GB601 Unit 6 Strategic Alternatives Comparison Example

Weights Before Scores: A Unit 6 Strategic Alternatives Comparison for the Brightwater Formalwear Capstone

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

GB601: MBA Capstone

Unit 6 Strategic Alternatives Comparison

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[Date]

Brightwater Formalwear and every figure are composite and illustrative; the frameworks and sources cited are real.

The Decision and the Alternatives

The Unit 1 question asked which response Brightwater should commit to over three years to stop the decline in its wedding and prom rentals. Three alternatives are compared, along with the status quo.

A statewide online rental channel. Brightwater builds online ordering, deepens inventory and ships rentals across Ohio, competing directly with national online renters.

A wedding party program. Brightwater hires wedding coordinators, partners with venues and planners, fits distant party members over video, mails them their suits, holds spare sizes close to each venue and offers grooms the option to buy their suit.

A fitting partnership with a national renter. Brightwater fits and alters suits in its stores for the national renter's customers, for a fee.

The status quo. Brightwater continues as it is.

Criteria, Weighted Before Scoring

The weights were set and recorded before any alternative was scored, so no score could be bent toward a favorite. Hammond et al. (1998) warn that decision makers often anchor on an early favorite and then weigh evidence to support it, and fixing weights first is a simple guard against that trap.

Financial return, 30 percent. Net present value against the status quo, from Unit 5.

Fit with proven strengths, 25 percent. How well the alternative uses what Unit 4 found Brightwater does best: in-person fit assurance, day-of fixes and relationships with planners and schools.

Risk to partner relationships, 20 percent. Whether the alternative could damage the trust of the planners, venues and activity directors who recommend Brightwater.

Reversibility, 15 percent. How easily Brightwater could stop if results disappoint, and how much it would lose.

Time to effect, 10 percent. How soon the alternative would affect rentals.

Scores run from 1, the worst of the four options, to 5, the best.

The Case Against Shipping

The online channel scores 1 on financial return, since its net present value is about negative $294,000. It scores 2 on fit, because it competes where Brightwater has no advantage: Unit 4 found online renters already lead on ease for dispersed parties, and Brightwater would arrive late with less scale. It scores 3 on partner risk, since planners would not object but would gain nothing. It scores 2 on reversibility, because about $380,000 of start-up spending, much of it inventory in shipping sizes, would be hard to recover. It scores 3 on time to effect. Weighted total: 2.00.

A Cheap Option with a Hidden Cost

The fitting partnership looks attractive at first. It costs about $40,000 to start, begins earning within weeks and uses Brightwater's tailors. It scores 5 on time to effect and 3 on reversibility. But it scores 2 on financial return, because counting the rentals Brightwater would lose to its partner turns its net present value to about negative $77,000. It scores 3 on fit, since it uses fitting skill but gives away the customer relationship. And it scores 2 on partner risk: planners who have recommended Brightwater for years would see its stores serving the renter that took their clients' groomsmen. Weighted total: 2.70.

Why the Wedding Party Program Leads

The program scores 5 on financial return, with a net present value of about $454,000. It scores 5 on fit, because it extends Brightwater's strongest capability, fit assurance on the day, to the customers it has been losing. Porter (1996) argues that durable positions come from activities that reinforce one another, and the program ties coordinators, remote fittings, backup inventory and venue relationships into one system a national renter would find hard to copy piece by piece. It scores 4 on partner risk, since it deepens relationships with planners and venues, with some risk if coordinators overpromise. It scores 4 on reversibility: start-up spending is about $120,000, and coordinators could be reassigned to store management if the program ended. It scores 3 on time to effect, because the first full benefit depends on the next engagement and wedding seasons. Weighted total: 4.45.

The program wins because it sells what Brightwater already does best to the customers it has been losing.

The Status Quo Column

Doing nothing scores 2 on financial return, since its value against itself is zero while revenue falls by about $820,000 a year by FY2031. It scores 4 on fit and 4 on partner risk, because nothing changes, 5 on reversibility and 1 on time to effect. Weighted total: 3.25. That the status quo outscores two of the three alternatives is itself a finding: a poorly chosen response could leave Brightwater worse off than doing nothing.

The Scored Matrix

Weighted totals: wedding party program 4.45, status quo 3.25, fitting partnership 2.70, online channel 2.00.

Which Scores Could Change

Two scores are the least certain. The program's financial score depends on recapturing at least 55 percent of the projected rentals, the breakeven found in Unit 5. The partnership's partner-risk score rests on interviews with twelve partners, and other planners might care less.

Reweighted Twice

Because weights are judgments, the matrix was scored twice more under different ones. With financial return raised to 50 percent and the other criteria reduced proportionally, the program leads at about 4.6 and the partnership falls further behind. With all five criteria weighted equally at 20 percent, the program still leads at about 4.2, while the status quo rises to about 3.2 and the partnership to about 3.0. The ranking at the top does not change under either test. Keeney (1992) argues that alternatives should be judged by how well they serve the values a decision is meant to achieve, and every reasonable weighting of those values here points to the same choice.

What the Losing Options Teach

The two losing options are not worthless. The online channel's analysis shows that Brightwater cannot win by copying a rival's model at smaller scale, a lesson that applies to any future proposal to match national competitors feature for feature. The partnership's analysis shows how an arrangement that pays immediately can transfer the customer relationship to a rival, and it gives Brightwater a reason to keep partnership offers in view only if their terms protect its own customers. If a future partner offered to send its own customers to Brightwater for fittings without access to Brightwater's customer list, the partnership's partner-risk and financial scores would both rise, and it could become a useful complement to the program rather than a substitute for it.

Recommendation

Brightwater should adopt the wedding party program and decline both the online channel and the fitting partnership. Unit 7 will lay out how to implement it, and Unit 8 will test what could make it fail.

References

Hammond, J. S., Keeney, R. L., & Raiffa, H. (1998). The hidden traps in decision making. Harvard Business Review, 76(5), 47-58.

Keeney, R. L. (1992). Value-focused thinking: A path to creative decisionmaking. Harvard University Press.

Porter, M. E. (1996). What is strategy? Harvard Business Review, 74(6), 61-78.