Thesis (Master in Management) -- University of the Philippines Mindanao, June 2016.

The network is a social web company that began around November of 2009 with the intent of building a social network to raise the quality of life across the world. Three Davaoenos founded the said company. It was formed in pursuit of helping people have a more rewarding and enjoyable life. This can be achieved through their flagship product called Bits- a social network around doing real-life quests that gets people exploring their passions, new places and favorite products. Information technology is changing rapidly and that other startup companies are unable to adjust to this fast-paced environment. The Network as a startup company is able to cope up with their environment. However, the company has their options limited due to financial constraints that are caused by project executions and unclear goal settings. This paper aims to come up with a strategic plan that will improve the Network?s competitive edge. Through the adaption of Fred David's Strategic Management Framework, this strategic paper was divided into seven chapters. Chapter 1 presents the overview and the performance review of the Network. Chapter 2 systematically analyzes the external environment of the Network. PEST analysis and Competitive analysis were done. It was concluded that the company is responding below to their external environment. The third chapter analyses the internal environment of The Network. The major strength of the company is that their core infrastructure is located off-site (cloud) while their weakness is that they do not have a standardized operations system which resulted to unclear goal setting and human resource policies. After a systematic evaluation of their external and internal environment three objectives were proposed that are aligned with their vision and mission, namely: (1) Speed up product development by 50% with minimal back jobs, (2) increase sales (in terms of product usage) by 100% on the first quarter of a product release and (3) acquire additional investment from existing investors. With corporate objectives set and factoring in the external and internal environment, two strategic options were proposed in this paper. (1) Revamping their operations flow and (2) empower software development team as major stakeholders. Prioritizing which option will the company should pursue was done in a quantitative manner. The proposed priority is the major changes of operations flow through transparent goal setting. The last two chapters highlight the implementation programs of the strategies and the control systems. Implementation programs proposed a change on the use of their project management board Trello, projected cost of expenses of the operations change and projected income/loss of the implementation of the strategies. Control systems will help monitor and evaluate the performance of the company in executing the proposed strategies.