Functional Strategy - a game plan to reinforce the 3 levels of Strategy Hierarchy - Corporate, Business and Operations Strategy.

Functional Strategy
Functional strategy refers to the set of management decisions and actions (initiatives) taken in an organization's functional areas, such as marketing, HR, finance, Operations, etc., to enhance resources and organizational capabilities to better achieve the organization's strategic goals and objectives. These resources and capabilities reinforce the organization's strategic choices as defined by the organization's strategy hierarchy - corporate, business and operations strategy levels. Functional strategies are linked through agenda set by markets to corporate, business and operations objectives.

Functional strategy is the short-term game plan for key functional areas, within a company, required to reinforce the implementation and execution of organization's strategy. Development of functional strategies help in implementation of strategic choices - corporate, business and operations levels - by organizing and activating specific sub-units of the organization to pursue the organization's business strategy in daily activities.

Role of Functional Strategy
Functional strategies are concerned with the effectiveness and efficiency of methods/tactics used in implementing strategic choices; and commitments regarding resources. Functional strategy advocates for business organizations to see their management decisions as specific to functional area of the organization. And how they contribute to the organization's purpose and strategic objectives and guide management's decisions in managing each functions resources. Functional strategies help in implementation of strategic choices and grand strategy by organizing and activating specific sub-units of the organization to pursue the corporate, business and operations strategy in daily activities through tactics.

Tactics are the actionable decisions that pertain to everyday moves in functional areas in a company to improve for example, its market share, competitive pricing, customer service, sales, or other aspects in response to current real world conditions, that can give it a competitive advantage. Tactics are most meaningful in the service of long-term goals. They involve seizing opportunities and managing risks as they arise. A tactic is an immediate action/task designed to respond to fast changing realities.

Marketing
HR
Finance
Operations
Sales
Production

Marketing Management and Strategy
Marketing management decisions determines which market segments the company is capable of serving the best, and it designs and promotes the appropriate products and services. Marketing management is concerned with defining measures and quantifying the size of the identified market and the profit potential. Marketing management decision areas include organizing products - goods and services - for sale by deciding target market (type and size of customers), price, place - where it should be sold, and promotion - how it should be advertised. The goal of marketing is identifying unfulfilled needs and desires, and exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy those needs of a target market at a profit.

Marketing function comprises the activities, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offers that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large. Typical marketing function within an organization might include performing tasks such as: market research, producing a marketing plan, product development, as well as strategically overseeing advertising, promotion, distribution for sale, customer service and public relations, sales and communications.

Management also involves the development of policies that ensure effective implementation of marketing strategy. Marketing policies ensure for example, that every part of the organization is on board and promoting the organization in a consistent manner. Marketing function goals and objectives are created by managers in marketing to guide the work of employees in the marketing department. The process of setting goals gives a clear picture of what needs to be accomplished.

Marketing Strategy
Marketing strategy is concerned with the decisions about markets, their development and how to leverage the opportunities the markets offer. A marketing strategy describes how your business will accomplish a particular mission or goal. This includes which campaigns, content, channels, and marketing software the business ill use to execute on that mission and track its success. Marketing strategy provides the means to persuade, influence and motivate a targeted audience and generate visibility.

Types of Marketing Strategy
Marketing strategy can be categorized into types based on how they reinforce corporate, business or operations strategy. For example, brand strategy contributes to and reinforces corporate strategy. Pricing strategy and marketing-mix strategy contributes to and reinforce business strategy. Marketing strategies such as: Advertising, Public Relations and Communications reinforce operations strategy. The types of marketing strategy include:

Brands and Image Creating Strategy
Brand marketing strategy contributes to and reinforces corporate level strategy. It links your identity, values, and personality with communications to your audience. Essentially, your brand is the bridge between your product (goods or services) and your customers.

Marketing Capabilities capture the complex combination of knowledge, processes, ways of working, tools and best practices that make a difference in Brand building. An organization must develop the marketing capability - ability to understand and fulfill customers' needs at the right time, right place and right cost - to build stronger Brands. Marketing Capabilities are about training a Marketing Team to make them stronger, so they can build stronger Brands. Marketing Capabilities may be divided into 3 types; Fundamental Marketing Capabilities - the basic Brand building skills , Transformation Marketing Capabilities, and Marketing Capabilities to Deliver the Must Win Battles.

Brand strategy defines;

What the company stands for,
A promise you make, and
The personality you convey.

And while it includes your logo, color palette, and slogan; those are only creative elements that convey your brand. Instead, your realized/actual brand lives in everyday day-to-day interactions you have with your market, such as:

The images you convey,
The messages you deliver through e.g., your website, etc.,
The way your employees interact with customers.

Brand strategy brings your competitive positioning to life, and works to position you as a certain "something" in the mind of your prospects and customers. Brand strategy, when successful, can help you capture market share.

Market Positioning Strategy
These are marketing strategies that contribute to and reinforce the business and competitive strategy. They are concerned with decisions and choices from elements of the marketing-mix. An effective market positioning strategy combines elements of the marketing mix; and It is designed to meet the organization's marketing objectives by providing its customers with value. Marketing mix considerations focus on business opportunities and concerns such as: customer retention, diversification of the customer base, market share growth, market value growth, becoming the market leader, increasing purchase frequency, etc.

The marketing mix decision are used to achieve the General Marketing Strategies by guiding the decisions within important marketing areas (product, pricing, distribution, promotion, target marketing).

Product Strategy - Product strategy is concerned with decisions about the types of products or services, number products or services, diversity, and rate of change. The options selected by an organization is dependent on whether the organization is attempting to reach new or existing customers, and whether the products - goods or services - are new or already exist. For example, a strategy to develop new product line.
Pricing Strategy - A pricing strategy is how the seller uses pricing to achieve a certain business objective. More specifically, it deals with the psychological reaction that a consumer has towards certain kinds of prices. Every business is different - different products, different customers, different market shares - so it makes sense that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all pricing strategy. Pricing strategies are set at a higher organization or brand level, and is aimed at the life-cycle of the product. Pricing strategy is a model or method used to establish the best price for a product - goods or service. It helps you chose prices to maximize profits, and shareholder value while considering customer and market demand. For example,a strategy to create price programs that are competitive with competitors pricing.
Target Market Strategy - i.e., a strategy to employ segmentation techniques.
Promotion Strategy - i.e., a strategy to create a plan that can quickly build awareness of the product.
Distribution Strategy - i.e., for example, use methods to gain access to important distribution partners that service the target market.

Achieving the Decision Area Strategies is accomplished through the development of detailed Tactical Programs for each area.

Relationship Marketing Strategy
This type of marketing is basically focused on customer building. Enhancing existing relationships with customers and improving customer loyalty. The goal of relationship marketing (or customer relationship marketing) is to create strong, even emotional, customer connections to a brand that can lead to ongoing business, free word-of-mouth promotion and information from customers that can generate leads. Relationship marketing is a facet of customer relationship management (CRM) that focuses on customer loyalty and long-term customer engagement rather than shorter-term goals like customer acquisition and individual sales. Webster (1992) notes that long-standing customer relationships should be at the core of marketing strategy, because customer interactions and engagement can be developed into valuable relational resources. Organizations capitalizing on long-term and trustworthy customer relationships can help design value-enhancing marketing strategies that will subsequently generate competitive advantages and lead to superior performance.

Communications Channel Strategy
Communication is important because it verses people on the different things that the business has to offer. A marketing communications channel, also sometimes referred to as a media channel, is a delivery vehicle to your customers for your message or offer. Marketing Communication Channel strategies are the types of communication you do to get your message in front of your target market using the most appropriate channel. These media channels may be digital, traditional media channels, public relations, or word of mouth.

