All Weekly Video Analysis by Alpha-Elite Consulting

All Weekly Video Analysis by Alpha-Elite Consulting

James Allen

Week 1-Video #1: Introductory Video – Concepts of Strategic Management.
In the first video, Liz receives a call your Julian (President of Hudson Valley Business Association)telling her that she was selected as Regent's Business Leader of the Year. Julian also request that Liz tell her story of the how and why of CanGo's success during her next meeting at the Chamber of Commerce. Liz sit down and tries to write her speech and does not seem to be able to comprise a speech.
My observation: is that Liz did not write a strategic management plan before starting her business. If she had developed a strategic management plan, she would have been able to write her speech without any problems. Her strategic management plan would have defined the vision and mission statement of CanGo. The vision and mission statement would have laid out what the organization wanted to accomplish, strategies that would allow them to attain the desired results, and the goals and objectives of CanGo. Liz failed to make a strategic management plan and now is having a hard time writing a speech about the success of her company.
Week 1-Video #2: Resolution Video.
In the second video, Liz is saying her speech to Maria. She starts out by stating CanGo's strong point of understanding that they are the market. She goes on to ask the question of "what do we want" and "how do we go about getting what we want at the highest quality for the most affordable price"? Liz answers these questions by stating that "we're consumers; we’re as good of an indicator as anyone." Liz goes on to say that she wish she could have foreseen or planned the success of CanGo but they were too busy shopping. She states that the outline of CanGo achievements is to concentrate on giving the mouse better cheese vice trying to build a better mousetrap. Maria comments that she always knew that a lack of a formal plan would be Liz downfall. Liz ponders what opportunities were missed due to her lack of planning. She also says that hindsight is 20/20. The narrator talks about strategic management plans and their success in giving a company a competitive advantage.
My observation: is that Liz realizes that she might havemissed some better opportunities by not developing a strategic management plan. Although CanGo is a success, it could be more of a success if a plan was in place before launching the business.
Week 1-Video #3: Case Study.
In this video, Liz is conducting a staff meeting to discuss the possibilities of going into a new market (online gaming). A few employees are excited about exploring this market (Andrew/Warren). Other employees are not so enthusiastic about the new market (Ethel/Clark). Ethel bring up some valid concerns about the new market. She asks, "Do we have to hire a partner to develop all this?" She also states thatthis smells like a lot of money to develop. Why don’t we consider outsourcing the whole thing? There were some more comments made and Liz tells Andrew to do a preliminary marketing plan. After the meeting Ethel and Clark further discuss their apprehension concerning the online gaming. Ethel states that she thinks it's a risky venture because of the lack of extracapital of CanGo and its operating in the red.Clark makes the comment that he would like to look at the financial projections but will have to settle for a preliminary marketing plan.
My observation: is that again Liz is not following a strategic management process. A strategic management process includes formation, implementation, and evaluation. Formation includes a vision, mission, goals, SWOT analysis, and strategic choice. Implementation includes the 7's model, tactical plans and objectives, functional plans, value chain, and structure. Evaluation includes continuous improvement, budgets, scheduling, key success factors, and milestones.Liz need to determine which strategic management she will follow: top-down, bottom-up, or consensus and whether their strategy will be purposeful or haphazard.Liz needs to follow a strategic management plan to reap the most benefits for her company.

Week 2 - Video #1: Introductory Video Mastering Management episode “Planning”.

Warren gives Nick tasks to get the online game implementation started, which include

considering hardware, software, license and bandwidth. Warren was vague on the whole

project with no specific goals to reach. To reach these goals and objectives to have the online

gaming project implement has to be laid out better and the management has to lay out specific

goals and dates to have this reached by. Nick seems to be over his head with being ask to head

up these project and has a problem with being easily distracted by other things.

Week 2 - Video #2: Resolution Video.

Nick is having a hard time finding a starting point for this project that Warren has ask of him. Nick should be asking more questions and ask for help. Thankfully Debbie insists to help Nick, who was reluctant have her help. Nick is clearly unorganized and has a hard time focusing on the project at hand. Debbie should clearly be the head person on this project as she is better at prioritizing the work. Debbie suggests Nick use a Gantt chart to help with prioritizing and having the project have deadlines to be reach by. After setting clear goals and setting up deadlines then he would have a plan to turn over to Warren.

