Strategic Management

Module 5
Functional and Operational Implementation –
Functional Strategy, Financial Plans and Policies,
Marketing Plans and Policies, Personnel Plans and
Policies, Operational Plans and Policies,
Strategy Evaluation and Selection Techniques
– Evaluation of Strategy, Assessing suitability, Life
Cycle Analysis, Positioning, Value Chain Analysis,
Business Profile, Gap Analysis

Dr Kavita Patil
Functional and Operational Implementation –

•Functional Strategy,
•Financial Plans and Policies,
•Marketing Plans and Policies,

•Personnel Plans and Policies

•Operational Plans and Policies
Aspects of Strategy Implementation
1. Creating budgets which provide sufficient resources to those
activities which are relevant to the strategic success of the
business.
2. Supplying the organization with skilled and experienced staff.
3. Conforming that the policies and procedures of the
organisation assist in the successful execution of the
strategies.
4. Leading practices are to be employed for carrying out key
business functions.
5. Setting up an information and communication system, that
facilitate the workforce of the organisation, to perform their
roles effectively.
6. Developing a favorable work climate and culture, for proper
implementation of the strategy.
 Functional strategy
⚫ Deals with the allocation
⚫ For ex: cost
of resources within that
leadership strategy
functional area and for
enabling coordination ⚫ All activities and
between them for an resources should
optimal contribution to now be focused on
the achievement of developing a
business and corporate low-cost structure
level objectives and reducing costs.
 A functional policy is a board guideline indicating
the criteria that a functional manager should use in
making decisions in his functional area

i. Top management can guarantee that strategic decisions

are implemented by all parts of the organization.
ii. Financial policies and plans identify how things are to be
done and limit direction for managerial action.
iii. . Functional mangers can handle similar situations in
different functional areas in the consistent manner.
iv. Coordination among different function is guaranteed.
v. Functional policies and plan serve as bases for controlling
activities in different functional areas.
Finance Strategy

⚫ Strategies that focus on raising, planning,

controlling, and utilizing the financial
resources of a firm in order to reach its
organizational goals, constitute financial
strategies. The usage, management, and
sourcing of funds along with management
of business models are included in this
strategy.
Financial Plan

Sources of Usage of Management

Funds funds of funds
Example – Facebook
 Marketing Plan and Polices

⚫ Marketing Strategy
⚫ All activities that are related to identifying customers’ needs and
the efforts put in to satisfy the said needs with services and
products required by consumers in exchange for consideration are
referred to as marketing.
⚫ A marketing mix includes all the steps that a company can take to
increase its product’s demand and is the most important
component of a marketing strategy. Price, product, promotion,
place, physical evidence, people, and process are all included
in a marketing mix.
⚫ Direct marketing, social marketing, concentrated marketing,
relationship marketing, differential marketing, service marketing,
etc., are some of the various strategic marketing technique
Example P&G
⚫ According to its annual report summarized in June 2020,
the advertising expenses of Procter & Gamble were hiked
by 8.5% (£441m or $575m) which amounted to $7.33
billion in the first increase for four years. This was its first
annual increase since the year 2016 which took place even
with the coronavirus pandemic that started in March.
⚫ Since P&G is the world’s largest advertiser and has cut
expenses for several years due to lackluster sales like many
other companies, the decision to boost its expenditure is
significant.
⚫ According to its annual report, its “investment in media and
another marketing spending” was lifted by it while it made
“savings in agency compensation, production costs and
advertising spending” which seemed to be a trend since
2017 as it reduced the number of agencies it worked with.
Personnel Plans and Policies

⚫ Policies that are employee-related and focus

and motivating a company’s employees are
referred to as human resources strategies.
They include:
⚫ Recruitment of right employees
⚫ Development of employees
⚫ Motivation system – Monetary and
Non-Monetary
⚫ Retention of employees
⚫ Industrial Relations
 Example Amazon Career Day 2020

⚫ Over 300,000 people attended the 2020 career day by Amazon. In the
US and Canada, a record was set by the 384,000 applications for jobs
at Amazon that were received by them in the last week since the
announcement of the event.
⚫ Around 20,000 one-on-one coaching sessions for carried out by
recruiters with participants in the span of 24 hours. Additionally, group
breakout sessions joined by 6,000 people. Amazon’s career day was
attended by Americans in Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, and
all 50 states.
⚫ The online event aimed to help people irrespective of their
professional field, their background or their level of experience and to
give them information, insights, and advice in order to help them find
more opportunities at either Amazon or other firms.
⚫ The company’s Senior Vice President of HR, Beth Galetti says “Our
vision for Career Day was to help job seekers from all walks
of life and career stages fulfill their professional goals, using
our scale to support those who need it the most,”
PRODUCTION/OPERATIONS
POLICIES AND PLANS
⚫ Production or operations function is
concerned with the transformation of
inputs into outputs. Materials, equipment,
information and talent are main inputs,
which are converted into goods and
services. The main objectives are to
produce the required quantity and quality
at the right time and at the lowest
possible cost.
 Production
⚫ Production planning. During production planning,
managers determine how goods will be produced,
where production will take place, and how
manufacturing facilities will be laid out.
⚫ Production control. Once the production process
is under way, managers must continually schedule and
monitor the activities that make up that process.
They must solicit and respond to feedback and make
adjustments where needed. At this stage, they also
oversee the purchasing of raw materials and the
handling of inventories.
⚫ Quality control. The operations manager is directly
involved in efforts to ensure that goods are produced
according to specifications and that quality standards
are maintained.
1.3 Types of Production systems There are mainly three types of production systems
mentioned as below: (1) Continuous/Mass production (2) Job or unit production (3)
Intermittent/Batch production