Reflection on STRATEGY EVALUATION

According to David 2017, an organization without a strategy is similar to a

ship with no rudder and keeps wandering around with no direction. It is like a
homeless person with nowhere to go.” This is why strategies must be used in every
organization to ensure that the organization is on the right path and constantly
adapting to a dynamic market. Hence, all organizational procedures are reviewed
continuously or revised. As the organization changes due to internal and external
environments, strategies should be there also to aid the survival and growth of an
organization.
For a successful organization, strategy evaluation is one way to help the
organization succeed and survive. This evaluation analyzes strategic plan and
assesses how the organization has done against achieving its goals. Typically, a
strategy evaluation is an internal analysis tool and should be used as part of a
broader strategic analysis for the organization when making decisions. Further,
strategy evaluation is how the management assesses how well a chosen strategy
has been implemented and how successful or otherwise the strategy is. In fact,
strategy evaluation entails reviewing and appraising the strategy implementation
process and measuring organizational performance.
More so, (Nwachukwu, 2019) supports that strategy evaluation’s vital
activity is determining if strategy execution meets the company goals. (Kumar,
2015) stressed that pressure from top management can affect lower management to
create an undesirable situation due to high expectations. As a top manager, there
are always pressures to achieve organizational success. Many questions will arise
like how much progress we have made towards our vision, are our strategic focus
areas still relevant, which of our objectives have we completed, failed to do, or are
no longer needed, or do we have sufficient resources to use and many more. This
scenario will remind us of a Strategy Evaluation, a thorough strategy evaluation of
what went wrong last time around.
Basically, strategy evaluation operates at two levels; strategic and
operational. At the strategic level, the focus is given to the consistency of the
strategy with the environment, and at the operational level, how well the
organization is pursuing the strategy is assessed. Luckily, Heizer, 2016 brought an
excellent model for evaluating a strategy through SWOT analysis; the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. A SWOT analysis is a fundamental tool
that helps strategists assess the current situation of an organization. It also helps
gain insight into the internal landscape by analyzing strengths and weaknesses
and the external landscape by scanning opportunities and threats.
As a final note, strategy evaluation is carried out to identify whether the
strategy supports the organization in achieving its objectives. It compares and
correlates the organization's actual performance with its desired outputs o
outcomes. Furthermore, it provides the necessary insight into the corrective action
that needs to be taken to enhance the organization's performance. At the very end
of the evaluation, you will have gathered insight to either reformulate the strategy
or plan or develop new ones. This is why strategy evaluation is so vital to the
continued growth of an organization.