Traditional Media - This refers to media channels such as; example, direct mail, telephone, television, radio, and print media, Bill boards, etc. These will be the offline focus. Used for introducing your audience to new products and services.
Digital Media - Digital media channels refers to platforms such as; Internet, Search Engine platforms such as Google, Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. connecting with carefully targeted individuals to cultivate a lasting relationships.
Word of Mouth Marketing - It totally relies on what impression you leave on people. It is traditionally the most important type of marketing strategy. Being heard is important in business world. When you give quality services to customers, it is likely that they’d promote you.
Public Relations - Press releases, exhibitions, sponsorship deals and conferences. Used for getting news worthy attention.
Events
Partnerships and joint ventures

It is just one element of a successful marketing campaign, albeit an important one. Combined with your messaging and the right creative for the channel, it can resonate with your ideal customers and encourage them to do business with you.

Advertising Strategy
Advertising is any paid form of communication from an identified sponsor or source that draws attention to ideas, goods, services or the sponsor itself- essentially commercials and ads (whether digital or print). Advertising in business is a type of communication that persuades and encourages people to take a particular action. Communication is important because it verses people on the different things that the business has to offer. Advertisements also shows the advantages, features and values of a certain product.

Public Relations Strategy
Public relations is the strategic management of relationships between an organization and its diverse publics, through the use of communication, to achieve mutual understanding, realize organizational goals, and serve the public interest. Public relations is more than managing the flow of information between an organization and its public. It is a communications discipline that engages and informs key audiences, builds important relationships and brings vital information back into an organization for analysis and action.

Direct Marketing Strategy
Direct Marketing strategy refers to an approach based on Directly connecting with carefully targeted individuals to cultivate a lasting relationships. Used for direct outreach to prospects in a database or sales list.

Outbound Marketing
Outbound Marketing is any kind of marketing where the company initiates the conversation and sends its message out to an audience. This includes traditional approaches such as direct mail, cold calling, radio ads, TV ads, trade shows, and telemarketing.

Digital Marketing Strategy
Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. For digital marketing, these are example strategies you could invest in:

Inbound marketing - Inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them. While outbound marketing interrupts your audience with content they don't always want, inbound marketing forms connections they are looking for and solves problems they already have.
Content marketing - The idea is to create and distribute relevant and valuable content that customers want. This involves promoting your website and business with various forms of quality content through blogs, search engine optimization, social media, infographics, newsletter, podcasts, white papers, eBooks, etc. The useful content pulls visitors towards your website, brings them closer to your brand, engages them and converts them into customers as well as loyal followers.
Email marketing - Collecting an email list and providing customers with various promotions, discounts, and exclusive offers is a great way to market within a select group of people who are already more likely to buy the product as opposed to people who aren't subscribed to a company's email list.
Search engine optimization - Search engine optimization is one of the easiest fields to break into, but one of the hardest to succeed in. However, taking advantage of true search engine optimization skills and incorporating SEO into content on a blog or website is the best way to stimulate traffic and unique visitors.
Local search - Local search marketing is all about putting your business on the map in local searches when customers are searching for a business like yours. For a more formal definition, local search marketing is a form of search engine optimization that helps local businesses show up in relevant local searches.
Social media - Social Media Marketing Strategy is a form of digital marketing strategy.
Paid advertising - This includes digital approaches like TVs, internet, and Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
Targeted Marketing Strategy - The selection of potential customers to whom a company wants to sell its products or services. The strategy involves segmenting the market, choosing which segments of the market are appropriate and determining the products/services that would be offered in each segment.

Combining a selection of these strategies across multiple online and offline channels, referred to as multi-channel marketing, can help all businesses build brand awareness and reach more of your ideal clients.

Marketing Tactics - Marketing Mix
Marketing mix refers to the various elements of a company's offering in the market that help position the business strategically . And it's an essential tactical tool in building and implementing an effective marketing strategy. The marketing-mix are variables that managers and owners control to satisfy customers in their target market, add value to the business while helping to differentiate their business from competitors. The marketing-mix is designed to meet the organization's marketing objectives by providing its customers with value.

The marketing-mix, when marketing goods, is intended to bridge the gap between production (producer) and consumption (consumer) of goods through values assigned to the marketing-mix variables product, price, place, and promotion.

Product/Market Selection Decisions - These are the goods and services offered to customers in selected markets to meet their interests or demand. Attributes under consideration include: variety, quality, design, features, brand name, packaging, and services.
Pricing Decisions - The cost people pay for a "product"; provides the means to capture value. Attributes under consideration include list price, discounts, allowance, payment period, and credit terms. Pricing strategy is concerned with decisions on influencing increase in volume or communicating brand value, Pricing is a complex issue because it is related to cost-volume-profit trade-offs, and because it is frequently used as a competitive weapon.
Place (Distribution) Decisions - Home where the "product" resides; this includes Channels of Distribution (or Location Outlets); these define the places where, when and by whom the products and services are delivered to customers. Attributes under consideration include: channels, coverage, assortments, locations, inventory, distribution, transportation, and logistics. The Place/distribution component strategy identifies, "where", "when", and by "whom" the products - goods or services - are to be offered for sale. Place strategy guides decisions regarding channels to ensure consistency with the total marketing effort.
Promotion (Communication) Decisions - This refers to the methods which are used to put products - goods or services - in the public eye. Functional strategies for promotions should provide marketing managers with basic guides for the use and mix of advertisement, personal selling, sales promotion, and media selection. "Product" exposure and public relations effort - this includes all the activities which are undertaken to communicate the product features and customer value to the customer and increase the sale- such as promotion functions like advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, word of mouth, publicity, etc. Attributes of concern include: advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations.

In the service marketing context there isn't a gap between producer and consumer (as in the goods-based case), since the service provisioning (production) occurs right between producer and consumer. Service marketing is concerned with marketing intangible products - services, and is based on value and relationship. It involves marketing of various economic activities offered by business organizations.

The marketing-mix used in service marketing is expanded and is a combination of the goods-based factors in addition to the following Physical evidence, People, Processes, Performance and Productivity.

Physical Evidence - The physical evidence element of the marketing mix refers to the physical environment experienced by the customer. This could include: the physical design and layout of the premises. the layout of the company website.
People - This refers to the service personnel whose presence and actions define the service that satisfies the wants and needs of the customer/consumer to whom the service is directed. People decisions are usually centered around customer service - how do you want your employees to be perceived by the customers? The People element of service marketing-mix includes anyone directly or indirectly involved in the business-side of the enterprise. These include employees who are involved in selling the product - service, designing it, managing teams, representing customers, etc. Employing and retaining the right people is imperative in both the long and short term success of the organization.
Process - The Process element describes a series of actions that are taken in delivering the service product to the customer. The process may comprise a number of parts such as: sales funnel, payment systems, distribution procedures, and managing customer relationships. Assessing, adjusting and optimizing the different parts of your process helps you streamline your business efforts while also ensuring your methods are up-to-date and in line with current trends.
Performance and Productivity - This factor accounts for your ability to deliver to your customers what you've promised. Are your customers satisfied? Are you offering them value? Performance also involves things like quality, how you compete in the market place, and whether or not your goals are being achieved.

The center of the marketing of service is how the service production and service expectation match to each other, so that consumers perceive good service quality and are persuaded to continue coming to get the same service.

Marketing Plan
A marketing plan is a document that outlines a business's marketing strategies for a certain campaign. It typicallyfollows a specific period, such as throughout a quarter or fiscal year. The plan includes information about the company's resources, goals, and step by step instructions to implement the campaign successfully. It is the framework from which all your marketing strategies are created. The plan helps you connect each strategy back to the larger marketing operation and business goal. A marketing plan sums up the ideas for what a company wants to accomplish.

Marketing plans detail specific strategies to reach the company's goals, and contain the time tables for when certain marketing strategies will take place and details the logistics of marketing campaigns. The logistical details of executing your strategy include elements such as budgets, more detail time scales for objectives and goals, who in the organization will manage the various points in the strategy, the logistics of various distribution channels and their incumbent costs. etc. The marketing plan is a more lively document than your strategy, and will need to be updated more frequently and adjusted to accommodate changes in costings, market conditions, economic conditions and other factors.

