Baldwin Drug Stores, Inc 1

Baldwin Drug Stores, Inc. is a
retail pharmacy and sundries chain. To succeed in its highly competitive
industry, Baldwin’s executives realize that they need to establish a strategy
that clearly guides day-to-day performance. Its biggest competitors are
discount drug outlets and superstores. They believe their key customer segments
are the elderly, disabled, and affluent family markets.

In the Session Notes and in Closing Comments,  use the first eleven
questions in Slide 19 to develop a strategy for Baldwin and questions 12
through 14 in Slide 19 for an implementation planning strategy. Please provide
comprehensive answers to the questions in order to support your strategy and
implementation. Make any assumptions you wish, just state them. The objective
of this exercise is to get practice in using the 14 questions for strategic
planning and implementation. Please place a summary of your response to this
exercise as a response to this discussion topic.

In case you can’t read the questions from
Slide 19, they are as follows:

1) What values are going to guide our
business?
2) How far down the road are we going to look?
3) What assumptions about the external environment (regulation, the economy,
resource availability, technology, competition, the market) underpin our
strategy?
4) What existing and new products/services will we be offering (and not
offering)?
5) What criteria will we use to evaluate a new product opportunity?
6) What existing and new customer groups will we be serving (and not serving)?
7) What criteria will we use to evaluate a new market opportunity?
8) What factors (price and/or the various dimensions of quality) are meaningful
to our customers?
9) Which of these factors will represent our competitive advantage(s)?
10) In which of our current product-market areas will we be placing the
greatest emphasis (resources and attention)?
11) In what new products or market areas will we be placing the greatest
emphasis?
12) What functional goals, structure, and management will ensure that the
Organization Level of Performance supports the strategy?
13) What customer and administrative system goals, structure, and management
will ensure that the Process Level of Performance supports the strategy?
14) What position/people goals, structure, and management will ensure that the
Job/Performer Level of Performance supports the strategy? 

For strategy implementation, the Three Levels
framework offers variables which must be addressed to ensure that the strategic
vision becomes an organizational reality. A management team that cascades its
strategy through the Organization, Process, and Job/Performer Levels,
dramatically increases the odds of that strategy being implemented
successfully. At each level, the strategy is implemented through Goals, Design,
and Management.

In
summary, the Three Levels framework makes two contributions to organization
strategy. To strategy formulation, it offers the systems framework, which
ensures that an organization’s direction is based on an analysis of all the
strategic variables. The systems components suggest eleven questions(Slide 19)
that an effective strategy should answer. To
strategy implementation, the Three Levels framework offers the key
Performance Variables which must be addressed to ensure that the strategic
vision becomes organizational reality(Questions 12 to 14 in Slide 19).