Thesis (Master in Management) -- University of the Philippines Mindanao, April 2018

Citywide Printer and Trading Company (CPTC) has been in the print production business for over 20 years. It is one of the major job and commercial printers in Region XII and ARMM. Its business form started as a sole proprietorship and then shifted to partnership in 2016. Over the last three years, it was in 2016 that the company attained a tremendous growth compared to 2015-2017. The company has been contented with their financial performance and current average capacity utilization of 17% of their machines. Despite the improving economic condition of the areas they serve, CPTC has not been aggressive in acquiring new customers to capture a bigger market share. There is a need to have a strategic plan for CPTC to be competitive and stay ahead of the competition. Thus, this paper aims to determine the company's current standing based on its external and internal environment in order to gain competitive advantage by banking on its strengths and opportunities while minimizing its weaknesses and challenges. This paper is guided by the Comprehensive Strategic Management Model of Fred David to come up with a strategic management plan. The external factor analysis shows that the potential increase of customers and the stiff competition among players affect the standing of the company. CPTC shows a weak external position but has the ability to respond to the external factors. On the other hand, the internal environment analysis shows that the company has relied on the strong customer relationship and maintained its reputation for on-time delivery and competitive prices to differentiate them from their competitors. It also shows that the company does not conduct business operations planning and marketing activities to increase their sales and market share. Nevertheless, the company is in a good internal position to manage its strength and weaknesses to succeed in the industry. The result of the analysis of its external and internal environments serves as the basis for the proposed vision, mission, goals and objectives of the company that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. Three matching tools were used in this paper namely: Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities- Challenges (SWOC) Analysis, Strategic Position and Action Evaluation (SPACE) Matrix, and Internal-External (IE) Matrix. Based on the outcome of the strategic matching, only market penetration, product development, and business process development were considered in the decision stage. The decision stage used Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix (QSPM) to determine the best alternative strategy for CPTC. It revealed that the company should pursue market penetration and business process development. This includes increasing brand awareness through advertising and rebranding, and development of business processes through creating formal manual of operations and an automated system from data encoding to reporting. A control system was also established to monitor the performance and ensure the achievement of the adopted objectives. The implementation of these programs, together with the proliferation and promotion of businesses in Cotabato City, is expected to significantly increase the income level and bring good opportunity for growth for CPTC.