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Strategic Evaluation
Latasha Henry
University of Phoenix, Master of Business
STR/581
Professor Pamela Linden
1/13/19
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Strategic Evaluation
The purpose of this assignment is to continue Visa’s strategy plan from part 1 & 2
(Environmental Scan and Internal Environmental Analysis). Part 3 of this plan involves
evaluating various strategies and making recommendations for the Visa organization. This
strategic evaluation for Visa will include: Evaluating potential business level strategies for the
organization. Assessing potential corporate level strategies for the organization. Assessing
potential global strategies for the organization. A strategy recommendation or combination of
strategies the organization should implement and include a rationale for that recommendation.
To give a recap from part one and two of the strategy plan from the Visa Corporation and
their environmental scan and internal environmental analysis. The Visa Corporation commits to
environmental sustainability beyond direct operations by empowering it as a lifestyle.
Environmental sustainability focuses on the rates of renewable resource that includes harvest,
pollution creation, and non-renewable resource depletion that can be continued indefinitely. If
the environmental sustainability cannot be continued indefinitely then they are considered
not sustainable. The main principles of the energy usage within visa is known to have high
standards for integrity, compliance, and corporate governance in all interactions. The most likely
places available for energy efficiency improvements is the global prioritization of the potential
impacts of climate change and waste reduction. The main aspect of environment hurt by Visa is
waste of paper and plastic, which is utilized when creating the cards for customers, in addition to
sending paper form documents and bank statements that are mailed to the homes of cardholders
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who has chosen not to go paperless. Plastic waste also of cardholders with initial cards and
constant replacements.
The Visa corporation has boosted the environment ecosystem by creating their
“electronic network” which is a way for cardholders, financial institutions, and merchants to
connect without means that may harm the environment for example, paper. Visa has replaced
energy efficient equipment by transitioning their system to a purchasing renewable electricity in
2018. Visa is not involved in any government energy conservation or protection schemes they
are transparent with their expectations even with the employees, government, vendors, and card
holders. In conclusion, Visa has a great energy and environmental management system, and they
are known as one of the top 100 eco- friendly organizations. I would recommend they go
extremely paperless regardless of the customers opinion. Banks in general waste so much paper,
which is insanely negligent to the ecosystem. As of 2019, the whole world is updated with the
internet and most people don’t do anything but shred the documents, which is another use of
wasteful materials. It would eliminate paper waste and help cardholder because their documents
would be accessible at any time. This method also prevents customers from becoming a
vulnerable target for identity theft.
Strategy evaluation is the process of collecting information regarding how well
the strategic plan is progressing. The term strategic evaluation is defined as the process of
determining the effectiveness of a given strategy in achieving the organizational objectives and
taking corrective action wherever required. Strategic evaluation is a valuable strategy
formulation since it throws light on both the efficiency and effectiveness of the comprehensive
plans in achieving the desired results. For this process to be successful there must be a way of
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finding out or tracking whether the strategy being implemented will guide the organization
towards its intended objectives.
Evaluating potential business level strategies for the organization is an important factor
for the Visa corporation. They have developed a digital payments strategy plan because
technology is driving their consumers towards making purchases by using several different types
of point of sale experiences. This includes debit and credit cards that need to work across all
these experiences that are growing in various locations. These needs can be meet by using
specific channel-agnostic payment credentials that are capable of working in a fast, safe, and
convenient way across any channels that the customer decides to choose. Assessing potential
corporate level strategies for the organization is a target for the Visa corporation. There has been
a dramatic shift to mobile payments that are being made. The payments are rapidly evolving due
to a rise in digital commerce, in addition to the increase in mobile phone usage. The smartphone
penetration has increased to roughly 74% in the United States and the numbers are continuing to
rise in the future. Assessing potential global strategies for the organization critical matter for the
Visa corporation. By developing mobile growth with mobile devices help to garnered twice the
purchases of desktop purchases involving retail traffic during the holiday season for 2015.
Mobile was able obtain a 60 percent increase in growth rate during the holiday season although
there was a slow down in sales at the actual store locations. Over time more alternate payment
methods continue to emerge at the top of the wallet, this notion has been replaced by other top
line payment methods. Apple Pay users only witnessed a 23% increase in the change of their
default cards. The organization place emphasizing on the importance of establishing their cards
to be used as a primary payment method.
