 Hi everybody and welcome back to our practice case to today we're going to be talking about the practice case and going over the answers and some of the thoughts and some ways that you may want to think about the case and and approach it as you're preparing to take the real the real exam. This is prerecorded but you can feel free to post any questions in the YouTube chat and I will we'll get to those as as we're able and again I want to congratulate you for being so close to to getting ready to take the the final final exam. So let's talk a little bit about this case number two. This was a situation where it's a fine dining restaurant and Leticia Myers has been really really successful in the restaurant and a few years into starting the restaurant she was approached by an investment company that really liked the restaurant and they wanted to buy a portion of it. They also decided that they wanted to grow the restaurant into several locations. So as our restaurants grew which is what often happens as you found yourself less focused on being a chef and more on the day-to-day management of things. So there were a lot of issues as you as you read throughout the case that occurred here and she she just was really starting to feel like her competitive advantages that she had early on were getting lost a little bit. So of course the investors are disappointed she is disappointed so they're getting together to talk about perhaps having a new strategic direction for this set of restaurants. So that's ultimately the what the case is about. So let's dig in a little bit to the questions and and talk about the correct answers here. So in this first question you could see that and it was mentioned in the case that she offers organic and farm source food options at all of the restaurants and of course this is attractive to many of her customers. So we're asking in this question what element of strategic management does this describe and the correct answer here is the value proposition and our our clues here is that she's you know offering fresh organic farm source which of course is something that customers like. So she's creating a value proposition in in doing that and you'll notice that for each of the questions there is a course learning outcome and a unit learning outcome tied to it. So in this case our first question the course learning outcome was defining strategy and discussing the participants in the strategic management process and analyzing various types of industry structures. From a unit perspective our unit learning outcome was defined strategy in its many forms. So let's move on to question 2. So when leticia and the team meet to discuss the internal and external factors they look at societal factors that could be affecting the restaurants and we're wondering in this question what strategic context does this most closely relate and of course these are external factors. Societal factors would be definitely external in that you're looking at what is happening out in the world around you rather than looking internally as you would if you were to do a SWOT analysis for example and our course learning outcomes is the same as for our first question and also our unit learning outcome is defined strategy in its many forms as as we relate to that question. Question number three the team meets to discuss those internal and external factors and they realize that they didn't take an important first step when they open the restaurants to begin with and so this question question is asking what element should they have done first and the answer to this one is develop the mission. Remember developing the mission and vision is one of the first steps that you'll take as as you look at creating a strategy. Goals, objectives, and tactics all come a little bit later and as you can see our learning course learning outcomes are the same as they were for questions one and two. Moving on to question number four one of the issues with the restaurants is that they're having a labor shortage and the team considers development of a compensation policy that will attract and retain the people that they need to run the restaurants of course having the right set of skills and abilities. So when we look at the element of strategy here the correct answer is see a functional strategy and functional when we look at functional strategies these are usually the more day-to-day operations of a business as opposed to an overall business strategy, corporate strategy, or operational strategy and our course learning outcomes define strategy and discuss the participants in the strategic management process and analyze the various types of industry structures and our unit learning outcome here is discuss the participants in a strategy as a hierarchy. Question number five is all about strategic communication and we we look at Leticia after she's done this external and internal analysis with the investors. She decides to ask her employees for input on maybe some things that they should do in terms of the strategic direction of the organization. So this type of communication is bottom up because she's asking the employees if she were to tell the employees what the strategic direction was going to be and that would be top down as as the name suggests. So our course learning outcome is a definition of strategy the participants in the strategic management process and analysis of the very various types of industry structures and our unit learning outcome here is discuss the participants in strategy as a hierarchy. Question number six, the team has performed the internal and external analysis and they decide that they may want to create demand for the restaurants by appealing to more potential customers. One way they're thinking about doing this is by creating private dining rooms so those can be used to hold meetings and that type of thing and the question is asking what element of strategy would they be engaging in and this would be market development. So you're looking at trying to create new markets or new ways to to market your product. Our course learning outcome here was apply appropriate strategic management tools to diagnose internal and external factors facing organizations and our unit learning outcome here was define strategy in its many forms. Question number seven looks at the POLC framework and if you recall this this framework in the context of strategy involves four management functions which are planning organizing leading and controlling. Specifically for this question we're looking at one element that needs work is the culture the organizational culture within the restaurants and for example the serving staff does not work well with the chefs and vice versa. So the question is asking what element of the POLC model does this describe and this would be organizing how you you organize the work manage the individuals within a department and and hopefully motivate them would be part of organization or organizing. Question number oh and the as you can see the course learning outcomes here apply the appropriate strategic manage management tools to diagnose internal and external factors facing organizations and then our unit learning outcome is identified internal and external factors that impact strategic planning. Question number eight it looks at after the team develops the SWAT and the PEST analysis. They begin to set goals around their potential strategy and one of the areas is related to whether or not they have the resources required to implement their strategy and their goals. So here we're looking at what element of the framework does this most closely describe and in this case is feasibility and it's feasibility there because they're looking at are we even able to do this. So because they're looking at resources and if they have the resources to do it that's what makes it feasibility as opposed to the other elements here. This question related to our course learning outcome apply the appropriate strategic management tools based on internal and external analysis and our unit learning outcome here was described how organizational goals are established. For question number nine we're looking at they've completed their internal and external analysis and they decide that they want to focus on a niche market for the restaurants and focus on the things that make the restaurants unique such as the fact that they locally source the the food. So this question is asking about which generic strategy would we be focused upon and of course that is a differentiation strategy that is described there. Our our learning outcomes the course learning outcome here is define and classify the types of competitive advantage and explain the best practices for creating and maintaining these advantages and then of course our unit learning outcome is explain the meaning of competitive advantage. Our final question for this practice case study is about one potential strategy they're thinking about is that they will actually purchase the farms where they buy produce for the restaurants and this question is asking what type of organic growth does this create for the company and in this case the the growth that that would create is a vertical integration because if you recall from your readings vertical integration focuses on different elements of the supply chain or gathering of raw materials and in this case it would be vertical integration because they're going to be serving food from the farms that they own should they decide to move forward with with that particular strategy. So our our learning outcomes here were the most commonly used corporate strategies and alternatives for creating long-term value and our unit learning outcome was explained commonly used corporate strategies. So just as a reminder here if you didn't get a hundred percent that's okay I just suggest that you go back and for the questions that you may have missed go back and look at the unit where where the questions were taken from and you'll be able to know that by reviewing the unit learning outcome for any that you may have missed and then I suggest going back and reading the material on that particular unit just to make sure that that you're all set for your exam. Of course if you have questions feel free or comments feel free to post those in in the comment box and it's sure been great to work with all of you throughout throughout this course and I know you're going to do great on the final exam and really wish you all luck on that and good luck in your future career as well. Thank you all very much.