The purpose of the marketing plan is to describe who your clients are and where they are, and how you can reach them. Elements of a marketing plan may include:

Executive Summary
This is a clearly stated overview that describes your entire marketing plan. It gives a brief description of the more detailed sections within the marketing plan.

Goals
The marketing goals and objectives in the plan list the intended outcomes after the implementation if everything goes according to the plan. Marketing goals are statements of what results you want to achieve with your marketing. What's the primary reason you are marketing? Marketing goals should fit into and support your overall business goals. Some examples of marketing goals are:

To Increase customer value - Customer Value may include Life time value, Referral Value, Influence Value, and Knowledge Value.
To Empower colleagues to become brand ambassadors
Bring in more customers - "To increase sales by 50% within 12 months"
Target new customers - Bring in 20 new customers per month
Enter new markets internationally, or locally -
Open a new distribution channel in a new market geographically -
Improve shareholder relations
Enhance customer relationships - i.e., customer loyalty
Improve internal communications - "To increase the number of enquiries from our marketing communications activities by 20% by the end of the month"

A marketing goal can be a number, such as a certain year-end revenue figure; it might be a number such as four new clients per month. Marketing goals can also be quantitative translations that fit with your company's financial objectives, stated in marketing terms.

The marketing goals are the building blocks of your marketing plan, the starting point of the plan. For any given company's situation not all these goals will be relevant, a subset of these goals will be part of the marketing plan. The right number of goals is the one that offers reasonably high probability of success over a given period of time. "Reasonably", "period of time", and "success" all have to be defined by the company, and should be consistent with the overall business goals and management commitment.

Marketing Strategies
Marketing strategies are the tools and processes you use to achieve your marketing goals. They are the foundation of your marketing plan because they are the actionable steps that release your products - goods or services - or message into the world. Examples of marketing strategies include:

Content marketing
Social Media marketing
Searach engine optimization (SEO)
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
Re-targeting
Public relations
Referral programs
Email marketing
Direct selling/marketing
Storytelling

Marketing strategy, according to Varadarajan (2010), consists of an integrated set of decisions that helps the organization make critical choices regarding marketing activities in selected markets and segments, with the aim to create, communicate, and deliver value to customers in exchange for accomplishing its specific financial, market, and other objectives.

Marketing Objectives and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Marketing objectives are targets/goals set by a business, through its marketing management, to promote its goods and services to its customers within a specific time frame. The types of marketing objectives may include:

Profitability Objective - This regulates the amount of expected income based on the promotional strategy. It is the business's ability to earn a profit as an objective in doing business. Profitability measures/indicators include: Net Profit Margin, Asset Turnover, Return on Assets, and Financial Leverage. Examples of profitability objective could be:

Increasing annual sales by 15% or gaining five new accounts each month.
Return on assets shows the percentage of profits a company makes relative to its resources.

Market Share Objective - A market share objective determines the percentage of market share an organization aims to capture. Market share measures may include: Increase market share; or Tracking rate of new customer acquisition; this is an effective way to gauge a marketing plans contribution to growing market share. Examples include:

Achieve a market share of 25 percent for a given product, i.e., product 'A'.
Increase the percentage of customers who rate services as excellent from 75% to 80%.

Promotional Objective - A promotional objective aims at promoting a company's goods and services. It is the desired level of awareness of the product. The promotional objective is a part of the overarching strategy. Creating a brand identity with imagery and punchlines id the first stage of a marketing campaign, followed by expanded messaging either through email or news letters. Promotional goals include:

Increase Business - This can be done through a variety of promotional actions, such as running targeted advertisement campaigns, holding special events, launching a social media blitz, etc. The objective is to reach potential new customers and give them an incentive to encourage business.
Increase Sales - Once an organization has its set of clients, the next promotional activity is to increase their spending. The objective is to get customers to buy additional products or more expensive products than the ones that initially brought them to the business.
Encourage Repeat Business - This objective aims at converting one-time customers into regular customers by providing special offers, notice of sales, special perks, and two for one offers designed to keep them coming back.
Brand Awareness - Brand awareness is a significant marketing goal. It can be accomplished, in part, by being consistent in all marketing messages and using promotional products. An example objective measure of building brand awareness may include: Achieve 75% customer awareness of our brand in our target markets.
New Product Introduction - The objective of promoting a new product launch is to expand a company's reach into new markets, while still retaining its existing customer base.

Growth Objectives - Growth is an essential objective that contributes to increased revenue. A growth objective involves analyses of current size of the business and determining or planning the growth strategies to achieve the desired growth. Growth strategies help companies to increase their market share,realize sales efficiencies, and increase brand awareness.

Marketing objectives are the performance goals of the marketing strategy set in order to achieve the overall organizational business goals. The KPIs are the actual metrics you track to see if you are meting your objectives and if your marketing plan is working. The objectives help a business analyze what the business wants to achieve from its marketing strategy.

Target Market
The marketing plan also defines the target market for a product - good or service. The target market refers to the group of people at whom you are aiming the plan. You make all your decisions for the campaign with them in mind, and try to predict how they complete certain actions or react to the situations you introduce.

Marketing teams use consumer data from previous campaigns to help pick the right demographics and audience for a specific campaign plan. They may also create buyer or consumer personas to get more information about the people within their yarget audiences.

Market Research
This is an overview of the market itself and includes:

Market Dynamics
Similar products
Competitors
Current Sales
Industry Benchmarks
Suppliers

Market research helps the organization and marketing team better understand where the product - good/service - and marketing campaign fit into the larger landscape of the industry and how that affects your marketing efforts.

Product - Goods or Service
Explain what product - good or service - your plan is promoting. This can include talking about how kt fits into the current market, why there is a need for it, and why now is the time for promotion.

Mission Statement
The mission statement for the marketing plan helps guide the marketing department to reach the goals of the campaign. The statement should address:

Key market: The audience to whom you are selling.
Contribution: The product - good/service - you are selling.
Distinction: The unique selling proposition.

The mission statement should explain why you have settled on this marketing plan.

Pricing, Branding and Positioning
This section determines how you are going to get your product - good/service - out into the world and how people are going to perceive it. Pricing should be based on market research data. Branding describes how you want people to view your product - good/serve -and company within the market. Positioning is explaining where within the market your product fits and why.

Budget
Include a budget in the marketing plan. This keeps the plan in perspective and gives additional information on how and why the team chose certain strategies. Section out areas for items such as paid advertising, labor, and in-house vs outsource services.

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Initiatives are the high-level efforts you will implement to achieve the marketing goals. They should be set in a way that reflects the structure of your marketing team. For example, they might be organized by function (such as product marketing, content, and digital) or by market segment (such as consumer, small/medium business, and enterprise)

Plan Execution
Marketing Execution - Advertising Management, Ad Campaign Management (Advertising Insertion Order Management, Advertising Pricing and Media Buying, AD Schedule Management, Ad Distribution and Ad Tracking).

Human Resource Function Strategy
Human Resource Management (HRM) is defined in terms of the set of functions, and activities designed and performed in order to maximize both employee as well as organizational effectiveness. It is a management function that helps organization in recruiting, selecting, training, developing and managing its members.

HR Functions and Capabilities
HRM is the function within an organization that focuses on developing the capability for planning, recruitment, management, and providing direction for the people who work in the organization. The scope of HRM include workforce planning, recruiting and hiring, performance management, and learning and development.

Human Resource function area business capabilities include:

HR Strategy and planning,
Workforce management,
Talent management,
Learning and Development,
Compensation and Benefits management,
People Relationship Management,
Recruitment and Hiring
HR Analytics and Reports

A business capability is what a company needs to be able to do to execute its business strategy. Another way to think about capabilities is as a collection of people, process, and technology gathered for a specific purpose.

