2016-08-20
Strategic Management Process What to Wear Today?The Concept
What to Wear Today is a concept for a new online service that will offer fashion advice to men who have trouble finding the right style and appropriate clothing. Most of the site’s content will be free allowing men to view tools such as color matching charts and trend lists. The site will also contain articles on new trends and advice for how clothes should look when they are fitted properly. Along with the free content there will also be feedback systems such as comments sections for articles where users and clients can leave messages and ask questions directly. In this way, clients and users can find information that others have asked in the past.
For individuals needing personalized attention, the business would offer a custom style guide. This guide would be a comprehensive PDF file which would discuss which types of clothing would be most stylish based upon the individual’s body type and features. The person would be required to send a full body photo and a headshot in order to make the guide. The cost would be $50 for the guide and would give the person all the necessary information such as particular brands of clothing and how he should wear the clothing with accessories such as watches and scarves. The reason the cost would be so low is that the PDF would be a template with large amounts of fill-in-the-blank-forms. For example, there would be a box to post the person’s pictures into. There would also be blank sections named brands that would be filled to show the client which clothes would be the best fit for them. This would make customization of the guide simple and quick. Using this method, clients would be able to receive the same advice that a professional stylist would give but at a fraction of the cost.
Another area of the business which would also make it profitable is the linking of site content with affiliate marketing programs. Amazon has an affiliate marketing program that allows What to Wear Today to earn money whenever a person clicks through to the Amazon site and makes a purchase. This is a unique adjunct to the business which may prove to be very profitable. Since What to Wear Today is giving the client and users fashion advice on what brands to wear then it would be prudent to tell them wear to purchase the items for the best price. This creates a sustainable business model which is not dependent upon constant sales from style guides since users just looking on the site also have the potential to create profit. Another benefit of affiliate marketing is that there are many different companies such as EBay and Oodle which can be used to link to products. This allows What to Wear Today the ability to find the best deals for its clients and not be limited to one particular company such as Amazon.
The Process
In order to develop the concept of this business into a realistic endeavor, the use of the strategic management process will be necessary. Each process will provide step in the blueprinting of the strategic plan. The following sections detail the steps in this process.
Section 1. The Vision and Mission
Vision The vision of the What to Wear Today organization is driven from the desire to see men everywhere learn and actualize fashion in their lives. This vision extends in to them becoming more successful and happier individuals as they learn the importance of their looks and style.From this vision, the company derives its mission.
Mission It is the mission of What to Wear Today to aid men’s fashion needs and to give them the tools necessary to dress for success in all their endeavors.The company’s vision and mission build a clear direction for the future of the organization. Through this focus The potential company can be analyzed and steps can be taken to build on this foundation (Zimmerer et al, 2008 pg. 90). This step in the strategic management process is the most important because it will determine the strategic goals and objectives for the future of the company. As well, the mission and vision will provide the guiding force in the company’s actions.
Step 2. Strengths and Weaknesses
The next step in the strategic management process is to assess the Strengths and weaknesses of the potential organization (Zimmerer et al, 2008 pg. 93). For What To Wear Today there are a variety of strengths which make the business enticing. These strengths include:
Along with these strengths there are also several weaknesses in the business concept which need to be shown.
The virtual environment makes customer relations less personal
The weaknesses in the What To Wear Today concept reflect areas which will need to be dealt with in the strategic objectives planning phase. But from this overview of weaknesses there is nothing so overtly weak in the concept that the concept should be altered significantly or discarded.
Step 3. Opportunities and Threats
The next step in the strategic management process is to assess the opportunities and threats that might significantly impact the potential business (Zimmerer et al, 2008 pg. 93). For What to Wear Today there are three specific opportunities which give the concept high profit potential. These opportunities include:
The internet and globalization process present many diverse clients which can have significant impact on sales. The sharing of style information on a worldwide scale can be a powerful tool as there are many countries that like and mimic western fashion. This is broad and expansive market encompassing the European Union and many Asian countries.
