You must conduct an effective internal strategic management audit to provide an excellent foundation for formulating strategies.
Key aspects of the basic business functions (management, marketing, finance, production/operations, R&D, and MIS) are reviewed along with value chain analysis, benchmarking, breakeven analysis, and cost/benefit analysis.
“A value chain is a chain of activities that a firm operating in a specific industry performs in order to deliver a valuable product or service for the market. The concept comes from business management and was first described and popularized by Michael Porter in his 1985 best-seller, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Value”.
Financial Management System (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
You must understand the key interrelationships among the functional areas of business and identify the basic functions or activities that make up management, marketing, finance and accounting, production and operations, research and development, and management information systems.
To explain how to determine and prioritize a firm’s internal strengths and weaknesses you must conduct a comprehensive financial analysis. To explain the importance of financial ratio analysis; “A financial ratio is a relative magnitude of two selected numerical values taken from an enterprise’s financial statements.
They are used to evaluate the overall financial condition of a corporation. Financial ratios may be used by managers within a firm, by current and potential shareholders (owners) of a firm, and by a firm’s creditors. Financial analysts use financial ratios to compare the strengths and weaknesses in various companies. If shares in a company are traded in a financial market, the market price of the shares is used in certain financial ratios.”
**PERFORM A FINANCIAL RATIO ANALYSIS FOR YOUR COMPANY
Here is a list of websites that offer financial information:
www.money.msn.com
http://finance.yahoo.com
www.morningstar.com
www.hoovers.com in the library database under “Lexis Nexis”
http://globaledge.msu.edu/industries/
Here’s the link to the Food and Beverage Industry: http://globaledge.msu.edu/industries/food-and-beverage
Strategic Aligment Cycle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)