Situation Analysis and Implementation

Situation analysis

Situation analysis refers to a collection of methods that managers use to analyze an organization's internal and external environment to understand the organization's capabilities, customers, and business environment. The situation analysis consists of several methods of analysis: The 5Cs Analysis and SWOT analysis.  A Marketing Plan is created to guide businesses on how to communicate the benefits of their products to the needs of potential customer. The situation analysis is the second step in the marketing plan and is a critical step in establishing a long term relationship with customers.

Marketing Plan

• Objectives
• Situation analysis
• Strategy
• Execution
• Evaluation

The situation analysis looks at both the macro-environmental factors that affect many firms within the environment and the micro-environmental factors that specifically affect the firm. The purpose of the situation analysis is to indicate to a company about the organizational and product position, as well as the overall survival of the business, within the environment. Companies must be able to summarize opportunities and problems within the environment so they can understand their capabilities within the market.

There are several methods to analyze a situation

5C Analysis

While a situation analysis is often referred to as the "3C analysis", the extension to the 5c analysis has allowed businesses to gain more information on the internal, macro-environmental and micro-environmental factors within the environment. The 5C analysis is considered the most useful and common way to analyze the market environment, because of the extensive information it provides.

Company

The company analysis involves evaluation of the company's objectives, strategy, and capabilities. These indicate to an organization the strength of the business model, whether there are areas for improvement, and how well an organization fits the external environment.

Competitors

The competitor analysis takes into consideration the competitors position within the industry and the potential threat it may pose to other businesses. The main purpose of the competitor analysis is for businesses to analyze a competitor's current and potential nature and capabilities so they can prepare against competition.

Customers

Customer analysis can be vast and complicated. Some of the important areas that a company analyzes includes.

• Demographics
• Advertising most suitable for the demographic
• Market size and potential growth
• Customer wants and needs

Collaborators

Collaborators are useful for businesses as they allow for an increase in the creation of ideas, as well as an increase in the likelihood of gaining more business opportunities.

Climate

To fully understand the business climate and environment, many factors that can affect the business must be researched and understood. An analysis on the climate is also known as the PEST analysis.

SWOT analysis

A SWOT Analysis is another method under the situation analysis that examines the Strengths and Weaknesses of a company (internal environment) as well as the Opportunities and Threats within the market (external environment). A SWOT analysis looks at both current and future situations, where they analyze their current strengths and weaknesses while looking for future opportunities and threats. The goal is to build on strengths as much as possible while reducing weaknesses. A future threat can be a potential weakness while a future opportunity can be a potential strength.

This analysis helps a company come up with a plan that keeps it prepared for a number of potential scenarios.

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Implementation

To ensure outcomes are delivered on decisions made by organization, implementation planning must be carried out. However, some policies, programs and projects involve high implementation risk, and thus require appropriate management disciplines to be used and engagement with central agencies to maximise the prospects of delivery success.

Keys to Strategic Planning Implementation Success. These are the keys to effective strategic planning implementation for your business.

• Full and active executive support,
• Effective communication,
• Employee involvement,
• Thorough organizational planning and competitive analysis, and
• Widespread perceived need for the strategic planning.

Strategic Implementation

Strategic implementation is the execution of a strategic plan. The team proceeds according to the plan as much as possible, although unforeseen events and unintended consequences are sure to occur. The implementation team might be able to overcome minor obstacles without compromising the objectives of the plan, but some eventualities spell doom for a strategic plan. For example, if a company forecasts high consumer demand for a product but the market shifts before the product can hit the shelves, the entire project could be a failure.

Successful strategic planning implementation requires a large commitment from executives and senior managers, whether the strategic planning is occurring in a department or in a complete organization. Executives must lead, support, follow-up, and live the results of the strategic planning implementation process. Or, the strategic planning implementation process will fail. It’s as simple as that.

Without the full commitment of the organization’s senior executives, don’t even start strategic planning. Participants will feel fooled and misled. A vision statement and a mission statement, along with this year’s goals, filed, unimplemented in a cabinet or computer, is a serious source of negativity and poor employee morale.