Discussion 2: Capstone Forum: Assignment With Peer Review: Stakeholder and General Force Analysis for Your Capstone Organization

Now it is time to apply key insights learned from this week’s case analysis and Discussion about stakeholder assessment and its relationship to P.E.S.T. analysis, this week’s readings, and other resources to help you think about how you might answer the question, where will you play? (Who will you serve, and who will either help or compete against you?)

To prepare for this Discussion:

By Day 5

• Review all required readings, including the Weekly Briefing, which provides additional guidance on how to complete the Assignment.
• Review this week’s case study and peer discussion and reflect and make notes on the following: What insights did you gain, and what did you learn from this week’s resources your case analysis and peer discussion that you can apply to your Strategy Playbook for your chosen organization? What conceptual and strategic differences are important between the case example and your organization (focus on the concepts analyzed this week)? What assumptions do you need to make in order to use the strategy concepts appropriately?
• Identify and review all relevant readings from the MBA Capstone Program Bibliography. Given your chosen organization, what concepts, tools, and readings from the Program Capstone Bibliography are most relevant to helping guide how you might recommend improving the company? How and why are they relevant?
• Locate and maintain access to publicly available information about your organization.

Post a polished and synthesized entry into the discussion area, which will also be the basis for an entry into the final draft of your Strategy Playbook for Extraordinary Results. At minimum you should add the following to your discussion post and Strategy Playbook:

General Guidance: Your original Discussion post for the Capstone Forum will typically be 1 to 1 ½ single-spaced pages, excluding references. Refer to the Week 4 Discussion 2 rubric for grading elements and criteria. Your Instructor will use the rubric to assess your work.

• An evidence-based and cohesive set of specific and actionable recommendations for actions (based on application of this week’s strategy concepts), that your selected organization can take that will clearly enable your organization to achieve its strategic goals, sustain and grow its business, and remain viable and healthy.
  • HINT: You should provide a preliminary argument that defends your recommendations. Consider why your recommendations are SMART- specific, measurable, achievable (that is realistic and feasible, and timely (relevant and important).
• A related set of metrics that will enable your selected organization to measure the effectiveness of your recommended actions.
  • HINT: These metrics could then be used in the comprehensive final draft of your strategy playbook diagram, which is part of your final Strategy Playbook.

  Note: After you receive input from your colleagues, in the next few days you should revise your original post to reflect input that you think is helpful and strengthens your position. This final revised version from this week’s Capstone Forum will become the third formal entry into your Strategy Playbook appendix. Title this section “Stakeholder Analyses for XYZ [Insert Organization Name],” and be sure to keep a version of your response in your Strategy Playbook template. As a best practice you should plan to review your playbook throughout the course as you continue to build your components. You may find that you have new ideas and items that further improve your work.

  Read a selection of your colleagues’ posts.

  By Day 7

  Respond to two or more of your peers in one or more of the following ways:

  Note: For the third response option, exemplary responses should provide a synthesis of multiple peers’ insights, findings, and analyses.

  • Comment on what you learned from your colleague’s analysis that is new to you and that will help you improve your Strategy Playbook and how you will use it to do so.
  • Offer constructive ideas for how your peer might extend or improve his or her summary analysis.
  • Provide your observations about your peers’ comments based on your synthesis of several of the original posts, explaining how those posts better inform what your peer wrote.

  Recommended Best Practice: Read through many of the posts and responses as you will learn more about your own work by seeing a variety of posts and responses to various peers. Please respond to peers who have not received peer comments when possible.

  Return to this Discussion in a few days to read the responses to your initial posting. Note what you have learned and/or any insights you have gained as a result of the comments your colleagues made.

  Hi Everyone,

  PEST Analysis, in short it is an analysis of how external environments affect businesses. Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Amazon Drive can continue to grow in many countries, as a good number of them have strict censorship policies that block sites like amazon and google. Figuring out how to abide by those censorships, they can expand their market to one of the world’s largest populations. Similarly, there are counties that do not enforce any protection or safety for the internet users, in turn Amazon can ensure their customers credentials are safe by keeping the most secure network possible. Another large hindrance to AWS and Amazon Drive are countries under developed and unstable political structures. There are many other factors that can be potential growth for Amazon.

  Along with political stability, there comes economic stability as well. Many underdeveloped countries can help AWS and Amazon Drive to continue to grow with economic stability. Increasing income in developing countries would be another great stimulus to AWS and Amazon Drive growth. However, threats of Chinas economic recession can make it increasingly difficult to penetrate their market. It is likely that growth may still come from China but there are many obstacles to overcome.

  Socially a few opportunities show potential in growth, there is increasing consumerism in developing countries. There is also the increase of online storage habits, that create major opportunities for AWS and Amazon Drive. However, there is an increasing gap between the rich and the poor in many countries. This creates another issue for growth in Amazon’s market.

