Thinking Strategically

a. The lessons learned in this scenario relative to the importance and effectiveness of environmental scanning in relation to strategic thinking are that first of all, environmental scanning is only as good as the use that is made of the data and furthermore, even excellent data cannot compensate for poor strategic thinking or a lack of organizational cohesiveness.

The chairman and the CEO each have personal objectives that do not fit together, and neither of them seems to have based those objectives specifically on the environmental scanning data. Their goals and objectives are at cross purposes with each other, so neither one is likely to achieve what is hoped for. The environmental scanning data indicates that their customer base has expanded to include riders of all ages, yet neither one of them has a goal to capitalize on that fact. This is not optimum strategic thinking.

The purpose of environmental scanning is for the company to obtain a "sustainable competitive advantage" by watching for changes in the business environment and adapting its strategies to take advantage of them when they arise ("Environmental Scanning"). The CEO and chairman failed to do this. A more successful strategy than either of theirs would be to expand their products and services to service the new age groups in their customer base and continue to attract new segments, rather than focusing on producing lower-cost bikes or being labeled the No. 1 specialty retailer.

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ndustry at any given time. For O!z, a recent threat was the flattening sales curve reported to be coming soon within the toy industry, a threat that Oz! needs to address even though its current strategy is working fine within the present industry environment. That report is a warning that the industry environment is about to change, and Oz! needs to move ahead of that change to protect its interests by reformulating its strategy to address it. Periodically reformulating strategy as the industry changes or company position in the marketplace changes is an essential key to maintaining Oz!'s success in its market, and the question of which strategy to choose is important if Oz! is to develop strategies that continue to meet its needs in the future. Strategy choice should be predicated on the particulars of Oz!'s business its place in the growth cycle, its niche in the industry, or its relation to industry changes. By selecting strategies that specifically relate to Oz!'s situation, the company will achieve optimum results from its strategy. b. In terms of concepts and analytic tools, in the case of Oz! toys, the Grand Strategy Clusters Matrix was an effective analytic tool to use because it allowed the strategists to assess O

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