HR Goals and Objectives
The primary objective of resource management is to ensure seamless experience for the staff and other people associated to management and organizational goals. HRM objectives are basically influenced by organizational goals and vertical Objective of HRM is to ensure a stable work environment with data at one place and efficient operations.

Types of HRM Objectives
HRM objectives are basically influenced by organizational goals, and include ensuring availability of resources, easy access to data, on-time payroll, ensuring compliance, etc. Some of the main objectives of HR are:

Achieve Organizational goals - To help the organization reach its goals. Fulfil organizational goals by utilizing human resources to achieve business goals. Organizational objectives include: workforce handling, staff requirements like hiring and onboarding, payroll management and retirement.
Work Culture - Foster better work culture through automation of activities like leave approvals, reimbursement request acknowledgement to help create positive vibes in the work place. Developing good team culture through developing and maintaining healthy and transparent relations among team members and teams.
Team integration - Ensuring teams coordinate efficiently through better communication.
Training and development - To provide the organization with well-trained and well-motivated employees. Ensure effective utilization and maximum development of human resource. Enhance employee’s capabilities to perform the present job.
Employee Motivation - To increase to the fullest the employee’s job satisfaction and self- actualization. Attend to employee needs to keep them motivated ; keep them on the right path and keep distractions and negative vibes away.
Workforce Empowerment - Empowering the workforce improves employee morale, motivation and ensures workforce engagement.
Retention - To achieve and maintain high moral among employees.
Data and Compliance - Managing company and employee data, and managing compliance. Managing payroll compliance and keeping the company out of any penalties or fines.

Objectives of HRM include ensuring availability of resources, easy access to data, on-time payroll, ensuring compliances, etc.

HR Strategy
HR strategies are internally consistent bundles of human resource practices. HR strategies set out what the organization intends to do about the different aspects of its human resource management policies and practices. The purpose of HR strategies is to guide HRM development and implementation of programs. They provide a means of communicating to all concerned, the intentions of the organization about how its human resources will be managed. They provide the basis for strategic plans and enable the organization to measure progress and evaluate outcomes against objectives.

HR strategies provides a vision for the future, but are also vehicles that define the actions required and how the vision should be realized. Because all organizations are different, all HR strategies are are different. HR strategies however, can be categorized into two (2) types; overarching strategies and specific strategies.

Overarching Strategies
These describe the general intentions of the organization about:

How people should be managed and developed,
What steps should be taken to ensure that HRM processes of the organization can attract and retain the people it needs, and ensure as far as possible that,
Employees are committed, motivated and engaged.

These strategies are likely to be expressed in broad statements of aims and purpose that set the scene for more specific strategies.

Specific Strategies
These relate to the different aspects of human resource management. They set our what the organization intends to do in decision areas such as:

Talent Management - How the organization intends to win the war for talent,
Continuous Improvement - Providing for focused and continuous incremental innovation sustained over a period of time,
Knowledge Management - Creating, acquiring, capturing, sharing and using knowledge to enhance learning and performance,
Resourcing - Attracting and retaining high quality people,
Learning and Development - Providing an environment in which employees are encouraged to learn and develop,
Reward - Defining what the organization wants to do in the longer term to develop and implement reward policies, practices and processes that will further the achievement of its business goals and meet the needs of its stakeholders,
Employee Relations - Defining the intentions of the organization about what needs to be done and what needs to be changed in the ways in which the organization manages its relationships with employees and their trade unions.

They are concerned with the overall organizational effectiveness. - achieving human resource advantage by employing 'better people in the organization with better processes', developing high performance systems and generally, creating a great place to work.

Finance Function Strategy
The Finance Function is a part of financial management. In a business, the finance function involves the accounting and utilization of funds necessary for efficient operations. The financial function is concerned with two sets of activities;

Strategic management - Acquiring funds to meet the organization's current and future financial needs, and
Operations management - recording, monitoring, and controlling the financial results of the organization's operations.

The accounting aspects of finance function brings business to life, and passes through every part of the firm's operations. It is the operational activities of business that is responsible for obtaining and effectively utilizing the funds necessary for efficient operations.

Finance function can be classified into the following categories:

Long-Term Finance - Acquiring funds to meet the organization's current and future financial needs, Sources may include owner capital, share capital, etc.
Medium-Term Finance - Acquiring funds to meet the organization's current and medium term needs. Sources may be bank loans and institutions.
Short Term Finance - Finance needed with a year; sources may be bank overdrafts, commercial paper, trade credit, etc.

The finance function is important in helping establish the business and run the business.

The objectives of the finance function are:

Investment Decisions - Decisions on where to put the company's funds. These decisions relate to the management of working capital, capital budgeting decisions, management of mergers, buying or leasing assets, etc. Investment decisions should create revenue, profits, and save costs.
Financing Decisions - Where to raise funds from.
Dividends Decisions - Decisions on how much, how frequently, and in what form to return cash to owners.
Liquidity Decisions - Liquidity means that a firm has enough money to pay its bills when they are due and have sufficient cash reserves to meet unforeseen emergencies. This decision involves the management of the current assets so you don’t become insolvent or fail to make payments.

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Financial Management
S.C. Kushal defines financial management as: “Financial Management deals with procurement of funds and their effective utilization in the business”. Financial management is an area in financial decision-making, harmonizing individual motives, and enterprise goals. Financial Management is the activity concerned with the control and planning of financial resources. Financial management entails the process of planning, organizing, monitoring, and also controlling the financial resources of an organization. It controls every single thing regarding the company’s financial activities which includes the procurement of funds, use of funds, payments, accounting, risk assessment, and other things that are related to finances.

Financial Management functions include:

Financial Planning and Forecasting
Determination of capital composition - Decide the capital structure after planning and forecast has been made.
Fund investment - Ensure funds made available to the business are used adequately to grow the business.
Maintain proper liquidity - Cash is the best source for maintaining liquidity.
Disposal of surplus - Increase the ROCE.
Financial Controls - This is the analysis of a company's actual results, compared to its short, medium, and long-term objectives and business plans.

Successful financial management contributes to and supports the reason for establishing a company, i.e., make a profit and thrive (run for many years).

Financial Management Goals and Objectives
The main focus of financial management must be set up to follow the best practices, use the required financial management tools, and also deploy the right strategies to minimize cost, and ensure production or business activities function smoothly.

Financial Management Goals
The goals of the financial function includes:

Strategic Budgeting - The goal is to create and monitor the overall company budget, and the variety of functional departments' budgets. Budgeting requires research to estimate revenue levels based on demand forecasting. Using annual budget projections, the accounting staff can help you set targets for profit goals and for overhead and production spending levels. Overhead includes costs such as phones, rent, and marketing; while production costs are those related to making your product. Create monthly or quarterly budget variance analyses to see if you are on track with your revenues and spending or if you need to make changes before expenses get out of hand.
Cost Containment - To ensure you get the best quality at the lowest price for materials, supplies, and services, make purchasing management one of the duties of the finance department. Require that employees get multiple bids or present some justification for large purchases; and have vendors, suppliers and contractors rebid their contracts every year. Look for trends in spending lvels to determine where you can cut costs without sacrificing quality.
Cash Flow Management - Cash flow management is about knowing when your bills are due and when you can expect payment from your customers, or other sales revenues; and its critical to your financial health. Its not enough to show a profit on paper, the financial function to should help you manage your working capital and credit to ensure you have enough to pay your bills at all times. Make receivables management a key role of the financial department.
Debt Service - Keep an eye on credit use, including interest amounts you are generating, the scheduling of your payments and the status of credit report and scores.
Tax Planning - Use proactive strategies to lower your tax burden, such as deprecisting assets, and offering voluntary benefits to employees that help you lower payroll taxes.
Accurate Record Keeping - The most important objective of any finance department is to keep accurate financial records. This includes you meet your legal requirements and ensuring you don't spend more than you have by accident. Consider audits to prevent fraud and institute policies and procedures for controlling contacts and payments.

