Strategic Management Process

Strategic Management Process

Strategic management consists of the analysis, decisions, and actions an organizations undertakes in order to create and sustain competitive advantages. Strategic management process follows some specific steps. These are-

1. Company Mission: At the first stage, company’s missions are fixed. It is one of the main task of the company to fix its mission. Company’s service, existing technology is specified through this mission. Furthermore, social responsibility is also flourished in the mission. Every company tries to success the mission through various tactics/activities along with social responsibility.
2. Internet Analysis: In the second stage of strategic management, internal environments are analyzed. Marketing and human resource management acts as internal environment. In this stage, quantitative and qualitative aspects of company’s financial, human and other resources are also evaluated. It assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the company. And finally, company’s future capacities are analyzed in the light of past achievements.
3. Analyzing the External Environment: In this stage, managers must monitor and scan the external environment as well as analyze competitors. Two frameworks of the external environment are provided – 1) the general environment consists of several elements, such as demographic, technological, and economic segments, and 2) the industry environment consists of competitors and other organizations that may threaten the success of a company’s or organizations products and services.
4. Strategic Analysis & Choice: It is the most important task to define the most appropriate way to achieve the desire goal for the managers. Successful firms strive to develop bases for competitive advantage, which can be achieved through cost leadership. Managers in this stage decides not only on the most appropriate strategy but also how they will go about attaining competitive advantages in international markets.
5. Long-term Objectives: Feedback that company desired to achieve is long-term objectives. Among those objectives – productivity, competitiveness, human resource development.
6. Generic & Grand Strategies: By the term grand strategies use mean the way how the company achieve its goal. Some grand strategies are- Concentration, Market development, Product development, Innovation, Horizontal integration, Vertical integration, Joint venture, Strategic alliances, Consorting, Concentric diversification, Turn around.
7. Functional Tactics: Advertisement, inventory, reduction are the examples of functional tactics.
8. Policies: Policies help a manager to take decisions. Every organization/company has its own policies. On the basis of this policies, various aspects of strategic management are identified. Successful policies help manager to succeed.
9. Leadership & Culture: In this stage, structure of organization, work policies (how they will work), leadership styles, internal and external culture of organization are fixed.
10. Strategic Control: Strategic control is a sequential method in which strategies are formulated and implemented and performance is measured against the predetermined goal set. Sometimes, it is needed to bring some changes in the structure or in the main strategy; so the approach to strategy control required.
11. Feedback: In this stage, outcomes are analyzed. The total impacts of the strategy is also analyzed.

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