...Project Course Exercise If businesses/organizations are to succeed, it is imperative that there be definitive and attainable objectives and results. The organization will define objectives by looking at the marketplace in which the organization is competing, the core competencies of the organization, recognizing how these can be applied to the goal of success, and then applying the organization's skills and competencies to accomplish the successes. This also means that the organization needs to identify areas it will not pursue – those that are not directly related to the core elements and competencies of the organization. As an example, if a company were focused on developing and manufacturing sporting equipment, it would need to determine if this includes all sporting equipment or a selection of products. Further, the company would need to determine what would be the various levels of support it would provide to its customers. For example, would the company take its equipment directly to the consumers for demonstrations and lessons on how to gain the optimal results with the equipment? All of these types of decisions would be the result of the organization developing a strategy for how it will conduct its business. All of this translates into Strategic Management with the intended result of gaining a competitive advantage in a business niche. Very simply, developing a Strategic Management Plan means having defined what is the best set of results the organization can attain...
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...CanGo Final Report Senior Project Table of Contents Introduction to CanGo……………………………………………………….. Page 3 Issues and Recommendations….………………………………………………Page 3 References……………………………………………………………………...Page 11 Appenix A………………………………………………………………………Page 12 Appendix B……………………………………………………………………..Page 12 CanGo Analysis Introduction CanGo is a cutting edge company that was founded in 2006 by Elizabeth. CanGo is an online company that offers a variety of products ranging from books and videos to online gaming. CanGo is known for having the best service in terms of product and support. Although CanGo is a break-out company, there are some issues that have been identified when it comes to the company having a complete vision for what the company wants to accomplish as well as where the company sees itself in the future. During the course of six weeks, there have been many issues identified regarding the structure and function of the company. Along with these issues that have been identified and the recommendations that were made, if CanGo puts these ideas into practice, this company can go above and beyond original company and market expectations. Issues and Recommendations The first issue was brought to our attention was the fact that the organization had no vision for the future. Due to the fact that there was no initial vision for CanGo, the company likely missed out on a lot of opportunities over the years. Any opportunity can be an opportunity for growth and achievement...
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...CanGo: Growing from Entrepreneurial to Expanding Corporation with a Click of the Mouse!! A PROPOSAL TO: CanGo June 22, 2014 Presented by: The Sharpies Cherie Hayes Eileen Hauad Julia Misenhimer Franklin Raymundo Donald Scholfield June 22, 2014 Mission Statement: SHARPIES’ consulting provides a professional setting where high energy, motivation, and leadership are rewarded with opportunities for proficient growth. Our goal is to guide organizations in rethinking; reworking and restructuring their business plan to increase profitability. SHARPIES have completed its extensive research into CanGo. This assessment concentrates on your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. While CanGo is a small company that has experienced success, it has done so through haphazard means. CanGo has succeeded through teamwork but needs to revise itself to compete at the next level of business. It is the purpose of this report to address CanGo’s senior staff and board members concerning analysis made while reviewing your company. CanGo has developed a successful company. You have successfully met the purchasing needs of your customers. To enable CanGo to remain competitive and grow, changes will be necessary...
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...Hunt Alex Landos Derrence Kun Liang Lim Rodney Scott Miguel Soto BUSN 460 Senior Project DeVry University Professor Milford Abstract Team A has been instructed to list 6 issues facing CanGo that Team A assembled from the week 1 and 2 videos. They should be prioritized in order of importance. They should be numbered. The team must then come up with an actionable recommendation for each of the issues found. These should also be numbered and the recommendations must be actionable (DeVry Week 2 Assignments). The following body of text will outline and explain the questions to the fullest extent possible while citing the appropriate sources in APA (6th ed.) format on the references page at the end of this document. Strategic Management Consultants, Inc. Team Video Analysis Report Introduction Strategic Management Consultants, Inc. will address six issues facing CanGo that Team A collected from the week one and two videos. Strategic Management Consultants, Inc. will come up with actionable recommendations, number, and prioritize the solutions for each of the issues found (DeVry Week 2 Assignments). Methods The research for this assignment was collected through DeVry’s E-platform portal from our course e-shell in week one and week two video episodes. 6 Issues After reviewing the video episodes in week one and two Strategic Management Consultants, Inc. believes that the six issues facing CanGo are as follows numbered and prioritized in order of importance: 1. Lack...
