Week 12 Reading Reflection

1. What surprised me was the staggering statistic that 101 / 253 firms did not have a written strategic plan, while the other 152 had some form of plan and some a very extensive plan. The results were pretty conclusive that having a plan leads to more success. Because of this, I wonder why a strategic plan is not a #1 importance when starting a business. 
2. What confused me was Figure 13.1 that was outlining the strategic management process. I think when they numbered it on the previous page it seemed to be a little clearer, but the figure was way to complex because it never really told you the order of the process. I also wished they outlined the importance of each step and how it relates to the process as a whole.
3. The questions I would ask are: 1) Based on Table 13.1, what is the best strategic approach out of position, leverage, and opportunities? I would ask this because if I owned a business, I would like to understand which choice would be best for me to establish change. I would then ask: 2) How do you avoid letting your venture become a failure? I would ask this because in Figure 13.5, I would want to know how to make my venture grow rather than fail.
4. This chapter seemed pretty straightforward and the author definitely knew what he was talking about. Although, what would've helped his credibility and helped me understand his points better would be to use more real life examples with companies. I think this would've been really beneficial if he used it for each stage in a venture's life cycle, so I could visualize actual companies and what they did at each stage.