Strategic Plan for Great Cups Coffee Company

The Great Cups of Coffee Company tends to interfere with their success. Fusion Consulting, LLC has developed this Strategic Plan to identify the problem areas in marketing, finances, human resources, and management information system. This plan will develop a new business strategy that helps Great Cups’ future success.

The Environmental Scan and Industry Analysis will analysis the coffee industry and the environmental effects on the industry as a whole. The Competitive Analysis will benchmark Great Cups against at least one competitor’s resources, competencies, economic indicators, value chain, and marketing mix. The TOWS Matrix will provide the foundation for the Fusion Consulting, LLC strategic recommendations.

Specific strategic planning and SMART objectives will be introduced in the marketing plan after analyzing and defining the target market for Great Cups. The current financial situation of Great Cups will be analyzed and that will allow the projected forecast projected financials for the next two years.

Great Cups sales in 2007 showed a slower growth, then the next two years there were increases of net earnings by $17.4 million and $22.5 million. The focus for the Human Resources Plan is to fix the recruiting strategy, improve current training program, and develop a new benefits package that will help attract and retain employees. The overall plan should emphasize how important it is to retain and attract employees.

The Management Information Systems plan will addresses technical issues in the company communications system. In order for the company to improve it operational and financial issues it must upgrade network infrastructure, increased or add new security measures, as well as new hardware and software.

This strategic plan will also contain an a newly defined mission and rationale for Great Cups, integrated perspective on the previously recommended strategic choices, a newly defined mission and rationale for Great Cups as a business.

Current Situation of Great Cups

Great Cups of Coffee Company was founded in Columbus, OH by four friends. These friends then decided to become partners by buying out an entire chain of 14 coffee specialty shops. After purchasing those coffee shops they developed a motto: “A Great Cup of Coffee, at a Great Price”. Great Cups mission is to offer quality products, excellent customer service at a low price. Great Cups is a place where employees and customers could feel at home, work, enjoy and relax.

The main objective for the company was to become the leader in the coffee retail industry. Over time Great Cups has acquired more stores in other parts of the country. During some of these acquaints the product lines have increased. Great Cups began to ice cream and deli into some locations menus. After a few years Great Cups sales slowly decreased. The company was starting to feel the growing pains. Now that Great Cups is facing challenges in numerous areas throughout the company. Some of these departments include Human Resources, Marketing, Finance and Information Systems.

There are many areas of concerns for the executive team at Great Cups. The main issues at Great Cups are inconsistent marketing strategies, HR policies and benefits as well as a poorly designed communications systems. Some of these practices have had an effect on the high employee turnover, unstable Return on Investment (ROI), lack of brand name and miscommunication at all levels.

Fusion Consultants, LLC is led by a great consultant team with experience in building and implementing successful business solutions. Our team offers many years of experience in Marketing, Human Resources, IT and Finance disciplines which help to ensure that Fusion Consulting, LLC customers will receive the best.

HR Training Plan

Three training issues such as training transfer, cross training and skills development have become a problem due to the fast growth at Great Cups. This HR training plan will train employees on the newly expanded menu. For example, Chicago region will be trained on ice cream products, Pittsburgh region will be trained on deli products.

The Columbus region will need to be trained on both new added products. During the company acquisition Great Cups has acquired a topnotch training department and a new and improved IT department. This HR training plan will be competed through e-learning and the traditional classroom training.

E-learning is a computer based training (training that is delivered on a computer through company internet service). This e-learning will have online video training and also requires some training via teleconferencing. This type of training will eliminate the challenges of scheduling and rescheduling training programs and will save company money.

The traditional classroom training will be used to train upper and lower level management. Management will use this training to supervise the on the job training plan at their appointed store. This method will be based on the modified lecture also known as lecture/discussion that focuses on conveying a lot of new and prepared information to trainees in an interactive way. This will help management explain the importance of the training to their trainees. The lecture/discussion method will be used to make the training material manageable and meaningful, this will teach the trainees how to interpret and/or understand training content, and highlight important or critical information (Beebe, 2004).