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...Running head: CanGo Final Report CanGo Final Report Advantage Plus Consulting Services Prepared for: Professor David Mozinski Prepared by: Tonya Blevins Sydney Coleman Brent Currie Glen Ferry Tina Foster DeVry University BUSN 460 Senior Project October 23, 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3 2. SWOT ANALYSIS 4 3. MARKET ANALYSIS 6 4. COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS 7 5. FINANCIAL ANALYSIS 10 6. STRATEGIC PLANNING 11 7. CONCLUSION 17 8. REFERENCES 19 CANGO FINAL REPORT ADVANTAGE PLUS CONSULTING SERVICES 1.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Elizabeth Bennett, who sought to break into the lucrative and booming world of ecommerce, founded CanGo in 2006. Over the proceeding years CanGo would establish itself as a regional online success story, providing customers with the opportunity to purchase books, music, videos and games in an online environment. As the country became consumed by an economic crisis, CanGo somehow managed to sustain its success by providing customers with affordable options for entertainment. In this way, CanGo was able to capture a mass market of a variety of segmented consumers. Despite CanGo’s initial success, however, the organization is not without its fair share of concerns. The primary issue with CanGo is that it lacks a formal strategic business plan. The company has also failed to clearly define what its short-term goals and long-term goals are and how it plans to go about realizing those goals. The company...
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...structure, CanGo needs to allocate resources and manage dependencies. Companies will often sail through the senior team meetings without those in attendance knowing exactly what they’re signing up for, because senior executives already have an execution plan for what they want senior team members to accomplish. Liz and Warren need to make sure that projects are prioritized, assign who is responsible for what part of each project; this will allow everyone to know what is going on and also give the team a sense of structure that they need. They know what the expectations are and so they should coordinate resources among Senior Staff to ensure these projects are executed. The senior team needs to understand their role in the decision-making process in order to make things fun more smoothly. CanGo senior management can build its effectiveness through members’ collective impact on the business, focus on alignment, and identify critical dependencies within the organization’s most strategically important activities. 2. Problem: CanGo’s performance evaluation process appears to be ineffective with no clear criteria that would help the company, managers and the employee’s progress towards the future. Recommendation: CanGo’s current evaluation system, as presented by Warren, is a great start to developing a fair and productive work environment. The system has to be clear and concise so it benefits the employee, manager and ultimately the company. Although CanGo may have...
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...Video Analysis: CanGo Weeks 3&4 Video Analysis: CanGo Weeks 3&4 Consolidated Consultants Martin Donohue Laura Guzman Malvin Henry Yvette Feliciano-Rodriguez Ryan Haryanto BUSN460 Senior Project DeVry University Professor Mozinski 3/31/2013 Introduction CanGo is an up and coming successful online organization, with much to consider in order improving its current processes. There are various problems within CanGo that are limiting the continued success that the company desires. CanGo must analyze what is in place currently with their technology, customer service process, marketing, etc. CanGo lacks discipline and leadership with successfully planning for the implementation of new projects and the ability to see them through. Much research must and should be conducted in order to identify how to proceed and what is necessary to obtain the proper results. 1. CanGo lacks results * This can be referred to as problem recognition. Why is it that customers are not buying a particular product? Why are there a high percentage of customers who do not complete their orders? Does this have to do with the way the product is being presented, or does their decision have to do with personal issues? A way to recognize these issues would be to conduct surveys. a. Recommendation- Know who your target market is so that you won’t advertise and sell the product to the wrong audience. CanGo should conduct a survey so that it may identify who our target market...
