Strategic Planning and Cooperative Strategies For Sustainability |
Organizations need to continually change in order to survive and to grow; this is especially true in the competitive marketsand in market based economies. However,over emphasis on change can be a deterrent to organizational growth. It istherefore essential to correctly identify areas and reasons for change.Critical decisions of identifying the areas, and order of change that would lead to a path of sustainability and growth for an organization require a decisive assessment process. At each phase of a decision making process, there are numerousnondeterministic choices and the certainty of success may be influenced by manyexternal factors. External factors affecting an organization include marketforces such as, competition, user demand, and suppliers, in addition topolitical, legal, and environmental factors. These in turn influence internalefficiencies of its components: divisions, product lines, and Strategic Business Units- grouped togetheras Value Components (VC). In this paper, we present methodologies fororganizations to recognize areas and rationale for change, and to identifyoptions available for change. Our model for these methodologies is generic asit explores effective ways to leverage cooperative strategies forcompetitiveness and applies to all industries. We elaborate on issues andknowledgebase required for critical VC of a corporation, and on understandingthe limits of efficiencies that can be achieved. A conceptual framework thatemerges from the model provides systematic guidelines for critical decisionmaking.