JC Penney Playbook Strategy Evaluation

This week you will examine how to more formally evaluate strategies. You will begin to identify and evaluate your own preliminary ideas on strategy for the organization you have selected for your Strategy Playbook.
Your Strategy Playbook represents what might be thought of as a "Strategy Audit", which is a form of "Due Diligence Analysis"—and where you are stepping into the role of a strategy consultant and adviser to the senior leadership team. You are going to prepare a "forward-looking", "crisp", "impactful" briefing about where you think the company ought to be going for the next five years or so (and why and how).
Strategy Evaluation Elements:
o Strategy Evaluation: Clarity of the Strategy
- Does the strategy and associated initiatives have a "name" that evokes the strategy?
- Is it easy to communicate what the strategy is and why it can work?
- Is it likely that people inside the organization will understand and commit to the strategy?
o Strategy Evaluation: Consistency of Purpose (Context Level of Analysis)
- Based on your reading of the case, is The Weather Company's proposed 2013 strategy consistent with its Soulful Purpose and its mission, vision, and values? How?
o Strategy Evaluation: Feasibility and Alignment (Activities and Relationships Level of Analysis)
- What are the primary Key Success Factors that The Weather Company needs to excel at in the future? Do they have the internal skills, competencies, and capabilities to execute their strategy? (If not, does the plan do a good job of saying how they will acquire these?)
- Are the basic elements of the proposed strategy feasible?
- From a teamwork and healthy organization standpoint?
- From a financial standpoint?
- From a measurement/metrics standpoint?
- Does the strategy appear to be internally aligned? Do the specific action plan steps support each other? How and Why?
o Strategy Evaluation: External Consonance and Potential Competitive Advantage
- Is the proposed strategy consonant with the current and future needs of the external ecosystem and stakeholder needs? How and Why?
- Does the strategy indicate any long-term strategic intent?
- Does the proposed strategy position the company to perform activities differently than rivals do? How and why?
- Does the proposed strategy lead to incremental change within the industry, or more fundamental change within the industry, or does it establish new positions outside the industry or in blue ocean spaces? How and why is the scope of the strategy appropriate?
- Do you think the proposed strategy can create or preserve any advantages it may confer on the company? Which advantages, and how and why?

JC Penney Playbook Strategy Evaluation This week you will examin...