Operations Management: An Integrated Approach, 5th Edition

DEVELOPING A BUSINESS STRATEGY

A company's business strategy is developed after its managers have considered many factors and have made some strategic decisions. These include developing an understanding of what business the company is in (the company's mission), analyzing and developing an understanding of the market (environmental scanning), and identifying the company's strengths (core competencies). These three factors are critical to the development of the company's long-range plan, or business strategy. In this section we describe each of these elements in detail and show how they are combined to formulate the business strategy.

Mission

Every organization, from IBM to the Boy Scouts, has a mission. The mission is a statement that answers three overriding questions:

Mission

A statement defining what business an organization is in, who its customers are, and how its core beliefs shape its business.

• What business will the company be in (“selling personal computers,” “operating an Italian restaurant”)?
• Who will the customers be, and what are the expected customer attributes (“home-owners,” “college graduates”)?
• How will the company's basic beliefs define the business (“gives the highest customer service,” “stresses family values”)?

Following is a list of some well-known companies and parts of their mission statements:

• Dell Computer Corporation: “to be the most successful computer ...