A Situation Audit || Management Homework Help

As you analyze your organization’s critical resources, follow the guidelines below:

Consider whether your organization has the critical resources needed to accomplish its MVGOs, whether these are being used effectively, and whether they are being leveraged for competitive advantage.
Read about resource-based theory and resource dependency theory to learn more about how and why certain resources may serve as a source of strength for an organization.
Consider whether your organization has valuable, rare, inimitable, and nonsubstitutable (VRIN) resources (characteristics of resources) that it can use toward a competitive advantage, and whether these are sufficient given the market or markets in which your organization is operating.

Types of Critical Resources

After reading about each of the critical resources below, select the one critical resource you think is the most important for your organization to maintain its competitive advantage. Explain both why this particular critical resource was selected ahead of the others and why this critical resource is the most important of the critical resources to the maintenance or enhancement of your organization’s competitive advantage.

human resources
financial resources
technology resources
buildings and equipment (physical resources)
other types of resources you consider important (e.g., information)

Step 7 has four major components embraced under the general topic heading, Critical Resources. In the introduction to Step 7, there are several excellent links leading to works on Resource–Based Theory and Resource Dependency Theory. These are important concepts toward understand the decisions organizations make that affect how critical resources are prioritized and managed.

Resource dependency determines what an organization needs to survive and accomplish its objectives. It determines the strategy an organization pursues to accomplish various objectives, including considerations and effects on profit, control, size, structure, technology, and physical space. For example, we would all agree that McDonald’s business needs require it to have large inventories of bread (sandwich rolls to be exact) available as a resource. Without bread, McDonald’s would be in real trouble. Bread is a resource need that will affect McDonald’s decisions on many aspects critical to its business model, as related to the critical resources Step 7 raises (HR, Technology, Physical Space, and Financial).

McDonald’s must decide to buy the bread it needs from an external source (the economic concept of “horizontal integration”) or make the bread itself internally (the economic concept of “Vertical Integration”). As you can see, either decision has a large impact on McDonald’s human resource, technology, financial and physical asset needs. If McDonald’s decides to make the bread itself in needs bakery skills, baking technologies, appropriate work space, and a cost-benefit assessment of the financial gain or loss and other forms of business risks for taking on such an effort in-house as opposed to contracting out for to fulfill the needs for its bread supply.

For the purpose of your situation audit, the Step 7’s four critical resources are:

Human Resources:

A core competency (Step 4) may require organizations to attract and retain certain employees with specific skills to sustain --- Microsoft, Apple, and Google are competing for the same talent pool of individuals with superior programming skills, for example. How do they compete with each other for this talent pool? Why does an employee select one organization over another for which to work? How are such employees motivated, rewarded, and evaluated?

In effect, the HR critical resource asks you to summarize your organization’s ability to do the following: (1) acquire the people (sometimes referred to as talent) needed to accomplish its mission, goals, and objectives; (2) place people where their knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) can be leveraged for maximum competitive advantage; and (3) motivate, train, mentor, and, evaluate employees.

Financial Resources:

Your goal for this report is to present a high-level discussion of your organization’s financial situation --- a financial overview of the organization financial statement and the system used to manage financial resources so that they are directed toward meeting MVGOs. Put very simply, your report should explain how your organization acquires and manages the financial resources it needs to support its MVGOs and implement its strategy. The section on financial resources includes an excellent link that explains in basic terminology how to read a financial statement.

Technology Needs:

Acquisition, use, and effective management of advanced information and computing technologies are essential in today’s increasingly sophisticated technological world. Technology has emerged as a competitive advantage (see Step 5) in an increasingly competitive and global marketplace. You are to describe key technologies and the manner in which your organization uses those technologies to achieve its internal (e.g., employee communications) and external (e.g., satellite communication for intelligence gathering) MVGOs. Some issues to consider are: marketing, customer relations, service delivery, internal communications, internal collaboration, and the planning, management and governance of technology use. See link to Technology Management in Step 7.

Physical Resources:

Physical resources refer to the physical property of the organization— buildings, improvements, capital equipment (i.e., equipment used to buy or sell products or services), and current inventory. In other words, physical resources are all the non-human, tangible, physical property the organization owns or has at its disposal. Different resources contribute differently to the organization’s performance, depending on the type of goods being produced or the service being provided. In terms of economic and utility consequences, the value of physical resources can be measured by various computations such as depreciation, which generally impacts taxes paid, and contribution margin, which estimates the relative value of one resource in comparison to other resources. Both concepts are explained in the suggested reading linked to Physical Resources in Step 7.

Note: The type of organizations you work for will have different needs that determine the relative importance of each of the critical resources for your particular organization. Some organizations may require highly specialized employee skills; others, may have advanced technology or unique space requirements. As a result of the differences among organizations and their missions, the length or emphasis of each of the discussions of the four critical resources may vary among students. In other words, some critical resources many require greater length to describe and analyze than other critical resources depending on the type of organization being evaluated.

When Step 7 is complete, prepare your findings for inclusion in the final report. Then proceed to Step 8.

Situation Audit Assignment

Financial resources are regarded the most important for John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum. It is noteworthy that the organization concentrates on conserving, protecting, as well as enhancing the natural habitat. In particular, the fundamental purpose of the firm is to manage fish, wildlife, not forgetting natural habitats. Specifically, the organization focuses on offering environmental education in the Philadelphia as well as Delaware Counties. Therefore, it is evident that financial resources are significant for the company to achieve its set goals, mission, vision, and objectives. The firm needs sufficient financial resources to inspire the community to take action to enhance the quality of life for individuals as well as the natural lands around them.

Notably, the organization’s workers are committed to promoting natural not forgetting cultural resource stewardship, depict wildlife habitat management, offer a living classroom to connect schools and communities and encourage compatible outdoor public use with both local and nature history (Pinkney, Harshbarger,& Roberts, 2004). The organization at hand works hard to interact with community schools as well as neighborhoods not forgetting interactive programs and events at the refuge. Simply put, all the aforementioned goals, objectives, mission, and visions require adequate financial resources to meet them.

It is important to note that the organization’s friends believe that it is up to the current generation to guide the youths toward becoming future nature champions. The firm receives a considerable amount of financial resources to ensure that many people are introduced to meaningful experiences in the outdoors about nature. Friends and other well-wishers of the organization donate a considerable amount of financial resources to ensure that the company at hand achieves its set goals, mission, vision, as well as objectives.

It is noteworthy that the organization under review requires financial resources more than other critical resources such as human and physical resources because the chosen resource corresponds to the firm’s goals (Henderson, 2018). To begin with, the company needs to perform comprehensive research and development to understand what it takes to acquire a sustainable environment. In this case, the organization must set aside a substantial amount of financial resources to ensure that the process is successful and the required results are obtained(Pinkney, Harshbarger, & Roberts, 2004). On the same note, the organization must set aside a budget to train its employees on what is expected to conduct extensive research and development procedure. Simply put, it is prudent to note that research and development are vital for the success of John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum’s goals, objectives, mission, and vision.

In addition, John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum requires significant financial resources to acquire adequate technology to help the firm achieve its set goals and objectives. In the modern world, people, especially the youth, are into current technology. Therefore, for the organization to meet its goals, it must purchase the required technology that will help it reach many individuals to teach them about the importance of protecting the environment.

Overall, John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum requires financial resources to achieve its set goals, mission, vision, and objectives. In particular, the organization concentrates on conserving, protecting, as well as enhancing the natural habitat. In fact, the aforementioned processes demand a considerable amount of money to attain. The firm receives a considerable amount of financial resources to ensure that many people are introduced to meaningful experiences in the outdoors about nature.