., 2012). Venturing here would see it face huge threats from the entrenched players such as HP, Lenovo and Dell.
Apart from Windows, Microsoft offersother “productivity services” such as the ever-popular Microsoft Office suite (Office) and server services. Built into these services are various products such as databases, web hosting and applications. These are all available in Microsoft’s cloud service Microsoft Azure(Liqouri, 2011).
The company integrates the platforms and services to “harmonize the interests of end users, developers and IT better than any competing ecosystem or platform”. This is in line with its stated mission“to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more”.
Apart from enabling it to compete effectively by utilizing on its strengths and opportunities, Microsoft stops being in direct conflict with its competitors, and in fact collaborates with them. Windows continues to be the preferred operating system for traditional platforms and Microsoft allows Android and other OS’s on its platforms. So the company’s “productivity services” are able to get onto other platforms, while other services are also available on its platforms; while still maintaining a market leadership position by offering an experience that is “better than any competing ecosystem or platform”.
- Core Competencies
Core competencies are a combination of knowledge, skills and resources that enable an organization to compete effectively as well as grow. They ease market access, add value to a product so as to benefit the customer and are difficult for competitors to imitate (Srivastava, 2005).
One of Microsoft’s core competencies is having good innovators. The company revolutionized computing when it developedWindows, an operating system that still continues to have a huge market share due to continuous innovation(Liqouri, 2011). Its Office suite has also seen the company set and maintain the pace in word processing, spreadsheets and databases. The launch and consequent dominance of the market by the popular Windows, Office and SQL solutions shows the company is a continuous innovator, updating and upgrading these products to be in line with new developments in the industry (Fai, 2011).
The innovation has been aided by strong research and development at Microsoft. Microsoft’s applications, operations and infrastructure are well-researched, consistent and are trusted to support business goals for other companies. Research and development enables Microsoft to innovatively apply technology, developing products that are efficient and easy to use (Fai, 2011). This technological innovation enables the company to come up with unique platforms and services. As Nadella notes, “We will be insatiable in our desire to learn from the outside and bring that knowledge into Microsoft, while still innovating to surprise and delight our users.”
Microsoft’s customer reach has made it get unparalleled feedback from a variety of customers, from IT novices to professionals, enabling it to develop brands that resonate with users. Its Beta versions are mainly installed by IT professionals who find solutions to bugs through Microsoft’s online communities. The company also constantly carries out surveys among its users, especially those who use its platforms and services as well as those visiting its website.
This culture to learn and develop its brands is espoused by Nadella, “We need to be always learning and insatiably curious. We need to be willing to lean in to uncertainty, take risks and move quickly when we make mistakes, recognizing failure happens along the way to mastery. And we need to be open to the ideas of others, where the success of others does not diminish our own.” Consequently, Microsoft’s Windows, Office, server and cloud services are among the most researched, trusted and popular in their categories(Liqouri, 2011)..
Microsoft certificates that are awarded to individuals who excel in various Microsoft technologies are recognized in many IT industries across the world. They are requirements for career progression in certain countries.Microsoft ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Strategic Direction for a company.
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