Directional Strategies Report

Analyze the effectiveness of the organization’s directional strategies.

Blue Cross Blue Shield provides healthcare coverage to members to ensure that they live free of fear and worry about how to meet healthcare costs. The company offers a personalized approach to healthcare based on its clients’ needs and the communities in which their clients work and live. The company intends to portray an image of a healthcare organization that understands and is concerned about people’s healthcare by providing affordable, quality healthcare. The organization’s mission is to transform, inspire change, and improve the health of its members. The task fits the organization’s current strategic goals because it enables the company to take responsibility for making continuous improvements in the provision of healthcare services to its clients and be a reliable source for healthcare benefit information and administration. The mission also fits the current strategy of collaborating with the government and donors to get funds for adopting new technology and training employees on how to use new technologies in healthcare because the design focuses on creating change in the healthcare sector, thus supporting the organization’s role in inspiring change.

The organization’s vision is divided into various elements. The first element is valuing customer satisfaction. This element includes being responsive, courteous, timely, accurate, and taking personal responsibility for problem-solving. The second element is valuing honesty, openness, reliability, and integrity. This element includes speaking the truth constructively, openly sharing the bad and good news with all co-workers, operating with integrity and ethics, and being a reliable source for health benefits information and administration. The third element is valuing patience, caring, mutual respect, fairness, and loyalty by striving to respect the rights and dignity of every individual, acknowledging every employee’s contributions, and listening with an open mind to ideas shared by employees. The fourth element is valuing employees who take responsibility for continuous improvements, leading by example, improving their skills through training, being committed to the organization’s vision, mission, and values, and encouraging teamwork. The fifth element is valuing employee involvement by striving to support decision-making with employee input, respecting others’ points of view, welcoming differences of opinion on achieving goals best and solving problems, and supporting community activities.

Identify gaps between effective directional strategies and the organization’s existing directional strategies.

Effective directional strategies emphasize an organization’s strategic intent to be personalized for everyone. According to Singh & Shah (2012), the first task in personalizing the strategic plan is to clear corporate challenges that focus on the workforce’s attention to the following capability or critical advantage to being built. Challenges act as the milestones between the organization’s current and future state. Corporate challenges are the operational means enabling the organization to gain a competitive advantage, and they identify the central point for capacity building in the short and medium term. Effective directional strategies are also founded on considerable thought and analysis by top management and indicate the organization’s intentions.

The current directional strategies adopted by Blue Cross Blue Shield outline the organization’s mission but do not outline the organization’s broad direction that should and will be followed. The mission statement also exempts information on the values and reasoning behind the mission. Another gap is that the current mission does not provide a clear message to outsiders and insiders of what the company stands for because it only outlines its purpose without portraying its character and image.

Analyze the alignment between the organization’s directional strategies and its strategic goals.

The healthcare organization is a competitive environment that includes many healthcare facilities in the private and public sectors. The climate also contains continuous innovation to address new healthcare issues, such as the rise of new diseases, the development of vaccines for recent outbreaks, and the use of technology to meet healthcare needs. Patients also recognize the need to be involved in their healthcare to enhance the quality of healthcare services they receive. Blue Cross Blue Shield’s directional strategy fits the environment because it promotes patients’ involvement in healthcare provision by improving collaboration between patients and physicians through patient-centered medical care to ensure that the unique needs of a patient are identified and addressed on time and creating a collaborative care model and training physicians on how to use it. The strategy also enables the organization to adapt to the technological changes in the healthcare environment by training employees on how to use new technologies in healthcare.

The organization’s direction is appropriate because it enables it to take advantage of its strengths and opportunities to gain a competitive advantage. For instance, collaborating with the government and donors to get funds for adopting new technology will enable the organization to implement a unique environment to improve healthcare quality for its clients. Partnering with institutions providing healthcare training programs will also allow the organization to gain access to graduates who are equipped with the knowledge and capabilities to work in the modern healthcare environment. The organization will also create a collaborative environment by improving collaboration between patients and physicians. The organization’s direction includes strategic goals to improve its performance and clients’ well-being. The main strategic goals that make the most sense are partnering with institutions providing healthcare training programs and implementing telehealth to promote the timely delivery of healthcare services to patients. These goals will facilitate the organization’s growth by improving the services provided to customers and attracting new customers.

Propose changes to the organization’s directional strategies that improve alignment between its structure and strategic goals.