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Conclusion
A strategy recommendation or combination of strategies the organization should
implement and include a rationale for that recommendation includes changing the behavior of
their consumers. I recommend that Visa consumers use multiple devices that provide intuitive
and seamless experiences as a user that apply to all applications. Visa should focus more on
their mobile first users and create centric design strategies that will drive their consumers to their
payment products for usage. Providing convenience for consumers when checking out speeds up
the drive for the need of payment channels. Having a digital payment strategy in place help to
implement an integrated approach to the various channels that an available to their consumers.
Because millennials are increasing the demand for alternative payment methods, I recommend
that the Visa corporation provide the specific payment methods being that they are more quick,
convenient, and preferred channels to engage with. The form of communication used by
millennials is much more different than the form of communication used by the baby boomers.
The millennials avoid using as much verbal communication as possible, instead they prefer to
communication via text and other alternative methods.
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References
Black, K. (2017). Business Statistics: For Contemporary Decision Making, (9th Edition).
Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Visa. (n.d.). Operating Responsibly | Visa. Retrieved from https://usa.visa.com/aboutvisa/operating-responsibly.html.
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Environmental Scan
Latasha Henry
University of Phoenix, Master of Business
STR/581
Professor Pamela Linden
12/16/19
2
Environmental Scan
The content of this assignment consists of performing an environmental scan for your
target company. This assignment will determine how to create value and sustain competitive
advantage using the environmental scanning strategy, evaluate the company's external
environment, assess the company's general environment, evaluate the organization's industry
operating environment.
Visa Company is an American multinational financial service provider with its
headquarters at Foster City in California. The company provides electronic money transfer services
in more than 200 countries across the world. The services are facilitated through the use of credit,
pre-paid, and debit cards that are Visa-branded. The company has considerable competitors in its
industry, such as Bank of America, PayPal, JP Morgan Chase Bank, American Express, Discover
Financial Services, MasterCard, and Capital One. Due to stiff competition in the market, the
company must come up with a favorable environmental scanning strategy that will improve its
competitiveness and value creation. The first thing the company should focus on during
environmental scanning is the steady growth that the world is experiencing. Consumers are
spending more, and transactions are increasing (Glenn & Gordon, 2015). Therefore the company
should consider investing in improving digital money transfers at a lower cost to attract more
customers.
The provision of faster ways to transfer money or make transactions will not only help
increase the profit margin of the company but also a competitive advantage. Second, the company
should consider the consolidation of the payment and schemes processors. Visa Inc. should do this
either through the extension of its services in less penetrated markets or the introduction of cost
synergies through acquisitions. The company has to upgrade its platforms through the adoption
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of the latest technologies, such as machine learning, Artificial intelligence, and cloud services.
Third, the company should also do research to identify its potential targets. The targets should be
evaluated based on strategic fit and financial health. Lastly, the company should partner with
potential partners in the market to facilitated innovation in new payment methods and data analysis
techniques (Glenn & Gordon, 2015). The integration of these considerations from environmental
scanning will help Visa company to improve its competitive advantage and creation of value for
its consumers.
The external environment of the Visa Company consists of political, economic, legal,
social, environmental, and technological factors. To begin with is the political factors that play a
vital role in determining how the politics of a particular country can affect the long-term
profitability of the company. The company operates in more than 200 countries across the globe.
Therefore, it is exposed to different political systems that can affect its overall operations. Visa
Inc. has to counter the problem by diversification of its financial services to improve overall
performance. The next factors are economic factors that include inflation rate, interest rate, foreign
exchange rate, and economic cycle. The economic factors help determine the aggregate demand
and supply of the company's financial services at any given time (Henry, 2018). Therefore, Visa
Company can use the economic factors of a given market to assess and forecast the growth of its
market in a particular market. The next factors are social factors related to the way a certain society
does things. The marketers of Visa Inc. must consider the attitudes and beliefs of a particular
community while penetrating any market. This should help them to understand how they need to
craft the marketing message to deliver to a specific society.
The next factors are technological factors that are affecting a lot of industries at a fast rate
in current days. Financial services have shifted from the old fashioned way of business operations
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to digital methods and techniques, which are much quicker and reliable. Therefore, for the
company to keep pace, it needs to be proactive in digital innovations and creativity. The next
factors are environmental factors that refer to standards and norms that each particular market has.
