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STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
Every firm competing in an industry has a competitive strategy which may be clear and
precise or embedded and understood by default. These strategies are either developed
through a planning process or they are developed depending on the changing external and
internal factors. Strategy is the direction and scope of an organization over the long-term:
which achieves advantage for the organization through its structure of resources within a
challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfil stakeholder
expectations. In other words, strategy is about the direction in which the business is trying
to get in the long term. A strategy should help in finding the potential markets in which the
business competes and its corresponding activities. It should help in analyzing the
resources needed to compete, example : skills, assets , finance , technical know-how etc.
Strategies should help in Analyzing the external environmental factors that affects the
ability of the business to compete. Finally it should help in analyzing the values and
expectations of the stakeholders who have the power in and out of the business.
The organization strategy must be formulated in such a way that it has a unique
distinctiveness which is clearly specified. This distinctiveness must place the organization
in the potential market with a strong base . The strategy developed will be successful when
it fits into the company activities and they should balance each other and they should
supply the right benefits to the firm and its customers. The ultimate concept is to position
the firm in a way that will ensure its survival in the long term among the competitive
environment.
The various elements of strategies are strategic planning, strategic thinking and strategic
management. Strategic planning is a management tool. It serves one of the main purpose
as a management tool i.e., to help an organization do perform better and to ensure that the
members of the organization are working towards the same goal , to evaluate and adjust
accordingly the organizations direction in response to a changing environment.
In other words, strategic planning is a systematic attempt to yield elementary decisions and
actions that outlines and guides the various features of the organization and its functions
with an insight on the future. The plan is then a set of decisions about what to do, why to
do it, and how to do it. Strategic planning implies that some organizational decisions and
actions are more important than others. It also implies that much of the strategy lies in