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Financial Management Objectives
There are objectives or reasons firms implement these management strategies to grow their business.

Profit Maximization - Maximize profit while managing the finances of the company. Ensure the company is making sufficient profit to survive and grow.
Proper Mobilization of Finance - Collection of funds to run the business. Securing the required amount of funds needed/estimated for the business process.
The Company's Survival - Make adequate financial decisions to ensure the company is successful.
Proper Coordination - Proper understanding and cooperation among various departments.
Lowers cost of Capital - Reduce the cost of capital; ensure money borrowed attracts little interest rates so the company can maximize profits.

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Financial Strategy
Financial strategy is concerned with the choices and commitments regarding acquisition of financial resources, analyzing cost structure, estimating profit potential, allocation of financial capital, dividend policy, or accounting functions in managing investment/working capital/cash flow. Most businesses require substantial amount of capital to both develop and operate; and therefore, cost and availability of capital have an enormous impact on the business. When demand is high, large amounts of cash is generated, and when demands drops cash gets used up very quickly. Financial strategies concern objectives in key results areas such as: profitability, liquidity and cash management, leverage and capital management, asset management, investment ratios, and financial planning and control.

Businesses respond to and operate under a variety of financial strategy options. Strategy selection is influenced by the company's overall goals, objectives, and mission statement.

Finance and accounting operations implement strategies to reduce functional and operational complexity, streamline processes, optimize the use of technology, and efficiently use resources to deliver cost effective, high quality services.

Return on On Investment Capital
The following financial strategy options can b mixed to achieve various business objectives such as accelerate growth, minimize investment, and improve returns and the timeliness of those returns. For example, for business objective such as Return on Investment, the mix of financial strategy options include:

Manage Contracts
Rollover Asset
Additional Capacity
Franchises
Management contract with limited equity investment
Buy out of negative leases
Acquisitions
Joint Ventures
Management contract with major equity investment
Ownership (Construction)

Improve Return on Investment Capital (ROIC) involves the following financial strategy options:

Rollover Asset (sale)
Manage Contracts
Additional Capacity (assumes demand is high)
Buy out of negative leases
Buy in to joint ventures with management contracts.

Cash Generation
Understanding how to generate cash in relationship to your business' time horizon is essential to survival. The fastest way to generate cash is to rollover an asset. The longest time to generate cash is to develop a concept - opening an operating business model that is successful and worthy of franchise investment - and then providing for the marketing of the franchise.

Rollover of an Asset
Ownership
Acquisitions
Manage Contract
Franchise

Operations Management and Strategy
The term operations embraces all the activities required to create and deliver an organization's products (goods and services) to its customers or clients. Not every organization will have a functional department called 'operations'; but they will all undertake operations activities, because every organization produces goods and/or delivers services.

Operation function is the term used to describe how the core operation of the organization is designed and functions. Operation function is important because it is the basis for the business for creating and delivering value to customers. In manufacturing it is how the raw materials are transformed into a usable product. Business operations function constitute many processes, including material acquisition, product (good or service) development, forecasting, scheduling, etc. Every organization has an operations function, whether or not it is called operations, and its main activities/processes include: product management, supply chain, inventory, forecasting (production/sales), scheduling, quality management, and facilities planning and management.

Strategically, operations management is concerned with determining operations approaches and capabilities needed to achieve the desired competitive position of the company as a whole, and operational goals. The goal of operations management is to maximize efficiency while producing goods and services that effectively fulfill customer needs.Operations management, tactically, is responsible for managing the resources such as materials and machines, technology and people, and the process for making products - goods and services - that the market wants. The whole chain of events must be well managed for a company to be competitive.

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Material Handling - Material Handling is all about holding and treatment of material within and outside the organization. It is concerned with the movement, protection, storage and control of material and products throughout production, warehousing, distribution, consumption and disposal.
Materials Management - The part of management which deals with the procurement, use and control of the raw material, which is required during the process of production. Its aim is to acquire, transport and store the material in such a way to minimize the related cost. It tends to find out new sources of supply and develop a good relationship with the suppliers to ensure an ongoing supply of material.

Operations Strategy
Operations strategy is an aspect of operations management. Operations strategy is concerned more with the total transformation process that is the whole business, and less with individual processes,.and how the competitive environment is changing and what the operation has to do in order to meet current and future challenges. Operations strategy underlies overall business strategy, and both are critical for a company to compete in an ever changing market.
To compete effectively in an ever-changing market, operations managers must maximize efficiency, productivity, and profit, which have always been vital to a company’s survival. Each organization strategy requires a tailored operations system, its resources and processes configured such that its competencies best fit the customer value proposition specified by the competitive strategy. Achieving the strategies entailed by the decisions in these decision area is accomplished through developing detailed tactical programs for each area.

Operations strategy decisions
Operations strategy is the total pattern of decisions which shape the long-term capabilities of any type of operations and their contribution to the the organization's overall strategy. The various decisions that typically comprise an operations strategy can be categorized into structural and infrastructural decisions>

Structural Decisions - These decisions define the overall tangible shape and architecture (e.g., capacity, and technology type) of an operation.

Location and Facilities
Capacity to produce
Processes
Technology
Supply Network

Infrastructure Decisions - These decisions relate to the people, systems and culture that tie together the operations activities.

Planning and Control Systems
Quality Management
Work Organization
Human Resources
Product Development
Performance Management of Employees
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Components of Operations Strategy
Components or elements of operations strategy include:

Designing and Positioning the Production system,
Focusing Production/Manufacturing and Service Facilities
Design and Development of Product - Good/Service
Selection of Technology and Process Development
Resource Allocation
Planning of Capacity, Facility and Layout -
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Types of Operations Strategies
The role of operations strategy is to provide a plan for the operations function so that it can make the best use of its resources. Operations strategy specifies the policies and plans for using the organization's resources to support its long-term competitive strategy.

Operations Strategy is concerned with some very broad questions regarding structure, and infrastructure - how major resources should be configured in order to achieve the firm's corporate objectives. To develop operations strategy management should give due consideration to the requirements mandated by corporate and business strategy, market requirements, as well as competitive priorities and how you will handle them.

Some examples of General Operations Strategy types include:

Customer-Driven Strategies - These are market based strategies that enable the organization to meet the needs and desires of a target market. These strategies must allow a company to evaluate and adapt to changing environments, continuously enhancing core competencies, and developing new strengths on an ongoing basis.
Core Competencies - Core competencies are the strengths and resources within a company. Core competency based strategies are resource-based strategies, and may include having well-trained staff, optimal business locations, and marketing and financial strengths. By identifying its core competencies a company can develop processes such as customer satisfaction, product development, and building professional relationships with stakeholders.
Competitive Priorities - Competitive priorities are defined as the dimensions that a firm's production system must possess to support the demands of the markets in which the firm wishes to compete. There are five common groups of competitive priorities namely cost, quality, time, flexibility and innovation.
Product and Service Development - Strategies behind the development of products - goods and service - should consider design, innovation, and added value. When developing a product - good or service - a company should consider the wants and needs of its customers, how it stands against the competition, and how its technical measures relate to its customers' needs. Companies should consider packaging services with immediately observable and psychological benefits and support services.
Corporate Strategy - [TBD]

Operations strategy provides the ability to improve a firm's products - goods and services - and processes.

Operations strategy's role is to provide a plan for the operations function so that it makes the best use of its resources. Operations strategy focuses on maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of production of service or goods while minimizing operating costs through the Operations System design.

