Define strategic management .discuss in detail its process by giving r...
Strategic Management:
Strategic management refers to the process of formulating, implementing, and evaluating the various strategies and initiatives taken by an organization to achieve its long-term goals and objectives. It involves analyzing the internal and external environment, setting strategic goals, and developing action plans to achieve those goals.
Process of Strategic Management:
1. Environmental Analysis:
- This step involves analyzing the internal and external environment of the organization.
- Internal analysis includes assessing the organization's strengths, weaknesses, resources, and capabilities.
- External analysis includes evaluating the industry, competition, market trends, and macroeconomic factors.
2. Strategy Formulation:
- Once the environmental analysis is complete, the organization needs to formulate its strategies.
- This involves setting long-term goals, defining the mission and vision, and identifying strategic alternatives.
- The organization needs to consider its internal capabilities and external opportunities and threats while formulating strategies.
3. Strategy Implementation:
- In this step, the organization translates its formulated strategies into action plans.
- It involves allocating resources, designing organizational structures, implementing policies, and establishing control systems.
- The organization needs to ensure effective communication, coordination, and alignment of its activities to implement the strategies successfully.
4. Evaluation and Control:
- After implementing the strategies, it is essential to evaluate their effectiveness and make necessary adjustments.
- This step involves measuring performance against set goals, assessing the outcomes, and identifying any deviations.
- The organization needs to take corrective actions to ensure the strategies are on track.
Example:
Let's consider the example of a multinational technology company like Apple Inc.
1. Environmental Analysis:
- Internal analysis: Apple assesses its strengths in designing innovative products, strong brand image, and a loyal customer base. It also identifies weaknesses like high prices and dependence on a few key suppliers.
- External analysis: Apple analyzes the smartphone industry, competitors like Samsung and Google, market trends such as increasing demand for wearable technology, and macroeconomic factors like changes in consumer purchasing power.
2. Strategy Formulation:
- Apple formulates strategies to maintain product innovation, expand into new markets, and diversify its product portfolio.
- It sets long-term goals to increase market share, expand its services, and reduce its environmental impact.
- Apple identifies strategic alternatives like developing new products, entering emerging markets, and investing in research and development.
3. Strategy Implementation:
- Apple allocates resources for research and development, marketing, and manufacturing to implement its strategies.
- It designs organizational structures, establishes policies, and ensures effective coordination among different departments.
- Apple implements control systems to monitor the progress of strategies and regularly reviews performance.
4. Evaluation and Control:
- Apple evaluates the success of its strategies by measuring market share, revenue growth, customer satisfaction, and environmental impact.
- It compares actual performance with set goals, identifies any deviations, and takes corrective actions as required.
In conclusion, strategic management is a comprehensive process that involves environmental analysis, strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. It guides organizations in making informed decisions and taking actions to achieve their long-term objectives.