There is also the opportunity to expand profits with the use of affiliate marketing. This opportunity allows the company to make money from clients being referred to other websites that sell the items that What to Wear Today suggests. The company can make referral fees from these sales (Prussakov, 2007).
The third and perhaps most important opportunity is the large customer base available because of the Y generation (Business Week, 1999). This generation is inclined to use services that are online in nature and this means millions of potential users.
Step 4. Key Factors
In this step, the identification of key success factors is necessary. The organization is endowed with two factors that make it prone to success (Zimmerer et al, 2008 pg. 93). These factors include:
Step 5. Analyze the Competition
In this stage, the competition must be analyzed to see that there is enough niche and product differentiation to make the business concept viable (Zimmerer et al, 2008 pg. 99-100). As well, is the competition too fierce or does it not matter? These types of questions need to be resolved in order to proceed.
Currently the competition includes some online businesses and mostly fashion designers. The online companies tend to be the fashion designers using the web to advertise and gain ground in the market. The designers themselves are typically very expensive, normally maintaining a small clientele which is very affluent. The competition is far overpriced for the average male fashion consumer.
The competition does provide more personal service but this comes with the larger cost. What to Wear Today approaches this market from a more practical angle in which men need to learn about style and have the ability to shop and dress themselves. However, because of the simple practical nature of the business and because it is digital in nature the company is constantly at risk from substitution
Step 6. Goals and Objectives
In this step, goals and objectives must be defined. In this way, the company has targets to aim for and evaluation processes can be created (Zimmerer et al, 2008 pg. 105). This section of the process is often defined using a balanced scorecard. The balanced scorecard gives clear and practical goals as well as metrics which can be used to evaluate their progress. Here is a sample of this process:
Balanced Scorecard
Areas
Objectives
Measures
Target
Initiatives
Financial
Become profitable
ROI
1 year
Create content for site which is useful and free that promotes affiliate marketing.
Customer
Create loyal customers
Repeat uses of services
2 year
Maintain positive market culture through personal interactions with clients.
Process
Operations streamlining
Track work against deadlines
1 year
Maintain business with one on one interaction and discover the number of clients to stylist ratios.
Learning and Growth
Develop continuous learning practices
Challenge workers with keeping in step with new fashion trends.
1 Year
Continuous learning of new trends and fashion developments in order to remain competitive.
Step 7. Strategic Options and Appropriate Strategies
In this section of the process, What to Wear Today’s objectives must be outlined in strategy. Taking the objectives from the balanced scorecard the means for accomplishing these goals must be molded around them (Zimmerer et al, 2008 pg. 106-107). For What to Wear Today one can see the development of this strategy in a three point approach. The three points of strategy include:
The use of these strategies forms the methodology for the accomplishment of the strategic objectives.
Step 8. Action Plans
At this stage, the strategic plan becomes a reality in that it is implemented. Surprisingly, this is one of the most common areas of failure for companies (Zimmerer et al, 2008 pg. 114). Failure to implement the plan or parts of the plan could cause the business to flounder as it is not able to achieve its goals. For this reason, management must be responsible for the controlling function and must be able to show that the plan is progressing and is being corrected as needed. This leads into the final step of the strategic management process.
Step 9. Establish Accurate Controls
This final step ensures that the planning process is being controlled and implemented with regard to performance and the accomplishment of objectives. Managers will need to evaluate the performance with the metrics from the scorecard and compare them to the standards designed in the first step (Zimmerer et al, 2008 pg. 115). In this way, changes can be made to processes or alterations in objectives can be performed. The establishment of accurate controls will be an ongoing process with planning and implementation.
Conclusion
From the strategic planning process the creation and development of a business can be achieved in a practical and realistic manner. By following this process managers also can maintain a great deal of control over the planning process as it focuses them with each step. This process is essential for successful business development.
References
Essentials of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management (5th ed.)
Zimmerer, N. Scarborough & D. Wilson Pearson, 2008 Upper Saddle River, NJ
Prussakov, E. (2007). A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing (pp.16-17), 2007.
Business Week Generation Y Today's teens--the biggest bulge since the boomers--may force marketers to toss their old tricks February 15, 1999 issue.