Management and Strategy

Topics

1. 4.1 Management and LeadershipThe four functions of management, the skills a leader uses to carry them out, and how a business hires, pays, and keeps the people who do the work.
2. 4.2 Evaluating Performance Using KPIsWhat a key performance indicator is, the financial, marketing, and operations indicators businesses track, and how a benchmark turns a raw number into a judgment.
3. 4.3 Strategy and Decision MakingHow strategy turns goals and data into tactics, and how a structured decision process and return on investment settle a choice between two courses of action.
4. 4.4 Strategic Frameworks: Porter’s Five Forces and SWOT AnalysisRating each of Porter's five forces, building a SWOT grid, and turning both frameworks into a strategic decision a business can price.

Steep Street Boba

Steep Street Boba is a single-counter boba shop Cami opened three years ago with six thousand dollars of her own savings, a fifteen thousand dollar loan, and her grandmother Dorothy's co-signature. Unit 3 followed the shop's books until an honest set of statements earned a refinance, approved on the condition of one more clean quarter. Unit 4 picks up the July that quarter closes, and it is about everything the numbers cannot do on their own: managing people, choosing what to measure, deciding between two ways to grow, and answering a national chain that opens two blocks away.

Cami, founder and owner, now managing a team for the first time · Priya, barista promoted to shift lead, and a community college business student · Dorothy, Cami's grandmother, whose co-signature on the founding loan is released in Topic 4.1

1. Mid-July. The refinance the bank approved in the spring required one clean quarter, and April through June delivered it: fifty-seven thousand dollars of sales against fifty-four thousand the year before. The bank funds a new note of nine thousand two hundred fifty dollars in the shop's name alone, Dorothy's co-signature is released, and the loan card comes off her fridge and goes up above the back office desk. Then the shop outgrows its founder's hands: Priya is promoted to shift lead with three delegated duties, two part-time baristas start in August, and the books move to an outside accountant for one hundred fifty dollars a month.

   The four functions of management, delegation that keeps the evaluate step, hiring for competencies against outsourcing, compensation schemes, and the arithmetic of retention. · 4.1

2. End of October. The whiteboard by the sealing machine still gets the day's drink count, but a page goes up on the wall beside it carrying six numbers, each with a second number saying what good looks like. Revenue is up thirteen point three percent while operating and net margins are both down, because the raise, the hires, and the bookkeeper all landed in the same year. The break-even floor rose with them, from about seventy-four drinks a day to about ninety-one, against a current average of one hundred thirteen.

   What a KPI is, the financial, marketing, and operations families, and the difference between internal historical and external industry benchmarks. · 4.2

3. November. Cami turns down paying event work for the third time in a month while a storefront two blocks away sits empty behind a for-lease sign, with an unconfirmed rumor that a national chain has looked at it. She writes the strategy on one card, grow where the brand already wins, then runs a full deliberative process: one problem, two priced alternatives, four criteria locked before either is scored. The trailer wins on every criterion and she orders it, funded eight thousand dollars down plus a twelve thousand dollar equipment note with no co-signer discussed.

   Strategy against tactics, the PACED deliberative process, criteria set before evaluation, ROI on profit rather than revenue, and deciding with imperfect data. · 4.3

4. January through April. The for-lease sign comes down and the rumor confirms: a national boba franchise of about four hundred locations opens two blocks away in March at five dollars fifty, with an app, a loyalty program, and a two-week promotional launch. Cami rates all five forces on her own market, builds a SWOT grid from the result, and prices the obvious reflex: matching five fifty would take four hundred twenty-five extra drinks a month just to stand still. She holds six dollars. In April, the rival's first full month, counter volume falls ten percent and total volume reaches three thousand six hundred drinks, the shop's best April on record.

   Rating each of Porter's five forces, building and reading a SWOT grid, and converting both frameworks into a priced strategic decision. · 4.4

What is free and what is paid

• Free: every lesson video, the notes, worked examples, the glossary, this unit’s story and the diagnostic.
• Free with an account: progress tracking and saved flashcard state.
• Paid: the unit question bank is still in review and is not on sale yet.

The unit cheat sheet covers 7 sections, and this unit is 15-20% of the exam.