PART III: STRATEGIC FIT ANALYSIS Strategic Fit/Critical Issues Analysis:

Critical issues should be the most challenging issues coming from driving forces or industry success factors (Reiterate them). A table after a brief review will serve the purpose better. Out of these issues, the most significant one is identified for immediate actions in the recommendations. Without the correct anchor in this section, your external and internal environment analysis does not serve any purpose and there is no logic flow of both your individual project and team project. You need to justify how and why it is the most significant issue facing the company. Since you have analyzed all the critical issues, you do not need to analyze them all over again in detail in this section, but to crystalize your decision. You should see a nice flow from the external analyses to the summaries (DFs and KSFs), and then to the fit analysis between your external challenges and internal capabilities and resources to make conclusion of your opportunities and threat before you discuss your alternatives of how to achieve your optimal solution for the future challenges and firm survival (Your individual project does not include alternatives and recommendations, which are the tasks for the final team term project). The same is true with the internal analysis and SW. Can you build a link among these factors so that it can help to make decisions in your company concerning strategic priority and resource allocation for the coming year(s)? That is how strategy is crafted (not simply made). After all, what is the two most challenging issue that you need to address immediately? Without the correct anchor in this section, your team Value chain analysis: Your value chain analysis should include analysis for the company and for at least ONE of the competitors you identified so that you can assess the company's cost competitiveness in relation to its rivals. Be sure to identify major activities undertaken to deliver value to the customer, and value chain activities that firm does more or less well (or more or less efficiently/cost effectively) than competitors. Your analysis should help you understand the internal cost structures of the firm (vis -a- its competitors), and the resources and capabilities of the firm (which you will present separately in final report for the Team Project).project goes nowhere.

Dynamic SWOT Analysis: (You are advised to study the sample projects for better understanding.) You should also provide a summary of the SWOT analysis in a table that summarizes the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Process: External environment => Challenges (DFs & KSFs) => Firm resources and capabilities (positive or negative) Yes or No; If Yes, strong, medium or week? Strong => Strength => Opportunity; If medium, can we improve it? If yes, => Strength => Opportunity; If no =weakness => Threat; If weak or no capabilities => Weakness => Threat; If DF is disruptive and WT, firm is doomed; If DF is ongoing challenge, and WT, firm has no capability to make use of opportunity because opportunity without capability is only an illusion. Note: See my comments in Missing Link and samples for better understanding. SWOT analysis should be put at the very end of the Strategic Fit analysis. SWOT should be a concise summary of your environment analyses, not a replicate of the analysis done for the situational analysis (analysis on the internal and external environments). This is the match between the external challenges and internal resources and capabilities. S & W – come from internal analysis – Strengths – Company’s core competencies – Weakness – Company’s inability to overcome its challenges O & T – come from external analysis – Opportunities – If company has resources to overcome or meet its challenges. – Threats – Things that are beyond the company’s control, where the firm has no or very weak capabilities and resources to overcome or meet its challenges.

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