The environmental factors of a given country affect the profitability of the company (Henry, 2018).
Therefore, before entering a given market, Visa Company must consider the environmental factors
of the industry to ascertain if they will be favorable. The last external environmental factors are
the legal factors that differ from country to country (Henry, 2018). Some are high in protecting
intellectual property rights, while others are low. Visa Company should scan for legal factors of a
market before entering it to avoid losing its crucial information and plans to competitors.
The general environment of the Visa Company consists of both the external and internal
environmental factors. The external environmental factors include the external factors that affect
the organization from an external perspective. They include political, economic, social,
international, environmental, technological, and legal factors. Political factors deal with the
politics of a country the company operates. Economic factors are the state of the market in terms
of the inflation rate, economic cycles, foreign exchange rates, savings rate, and interest rate
(Murphy, 2018). International factors are the factors that affect the global markets for a particular
industry. Legal factors involve the regulations and laws set in a particular market, while social
factors are the norms and beliefs of a particular market.
Technological factors are the advancements that a market is having or working towards
attaining. On the other hand, the internal environmental factors of Visa Company are competitors,
consumers, suppliers, and organization culture. The largest competitors of the company are
MasterCard, JP Morgan Chase Bank, American Express, and Discover Diners Club. Due to the
advancement in technology, new entrants are entering Visa Company’s industry-leading to a threat
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in profitability and performance (Murphy, 2018). Next, the demand for debit and credit cards by
middle-class consumers has increased, leading to improved profitability of the company. The
relationship between the company and the suppliers is great and has been enhanced through the
iSuppliers portal that brings together diverse suppliers (Murphy, 2018). Last is the organization
culture that is established to align with the ethical standards and core values of the company.
Visa Company believes that it needs to earn the trust of investors, merchants, financial
institutions, and cardholders. That is why the company commits itself to a high level of personal
and professional behavior. In the process, the company can act with transparency and openness.
The company implements a strong governance structure and constantly monitors its corporate
governance and practices. This ensures that it stays at the level of set standards of the law and
regulations of the NYSE and meets the investor’s expectations (Visa, n.d.). Visa Company consists
of a board of directors who are comprised of independent people entirely except the Chief
Executive Officer. There is an annual election whereby the shareholders elect the board of
directors. The independent directors of the company meet regularly in its executive sessions. The
chairs of the committee are rotated in general at least once after five years (Visa, n.d.). The board
committee chatter establishes the responsibilities and roles of each company’s committee. The
company also has a code of business ethics and conduct defining its operations globally.
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References
Glenn, J., & Gordon, J. (2015). (PDF) Environmental Scanning - ResearchGate. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286279000_Environmental_Scanning.
Henry, Z. (2018). Visa Inc PESTEL Analysis. Retrieved from https://www.case48.com/pestelanalysis/3173-Visa-Inc.
Murphy, F. (2018). Visa Inc PESTEL & Environment Analysis. Retrieved from
https://www.essay48.com/term-paper/3173-Visa-Inc-Pestel-Analysis.
Visa. (n.d.). Operating Responsibly | Visa. Retrieved from https://usa.visa.com/aboutvisa/operating-responsibly.html.
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Values and Strategy Paper
Latasha Henry
University of Phoenix, Master of Business
STR/581
Professor Pamela Linden
12/9/19
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Values and Strategy Paper
The purpose of this assignment is to develop a paper that will identify the major
components of the strategic management process with your company. This paper will discuss
how these components work together to create value for the organization. In addition, this paper
will evaluate the company's mission statement, vision statement, motivation strategy, innovation
strategy, and people strategy. It will determine if the organization does not have one or more of
these, and how does that affect the organization and its people. In conclusion this paper will
explain the role of ethics and corporate social responsibility in strategic planning that includes:
How does this direct their strategy? How does the organization's vision and mission align with
your own values and vision? How does your role influence this and vice versa?
Strategic management is known as the process of ongoing planning, monitoring, analysis
and assessment of all the things that are necessary for an organization to meet their goals and
objectives. Due to the constant changes in the business environment organizations are required
to assess their strategies plans to aim high for success. There are five major components of the
strategic management process: goal setting, analysis, strategy formation, strategy implementation
and strategy monitoring. Each component of the strategic management process serves a purpose:
Clarify Your Vision, Gather and Analyze Information, Formulate a Strategy, Implement Your
Strategy, Evaluate and Control. These components work together to obtain the overall goal.
