This section provides the opportunity to develop your course project. Conducting an internal environmental scan or organizational assessment, provides the ability to put the strategic audit together.

In this course so far you have conducted the following steps toward completing the capstone strategic audit:

• Identified the organization for your report

• Interviewed key mid-level and senior level managers

• Created a market position analysis

• Conducted an external environmental scan in preparation of your final report and presentation

• Prepared a preliminary strategic audit

In this module you will conduct a comprehensive assessment of the internal environment at your business unit or organization you are working with for this project, also known as an organizational assessment, and present your findings in a report. Your report should analyze the operating characteristics and assets of your business unit and categorize them as strengths or weaknesses in terms of enabling the business strategy (these will be inputs into a final SWOT analysis).

The internal environmental scan or organizational assessment should include the following:

• Mission, Vision, and Values: Assess the organization's understanding of the mission, vision, and values, and how they relate the business strategy. Is there consensus on the mission and vision of the organization? What are the shared values of the organization? What are the behaviors espoused by these values?

• Strategy Clarification: Assess the organization's understanding of the business strategy through interviews with mid-level and senior managers. Assess their understanding and agreement of the business unit's value proposition, market position, and competitive advantage.

• Cultural Assessment: Explain the unwritten rules and shared values that govern behaviors in the organization. Do they act as enablers or blockers to the strategy? For example, is there a culture of information sharing and collaboration that enables the organization to respond quickly across structural boundaries to solve problems for customers? On the other hand, do groups not share important information through informal mechanisms, thus slowing response times?

• Value Chain Analysis: Identify the primary (direct) and support (indirect) activities that create and deliver your product or service to your customers. Assess each activity's contribution to competitive advantage through cost or differentiation. Identify any areas where the business may be at a competitive disadvantage.

• Summary of Findings: Using these different analyses, identify the organizational strengths and weaknesses as they relate to the business strategy. Organizational strengths are assets, capabilities, and resources that contribute directly to the organization's strategic fit, differentiation, and competitive advantage relative to competing organizations. Organizational weaknesses are characteristics and capabilities (often lacking) that place the organization at a disadvantage relative to competitors.