The goal of the HR training plan is to help improve Great Cups competitive advantage in the industry. “Extensive training and skill development are one of Pfeiffer’s seven human resources management practices that he believes enhances an organization’s competitive advantage in the marketplace” (Katz, 1998). Katz’s also goes on to state, “Competitive advantage based on people is hard to duplicate and results in long-term organizational success. Real business success is determined by the culture and capabilities derived from how people are managed” (Katz, 1998).

This competitive advantage comes from the employees of Great Cups. Great Cups needs to develop their employees’ skills and improve their motivation, so that is will increase employee’s creativity and service quality. This all leads to a great customer satisfaction and this will lead to financial success for Great Cups. There is no doubt that by providing workers the skills to completer the job can improve profits, quality, and reduce cost.

There are many great benefits that this training and development will provide Great Cups. Some of these benefits are sustained employment, low turnover rate, reduced advertising cost, and reduced hiring expense. All of these will help increase the profitability, and increase business life. This training will provide employees the skills and behaviors necessary for implementing this HR training plan. Skills development and training help to ensure employees are able to help make contributions to the company’s success. It is important for Great Cups to provide their employees with the necessary tools to be able to complete this training and development. With extensive training and skill development, employees become more competitive and profitable.

A Great Cups goal consists of increased revenue, higher profits, more sales and business continuity. An investment in training and skills development of your employees can have a huge impact on the bottom-line. So, Fusion Consultants, Inc recommends that Great Cups over training strategy should invest in their employees via extensive training and skills development.

Performance Management Program

The performance program will serves as the foundation of a pay for performance system. This links an employee’s pay to some measure of individual performance via a formal performance appraisal. This system will generate a numeric value that will measure the employee’s performance. The percentage increase will depend on the employee’s overall achievement on a predetermined organizational goal.

The performance evaluation to be used by Great Cups should be management by objectives (MBO). This management style is where goals are jointly determined by employees and management. This management style is made up of four parts. These parts are goal specificity, participative decision-making, an explicit time period, and performance feedback. This performance evaluation takes into account the frequency or pattern of behavior. It has to look at a pattern of behavior in order to rate that behavior. It will also look for consistency as a stamp of approval. The consistency and the frequency of the behavior are true and realistic pictures of one’s performance. This method is a reliable method for measuring the performance of a task. “MBO aims to increase organizational performance by aligning goals and subordinate objectives throughout the organization” (USlegal.com, 2011).

Human Resource Strategies

The strategic goal of the HR department is chiefly to be aligned with the strategic goals of the organization. Great Cups’ goals are always clear: increased revenue, higher profits, more

sales and business continuity. The HR department will model the Container Store in its people’s focus strategy that culminates in extensive and comprehensive training and skill development believing that if we spend more on advertising, infrastructure and product development, our competitors also do, and this limits the competitive advantage these efforts provide. An investment in training and skills development of our employees can have a huge impact on our

bottom-line.

The department will also seek to establish Great Cups as “an employer of choice” through its Compensation and Benefits Package. This package will be a major HR function that will be designed to attract, motivate, and retain key individuals. The HR strategic goals are summarized to be a growth strategy. These strategic goals are designed to retain shiny new workforce, double workforce and increase revenues.

Succession Plan

Purpose of this succession plan is to ensure replacements for key job incumbents in executive, upper and lower management, and technical in the company. This policy covers middle management positions and above at Great Cups.

The desired results of the succession planning program are to:

Identify employees with the ability to advance rapidly through Great Cups.

Provide a list of talented people that meet the Great Cups needs.

The succession planning program will be carried out as follows:

1. Once every twelve months upper management will meet to review the previous year’s succession plan. They will go over the current employees on the succession plan and make sure they are the best candidates for the job.

2. Management will create a list of employees who show great work ethic, and are dedicated to their job. These employees will come from all departments within Great Cups.

3. These employees will be notified by management of their selection. Each employee will be given the option of accepting the nomination of successor.

4. If employee chooses the nomination, they will receive the proper training for the positions they will one day succeed. If employee declines nomination the committee must make arrangement to meet again and nominate another employee.

5. When a position becomes open the successor will assume that role with Great Cups.

HR Implementation Plan

Great Cups will need to model a people’s focus strategy that focuses on extensive and comprehensive training and skill development. This implementation plan will also need to help establish the organization as “an employer of choice” through attractive benefits and compensation package and at the same time promote a growth strategy.