Re-shaping the strategic direction of Kuopio Entrepreneurship Society
Jiménez Salgado, Jade Coatlicue (2019)
2019
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201904175492
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201904175492
Tiivistelmä
The purpose of this thesis was to develop the strategic foundation of Kuopio Entrepreneurship Society (Kuopio ES) by defining its core values, mission, vision and long-term objectives. Moreover, this thesis aimed at tackling the current challenges affecting Kuopio ES: the lack of a common understanding regarding the organisation’s operations, the lack of a common vision regarding the organisation’s future development, and the lack of continuity caused by the regular change of Kuopio ES’s Board. Kuopio ES is a non-profit organisation dedicated to the spread and promotion of entrepreneurship knowledge among university students in the City of Kuopio.
This paper begins by presenting the relevant theory concerning strategic management, strategy development, and the four statements of purpose. Then, it introduces Kuopio ES as an organisation and presents the methodology used for the development of this work. In total, the development work consisted of thirteen meetings held in June – August 2018. The five central themes of the meetings were core values, strategy, mission and vision, long-term objectives and internal structure. The qualitative data required to develop the strategy of Kuopio ES was gathered during these meetings by means of focus group discussions, strategy workshops and interviews. The structure and progress of each of these meetings is meticulously reported and thoroughly discussed in the Development Work and in the Discussion chapters of this thesis.
The outcome of this work was the successful development of Kuopio ES’s core values, mission, vision and long-term objectives. In addition to this, other relevant elements defined included Kuopio ES’s internal and external environment, customer groups, customer cycle, internal structure, and Activity Plans 2018 – 2021. This thesis tackled the three challenges that affected Kuopio ES’s operations, provided the strategic base to guide future work and enabled the organisation to operate in a united manner. A forecast of the expected state of Kuopio ES by the year 2021 is included in the Conclusions chapter. This forecast is based on the strategy developed in this thesis.
The main limitation to this work refers to the limited knowledge that the management team of Kuopio ES had regarding its competitors as well as of its customer groups. Another important limitation refers to the one-sided approach in which the strategy was developed – the opinions of relevant stakeholders were not requested, and thus, were not considered. For this reason, it is essential to conduct further customer research as it will enable the organisation to get a deeper understanding of the needs and wants of its customer groups. It is important to adapt the strategy accordingly in order to achieve better results for the future.
This paper begins by presenting the relevant theory concerning strategic management, strategy development, and the four statements of purpose. Then, it introduces Kuopio ES as an organisation and presents the methodology used for the development of this work. In total, the development work consisted of thirteen meetings held in June – August 2018. The five central themes of the meetings were core values, strategy, mission and vision, long-term objectives and internal structure. The qualitative data required to develop the strategy of Kuopio ES was gathered during these meetings by means of focus group discussions, strategy workshops and interviews. The structure and progress of each of these meetings is meticulously reported and thoroughly discussed in the Development Work and in the Discussion chapters of this thesis.
The outcome of this work was the successful development of Kuopio ES’s core values, mission, vision and long-term objectives. In addition to this, other relevant elements defined included Kuopio ES’s internal and external environment, customer groups, customer cycle, internal structure, and Activity Plans 2018 – 2021. This thesis tackled the three challenges that affected Kuopio ES’s operations, provided the strategic base to guide future work and enabled the organisation to operate in a united manner. A forecast of the expected state of Kuopio ES by the year 2021 is included in the Conclusions chapter. This forecast is based on the strategy developed in this thesis.
The main limitation to this work refers to the limited knowledge that the management team of Kuopio ES had regarding its competitors as well as of its customer groups. Another important limitation refers to the one-sided approach in which the strategy was developed – the opinions of relevant stakeholders were not requested, and thus, were not considered. For this reason, it is essential to conduct further customer research as it will enable the organisation to get a deeper understanding of the needs and wants of its customer groups. It is important to adapt the strategy accordingly in order to achieve better results for the future.