Vermont Teddy Bear

The purpose of this paper is to identify some key issues "The Wallace Group" is facing, and how to develop these findings into a rewarding condition. Understanding some of the benefits of strategic management will help improve the company's environment and overall performance.

The most important problem facing "The Wallace Group" is its' lack of organization and teamwork. There are projects being started and not finished, promises being made and not kept, managers managing but not leading, electronic engineers working on chemicals, and others working in areas not related to their field or background. It appears that there is a shortage of staff and a lack of proper training for management.

The recommendations relevant to Mr. Wallace's running a successful business would be to convert his organization into a strategic style of management in order to determine mission, vision, values, goals, objectives, timelines, roles and responsibilities. Strategic planning is a management tool to help ensure that members of the organization are working toward the same goals, to assess and adjust the organization's direction in response to a changing environment. In short, strategic planning is a disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, what it does, and why it does it, with a focus on the future. Strategic Management consists of four elements which are:

Environmental Scanning -According to Wheelen and Hunger is "the monitoring, evaluating, disseminating of information from the internal and external environments to key people within the corporation" (p.10). This will all depend upon the ability of the senior leaders to adapt to rapidly changing external environment.

Strategy Formulation - is "the development of long-range plans for the effective management of environmental opportunities and threats in light of corporate strengths and weaknesses" (p.12). Strengths include advantages your company has, what you do better than anyone else, what people in your market see as your strengths, and lowest cost resources you have access to. Consider this from an internal perspective, and from the point of view of your customers and people in your market. In looking at your strengths, think about them in relation to your competitors - for example, if all your competitors provide high quality products, then a high quality production process is not a strength in the market, it is a necessity. Then look at weaknesses: What could you improve? What should you avoid? What are people in your market likely to see as weaknesses?

Again, consider this from an internal and external basis: Do other people seem to perceive weaknesses that you do not see? Are your competitors doing any better than you?

Strategy Implementation - putting your plans