Strategic Planning Software STUDENT USER GUIDE For use with Business Strategy: an introduction David Campbell, David Edgar & George Stonehouse

Welcome to the user guide for Strategic Planning Software for use alongside Business Strategy: an introduction by Campbell, Edgar and Stonehouse. We will take you through the main phases of the software, explaining how it works, how it can be used and the extra features which will help you along the way.

After selecting a company or industry to analyse, you can work through the software step-by-step, conducting research to enable you to input data and analysis into the frameworks provided. Alternatively, you can use the software to analyse the detailed case study about a fictitious company on the book’s companion website. The Strategic Planning Software is divided into 3 main phases: Phase 1: Strategic Position Analysis Phase 2: Formulation of Strategy Phase 3: Conclusions and Recommendations

Phase 1: Strategic Position Analysis takes you through the main topics and frameworks you must consider to evaluate a company or industry. The main sections of this phase are External Analysis, Internal Analysis, SWOT Analysis and Organisational Purposes. Phase 2: Formulation of Strategy enables you to analyse a company or industry’s competitive strategy and development strategy, and to make decisions about the business portfolio. Phase 3: Conclusions and Recommendations provides the tools with which you can bring together all of your research to make major conclusions and key recommendations based on the results of your analysis.

Next we will take a look at the contents of the software. Each new heading represents a new page of the software. You do not have to follow the stages of the software in this order, however; you can complete the analysis according to how your module/course is structured. You can save your work at any point and come back to it later.

Phase 1: Strategic Position Analysis 1.1 External Analysis PEST Analysis Political Economic Social-cultural Technological Conclusion Strategic Group Analysis Industry Life Cycle Porter’s Five Forces Threat of New Entry Threat of Substitutes Buyers Power Suppliers Power Competitive Rivalry Conclusion 1.2 Internal Analysis Resource Audit Human Physical Financial Intangible Value Chain Primary Activities Secondary Activities 1.3 SWOT Analysis 1.4 Organisational Purposes Vision Mission Objectives Phase 2: Formulation of Strategy 2.1 Business Portfolio Decision Divide the firm into products/services Measure the growth rate Measure the relative product share Position SBUs along the matrix 2.2 Competitive Strategy 2.3 Development Strategy Market Penetration and Consolidation Product Development Market Development Diversification Development Strategy Analysis Phase 3: Draw conclusions and recommendations

We will now guide you through each main step of the software which has been filled in with data, analysis and conclusions by a student analysing a major steel company, Tata Steel, for their research project. This is the first page you will see when you visit strategy.com, after watching the brief animated introduction. strategy.com First, you should select ‘student’ as your user type from the dropdown menu then click ‘Create’.

This will take you to the screen below, where you should fill in your purchase code, found on the insert in your textbook, then click ‘Submit’.

You should also fill in your contact details and choose a user name and password so that when you log in next time you do not need to type in your purchase code. Press ‘Submit.’ You will then be taken to a screen like this where you can select your university, instructor name and course/ module from a dropdown menu.

After clicking ‘Submit’ you will see the page below and you are ready to get going! The module/course name that you selected previously will show here. About us – information about the authors of the software Support – technical support and content issues Contact us – any feedback on the software

Before beginning on each new section, you can check out the Theory tab at the top of the page. For this introductory page under the Theory tab there is an overview of business strategy and an explanation of how the ‘strategy roadmap’ works, which is the blue and orange diagram shown below).

The Theory tab also provides a link to the relevant chapter in your textbook (Business Strategy: an introduction) for further reading.

There are also links at the end of each chapter to point you towards the section of the software that chapter will help you complete.

As with the Theory tab, at any point you can click on the Suggested Websites tab. This brings up a list of websites useful in your research, e.g. for finding out sales figures for your company, or as below, for more information on the BCG Matrix.

There is also a really useful Glossary tab, again which can be clicked at any point, where key terms in strategy relevant to that section are helpfully defined.

When you are ready to begin click ‘Start Analysis’. This will take you into Phase 1 – Analysis of the Organisation’s Strategic Position. You begin by filling in basic information about the company and background of the organisation. At any point on in each section of the software, you can ‘Save’ and come back later, or at the end of the section choose to ‘Continue’ on.

Each major ‘pit stop’ of the roadmap can be expanded for more detail, so when ‘External Analysis’ is expanded we see the below You can use this roadmap to navigate the software by clicking on a particular ‘pit stop’. This will take you to the relevant page of the software you need to complete. After pressing ‘continue’ at the end of this page, you will be taken to the interactive strategy roadmap so you can see where you are up to in your journey through the software.

If you click on the PEST analysis pit stop on the strategy roadmap, you are taken to this page and asked first to analyse political factors. Based on your research, you can rank the political factors here from 1-5 and provide a reason for your decisions in the blank box. When you have filled in all the boxes, press ‘calculate’ and the software calculates the average ‘score’ for political factors and you must provide a brief conclusion in the blank box below.

You then work through the remaining sections within PEST in the same way until you reach the conclusion (section in the navigation bar). Here a bar chart is produced from the data you have entered to help you to analyse your findings.

After completion of the PEST analysis (1.1.1) you can move on to Strategic Group Analysis (1.1.2). As before, you can choose to skip this section and come back to it later by either clicking on a different section on the left- hand navigation bar, or by clicking on the strategy roadmap at the top of the page and clicking on your chosen ‘pit stop’. Enter in information from your research (here your company’s competitors) tick relevant boxes and select values from dropdown menus in order to generate results.

The remaining sections within phases 1 and 2 of the software function in much the same way as our PEST and Strategic Group Analysis examples: you enter in data, statistics and information from your research into your chosen company by filling in blanks, selecting values from dropdown menus and ticking boxes and the software generates line graphs, bar charts, and matrices to help you make sense of your research.

A line graph created from sales figures in the Industry Life Cycle section A Quality Price Matrix generated in the Competitive Strategy section A BCG Matrix generated in the Business Portfolio Decision section

When you have completed Phases 1 and 2, you are ready for the final stage: Conclusions and Recommendations. This final phase is simply a place for you to reflect on your findings and analysis, and write a conclusion which incorporates recommendations for the future direction of your company. When you have finished, click the ‘Report’ tab. The software then generates a report either as a Word document, a PDF or an Excel spreadsheet. This contains everything you have entered into SPS, plus the diagrams, charts and matrices that were generated. The information is ready formatted as an assignment to be submitted.

You have now reached the end of the user guide to the Strategic Planning Software for use with Business Strategy: an introduction by David Campbell, David Edgar and George Stonehouse! To read examples of student reports on HP and Fossil, visit Here you will also find examples of presentations you can create using your written reports, the detailed case study on a fictitious company for those not completing a research assignment, the FAQ section and advise on technical support.