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...in discussions to learn and discover the business and needs of CanGo operations. During this period, Strategy One has identified areas that present specific operations issues and has made recommendations for each of these areas below. The issues discovered and discussed are strategic planning, organization, finance, project management, a project team, and project resource allocation and are presented in the information below with recommended resolutions. Week 1 Issues Issue #1 The first issue identified by Strategy One is in the area of strategic planning. CanGo has been a successful company to date by being a trail blazer and leader in the online retail resource vertical. In order for CanGo to continue its success, remain a leader and expand its offerings, strategic planning must be implemented in the management of the company. “The strategic management process is made up of four elements: situation analysis, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and strategy evaluation. These elements are steps that are performed, in order, when developing a new strategic management plan. Existing businesses that have already developed a strategic management plan will revisit these steps as the need arises, in order to make necessary changes and improvements.” (Bushman, 2007) There is an admitted lack of planning in the current organization. By documenting the trending in what has been successful; CanGo will be able to remain an industry leader as long as this planning...
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...CanGo Week Two Analysis Report DeVry University Bus460 Senior Project Instructor David Mozinski Introduction The Grad Consultants have spent the last two weeks observing CanGo and their business practices to help them determine the weaknesses within their organization. We will use our knowledge and experience to provide suggestions for improvement that will have a positive impact not only on CanGo’s bottom line but also on the morale of all those who are employed by the organizations. Elizabeth (Liz), who is the owner of CanGo, first conceived the idea of the company in 2006. Since then, the company has grown exponentially. According to the company’s intranet “Liz’s experience and education helped refine her vision of a business environment centered on the Internet revolution. Under her leadership, CanGo has grown from a small online book retailer to a leader in entertainment focused e-commerce”. Liz has done very well for herself and the company with the effort and ideas that she has used thus far. CanGo is growing so fast that she now needs help to show her how to be prepared for what could happen and what she wants to happen as a company. When there is so much growth and so much competition, Liz and CanGo need to have a plan. That is why we are here; to help the company stay successful even when they are considering expanding into a new market. During this research period, The Grads have come up with the top...
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...(Market Plan). At CanGo they were able to see some initial success without the formal planning in place, but now that they are introducing an online gaming segment that will put the entire company at risk if they do not initially put a plan in place. My recommendation would be to create a formal budget for each of the marketing segments that CanGo is in. The team needs to know what resources are available to them. This way they can focus their efforts on the areas where they can get the most bang for their buck. They will be able to utilize their funds in the best way possible in order to generate more revenue or at least keep up with demand. Some projects will need to be forgone to insure the funds are available to support operations. 2. Not having a business strategy set in place- At CanGo success was an accident. They did not go into business with a strategy in place for success, but none the less they were able to create a business that flourished. Although they did not start with a good plan in place there is still time to put a strategy in place and create some structure in the organization. My recommendation would be to perform a SWOT analysis. This self-assessment will be able to show CanGo what procedures and routines are working well and which ones need some improvement. It will also identify some opportunities that CanGo can take advantage of to further increase market share. 3. Disorganization- Nick is still disorganized with the online gaming project. He has a deadline...
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...implementation involves identifying goal objectives/action steps that offer project guidance, and promotes task completion. CanGo has systematic issues that require changes to their current processes. Goals and objectives will need to align with the organization’s strategic plan, and include strategies that allow both managers and subordinates to have collective input. This includes input regarding how information is shared, how tasks are assigned, and what projects are selected. CanGo’s Senior Managers will need to assess each Project Manager’s skill-set, and assign projects based on demonstrated knowledge, ability, and experience. Another strategic goal that CanGo can use to assist with organization and goal prioritization: is the implementation of a Gantt chart. A Gantt chart is a series of horizontal lines that indicate the amount of work completed in specific time periods, in relation to the amount of time planned for those time periods. It has the ability to show actual progress which will give CanGo’s Project Managers the opportunity to provide project updates or to ask for support should the project become unproductive. To increase project success CanGo will need to adhere to standard project guidelines, (who, what, when, why, and where) in order to gain better control of outcomes. CanGo’s failure to effectively communicate the goals and objectives, has led to stagnant, incomplete, and unsuccessful projects. CanGo’s next steps regarding strategic planning is to identify and...