One of the changes that the organization needs to make to establish a foundation necessary for the organization’s current structure and strategies is developing a well-written mission, vision, and values statement that signals the direction and intention of the organization and communicates to stakeholders on the short-term and long-term goals of the organization and values that need to be upheld to ensure that the intended performance is achieved. The organization’s objectives, vision, and mission must be formally documented and formulated to give a strategic direction. According to B et al. (2017), communicating a company’s mission is essential in strategic management because it helps to ground the organization by clarifying its purpose and framing the context of its operations. The mission statement also communicates to all the stakeholders outside and inside the organization what the company represents, what it is founded on, and where it is headed. It thus needs to be expressed with a commitment that everyone involved can understand and feel relevant (Singh & Shah, 2012). The second recommendation is creating stretch goals, challenging employees to meet demanding targets instead of relying on a tight fit between resources and objectives. According to Rao et al. (2009), the wealth of an organization depends on its role in creating future opportunities and the ability to capture a substantial share of them. Corporate challenges can, therefore, be reflected in the organization’s directional strategies.

References

B, B., S, B., & W, C. (2017). Crafting strategic objectives: Examining the role of business vision and mission statements. Journal of Entrepreneurship & Organization Management, 06(01). https://doi.org/10.4172/2169-026x.1000205

Rao, C. A., Rao, B. P., & Sivaramakrishna, K. (2009). Strategic management and business policy. Excel Books India.

Singh, R. G., & Shah, M. K. (2012). Directional Strategies and Organizational Performance. Management Convergence, 3(1).

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Directional Strategies Report

BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD AS TOPIC

Use Mission, Vision, and Values Analysis Questions [DOCX] to complete the assessment. The document identifies three questions about each directional strategy you must consider as you analyze your organization’s fit with its directional system.

To prepare for the assessment, reexamine your TOWS matrix from Assessment 2, the analysis of your matrix, and the initial strategies you qualified as part of your draft strategic plan. Once you have reexamined your work, you will be ready to begin work on this assessment.

In addition, you may wish to review the assessment instructions and scoring guide to ensure that you understand the work you will be asked to complete.

Note: Remember that you can submit all or a portion of your draft directional strategies report to Smarthinking Tutoring for feedback before you submit the final version for this assessment. If you plan to use this free service, be mindful that the turnaround time to receive input is 24–48 hours.

Scenario
Your manager is pleased with the thorough and impressive work you have done to date. However, she notes that the TOWS matrix findings do not align with the organization’s directional strategies. The organization’s structure must align more closely with its strategic goal to be more efficient, competitive, and profitable. She asks for your help once again.

Her next task for you is to examine the organization’s mission, vision, and value statement and compare them to the TOWS matrix. She requests that you recommend revisions to the organization’s mission, vision, and value statements to more closely align with its strategic priorities.

Knowing your manager, you understand that she wants your directional strategies report to be insightful, substantive, and brief—all at the same time. You also know that your manager is a visual person. It will serve you well to include appropriate images and diagrams, such as your TOWS matrix, in your report to highlight critical information.

Requirements
Write a directional strategies report that examines aligning a healthcare organization’s current directional strategies with its strategic goals.

Report Requirements
The requirement outlined below corresponds to the Directional Strategies Report Scoring Guide grading criteria, so address each point. Read the performance-level descriptions for each bar to see how your work will be assessed.

Analyze the effectiveness of the organization’s directional strategies.
Use the linked document Mission, Vision, and Values Analysis Questions [DOCX] to determine how effectively the existing directional strategies currently fulfill the requirements of the effective directional system.
Identify gaps between effective directional strategies and the organization’s existing directional strategies.
Analyze the alignment between the organization’s directional strategies and its strategic goals.
Examine the strategic fit.
How well does the directional strategy fit the environment?
Given the environmental analysis you completed in Assessment 1, how appropriate is the organization’s direction?
Which strategic goals make the most sense at this time? Growth? Maintaining the status quo? Or does contraction make the most sense right now?
Propose changes to the organization’s directional strategies that improve alignment between its structure and strategic goals.
Recommend changes you think the organization needs to make to establish a foundation necessary for the organization’s current structure and strategies.
Be sure to support your recommendations with references to current, scholarly, and authoritative sources.
Write a clear, concise, well-organized, and professional directional strategies report that includes conclusions supported by relevant evidence.
Follow APA formatting and style guidelines for citations and references.