The organization that will be used to identify the components of strategic management is
the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago. Their mission is to replace the cycle of violence using the
principles, practices and teachings of nonviolence. This process is achieved through outreach,
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mediation, support, and nonviolence trainings, and engage strategies to interrupt and replace the
cycle of violence. These strategies include: Reducing the number of community shootings and
homicides (especially retaliatory violence). Reducing recidivism amongst groups that are at the
highest risk of being involved in violence. Strengthening positive support systems for violenceinvolved young people. Heal and empower the community during tragic situations and the
aftermath of violence. Transforming the relationships between the law enforcement and the
communities they serve (Nonviolence Chicago, 2016).
The Institute for Nonviolence Chicago believes in the “Theory of Change”, which is that
violence will be reduced when the individuals that are at the highest risk of becoming a victim or
perpetrator of violence unless they receive appropriate and intensive interventions. The
community’s resiliency is increased through implementing a comprehensive approach that helps
to develop a sustainable community-based safety infrastructure. The projected outcome is that
individuals will have improved life outcomes, incidents of violence will be reduced, and the
community safety increases. At the center of the tiered approach the organization choose to
target those most at-risk of violence victimization or perpetration in order to provide them with
intervention that includes street outreach, case management and crisis our response team. In
addition, to the family and friends whose risk may also elevated, will also be able to receive
secondary prevention services including re-entry and general case management, crisis response,
legal support, workforce development, education. This include those who are at risk simply
because they reside or hang out in the neighborhood, will receive primary prevention services
including Safe Spaces and other youth- and community-based programming. The approach that
the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago takes to engage with the community in services is hyperlocal, restorative, trauma-informed and rooted in principles of nonviolence.
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Final Thoughts
The Hyper-local approach that is used by the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago is located
on the Boarder of Austin and West Garfield Park (near Cicero Avenue and Chicago) they
employ individuals and families from the communities we serve. Their location in the
community is intentional and allows them to serve as an anchor for both community residents
and local their local neighboring partners. This positions the organization as community
“insiders” who are trusted, respected, credible partners and service providers. The Restorative
approach that is used by the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago applies restorative justice
principles to its work with participants. The Chicago’s Restorative Justice (RJ) work is both led
and implemented by a network of agencies or Hubs that are committed to a community led
approach to youth crime and conflict issues. Both the Austin and West Garfield Park
communities have positioned themselves to become Restorative Justice Hubs as well. The
Trauma-informed approach used by the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago is that 50% of the
children as youth experience some type of exposure to one or more traumatic events in their
lifetime. By using a trauma-informed, culturally sensitive approach, the organization will
provide and broker services to community residents who are directly or indirectly exposed to
violence to connect them with the necessary supports that will be able to address the emotional,
behavioral, physical, educational and other impact of trauma that has affected their lives. The
Nonviolence principles of Dr. Martin Luther King that are used by the Institute for Nonviolence
Chicago is a well-defined philosophy of nonviolence and is embedded across all aspects of
Nonviolence Chicago’s work, and heavily focuses on the principles and practices from the
teachings of Dr. King. This philosophy was built around several specific ideas, and being most
notable that violence is learned, cyclical, and systemic in its nature. Although, the cycle of
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violence is perpetrated by a small number of individuals it can still damage an entire community.
The Institute for Nonviolence Chicago believes that nonviolence is a learned behavior and can
also become cyclical when enough people choose to peacefully resolve their conflict from
within. The organization infuses high doses of nonviolence through community members and
role models to change the prevalence and status quo of violence by using a collaborative
community-based approach founded on the theories and practices of nonviolence and
relationship (Nonviolence Chicago, 2016).
Conclusion
Although, being able to identify the major components of the strategic management process
within your company is a good start for the strategy plan you must also be able to understand
how these components work together to create value for the organization, which is evaluated by
their mission statement, vision statement, motivation strategy, innovation strategy, and people
strategy. Each component determines the overall outcome of success.
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References
Black, K. (2017). Business Statistics: For Contemporary Decision Making, (9th Edition).
Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
http://www.nonviolencechicago.org/
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