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...BUSN460 Senior Project Professor: Raouf Ghattas January 20, 2013 Issue 1: CanGo is in need of a formal business plan. A formal business plan includes a mission and vision statement to help define the business and where the company would like to go in the future. As the owner/operator of CanGo, Elizabeth never developed a formal business plan for the business from the beginning and therefore had no documented blueprint for the business to speak of. Perfect starting issue! Recommendation: A business plan is a written document that demonstrates persuasively that enough products or services can be sold at a profit for your firm to become a viable business. The three primary reasons for writing business plans are (1) to aid you in determining the feasibility of your business idea, (2) to attract capital for starting up, and (3) to provide direction for your business after it is in operation. CanGo needs a written that will help find omissions and flaws in their ideas by allowing other people to critically review and analyze the plan. A business plan tells you what your business objectives are; when, where, why, and how your business will accomplish its objectives; and who will be involved in running the business. This planning process will help define CanGo’s short term goals and help determine the actions that need to be taken to accomplish them and then gather and commit the necessary resources (Hatten, 2008). The mission statement needs to be in place so that CanGo is able...
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...-1 introductory video, CanGo seems to be doing very well in the market place. This was evidence by the telephone call that was made to Liz by the President of the Hudson Valley business association. When Liz was inverted to speak at the Hudson Valley business meeting to share her expertise with the rest of the business community, she could not define how the business was organized the system she and her management team have used to be so successful in the Hudson Valley. She could not clearly say where she came from as a business, where she is and where she will be going as a business. This seems clear to us that CanGo lacks a mission statement for the smooth operation of the business. If CanGo continue on this path, the company may and will experience major setbacks in areas of business growth and development, accountability and the ability to stay in the market places if other market forces come against her. Recommendation: CanGo like any other business is in the market place to survive and be profitable. Therefore if CanGo must survive and be competitive it must develop a mission statement as a foundation for survival. This statement will define the goals and operations of the business and the purpose for which it was established. 2. CanGo Ethical and Moral Values Due to the absence of an established mission statement the importance of ethical code of conducts cannot be overemphasized. The moral and ethical values of any establishment like CanGo, is based on professionalism...
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...REMINDER: 1. Submit timesheet to team leader by Saturday mid afternoon...if yet anyone is assigned (PLEASE) e-mail them to me, or better yet put it in these threads!! 2. Submit a second copy of your own time sheet to your dropbox 3. Submit the final contract (which I feel we can get done by today evening) to your own dropbox!!! 4. Review the summary/status report that is created by the leader for the week. I suggest that it be completed by early Sunday at the latest and then also make a copy of it to these threads for everyone else to see. Team A Team B Team C Team D . Hi Team, Here is the conference call number and pin # schedule for: Time: 9:00pm EST or 6:00pm PST Date: Thursday, September 6th Dial in Conf. #: 1-866-206-0240 Participant pin#: 969444 Remember to also log into Team A Chat simultaneously. Priority order Strategic management to do mission which thry lack Human resource issues Customer service Online gaming asrs Meeting minutes: Mayhew and I had a 25 minute telecom in which we discussed the major points of the team contract. This is a tentative list of what we thought to be good ideas. Keep in mind that these are open to amendment if anyone has any good ideas. Q: How work will be divided? A: Equally based on content Q: How decisions will be made? A: By consensus, but with the leader making the final call. Q: How disputes will be resolved? A: In a diplomatic fashion...
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...information relevant to CanGo made available in weeks three and four, we have determined the following issues to be the most pressing and critical of those currently being faced by the CanGo team. 1. Team Building and Communication An issue which has plagued CanGo from the outset, and one which continues to cause negative repercussions throughout the entire organization, is the lack of a clearly defined organizational system and structure by which CanGo manages projects, as well as prepares for, and deals with corporate change and growth. CanGo's current approach to projects, as well as their strategy for managing change is very reactive, and seems to be developed on the fly, as the need for change, growth, and additional functionality or systems arises. Being in a reactive mode like this will severely limit CanGo's ability to control the efficiency, and the final outcome of these changes. A perfect example of CanGo's reactive approach to change is their recent realization that they are not currently researching and tracking customer behavior. The fact that they realized this oversight is a very positive thing, but their unpreparedness in being surprised by this, and not having a proactive customer tracking plan in already in place, is paralleled only by their cluelessness at how to implement one. Sapient Solutions recommends that CanGo establish an overlying project and change management strategy to be applied to all future company projects, and which will serve...
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