  AWS and Amazon Drive is a built off technology and the internet, without them the company simply wouldn’t exist. If AWS and Amazon Drive can expand its markets to other areas that do not have internet, they would have an exponential growth. Cybercrime; however, is a huge threat to AWS, Amazon Drive and their customers.

  Political:

  Economical:

  • Some countries have little to no protection to on the internet. Kasi (2015) writes, “Different countries around the world has no rules and regulations for protection of internet users that may result in financial loss to customers.” It can become a huge detriment to AWS and Amazon Drive. It may seem as a technological issue, but the governments can implement laws to create protection rules for websites and programs.
  • There is strict censorship in countries like China, they block many sites such Amazon.com and Google.com. “Big markets like China where growth of Amazon has been threatened by strict censorship policies by government.” (Kasi, 2015). With sites blocked and censors in place, it becomes increasingly difficult to penetrate Chinas cyber market.
  • AWS and Amazon Drive benefits well from political stability. “This condition creates an opportunity for the company to expand or diversify its business in developed countries.” (Greenspan, 2016). Amazon can easily expand and diversify in countries like the U.S. where they have a great e-commerce

  Social:

  • Economic stability in developed countries could be the most flourishing for AWS and Amazon Drive markets. “Such a condition minimizes economic issues in the remote or macro-environment.” With a stable market, it minimizes the risks for Amazon and its customers, thus creating a flourishing market.
  • AWS and Amazon Drive has many growth opportunities with the increasing disposable income in developing companies. With disposable income, can come a boost in the economic development for Amazon and the country that hosts. A few countries are still recovering from previous economic recessions.
  • China is one market that has proven difficult as it is recovering from a recession as well as the censor ship in the internets. “The Chinese market is one of the biggest markets that the company hopes to increasingly penetrate.” (Greenspan, 2016). With great effort, AWS and Amazon Drive can help China overcome their recession. This may require a new infrastructure on Amazons websites to allow it through Chinas censorship.

  Technological:

  • Buying and selling on the internet is an increasing lifestyle today; however, it is not a part of many cultures. “Many people in different countries avoid buying and selling on the internet due to many different reasons like safety, and uncertainty.” (Kasi, 2015).
  • Increasing consumerism is another great opportunity for AWS and Amazon Drive. “A higher disposal income level is more favorable in increasing potential revenues of the e-commerce company.” (Greenspan, 2016). With higher disposable income, consumers will be more likely to stimulate the economy and thus create more profits for Amazon.
  • Increasing online buying habits is a new trend as AWS and Amazon Drive continues to grow. As more people around the world gain access to the internet it only shows AWS and Amazon Drive and other companies of the like stand to gain from the new consumers.

  Trends

  • AWS and Amazon Drive is a technology-based company, they have built their company from the internet. Per internet live stats as of July 2016, there are approximately 46.1% of the world’s population with internet. This means that AWS and Amazon Drive does not provide service for 53.9% of the world’s population. Though they do not quite service half the world, they do have a large variation of clientele. By the end 2015 AWS and Amazon Drive has grown to three hundred five million users and continues to grow.
  • AWS and Amazon Drive is constantly increasing their efficiency and in doing so create new opportunities for greater markets. New technologies can increase productivity in their online sales, and reduce their cybercrime.
  • AWS and Amazon Drive may constantly be battling various types of threats for themselves and their consumers. Though they may have new technology and great security, they may still find new threats lurking about. Cyber threats are in a constant state of flux. Everyday a new threat is created.

  Online storage habits have been increasing around the world and continue to do so as more and more people gain access to the internet. They have taken notice and begun to map their way to efficiently distribute their customer’s packages. Cleverly AWS and Amazon Drive has started developing a new way to deliver their services. Cloud storage have been increasingly popular on the market. Many companies have been considering their technology and ways use them for their businesses. These trends are going to promote growth in economy and other Amazons company.

  Prioritized List

  AWS and Amazon Drive should focus on a few things to keep a steady growth within their company. First, they should consider ways to exploit their own security and technologies. This will help them develop new security measures for their site and services. This can help AWS and Amazon Drive counter the effects of cybercrime, bolstering their consumer’s assurance that their credentials are safe and sound. Second, AWS and Amazon Drive can work towards or even with Facebooks goal for worldwide Wi-Fi. This can grow the world’s economic state and create millions of new consumers online. As developing countries gain access to the internet, they soon learn how to purchase items on the internet increasing the trend of online purchases. Lastly as AWS and Amazon Drive continues to grow, they can create more jobs for the economy in many areas. Building more distribution centers and creating jobs, they can increase the amount of disposable income in the economy. This in turn will get people to spend more money creating economic growth.