Week 2 - Video #3: Case Study.

Warren seems to have an ineffective of way of leading his staff. He tells the staff on what needs to be accomplish but does not give them a direction to go or a timeline to be followed. Warren expects that they will have a 500% sales increase during the holiday. He gives the team specific tasks to help be ready for the boost in sales or assign specific people to what tasks. Again they need to come up with a detailed plan and have specific goals for each employee and specific dates to have the goals reached by so everyone can be on the same page.

Week 3 - Video #1: Choosing a Strategy.

A meeting between Jack/Warren/Debbie is being held and Jack is looking to implement new technology such as ASRS units and trying to show the value in this so.

CanGo looks to be heading to implementing new technology to help curb cost and increase revenue. The video gives insight into their plans for the future of CanGo.

Week 3 - Video #2: Resolution.
Warrens states time is wasted with productivity with workers searching for books to fill orders. The new technology will make them more flexible as workers and give them time to help out in different departments when needed. Jack also discusses the website and how their computer system should be linked to their fulfillment software.

The meeting looks to be a productive one as everyone had input in and was on the same page on where they want to take the new project.

Week 3 - Video #3: Case Study.

Warren requests the process flowchart from Nick, who looks unprepared and more interested in a new game demo. Debbie is able to help Warren with the process flow chart and this causes a problem with Nick as he makes snarky comments in the background.

Nick seems to be out of his element with the responsibilities that he has been given. I think he means to do well, but is just falling short in doing so. Moving Nick into another department might be the best move for the company.

Week 4 - Video #1 Mastering Marketing and Understanding Consumer Behavior.
In this video Whitney and Gail bring to attention that Whitney found a statistic that said 75% of online shoppers tend to not complete their purchase online. Andrew tells the team that this should be look into further and see if that is happening with CanGo consumers.

My Analysis:

I feel Andrew is on the right track to evaluated the 5 stages of consumer buying and see if they can see a trend or problems through the consumer buying process through their website. It should be looked at what might have affected consumer not going through with purchase of things they put in their shopping cart. They should look at many different factors that might affect this such as social and personal aspects of society and not just financial aspects that could affect the consumer going through with the purchase.

Week 4 - Video #2 Resolution.

The team discuss the information that Andrew obtained from Valstem II, as they gather information on consumers and their buying habits. The research was made to be similar to the consumers that buy from CanGo.

My Analysis:

Andrew was very smart on utilizing the company Valestem II to get data on consumers and their spending habits. It was shown that CanGo’s consumers tend to be experiencers and secondarily achievers. The team can use this information and use it to tailor their website to appeal to these type of consumers.

Week 4 - Video #3 - Case Video Study.
Warren and Andrew discuss the recent surge in shipping to Japan and Warren assumed that Andrew was marketing to that consumer base, which Andrew was not. This gives Andrew reason to gather information on why this might be happening.
My Analysis:

Andrew and the team should look into Japan consumer habits and find reasons why their company is appealing to them so they can have a better understanding of why they have an increase of shipping to Japan. I do feel this information should be well known and Andrew should not have been shocked by this information. It doesn’t seem upper management communicates well with each other.

Week 5 - Video #1: Mastering Management episode “Performance Appraisal”
In this is video, you can tell Nick knows his appraisal will not be good. He knows he has made mistakes and not have taken the job as serious as he should have. He is then shocked during the appraisal that no issues with his performance is brought up. You can tell Warren did not put much thought in the appraisal and just wanted to get it over with. Nick did not get anything from it as no feedback was presented to him. Warren should have acted more like a superior and offer Nick his strengths but also recognize that Nick needs to step up his game with the missteps he has gotten away from this. This was not a professional performance appraisal.

Week 5 - Video #2: - Resolution Video.

Warren hands out appraisal forms to all CanGo employees, as he states this will help better assess work performance for promotions. It is clear management has no idea how to run a company correctly. Warren does not provide any details on what will happen if the reviews are not good and what the punishment might be. Only talks about what will happen with positive reviews and what they might led to.

Week 5 - Video #3: Case Study Video.

