Discussion 1

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Review all required readings, including the Weekly Briefing, which provides additional guidance on how to complete the assignment.
• Review your analysis of Trader Joe’s from Week 3 and review your original research on the company and industry.
• Conduct additional research on the U.S. food retailing industry to obtain some insights about future threats and opportunities in the industry.
• Identify and review all relevant readings from the Capstone Program Bibliography.

Prepare a polished Key Success Factor analysis that responds to each of the prompts below:

• Based on your projections for the implications of FUTURE five-forces of competition, P.E.S.T. (general environment), and stakeholder support (or stakeholder challenges), what essential skills, competencies, and capabilities will be CRITICAL in order for Trader Joe’s to survive or thrive in the future? Why? Support your evaluation with evidence and reasoning linked to appropriate knowledge.

  Note: These critical areas may be the same as in the past, BUT they may not. Think this through carefully and use your innovative and economic thinking skills from prior courses. You must become futurists to be good strategists, which means there IS some ambiguity about the bets you will be making (that’s one of the responsibilities of senior leadership).

• Identify critical gaps in the skills, competencies, and capabilities that Trader Joe’s currently has versus what you think they will need in the future. Think about how Trader Joe’s can bridge that gap. If Trader Joe’s were to hire you as consultant to provide strategic direction in what specific skills, competencies, and capabilities the company should invest in or acquire (and how), which would you emphasize as critical and why?

Be sure to integrate concepts and quotes from this week’s readings. To obtain an exemplary assessment, you must also integrate at least one resource from the Walden MBA Program Capstone Bibliography as well.

General Guidance: Your discussion will typically be 1 to 1 ½ single-spaced pages

Discussion Post 2

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Review all required readings, including the Weekly Briefing, which provides additional guidance on how to complete the Assignment.
• Review this week’s case study and peer discussion and reflect and make notes on the following: What insights did you gain, and what did you learn from this week’s resources your case analysis and peer discussion that you can apply to your Strategy Playbook for your chosen organization? What conceptual and strategic differences are important between the case example and your organization (focus on the concepts analyzed this week)? What assumptions do you need to make in order to use the strategy concepts appropriately?
• Identify and review all relevant readings from the MBA Capstone Program Bibliography. Given your chosen organization, what concepts, tools, and readings from the Program Capstone Bibliography are most relevant to helping guide how you might recommend improving the company? How and why are they relevant?
• Locate and maintain access to publicly available information about your organization.

Prepare a polished and synthesized entry into the discussion area, which will also be the basis for an entry into the final draft of your Strategy Playbook for Extraordinary Results. At minimum you should add the following to your discussion post and Strategy Playbook:

• An evidence-based and cohesive set of specific and actionable recommendations for actions (based on application of this week’s strategy concepts), that your selected organization (Kodak) can take that will clearly enable your organization to achieve its strategic goals, sustain and grow its business, and remain viable and healthy.
  • HINT: You should provide a preliminary argument that defends your recommendations. Consider why your recommendations are SMART– specific, measurable, achievable (that is realistic and feasible, and timely (relevant and important).
• A related set of metrics that will enable your selected organization to measure the effectiveness of your recommended actions.
  • HINT: These metrics could then be used in the comprehensive final draft of your strategy playbook diagram, which is part of your final Strategy Playbook

General Guidance: Your discussion post will typically be 1 to 1 ½ single-spaced pages, excluding references.