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Distinctive Competencies
The main objective of any business is to secure a position through which it can attract more customers as compared to its competitors. To achieve this, Operations managers are supposed to work in close conjunction with marketing to understand the market’s competitive situation in which an organization is operating and identify the unique competencies in order to determine the important competitive priorities (or distinctive competencies).

In making decisions related to the growth and survival of an organization, competitiveness plays a crucial role as it is related to the effectiveness of the organization in meeting customer requirements over its competitors, and hence, considered an important factor. For this, organizations depend upon their operational strengths and use them along with opportunities as their competitive weapons or Competitive priorities.

Some of the generally accepted distinctive competencies include:

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With the help of operations strategy, an organization can translate its competitive priorities and product plans into processes related to decision-making. Decisions related to operations help in determining different processes for producing variety and volume of products.

Organization Structure Design Decisions
The operations strategy management structure describes how the firm's different functions (marketing, finance, and operations) will support the service concept. For example, if the firm's order winning competitive priority is quality, what will operations do to ensure quality of the service and how will marketing promote this characteristic?

The service delivery system defines the components of the system necessary to execute the service concept. Examples of the needed variables are capacity requirements, quality management systems, and management policies. Each of these should support the firm's competitive priorities so that the firm is clearly distinct from its competitors.

Operations Plan - Operations Strategy Implementation
Tactical execution involves the day-to-day activities required to function and support the service strategy. Included are capacity management, facility location, inventory management, facility layout, supplier selection, operations scheduling, staffing, and productivity improvement.

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Manufacturing Strategies
Production strategy is a broad long-term action plan made for achieving the main objectives of an organization. Production strategies tell us what the production function/department must do to achieve the top aim of the organization. Production strategy deals with decisions/choices about how and where the products or services will be manufactured or delivered, technology to be used, management of resources, plus purchasing and relationships with suppliers.

Manufacturing operations is concerned with the design of manufacturing system that provides significant benefits in your ability to satisfy customer demand, in your ability to bring new products to market, and your ability to apply improvements and new technologies to your manufacturing processes. The focus in manufacturing operations on meeting competitive challenges are in the following areas:

Total Productive Maintenance - TPM targets zero downtime, zero defects and zero accidents through improved equipment reliability and employee involvement.
Lean Manufacturing - Lean addresses quality, cost and delivery issues by redesigning manufacturing systems to reduce lead times and increase flexibility.
Six Sigma - Six Sigma addresses quality issues through projects to reduce variation and improve process capability.
Manufacturing Leadership Development - focuses on the important role of the team leader or supervisor in managing and motivating the production teams to achieve their objectives.

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Service Operations Strategy

At the service strategy level, the service firm must define its service concept, operating system and service delivery system. The service strategy links the firm's strategic position with tactical execution. The firm begins by determining its competitive priorities, and its order winners and order qualifiers. Competitive priorities are the characteristics of the firm or things that it does better than other service firms (e.g., low cost, quality, service, or flexibility). The firm's competitive priority(s) must be both an order qualifier and an order winner. The order qualifier is a characteristic that the service must possess in order to compete in the market. If the firm lacks this then the consumer will not even consider purchasing the firm's service. The order winner is the characteristic that will cause the consumer to purchase the firm's service over its competitors. The service concept then is the set of competitive priorities that the target market values.
The operating strategy describes how the firm's different functions (marketing, finance, and operations) will support the service concept. If the firm's order winning competitive priority is quality, what will operations do to ensure quality of the service and how will marketing promote this characteristic?
The service delivery system defines the components of the system necessary to execute the service concept. Examples of the needed variables are capacity requirements, quality management systems, and management policies. Each of these should support the firm's competitive priorities so that the firm is clearly distinct from its competitors.

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Product Development - As an operations strategy, product development goes well beyond rolling out new products. Think about software companies that may have a new product coming out but that also provides free patches and low-cost upgrades for existing product improvement; this is part of the product development strategy. Initially, when a product is rolled out, it is compared to other products on the market. Being the best is a good strategy, but it also means that competitors will immediately work to exceed your product specifications. For example, a rental car company that eliminates long lines at the airport improves an existing system for both new and repeat clients. The better this service process is, the higher satisfaction ratings the company receives. This builds loyalty and referral business.
Improve Supply Chain - The supply chain refers to the process of creating a product via its delivery. One operations strategy might look to improve costs in the creation of the product. Another operations approach is to make the delivery of goods more efficient. An example of improving the creation can include reducing costs of materials with bulk purchases or automating parts of the production line. Making the delivery component of operations more efficient could involve anything from improving warehouse layout to reduce time and labor in fulfilling orders to obtain delivery contracts that reduce delivery contracts. For example, a home improvement warehouse might reorganize the warehouse layout, bringing more frequently bought items closer to the front and within proximity, based on size to the loading docks. This means that consumers or warehouse employees spend less time walking through a warehouse to get to the products, thereby expediting the process and saving on labor.

In a competitive environment, offering a variety of products to meet customer demand is not enough for a manufacturer to achieve a high level of financial performance. In addition, the products manufactured must be competitive on the basis of price, quality and product functionality. An organization must also maintain high performance levels in the management of the flow of materials through an organization from the point of origin to the point of consumption and from raw materials to in-process inventory to finished goods. Achieving these latter goals requires that a manufacturer define appropriate logistics performance objectives or goals pertaining to procurement, production and distribution processes.

Operations strategy is the tool that helps to define the methods and systems of producing goods and services offered to the customer. Operations strategy drives a company's operations, the part of the business that produces and distributes goods and services.

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Operations management decisions encompasses decisions in the management process functions areas such as planning (manpower planning, capacity planning, production planning), action implementation and execution - supervision of the production of goods and services.

Typically, operations decisions in any organization can be categorized, for example as follows:

Planning the Production Process - These decisions have long range implications. Before making these decisions about operations processes, managers must consider the goals set by business and marketing managers. For example, does the company intend to compete on low cost? Or does the company intend to compete on quality and differentiation? Market performance requirements such as cost, quality, delivery, flexibility, etc. With these factors in mind managers can make specific type of decisions in the production planning process area such as: production methods, site selection, facility layout, and components and materials management.
Capacity Planning - Now that you know where you’re going to locate, you have to decide on the quantity of products that you’ll produce. You begin by forecasting demand for your product. To estimate the number of units that you’re likely to sell over a given period, you have to understand the industry that you’re in and estimate your likely share of the market by reviewing industry data and conducting other forms of research. Once you’ve forecasted the demand for your product, you can calculate the capacity requirements of your production facility—the maximum number of goods that it can produce over a given time under normal working conditions. In turn, having calculated your capacity requirements, you’re ready to determine how much investment in plant and equipment you’ll have to make, as well as the number of labor hours required for the plant to produce at capacity.

[TBD]

Operations Strategy design is concerned with some very broad questions regarding structure, and infrastructure - how major resources should be configured in order to achieve the firm's corporate objectives.

Operations strategy decisions are concerned with the design and development of the operations system that will effectively aid in converting raw materials and human efforts efficiently into durable goods and services that consumers will be able to utilize.

Tactically, operations management is concerned with the daily tasks and tactics that transform materials or actions into a product or service. And operational decisions are determinations made in regard to the routine, ongoing activities of an organization.