Ethel holds a meeting with all of the supervisors to that based on the appraisal forms that everyone was given high scores and all of them would be due for a raise, which shows right there that the appraisal system is not properly working. The managers do recognize that the system is not working and changes need to be made. Warren does suggest using a 1-10 system to score each employee on, which would help give an idea of which employees are standing out more than others. It is great that management is realizing that the system needs to be worked on and they are headed in the right direction by trying to adjusting it.

Week #6 - Video #1: Mastering Economics episode “Economic Way of Thinking”.

There is a team meeting to decide CanGo expanding their business plan. Money being short-handed is an issue that comes up. IPO is suggested to help raise funds, but they want to check other ideas to see if they can raise funds through other means.
Them talking about ideas and how to achieve these goals is the right idea for CanGo. They need to be patience and look at the tradeoffs and opportunity cost for each new venture might bring. Raising enough capital is a concern and should be address. Doing an IPO would help but would also require them to answer to investors with every decision.

Week #6 - Video #2: Resolution Video.Since CanGo is lacking capital for an expansion at the present time, they have to come up with a plan to best use their limited resources to achieve the goals they are setting. Having employees take on new positions will leave them with trade-offs in other areas. With resources limited, this with leave management with some tough choices. They are eager to expand but need to do some financial analysis and a cost-benefit analysis so they can make the most informed decisions.

Week #6 - Video #3: Case Video.

Whitney, Warren, and Maria have a meeting to discuss if Whitney can take on another project after she has spent a lot of time on another project that has not finished yet. Which is a problem with the whole company, as they jump from idea to idea with out following through with each project fully before starting another one. After doing the proper analysis and looking at the staff they would need to complete the new expansion, then you can start new project. Having your staff working on two projects and leaving them with very little time for anything, will just burn out an employee and not get the full effort you would get from having them just working on one.

Week 7 – Video #1: Corporate responsibility.

Social responsibility is an important topic being discussed by CanGo and how they should handle having violent video games. Since the company does not have a clear company value or mission statement, this leaves the company confused in what direction they should go ahead with when it comes to this subject. Liz should decide how she wants her company to come across and what their beliefs are and follow those beliefs in all of their decisions.

Week 7 Video #2: Resolution.

After Liz plays one of the online games, she comes to realization that the games are very addicting. Liz worries about kids playing an R-rated game and thinks of an idea of a filter to help keep young children and their parents aware of the game being aimed at a more mature person. If the company had a define mission statement and belief’s, then this would make this a much easier choice for them. Research into what games and who their consumers are is needed before they move along with a decision. Liz has to decide how she wants her company to be perceive and if this type of content would fit the image she has in mind for her company.

Week 7 Video #3: Case Video.

Nick and Gail do not agree with the direction Liz decided to take the online gaming with only offering family oriented games. This brings Nick and Gail to decide they want to start their own online gaming venture that is aimed at the more mature adult. Nick does feel that needs to be brought up to Liz as he feels he owes her that much since she has given him an opportunity. This seems to be just a start of an idea and not much thought has been put into it. They have not considered many aspects that starting an online gaming venture will need such as the financial undertaking that would be needed. A lot more research needs to be completed before a venture like this could even be consider.

Steven Allen

Week 1 - Video #1: Introductory Video – Concepts of Strategic Management.
Jim, this was a very good way to explain the end of the video. It would appear as though she has no idea how she got this position and that no game plan was followed. I also viewed it as rather unprofessional the term “sweetheart” was used for a business matter. Professionalism is important and, although this call was rather casual, it was still business-related and should have maintained the required decorum.

Week 1 - Video #2: Resolution Video.
Liz pretty well proves that Can-go is a success based mostly on luck. The fact that a strategic plan is not but in the place means that happenstance is the basis of her success. She mentions later in video that he wonders what a bigger success Can-go would have been in some strategic planning is the place, this is obviously an afterthought. Find a proper interject the word hubris into a description Liz. For those who do not know this word, basically is a description for an individual with foolish pride or overconfidence. When somebody acts in a hubris nature, there is a good chance that they’re going to fail and take down whatever entities they are associated. In this example, feel all confident in the future success of the company is thoughtful business plan. The company has hired us as consultant, she obviously realized that hubris is going to get the best of her and her business if she does not take steps now.