  Conclusion

  In conclusion, AWS and Amazon Drive could improve in many ways, as there is always room for improvement. AWS and Amazon Drive can take to areas like China and penetrate their market by improving the consumer’s security and working with the country to improve the strict censorship it has. The company can continue to grow in developing countries with little internet access and stimulate the economy by creating new jobs for the local areas amongst their warehouses and distribution centers. AWS and Amazon Drive can work towards a goal of bringing internet across the world to create many new markets. AWS and Amazon Drive has many opportunities ahead of them.

  References

  Greenspan, R. (2016, July 12). Amazon.com Inc. PESTEL/PESTLE Analysis, Recommendations – Panmore Institute. from http://panmore.com/amazon-com-inc-pestel-pestle-analysis-recommendations

  Internet Users. (2016, July 16). Retrieved from http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/

  Kasi, A. (2015, December 12). PESTEL Analysis of Amazon. Retrieved from http://freepestelanalysis.com/pestel-analysis-of-amazon/

  Dr. Steve,

  As a manager, part of your job involves solving a variety of problems, either with clients or equipment or, sometimes, other employees. At times, it may seem like you’re more a referee than a manager. Conflicts within the office occur for several reasons. They could come from personality clashes, poor communication and misunderstandings, or anger for legitimate reasons, such as an employee not doing his or her work or taking credit for things he or she didn’t do. Regardless of the cause of the conflict, if you are dealing with some level of inter-office conflict, it is important that you resolve it for several reasons. Conflicts or problems that are left unchecked can result in lawsuits for hostile work environments, sexual harassment charges, and other serious concerns for your company.

  Friel, (2005) states when working to solve interoffice conflicts, there are several ways you can address the conflict, including:

  Collaboration. With this solution, those in conflict with each other work together to come up with a solution that benefits both parties.

  Compromise. With a compromise, the individuals both give a little in order to reach an agreement that is satisfactory to everyone involved.

  Interoffice conflicts are inevitable in most office environments. Bringing different personalities, tastes, and opinions together is bound to result in some type of clash sooner or later. However, by being professional and understanding, you can resolve inter office conflicts by practicing some of the above tips and suggestions.

  References

  Friel, B. (2005). Crisis Management. Government Executive, 37(13), 66.

  Hi Amel,

  Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS) is a multinational corporation that provides server and desktop virtualization, networking, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud computing technologies for more than 230,000 organizations worldwide. I am an investor in Citrix stock, and I have discovered the following information during my research of the company prior to investing. Citrix Systems, Inc. P.E.S.T analysis is a strategic tool to analyze the macro environment of the organization. Changes in the macro-environment factors can have a direct impact on not only the Citrix Systems, Inc. but also can impact other players in the Business Software & Services. The macro-environment factors can impact the Porter Five Forces that shape strategy and competitive landscape. They can impact individual firm’s competitive advantage or overall profitability levels of the Technology industry.

  Political factors play a significant role in determining the factors that can impact Citrix Systems, Inc.’s long term profitability in a certain country or market. Citrix Systems, Inc. is operating in Business Software & Services in more than dozen countries and expose itself to different types of political environment and political system risks. One of the political environments that it currently operates within is the Department of Veterans Affairs and various other federal government entities.

  The Macro environment factors such as – inflation rate, savings rate, interest rate, foreign exchange rate and economic cycle determine the aggregate demand and aggregate investment in an economy. Citrix Systems, Inc. can use country’s economic factor such as growth rate, inflation & industry’s economic indicators such as Business Software & Services industry growth rate, consumer spending etc. to forecast the growth trajectory of not only certain sectors but also that of the organization.

  Society’s culture and way of doing things impact the culture of an organization in an environment. Shared beliefs and attitudes of the population play a great role in how marketers at Citrix Systems, Inc. will understand the customers of a given market and how they design the marketing message for Business Software & Services industry consumers.

  Technology is fast disrupting various industries across the board. A firm should not only do technological analysis of the industry but also the speed at which technology disrupts that industry. Slow speed will give more time while fast speed of technological disruption may give a firm little time to cope and be profitable.

  Different markets have different norms or environmental standards which can impact the profitability of an organization in those markets. Before entering new markets or starting a new business in existing market the firm should carefully evaluate the environmental standards that are required to operate in those markets.

  In number of countries, the legal framework and institutions are not robust enough to protect the intellectual property rights of an organization. A firm should carefully evaluate before entering such markets as it can lead to theft of organization’s secret sauce thus the overall competitive edge.

  References

  Citrix Systems, Inc. SWOT Analysis. (2018). Citrix Systems, Inc. SWOT Analysis, 1–7.