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Operations Management Strategic Decision Areas
Operations management decisions areas include:

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Capacity Decisions - This is concerned with facility planning facility layout and location. Facility planning decisions include: How is the facility used in production? What is the relationship to other resources? How should it be arranged? These are decisions concerned with capacity management and may include: measures of capacity, capacity planning, the size and timing of capacity changes.
Operating Decisions - Decisions about relevant functional areas ....
Technology Decisions - []
Resource Planning - []
Production Plans - []
Process Decisions - These involve decisions concerning the type of process, technology, measuring and performance.
Quality Decisions - What quality system should we use? What impact does quality have on our organization? These decisions are concerned with: the aims, tools and programs for ensuring customer satisfaction.
Outsourcing - Should we outsource or manufacture inhouse?
Product Plans - What goods and services to offer and the design of them? These are product development decisions concerned with: types of products, innovation, breath of range, new product development, and flexibility.
Providing better products - goods and services - at affordable prices
Improving/optimizing organization's supply chain,
Reducing costs such as labor, taxes, tariffs, etc.,
Learning to improve operations,
Understanding markets - This can help your organization plot a course for the future; helps with diversification of product lines, add production flexibility to smooth out a business cycle.
Employing top talent - Create opportunities to attract top talent to the organization.
[]

Corporate - Overall company strategy, driving the company mission and interconnected departments/functions.
Customer-Driven - Operations strategies to meet the needs of a targeted customer segment.
Core Competencies - Strategies to develop the company's key strengths and resources.
Provide better goods and services
Improve the organization supply chain
Reduce costs , such as: labor, taxes, etc.
Learn to improve operations
Understand markets
Employ top-of-the-line talent

Low direct cost per unit
Low investment intensity
High capacity utilization
High product quality
High operations efficiency
Supply or Sourcing Decisions - Supply chain management is the process of transforming those goods into products and distributing them to customers as efficiently as possible. These decisions specify which activities are performed internally, and which activities are outsourced, and how to manage suppliers. Decisions involve defining the process boundaries and interfaces. It includes strategic sourcing decisions, vertical integration, and supply network configuration.
Technology Decisions - Technology decisions characterize how to process inputs into outputs. It includes the methods and systems employed, as well as the know-how and intellectual property. The technology decisions can be grouped into the following key categories: a) coordination and information technology decisions such as assignment of responsibility, incentives, measurement, and control; b) product technology decisions in product philosophy, product architecture, and product capabilities; c) process technology decisions on how to structure the conversion processes and methods used in execution; and d) transportation technology decisions on how goods are exchanged among different activities in the network.
Demand Forecast Decisions - These decisions specify how to match demand to available supply. These decisions characterize the interfaces and relationships with customers and include demand planning and forecasting, as well as tactical capacity allocation and order management. Demand management is an important driver in inflexible supply processes that cannot quickly adapt to changes in demand such as the core processes in airlines, hotels, hospital wards, and car rental companies, It also relates to service and customer relationship management.
Improvements and Innovation Decisions - These are decisions on characterizing the processes and incentives to improve and innovate products and processes.

Market penetration Strategy - This refers to capturing a larger piece of the target market. An insurance company might define market penetration success by the number of new automobile policies gained. Developing an operations strategy for market penetration has several potential focus areas. A business can decide to attract customers away from competitors. It can attract nonusers that have no experience with your business or with a competitor. Another strategy might employ one or more geographic locations, centered around a target demographic. Businesses can also try to add more value to existing clients, thereby enticing increased spending on product or service upgrades.
Product Development Strategy - As an operations strategy, product development goes well beyond rolling out new products. Think about software companies that may have a new product coming out but that also provides free patches and low-cost upgrades for existing product improvement; this is part of the product development strategy. Initially, when a product is rolled out, it is compared to other products on the market. Being the best is a good strategy, but it also means that competitors will immediately work to exceed your product specifications. For example, a rental car company that eliminates long lines at the airport improves an existing system for both new and repeat clients. The better this service process is, the higher satisfaction ratings the company receives. This builds loyalty and referral business.
Improve Supply Chain - The supply chain refers to the process of creating a product via its delivery. One operations strategy might look to improve costs in the creation of the product. Another operations approach is to make the delivery of goods more efficient. An example of improving the creation can include reducing costs of materials with bulk purchases or automating parts of the production line. Making the delivery component of operations more efficient could involve anything from improving warehouse layout to reduce time and labor in fulfilling orders to obtain delivery contracts that reduce delivery contracts. For example, a home improvement warehouse might reorganize the warehouse layout, bringing more frequently bought items closer to the front and within proximity, based on size to the loading docks. This means that consumers or warehouse employees spend less time walking through a warehouse to get to the products, thereby expediting the process and saving on labor.

Operations Planning and Plans
Operational planning involves defining and outlining the actions individuals will take to support the plans and objectives of the executive management team. The operational planning process describes milestones, conditions for success and explains how, or what portion of a strategic plan will be put into operation during a given operational period, in the case of commercial application, a fiscal year or another given budgetary term.

An operational plan is the basis for and justification of an annual operating budget request. Operational plans should establish the activities and budgets for each part of the organization for the next 1–3 years. They link the strategic plan with the activities the organization will deliver and the resources required to deliver them. An operational plan addresses four questions:[citation needed]

Where are we now?
Where do we want to be?
How do we get there?
How do we measure our progress?

The operations plan is both the first and the last step in preparing an operating budget request.
Operational plans should contain:[citation needed]

clear objectives of the initiatives that supports the strategic goals and objectives.
activities to be delivered
quality standards
desired outcomes
staffing and resource requirements
implementation timetables
a process for monitoring progress

Operations Goals and Objectives
Operational goals are the workflow methods that bring the strategy to fruition, and exist at all levels of the organization, from CEO down to part-time employees. Operational goals are the short-term tactics designed to achieve the company's long-term strategy. Operational goals lay out increments called benchmarks; they streamline the day-to-day activities of the business. They measure daily, weekly, and monthly benchmarks. For example, the monthly budget report shows if a company's financial goals are on track. Manufacturing examines production reports to ensure the number of units produced meets production goals with minimum waste.

Operations strategy specifies the policies and plans for using the organization's resources to support its long-term competitive strategy. The objectives of operations strategy-makers is to try new ways to achieve the operating goals and objectives that have been assigned to operations such as unit cost, product quality, etc.

The characteristics of a company that achieve a high return on investment (ROI) include:
These characteristics are key to strategy as well as implementation. They can be measured and evaluated, and should be, to determine if the decision was a good one and where to go next.

Scope of Operations Planning
Operations planning is the process of establishing, expanding, or improving the core day-to-day processes and practices of the business.

This requires planning and the development of operations pans.

The scope of operations planning may encompass:

Business Plans - The operations plan section of a business plan includes details on how you will make proposed products - goods and services - a reality. This tends to be broad and may include elements of human resources, information technology (IT), manufacturing, supply chain, distribution and customer service.
Go-To-Market Strategy - This is a marketing plan usually formulated in coordination with operations to launch a new product - good or service. For example, a hotel that launches a new pool side cafe requires an operations plan to detail how supplies will be procured, food prepared, and customer service provided.
Risk Management - Risk management related planning such as carried out by a transportation company that has a goal to reduce accidents and incidents with improvement in its operations processes and infrastructure (systems and people).
Budget - Budgeting planning for operations management may include Capex (capital investments) related budgets, or Opex budgets for the day-to-day costs of running the business.
Maintenance Plan - This is a schedule plan for maintaining capital assets used in creating value for customers.
Sales and Operations Planning - This is the planning process of aligning sales forecasts with production.
Production Planning - Production planning is the process of planning the output of an organization. The focus is on utilizing capital assets and labor efficiently in producing goods and services that can be sold at a profitable level.
Projects - Project planning for operations related projects.
Improvements - This is planned in terms of targets for management accounting metrics in areas such as costs, quality, business volumes, and turn around times.
Capability Planning - Capability planning in operations is the process of identifying what your business does and establishing a road map for improving and expanding these capabilities. Operational capabilities are firm-specific sets of skills, processes, and routines, developed within the operations management system, that are regularly used in solving its problems through configuring its operational resources.
Quality Management - Panning for quality management involves establishing targets for quality metrics, and developing actionable plans to achieve those metrics. For example, a hotel may have a target to improve customer satisfaction with improvements to housekeeping services through quality control inspection to ensure rooms are spotlessly cleaned.
Asset Management - Planning for asset management includes maintenance, evaluation of assets, and plans to retire aging assets.
Procurement - This involves planning for the identification, selection, and management of suppliers and contractors.
Supply Chain - Supply chain planning involves planning for the warehousing and transportation of material and parts for production, as well as the finished products..
Distribution - Distribution planning is a process of planning on how to reach the customer to deliver your products - goods and services.

