Assessing Straggles of Midway USA

Midway USA is a Internet-based shooting supply company founded in 1977 by Larry Potterfield. They are currently headquartered in Columbus, MO. Midway USA offers over 100,000 products from over 800 different suppliers and spanning over 17 different product categories. Midway USA prides themselves on their extremely fast shipping and top-notch customer service. They are a very well-known retailer in the shooting and outdoors industry. In 2009 and 2015 Midway USA was one of four winners of the Baldrige performance excellence program awards for their excellent strategic execution. Midway has made it an organization goal to obtain this award every 6 years. (Baldrige, 2015)

Midway USA adopted the Baldrige as their leadership and management framework. This has helped them in all aspects of their business. One of those being strategic planning. Which is the key to their growing success. Midway USA has a fully integrated, seven-step strategy development process that paves the way for their high performance, sustainability, and focus on success. The process begins with a review of performance results and an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Results are used to develop strategic objectives and the operational goals that define success for Midway USA. (Baldrige, 2015) Midway USA has also found a great deal of success and benefits from providing a high level of customer support. One way that Midway USA can provide such a high level of customer support is because of the staff’s knowledge of the products they sale. A large number of the Midway staff are considered experts on the products. This demonstrates knowledge view based theory of strategy. Knowledge view is a bundle of knowledge in this application which extends the Resource-Based View. Knowledge is a specific and special resource at the heart of the firm. Knowledge is both highly heterogeneous, difficult to imitate and difficult to understand by those outside the firm. In this theory, knowledge forms the basis for competitive advantage. (Santos & Eisenhardt , 2000)

Currently Midway USA’s competitive advantage style is service differentiation and pricing advantages. Not only does Midway USA put a high standard of customer service expectations out there. They have noticed recently that customers aren’t always looking for service. They are looking for the best delivered price. Midway USA is currently working to shift their competitive action plans to address competitive pricing in more detail. One way they are currently trying to make sure that they continue to offer the lowest delivered price, Is by contracting with UPS to deliver their shipments. UPS now delivers at 85% of Midway USA shipments. This is to help provide cost reductions to the customer. The shipping negotiation is also a good demonstration at how Midway USA goes the extra mile for its customers.

Midway USA’s Management strategy hierarchy led them to have a competitive vantage because of their effective communication with the company, customers, suppliers, and shareholders. The senior leader of Midway USA work to make sure that they effectively deploy and communicate information regarding the mission, vision, and values of the company via many outlets. They have MS documents that are posted throughout their locations so that employees are constantly reminded of the vision, values, and mission of the company they work for. This gives them a competitive advantage because their Employees are well-informed what the mission, vision, and values of the company are. This makes sure that the employees are always demonstrated them. Midway USA also makes their goals and objectives known by the employees. Because uf the employees don’t know the company’s goals and objectives, then how are they going to help the company soar to success. (Fuller & Green, 2017)

Strategically Midway USA seems to keep the future in mind. They are constantly preforming R&D so that they can better preform in the market and better serve their customers. A couple decisions that Midway USA has made strategically to help them going forward, were forming their contract with UPS for shipping and the deployment of their customer satisfaction surveys even if the customer doesn’t purchase anything. Going forward in their own ways these two examples will provide Midway USA some strategic advantages. Also at Midway USA they encourage their employees to submit innovative ideas for improvement through process reviews, State of the Business meetings, departmental Baldrige meetings, employee roundtables, and one-page summaries of improvements to the appropriate vice president. (Baldrige, 2015) This alone could help the company in several different ways. The people on the floor often see things the people in the offices don’t.

Midway USA has four main organizational goals they are working achieve. Those goals are as follows: number one customer satisfaction, goal number two employee’s satisfaction and engagement, goal number three supplier and partner satisfaction, and call number for shareholder satisfaction. As you can see Midway USA aims to please. They want to make sure that everybody involved all the way from the shareholders to the customer are always satisfied. Examples of Ways that they plan on reaching these goals is by providing competitive product pricing, competitive salary, support of product line, and to grow the value of the company through customer acquisition and retention. (Baldrige, 2015)

To be the best run, most respected business in America, for the benefit of our customers is Midway USA is vision statement. This is a well fit vision statement for a company like Midway USA. It fits right along with their goals and strategic plans. It is also just another example of how much they respect their customers. (Baldrige, 2015)

Their mission statement is, we are an Internet retailer of shooting, hunting, and outdoor products relying on high performing, engaged employees and share our values and align with our culture. Once again, their mission statement just like their vision statement falls right in line with their strategic plan and organizational goals. (Baldrige, 2015)

Midway USA feels that their purpose is to be a role model organization for America and to maximize the long-term value of the organization for their shareholders, by meeting or exceeding their operational and long-term goals. This fits right in with the goal number four. It also is in line with the strategic plan for the company. (Baldrige, 2015)

A companies Philosophies can also be seen as their core values. These non-negotiable family principles are way guide and form Midway USA is philosophy. See the following, honesty, integrity, teamwork, respect for others, positive attitude, stewardship, accountability, and loyalty. (Baldrige, 2015)

Strategies and policies are different in many ways. Strategies are used to reach operational goals, where policies are used to regulate the day to day decisions. All businesses need both policies and strategies in order to be successful. When executing a strategic plan important to make sure that all policies or rules and regulations are being followed. The biggest thing that makes strategies and policies symbolic is that they are a big part of a company’s framework. Mostly because the policies are made to support the strategies. Of course, that’s not their only job, but one of their main ones. (S, 2018)

Conclusion

In conclusion, Midway USA is an online retailer that is taking the market by storm. They see their employees, customers, partners and suppliers, and shareholders as very important people to keep satisfied. They have high-level goals and strategic plans that they are aiming to successfully complete. Sent from my iPhone