1. Strategy Implementation: Staffing and Directing
Chapter 9
Strategy Implementation:
Staffing and Directing

2. Strategy Implementation
Staffing:
Hiring new people with new skills, firing people with inappropriate skills, and/or training existing employees to learn new skills.

3. Strategy Implementation
Staffing follows strategy:
Training and development
Firms with training programs 19% higher productivity
Reduction in scrap
Overall cost savings
Matching the manager to the strategy
Executive type - executives with a particular mix of skills and experiences

4. Strategy Implementation
Executive Types:
Dynamic industry expert
Analytical portfolio manager
Cautious profit planner
Turnaround specialist
Professional liquidator

5. Matching Chief Executive “Types” with Strategy Industry Attractiveness
Business Strength/Competitive Position
Strong
Average
Weak
Growth—Concentration
Dynamic Industry Expert
Retrenchment— Save Company
Turnaround Specialist
High
Stability
Cautious Profit Planner
Industry Attractiveness
Medium
Low
Growth—Diversification
Analytical Portfolio Manager
Retrenchment— Close Company
Professional Liquidator

6. Strategy Implementation
Executive Succession:
Process of replacing a key top manager.

7. Strategy Implementation
Executive Succession:
Boards help CEO develop succession plan
Identify succession candidates below top layer
Measuring internal candidates against external candidates
Appropriate financial incentives

8. Strategy Implementation
Identifying Abilities & Potential:
Establish a sound performance appraisal system
Assessment centers
Used to evaluate a person’s suitability for an advanced position.
Job rotation
Used to ensure that employees are gaining the appropriate mix of experiences to prepare them for future responsibilities.

9. Strategy Implementation
Problems in Retrenchment:
Downsizing (“rightsizing”)
Planned elimination of positions or jobs
Used in retrenchment strategies

10. Strategy Implementation
Guidelines for Downsizing:
Eliminate unnecessary work vs. making across-the-board cuts
Contract out work for efficiencies
Plan for long-run efficiencies
Communicate reasons for action
Invest in the remaining employees
Develop valued-added jobs to balance out job elimination

11. Strategy Implementation
International issues in staffing:
Considerable planning
Can be very costly
Cultural differences must be considered
Experience through international assignments

12. Strategy Implementation
International issues in staffing:
Effective management of foreign assignments:
Focus on transferring knowledge and developing global leadership
Foreign assignments to people with technical skills matched or exceeded by cross-cultural abilities
Deliberate repatriation at end of assignment with career guidance and jobs

13. Strategy Implementation
Strategy-Culture Compatibility:
Consider the following:
Is the planned strategy compatible with the firm’s current culture?
Can the culture be easily modified to make it more compatible with new strategy?
Is management willing to make major organizational changes?
Is management committed to implementing the strategy?

14. Assessing Strategy—Culture Compatibility
Is the planned strategy compatible
with the current culture? No
Yes
Can the culture be modified to
Tie changes into the culture.
make it more compatible with the
new strategy?
Yes
Is management willing and able to
make major organizational No
changes and accept probable
delays No
Yes
Manage around the culture by
Is management still committed
establishing a new structural unit
to implementing the strategy?
to implement the new strategy. No
Yes
Find a joint-venture partner or
Formulate a different strategy
contract with another company
to carry out the strategy.

15. Strategy Implementation
Managing different cultures:
Integration
Assimilation
Separation
Deculturation

16. Managing the Culture of an Acquired Firm

17. Strategy Implementation
Action Planning:
Action Plan
States what actions are going to be taken, by whom, during what time frame, and with what expected results.

18. Action Plan Elements List specific actions.
List dates to begin and end each action.
Name person responsible for each action.
Name person responsible for monitoring timelines and effectiveness of each action.
Estimate expected financial and physical consequences of each action.
Develop contingency plans.