Operational decisions are made to execute the short-term processes with the aim of achieving the long- and medium-term goals that the strategic and tactical level decisions have adopted.

Sales Function Strategy
The Sales function/department advises the marketing department based on its feedback with customers and focuses on customer contact to drive sales. Sales operations is about supporting and enabling front line sales teams to sell more efficiently and effectively by providing strategic direction and reducing friction in the sales process. To do this, sales operations fulfills both strategic and tactical functions. Sales operations teams accomplish their goals through a variety of roles and function including: strategy, data analysis, hiring and training, forecasting, territory design, and sales process optimization.

Sales Capabilities
Sales capabilities is a collection of behaviors and skills across the selling process that needs to be honed and mastered. Each of these capabilities falls into one of four categories: create, win, negotiate, and grow. These four segments represent the areas in which sales professionals need to be proficient throughout the sales cycle.

[TBD]

Sales Management Goals and Objectives
There are three general objectives of sales management viz-

Sales volume - Increase units sold by 10% or more.
Contribution to profits - Increase profit margins by 10% or more.
Continuing growth.
Revenue Generation - One of the main objectives of sales management is to generate revenue for the organization. The sales department is solely responsible to bring in the money.
Increase Sales Volume - Through efficient sales management, the organization wishes to increase the number of units sold. This will ensure that the production facilities do not remain idle and are utilized to the fullest.
Sustained Profits - Sales management has an objective of improving the profits of the organization through effective planning, coordination and control. Sales management strives to increase sales and reducing costs, this ensures good profits for the organization.
Organization Growth - With the sustained and continuous sales management techniques, the organization tends to gain market share and results in growth of the organization.
Market Leadership - With increased sales volumes and profits, ‘sales management’ enables an organization to become the market leader.
Converting Prospects to Customers - Getting prospects to become customers is an art and a science, it requires good planning and sustained efforts. This is accomplished through sales management.
Motivate the Sales Force - One of the core objectives of sales management is to motivate the sales force. Selling is a very stressful task, achieving sales targets can become very challenging. Therefore, the sales management task is to ensure that the sales force is continuously motivated through proper incentives and reward systems.
Compliment Marketing Activities - Sales management’s task is to support the marketing functions of the organization. Marketing and sales need to go hand in hand to achieve the desired results.

Objectives often get translated into more specific goals by breaking down and restating as definite goals. Planning precedes goal setting. In planning, sales executives provide estimates on market and sales potentials the capabilities of the sales force and middlemen.

Sales management is instrumental in charting the course of future operations. The activity provides top management with informed estimates and facts for making marketing decisions and for setting sales and profit goals. Sales management and the financial results of a company are related.

Sales Strategy
Sales strategy is a plan to achieve a sales goal and is what directs the selling activities of any business. Selling is crucial to the success of any business, but it must be orchestrated to deliver success, which is what the sales strategy does. The sales strategy describes how a business will win, retain, and develop customers. Sales strategy is different from marketing strategy - an overall approach to marketing products (it is how you build sustainable competitive advantage for the company's products) through positioning, and differentiation by managing the marketing mix of the 7Ps - .Product, Price, Promotion, Place, Packaging, Positioning, and People.

A sales strategy is particularly important in addressing business challenges such as:

Stagnant sales revenues - Flat/declining sales
Merger of Sales Forces - A need to align sales teams and have them pursue common objective.
Start-up of new Venture - A need to get sales started and realizing the ambition of the founders and investors.
New Product Introduction - A need to deliver the expectations set by management.
Launch by a new competitor - A need to counter the threat from new competitors.
Expansion to new markets - When a company is diversifying and expanding.

When creating a sales strategy be clear as to which challenge(s) you are addressing.

Key Building Blocks of a Sales Strategy
A winning sales strategy has a number of elements/building blocks including:

Goal and Objectives - An effective sales strategy requires you know the goal of your business, i.e., what your overall aim for the business is.
Target Market - You need to decide who will buy your products and services. The Target Market is defined in the Marketing Plan; each plan sets out to determine the effect of the plan on a target market.
Product and Services - Building the best products and services that meet the needs of their target markets.
"What are the competitive advantages?" - This requires identifying the "strengths" and "weaknesses" of competitors that you will need to sell against and exploit.
Route to market - How do you reach and sell to your customers?
Selling Process - [TBD]

Sales Objectives
[TBD]

Increasing your monthly and annual revenue
Reducing customer churn - Keeping your customers is synonymous with keeping the company afloat. Customer churn is the number of customers that leave your business within some specified period e.g., 3 months. This is an account management function that is taken on by the sales team.
Increase units sold/profit margins by 10% or more.
Boost customer lifetime value - This involves the cash value a customer contributes to the company over a specified period, e.g., one year.
Increase number of leads qualified - []
Increase win rates
Lower customer acquisition costs
Reduce cycle times
Track sales time per week
Set activity goals - Increase number of cold calls/scheduled video.

Production
Production is the process of making, harvesting or creating something or the amount of something that was made or harvested. An example of production is the creation of furniture. An example of production is harvesting corn to eat. An example of production is the amount of corn produced.

Production is about creating goods and services. Managers have to decide on the most efficient way of organizing production for their particular product. There are three main types of production to choose from:

Job Production - where items are made individually and each item is finished before the next one is started. Designer dresses are made using the job production method.
Batch Production - where groups of items are made together. Each batch is finished before starting the next block of goods. For example, a baker first produces a batch of 50 white loaves. Only after they are completed will they start baking 50 loaves of brown bread.
Flow Production - where identical, standardized items are produced on an assembly line. Most cars are mass-produced in large factories using conveyor belts and expensive machinery such as robot arms. Workers have specialized jobs, for instance, fitting wheels.

Scope of

Production Goals
Suitable production objectives for a manufacturer include: attaining a high level of operational performance through high delivery reliability and short throughput times, which may be achieved by such activities as capacity planning and production scheduling. In turn, the manufacture may set a logistics and process costs control objective in the form of high utilization, which may be achieved by maintaining short and reliable lead times as a result of supplier relationships, internal controls and process improvements. The manufacturer may also focus on cost control by maintaining low work-in-process levels.

Distribution Goals
Olhage maintains a manufacturer’s valid distribution goals include maintaining a high service level, which may be achieved through a just-in-time inventory system that enables the manufacturer to minimize inventory levels and carrying costs, and low delivery delay, which is achieved through vendor relationships and supply chain controls. In addition, the manufacturer may set logistics process costs and inventory costs objectives, including a low storage costs goal, which may be achieved in part by low inventory levels.

[TBD]

Competitive Advantage
A manufacturer can achieve competitive advantage, which is an advantage over other companies that operate in the same industry, by achieving operational performance objectives for its production and storage processes. Such objectives can be categorized as:

Functional Performance Objectives - functional performance can be gauged according to the total dollars spent for such items as warehousing of materials, transportation and order processing as well as the number of complete orders delivered to the customer and the average number of days between order receipt and product delivery.

Customer Accommodation Performance Objectives - customer accommodation performance criteria include the number of perfect orders and the level of customer satisfaction achieved by logistics processes.

Logistics Performance Objectives - [].

However, each performance goal in these categories, as well as the logistics performance objectives category, is defined for an individual business process. As Jan Olhage writes in “Advances in Production Systems,” a manufacturer can define specific objectives for the procurement, production and distribution logistics processes in particular.

[TBD]
The capacity of these systems is defined in terms of the output of products/parts per some specified interval. Production work centers are augmented with work-in-process (WIP) inventory stores that act as buffers to bottleneck resources and work centers that constrain the flow of products through the system.