Question

Briefly describe the (corporate) strategic planning process. How does logistics fit into the corporate planning effort?

What are some of the factors that management must consider in selecting an international distribution strategy?

Answer 1

Strategic planning: This is regarded as an organization operation process,which is used to set priorities,focus on energy and resources,strengthen the firm operations,ensure that organizational stakeholders are working towards the goals and needs of the firm,establishes the agreement around the intended results as well assess the changing environment in which the firm operates as it achieves its goals.

The strategic planning process is thus composed of the following components:

The mission,vision and aspirations.This is where the mission outlines the why the firm exists,goals that the firm want to achieve and how to fulfill them.The vision statement outlines the steps that will be taken by the firm within a specified amount of time e.g five years and tends to be more specific.The aspects of the aspirations can be termed as desires that the firm intends to gain based on the designed goals.

Core values

This is another key component of the strategic planning,which focuses on the fundamentals must and must nots,the vital principles that need to guide the stakeholders (leaders and the employees) in undertaking their daily duties.

The strategic planning also focuses on the SWOT of the firm that is the strengths of the firm (what makes the firm more superior in terms of market performance),the prevailing weaknesses,opportunities that the firm is exposed to and the threats that may decline the operations of the firm.

The other component that is focused by the strategic planning process,is the objectives,strategies and operational tactics.These basically assists the firm to have priorities (short terms and long ranges) and the performance initiatives that the firm should leverage to achieve the best operations.

The aspect of measuring the funding streams is also taken into account,in that it focuses on aspects of tracking the firm's output and its performance against scheduled targets.

How logistics fits into corporate planning efforts

The aspects of logistics requires finances to be fully operational and this being the sense the strategic planning commits resources that enables the process,thus far reaching the market goals.

The strategic planning process focuses on the goals of the logistics process,such as setting its long terms and short terms goals to ensure that market needs based on on time//quick delivery are achieved.

The aspect of the strategic planning operations also focuses on the logistics operations as it focuses on the prevailing strengths that the logistic system have,what the firm can do to remove any threats linked with its logistics operations,which opportunities that the firm can maximize related with logistics and any weaknesses linked with logistic and how to handle it.

Explanation:

The key factors that management must consider in selecting an international distribution strategy include:The nature of the product (either perishable or non perishable),the nature of the market such as immediate market,the existence of the middlemen,the size of the company and its market size,the nature of the market competition (stiff or weak) and the nature of the market consumerism (quantities of orders) as well as the prevailing international standards and regulations pertaining to distribution.