Strategy management Literature review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 1

Strategy management - Literature review Example However, this fact does not affect his performance. In fact, crafting is characterized by the detailed review of organizational problems, allowing for more precise managerial decisions compared to common methods of strategic decision making, where there is the risk of generic assumptions. This advantage of crafting towards other methods of strategic decision making is made clear through the following statement of Mintzberg: manager as a craftsman ‘has to craft his strategy as a potter has to manage her craft’ (Mintzberg 1988, p.73). Another characteristic of the manager who acts as a craftsman is that he is able to use his critical thinking on a constant basis – even when executing a task using his hands (Mintzberg 1988, p.78); this potential for simultaneous use of mind and hands is an advantage of the manager who acts as a craftsman. The view of Mintzberg that the manager is a craftsman, is in opposition with the view of Miller et al. (2005) who noted that strategic decision making is based on intuition; when being used for decision making in organizations, intuition may have two different forms: it could be either a holistic hunch or an automated expertise (Miller et al. 2005, 22); in its first form, intuition is used in organizations where ‘exploration has been adopted as a goal’ (Miller et al. 2005, p.22-23); on the other hand, intuition in its second form can be identified in organizations that focus on ‘execution and building on past investments’ (Miller et al. 2005, p.22-23). At this point, it is assumed that these managers prefer to avoid focusing on details when having to develop critical strategic decisions (ignoring the theory of manager as a craftsman, as stated by Mintzberg, 1987) considering their intuition as more appropriate criterion for the development of effective strategic decisions. The use of the theory of Mintzberg for

Sysco BI Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Sysco BI - Case Study Example At Sysco, the main problem that might arise after the implementation of business intelligence is that the information that is provided is too small of what is actually required by the firm in order to function. Moreover at many times, the user may not at all be requiring the past data as the market is volatile and is subjected to frequent changes. The obstacle can be that Sysco will require more number of users for implementation and there are huge license fees for the set up of the software. Moreover the other difficulty that it will face is that a number of the companies already have small scale intelligence application and Sysco had decentralized IT structure which if the companies try to uninstall would be very time consuming and costly. It will therefore muddle the already existing commercial setting. Why did Sysco decide initially to address only two questions with its new BI software rather than use it as a more general analysis tool? Why did Business Objects recommend this approach? What are the tradeoffs? Answer: Initially only two questions were taken into consideration as both the questions were quite predictive and forward looking. It is also to be noted that one question deals with the products that is to be delivered to the customer and the other question deals with the customers. The answer provided to the question covers all the important aspects like competitors, customer satisfaction, customer services, customer profile that is the key to success for any firm. Moreover it is felt that initially during the implementation phase the company should focus only on the software, users and the training on answering the questions. The answer to the question was good enough to serve the customer in the better way and also it proved how good ‘Business Object’ can be at delivering the best product to Sysco. The various capabilities of Business Intelligence are Dashboards, Extraction, Data mining, Ad hoc querying and reporting,